Aptitudes
Aptitudes are permanent bonuses that grow on each of a pet’s equipment slots. Every unlocked slot has its own endless tree of bonuses. Unlike Augments, Aptitudes are tied to the slot, not the equipment in that slot. Placing the optimal equipment into the slots with the best aptitudes for that equipment is a key build decision. You can press and drag equipments to different slots.
Open a pet’s equipment list and tap the gem icon below a slot to open that slot’s tree dialog. Every unlocked slot has one, even when it is empty. A slot that is still locked shows a greyed-out gem icon until it unlocks.
Aptitudes spend Gems, shown next to Bits on the ship HUD.
- New ships receive a small starter grant once.
- Rare gems can drop when a mining tool finishes a break during an exploration run (ore, monoliths, and obelisks). Hive runs do not roll.
- Auto-runs credit expected gems from simulated mining breaks.
Buying and revealing
Section titled “Buying and revealing”- A fresh slot shows the root and its neighbors. Unnamed nodes farther out keep their rarity outline only.
- Buy a revealed node with gems to unlock its bonus and reveal the nodes linked to it. Tap a node you can afford to start a purchase, or tap Edit to buy several nodes and set locks in one visit. Nothing is spent until you press Save and confirm.
- Each buy costs more as the slot owns more nodes. The first three cost 1 gem each, the next three cost 2, then 4, and so on. The price depends on how many you have already bought, not on which node it is.
- A node’s bonus is live only while the item in that slot fits it. Weapon nodes need a weapon, tool nodes need a tool, and element nodes need an item of that element. The item must also have the stat the node boosts. Empty slots apply nothing. A node that does not fit the item in the slot shows a warning badge, and tapping it explains why. Unaffected nodes stay on the tree but do not apply.
Locks, respec, and reroll
Section titled “Locks, respec, and reroll”- Lock a bought node before a reroll if you want that aptitude to survive. A lock must connect to the root through other locked nodes, so the first lock goes on a neighbor of the root. Each lock costs more gems than the last on the same slot, and the cost is billed when you reroll.
- Respec empties every node on the slot, refunds their gems, clears locks, and hides the tree back to the root. It costs bits based on the pet’s level, and repeating respec on the same tree grows that fee. Gems already spent on locks are not refunded.
- Reroll grows a new tree around your locks and refunds the gems from your unlocked nodes, minus a cut. The cut is a share of every gem in the slot, with a rising floor based on how many locks you hold and how many times this slot has already been reshaped. When the cut is larger than the refund, the shortfall comes from your gem wallet. A slot with nothing bought cannot be rerolled. When new aptitudes are added to the game, each slot gets one free reroll with no cut.
Aptitudes stay on the slot. Moving a weapon to another slot leaves those bonuses behind. Augments move with the item. A warning appears before a free reslot that would change which aptitude bonuses are live.