Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is the primary progression loop in DREADNOUGHT TARTARUS. Rather than buying upgrades from a vendor or spending experience points on a skill tree, the player extracts intel from defeated opposition and turns that intel into new upgrades and additional armaments for the battleship. Every fight contributes back into the kit the player will carry into the next one. For the wider game-loop framing, see the overview article; this page focuses on the progression mechanic itself.

Loop Overview

The shape of the loop is straightforward at the high level. The player engages enemy forces during the campaign's continuous advance, defeats them, and recovers intel from the wreckage and the systems they fielded. That intel is then reverse engineered into new components that bolt into the dreadnought's existing modular layout. Those new components are immediately available the next time the player tunes their loadout, and from that point forward they sit alongside everything else as options on the planning screen.

Because the loop runs through ongoing combat rather than a side activity, the player is essentially building the late-game version of the dreadnought out of the parts of everything they have already beaten. There is no separate grinding mode and no detour away from the campaign to farm progression.

What It Unlocks

Reverse engineering feeds the modular customization layer of the TARTARUS. Public materials describe the unlocks as new upgrades and additional armaments for the battleship, which means the rewards slot into the same hardpoint and module system the player is already configuring before each engagement. The categories of equipment the dreadnought supports include main cannons, missile systems, super weapons, carrier-based fighters, and support units, and reverse-engineered gear extends the catalogue inside that framework rather than replacing it.

Because unlocked weapons drop into the existing loadout, they also work in tandem with the three firing modes assigned per hardpoint: Manual for direct hands-on aiming, Automatic for hands-off saturation, and Focus Fire for a coordinated strike that swings every weapon to the same heading at once. A new cannon recovered through reverse engineering is not a stand-alone toy; it is another instrument in the same orchestra and can be patched into any of the three firing styles.

Why Variety Matters

The four publicly described enemy categories cover very different kinds of force, from urban defense systems and human military units to gigantic monsters and extraterrestrial invasion units. Different categories field different technology, so engaging a wide spread of opposition is likely to produce a wider spread of intel and therefore a wider spread of unlockable equipment. Pursuing only one type of fight, by contrast, points the progression in a single direction.

This pushes the campaign toward variety in practice. Players who want a deep options pool to draw on later in the run are encouraged to take on the full range of opposition rather than farming a single soft target. The structure rewards confronting whatever shows up, including the threats a given loadout is currently weaker against.

Across The Campaign

Progression compounds across the continuous campaign rather than resetting between zones. Intel pulled from the first stretch of the war can produce armaments that are still in active use much later, and a tool unlocked early in the run can become a defining piece of the loadout by the end. Because the campaign is one continuous advance with no return-to-base loop, every reverse-engineered upgrade is something the player carries forward indefinitely. That makes early decisions about which enemies to prioritise quietly important. The composition of the dreadnought in the late campaign is, in a real sense, an answer to which fights the player chose to take in the early one.

Unconfirmed Details

Several specifics about how reverse engineering is implemented have not been disclosed yet. Public materials describe the loop in concept but stop short of the system's exact mechanics. Open questions include:

• Whether intel functions as a generic currency, a research tree with prerequisites, or a per-enemy unlock tied to the specific foe defeated.

• Whether reverse-engineered equipment comes in named tiers or rarities, or as a flat catalogue.

• Specific costs, time requirements, or research durations involved in turning intel into equipment.

• Whether the player can respec, refund, or roll back unlocked equipment after committing to it.

• Whether the combat mech also benefits from reverse engineering or only the dreadnought is upgraded through this loop.

• Whether multiple campaigns or a New Game Plus retain previously unlocked gear, or progression resets each run.