PvP
Nobody fights another Legend without agreeing to it first.
Consent
Designed PvP is the game's design. Only the normalisation builder exists in the dev build, and no mode uses it.
In the build, every Legend fights with SALVO's kit.
Every place that lets Legends fight each other asks first. You challenge a duel and the other side can refuse. You declare a banner at the Deadband gate. Ranked is a queue you join. Nothing starts a fight with you without your yes.
After you hurt another Legend you are engaged for a short time, and boost, blink and swing are clamped. Every movement line has a tell, so a fight can be read before it is joined.
Normalisation
Partly built The builder that flattens a Legend for PvP exists in the sim. No mode uses it yet.
PvP strips gear stats, subroutines and the Wetware Grid's small bonuses, and sets everyone to the same level, Operator 50, with a full Chassis to spend. You keep your kit, your travel line, your Surge, the shape of your Chassis and your Wetware Grid verbs.
A Legend who has just woken and one at the top of the curve, with the same archetype, line, Chassis shape and Wetware Grid verbs, are numerically identical. There are no random crits: precise hits high on the target take their place. Crowd control is never a stun.
Both duel venues zero the permanent budget. The Circuit runs on calibrated house hardware that normalises every combatant, and the Pit strips a Legend to the same baseline under its own rules. The Circuit calls it fairness and the Pit calls it respect.
Duels
Designed Duels are designed and not built.
You can challenge any Legend from their profile card, and opting out is absolute. A duel is played in rounds, with a shrinking ring for sudden death.
The venue follows your standing and nothing else. Licensed and neutral Legends duel in the Circuit, a sanctioned, Meridian-lit arcade in the Coil. Ghost and Blacklisted Legends duel in the Pit, underground in the Warrens, with Nyx Static calling it. The maps and the rules are the same, and if the two standings disagree, the challenged player's venue wins.
On the Ring in the Junction, a painted circle on the Well floor, duels are argued and never fought, because the suppression lattice means the argument is all you get.
ARGUE HERE.
The lattice is on. It has always been on.
Arenas
Designed Arenas are designed and not built.
There are three modes. Uplink Control is a team mode built around capture points, which in the fiction are Uplinks. A flying Legend on a point counts, and a lone defender can freeze a capture.
Team Takedown is team deathmatch with revive denial. A downed enemy bleeds out, and can be executed in a short channel or revived by an ally.
Data Chase is the asymmetric one. Attackers carry data cores to an Uplink while defenders hunt them, and then the sides swap. The carrier shows as a beam pillar to everyone and loses their movement verb, so the escort is where the movement lines show off.
Ranked
Designed Ranked play is designed and not built.
Ranked play has seasonal ladders in five divisions that match the Sync ranks. The top of the ladder makes the Circuit Board. Ratings never decay; only the listing does. Input tags are always visible, and matchmaking is banded by ping with an honest ping display.
- D
Unlisted
- C
Noted
- B
Ranked
- A
Contender
- S
Legend of Record
The Deadband war
Designed Open Deadband PvP is designed and not built.
The Deadband is the one open-world PvP zone. It has a single gate and opens at Operator 15. At the gate you declare a banner, Meridian, Undercurrent or Scrapline, for that excursion, and your origin and standing do not limit the choice. Nobody starts a fight with you without that yes.
Declared allies can never damage each other. Bleedthrough constructs attack every banner equally, and the more Legends in the zone, the harder they come. Nyx Static calls the three nodes like a race: the Plaza favours a ground approach, the Deck favours the grapple, and the Mast favours flight. You have to land on a node to contest it.
Rewards are war scrip, rep, war cosmetics and titles. Once a week the winning banner flies over the Junction, and that faction's vendors give a small discount. Scrip decays weekly and cannot be traded.
Dying in the Deadband costs you a pouch that holds only what you gathered in the zone. Your main inventory is never at risk. A long enough kill streak puts a bounty marker on you.
Meridian Security does not enter. The Deadband page has the place, and the Fracture covers the gash over it.
| Banner | Doctrine and deployable | Contracts pay best for | The Deadband contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meridian | Hold nodes. Its deployable is the garrison, a shield emplacement. | Holding ground. | The Difference, handed out by an officer at the gate apron. |
| The Undercurrent | Raid. Its deployable is the jammer. | Captures and cache-running. | Nearest Ground, handed out by an Undercurrent quartermaster. |
| Scrapline | Hold the line. Its deployable is the barricade. | Bringing home the pouches your fallen allies drop. | Union Hours, handed out by a Scrapline quartermaster. |
Plaza's gone green. Deck's still arguing. Mast is on fire, as usual.
Scrip decays a quarter a week. Spend it or explain it.
You've been on the Plaza six hours. Sit down before I write you up in front of a warzone.
Inside, Legends of the other two banners can kill you. Your own banner cannot touch you. Your satchel is safe; anything you pick up in there is not.