Editing Ascension

'''Primal Ascension''' (v0.48.0) is the game's prestige reset: once you've proven mastery of a run, you can walk through the '''Amber Door''' to start a fresh cycle — most of your save wiped on purpose — in exchange for permanent, stacking power that carries forward forever. It's the gateway to the game's whole late-game "staircase": Rift Ranks, Item Quality (the Rite of Refinement), Mutation Lines, and the Warden's Bounty Board are all gated behind an Ascension count.

== Reaching the Door ==

What opens the Door depends on whether this would be your first walk or a later one.

=== First ascension: the Warden's Census ===

Your very first Ascension has no score requirement at all — instead, the '''Warden's Census''' must read 100%. The Census is a fixed checklist across nine categories, each a straightforward done/total count:

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Category !! What it counts
|-
| Skills at 99 || All 13 [[Skills|skills]] at max level
|-
| Species tamed || Every one of the 57 [[Creatures|species]] you've ever tamed
|-
| Museum complete || All 57 skeletons mounted (the [[Museum]]'s Grand Hall)
|-
| Quest chains finished || Every [[Quests|quest]] chain in the game
|-
| Chronicles & The Sigil || All 40 [[Chronicles]] notes, including the capstone
|-
| Guardians felled || All 10 biome [[Trail#Guardian bosses|Guardians]]
|-
| Arena tiers won || All 30 [[Arenas]] pairs (10 Guardians × Gamma/Beta/Alpha)
|-
| Rift bosses felled || The 4 base [[Rifts]] boss fights (Beta/Alpha rank variants don't count toward this — or gate anything else about the Door)
|-
| Achievements || Every [[Achievements|achievement]] except the two secret trials and the Ascension-track ones themselves (an achievement that requires ascending can't be required to ascend)
|}

Every denominator above is read live from the game's own content, so shipping a new species, biome, arena tier, or rift boss raises the bar automatically for anyone who hasn't crossed it yet. The Census only has to hit 100% once — it never has to be re-cleared on later cycles.

=== Later ascensions: Guardians and score ===

Once you've walked the Door at least once, the gate changes:

* All 10 '''Guardians''' must be defeated again (they reset with everything else — see below).
* Your live '''Ascension score''' (see '''[[#Sparks and the score|Sparks and the score]]''' below) must reach or exceed a rising '''bar'''. The bar starts at 0 and, after each ascension, is recalculated from that ascension's score as ''min(score × 1.3, score + 3,000)'', rounded to the nearest 100 — so it always climbs, but a big score jump is capped at +3,000 per cycle rather than compounding forever.

=== What can hold the Door shut mid-attempt ===

Separately from the two gates above, the Door refuses to open while you're mid-action: an active [[Hunting|hunt]] or fight, a [[Rivals|raid]] or [[Tribe#Rogue-clan outposts|siege]], a [[Dispatch]] squad still out, an [[Excavation]] dig running, a [[Breeding]] pair (either pen) in progress, or a Nursery egg still maturing. Finish or cancel whatever's running first.

== Walking through ==

The ceremony is a deliberate three-step confirmation, not a single click: '''Approach the Amber Door''' opens the confirmation screen and its full LOST/KEPT breakdown; '''Arm the Door''' is a second, explicit step that has to be taken before the final button lights up; '''Walk through the Amber Door''' executes the reset. There is no accidental ascension.

== What survives and what resets ==

The reset is a fresh save with everything below grafted back on top. Nothing is silently dropped — the confirmation screen itemizes every single save key before you commit.

'''Kept forever (once earned, never touched again):'''
* Achievements and titles, all of it
* Learned [[Blueprints]] (the recipes — not the forged pieces themselves)
* The [[Museum]], every [[Mastery|mastery]] level and milestone, all [[Chronicles]] and The Sigil
* [[Pets]] and their find tallies, every [[Fossils|field note]]
* The completion log and its rank, and every lifetime counter/statistic (these directly feed your score — see below)
* [[Rifts#The Rift Bazaar|Rift Bazaar]] one-off purchases (never need re-buying) and lifetime [[Rifts#The Rift Bazaar|Warden's Marks]]
* Quality-of-life preferences (auto-eat, auto-potion, preferred food, and the like)
* Your Ascension record itself — count, banked Sparks, high-water score

'''Reset (with the exceptions noted):'''
* All [[Skills|skill]] levels return to 1; [[Amber]] and the [[Bank]] empty (effect-unique items — relics, trinkets, the Riftheart Relic, the Bounty Exchange uniques, and similar one-of-a-kind items — survive in a '''Trophy Case''' regardless of whether they were banked or worn; the '''Primal Catalyst''' also carries through at full stack)
* Every dino leaves the [[Stable|stable]] (unless preserved by '''Amber Bond''', below) and all worn/crafted equipment is gone
* [[Homestead]] structures, the [[Tribe]] camp (workers, buildings, Material Age), [[Shop]] upgrades (unless preserved by '''Keeper's Ledger'''), and tool ranks all rebuild from nothing
* Guardians, rift bosses, and rival tribes are undefeated again; biome patrol progress resets (unless seeded by '''Trail Wisdom'''); Arena ladders reset
* Quest chains, the Contract Board, the Trading Post, and Weather all restart (quest rewards pay out again on the re-run — a deliberate small cycle income)
* All forged gear is gone — a piece rolled from a [[Blueprints|blueprint]] is run power, the recipe knowledge is not
* In-flight state — battle log, dispatch squads, digs, raids/sieges, fallen-gear debts — clears with the run

== Before you walk: getting the most out of a run ==

This is the part that decides whether an ascension is worth anything. Read it before your second walk especially — the first one is gated by the Census and pays whatever your score happens to be, but every walk after that can be worth thousands of Sparks or '''literally nothing''', depending entirely on timing.

=== The one rule that matters ===

Sparks are paid on your '''high-water mark''', not your score:

 Sparks earned = your score now − the highest score you have ever banked

'''If you walk with a score below your previous best, you earn zero Sparks.''' Not a reduced amount — zero. The Door still opens, your run is still wiped, and you get nothing for it. This is the single most common way to waste a cycle.

It also means rebuilding is never itself profitable. Getting your skills back to where they were last cycle returns you to roughly your old score, which pays nothing. Sparks come only from the margin ''above'' that line.

=== Why some progress counts every cycle and some doesn't ===

Score is measured once — at the instant you walk. What happens to each row afterwards is what makes the difference:

* '''13 rows survive the Door.''' Mastery levels and milestones, Museum skeletons and wings, field notes, Chronicles, the completion log, pets, blueprints, achievements, lifetime Amber, lifetime Marks, and Primal casts are all kept permanently. They are '''already banked''' — they will be in your score at every future walk without you touching them, and they only ever grow.
* '''10 rows are wiped.''' Skill levels, skills at 99, patrol clears, Guardians, the Arena ladder, rift clears, Rift Ranks, quest steps, Camp Material Age and rival tribes all reset. Each cycle these have to be re-earned from nothing, and they count '''only at the moment you walk'''.
* '''3 rows ride with your dinos.''' Veteran levels, bloodline depth and niched species travel with whatever you carry through on '''Amber Bond''' — see below.

The practical consequence: the kept rows raise your floor a little more each cycle, but the wiped rows are the ones you actively choose the timing of. Beating your old high-water means arriving at the Door with the wiped rows at least back where they were ''plus'' whatever the kept rows have gained since.

=== What to push before you walk ===

Roughly '''9,900 points''' sit in rows that the Door destroys. Ranked by what they are worth at a full run:

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! What !! Points at full !! Notes
|-
| Skill levels || 2,548 || 13 skills × 98 levels × 2. The single biggest block, and the slowest to rebuild
|-
| Skills at 99 || 1,950 || 150 each. The last few levels of a skill are worth far more than the grind suggests — level 98 → 99 is worth 152 points, not 2
|-
| Arena ladder || 1,800 || 60 per pair, 30 pairs. Often the most under-farmed row
|-
| Guardians || 1,200 || 120 each. You have to beat all 10 to open the Door anyway
|-
| Rival tribes || 1,200 || 80 each, 15 tribes. Cheap points if the ladder is already climbable
|-
| Rift Ranks || 640 || 60 per Beta first-clear, 100 per Alpha, 8 total
|-
| Camp Material Age || 600 || 100 per Age, 6 Ages
|}

Everything on that list is gone the moment you walk, so finishing a nearly-complete row first is close to free Sparks. Finishing the Arena ladder, mopping up the remaining rival tribes, and pushing a skill sitting at 97 up to 99 are the three that most often get left on the table.

By contrast, there is '''no urgency at all''' on the kept rows. A skeleton mounted the day before you walk and one mounted the day after are worth exactly the same, because the Museum does not reset.

=== Choosing which dinos to carry ===

Veteran levels, bloodline depth and niche all ride through the Door on the dinos you pick, so Amber Bond slots are worth spending on the animals that carry the most score, not just the most combat power:

* A deep '''[[Breeding|mutation line]]''' is 15 points per mutation on your best bloodline, and rebuilding one takes many generations.
* A '''niched''' species is 25 points, and niches are per-species — carrying five ''different'' niched species banks more than five of the same.
* '''Veteran levels''' are 1 point each, which is small per dino but real on a long-serving animal.

You get '''two slots free''' with no perk at all, so this decision applies to every player from their first walk onward — not only to people who bought Amber Bond.

=== A note on the bar ===

The rising bar is calculated from the score of the walk you just made, not from your high-water mark. A deliberately low-score walk therefore ''lowers'' the next cycle's bar — but it also earns you nothing, since it is below your high water. There is no useful exploit here; the two numbers simply move independently, and the one that pays is the high-water mark.

== Sparks and the score ==

Every point of your '''Ascension score''' that's a new all-time high pays exactly '''1 Spark''' the moment you walk through the Door — rebuilding a stat back to where it used to be pays nothing, only genuinely new progress does (see '''[[#Before you walk: getting the most out of a run|Before you walk]]''' above for what that means in practice). Twenty-six separate categories feed the score, each worth points per unit:

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Category !! Points per unit
|-
| Skill levels (sum across all 13) || 2
|-
| Skills at 99 || 150 each
|-
| Mastery levels above 1 || 0.2
|-
| Mastery milestones || 40 each
|-
| Museum skeletons mounted || 25 each
|-
| Museum wings completed || 200 each (+400 flat for the finished Grand Hall)
|-
| Patrol clears (capped per biome) || 2 each
|-
| Guardians felled || 120 each
|-
| Arena tiers won || 60 each
|-
| Rift patrol/boss clears (capped) || 4 each
|-
| Rift Ranks conquered || 60 per Beta first-clear, 100 per Alpha
|-
| Field notes found || 10 each
|-
| Quest steps completed || 15 each
|-
| Chronicles notes || 12 each (+300 flat for holding The Sigil)
|-
| Camp Material Age reached || 100 per Age
|-
| Rival tribes bested || 80 each
|-
| Completion log entries || 2 per item, 6 per species
|-
| Pets found || 50 each
|-
| Blueprints learned || 8 each
|-
| Veteran dino levels (levels above 1, stable + stasis) || 1 each
|-
| Achievements earned || 10 each
|-
| Lifetime Amber earned || √(total ÷ 1,000)
|-
| Lifetime Warden's Marks || total ÷ 50 (once the [[Rifts#The Rift Bazaar|Bounty Board]] is live)
|-
| Deepest bloodline (Mutation Lines) || 15 per mutation depth (once live)
|-
| Lifetime Primal forged casts || 75 each (once [[Blueprints#Cast quality|Item Quality]] is live)
|-
| Niched species kept (stable + stasis) || 25 each (once Niches is live)
|}

The last four rows are '''zero until their own systems unlock''' (Rift Ranks at your first Ascension, the Bounty Board and Mutation Lines and Item Quality each at their own later Ascension gates) — nothing scores before the system that produces it actually exists for you yet.

== The 16 perks ==

Sparks buy permanent perk ranks — purchasable only '''after''' your first ascension, since that's also when you first earn any Sparks to spend. Buying every rank of every perk costs exactly '''41,000 Sparks'''.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Perk !! Effect per rank !! Max ranks !! Total cost (Sparks)
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-echoed-reflexes}} Echoed Reflexes || +4% action speed || 5 || 10,000
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-deep-memory}} Deep Memory || +5% all skill XP || 4 || 4,200
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-amber-affinity}} Amber Affinity || +10% Amber gain || 4 || 3,250
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-wardens-favor}} Warden's Favor || +15 flat expedition score || 4 || 2,250
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-amber-bond}} Amber Bond || Preserves chosen dinos through the reset (see below) || 3 || 2,200
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-trail-wisdom}} Trail Wisdom || Seeds early biomes with full patrol credit (Guardians still must be fought) || 3 || 2,100
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-patient-earth}} Patient Earth || +2 hours offline progress cap || 3 || 2,100
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-elders-cadence}} Elder's Cadence || +2% [[Tribe]] worker and hired-hand speed || 5 || 4,850
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-packmates-vigor}} Packmate's Vigor || +5% dino injury heal speed (separate from Sturdy Bandages) || 5 || 3,000
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-swift-roots}} Swift Roots || +3% [[Foraging]]/[[Logging]]/[[Mining]]/[[Fishing]] speed || 3 || 1,300
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-forgekeepers-eye}} Forgekeeper's Eye || +3% [[Cooking]]/[[Crafting]]/[[Smithing]]/[[Alchemy]] speed || 3 || 1,300
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-stewards-gate}} Steward's Gate || Auto-turns away low-tier camp wanderers, rank by rank || 3 || 1,050
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-keepers-ledger}} Keeper's Ledger || Shop capacity upgrades (Satchel, Vault) survive the reset || 1 || 900
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-second-cradle}} Second Cradle || A second Nursery crib — two babies grow at once, so a finished clutch stops queueing behind the one already on the clock || 1 || 1,000
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-broodmothers-pace}} Broodmother's Pace || +5% [[Taming]] and Nursery maturation speed || 2 || 800
|-
| {{Icon|ascension-ancestral-kit}} Ancestral Kit || A starting materials-and-Amber bundle on your next run || 3 || 700
|}

'''Amber Bond''' in detail: '''two dinos come through the Door for free''', with no perk bought at all — the perk only raises that floor. Each rank sets a base of ''rank + 1'', every ascension you have already completed adds one more, and the total is capped at ''rank + 5'' (and never falls below the free 2):

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Ascensions completed !! No perk !! Rank 1 !! Rank 2 !! Rank 3
|-
| 0 (your first walk) || 2 || 2 || 3 || 4
|-
| 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5
|-
| 2 || 2 || 4 || 5 || 6
|-
| 3 || 2 || 5 || 6 || 7
|-
| 4 or more || 2 || 6 || 7 || 8
|}

Preserved dinos keep their veteran XP, imprint, bloodline and ID, but arrive '''unequipped''' (their gear is run power) and land in the [[Stable|Stasis Vault]] of the new run rather than a stable stall directly. Because bloodline depth, niche and veteran levels are all scoring rows that ride along, the choice of which dinos to carry is worth real Sparks — see '''[[#Choosing which dinos to carry|Choosing which dinos to carry]]'''.

'''Trail Wisdom''' at rank 3 seeds Grasslands, Redwood Wilds, Murkwater Swamp, Cavern Depths, Scorched Badlands, and Coral Shallows with full patrol credit — the run's back half (Frozen Wastes onward) still has to be cleared normally, and every Guardian anywhere still has to be fought regardless of rank.

== The 5 free tiers ==

Alongside the Spark-bought perks, your '''Ascension count''' alone auto-grants a free, stacking tier bonus — no Sparks spent, nothing to buy:

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Ascension count !! Tier name !! Effect
|-
| 1 || Echo of the Door || +5% all skill XP
|-
| 2 || Keeper of Seasons || +2 hours offline progress cap
|-
| 3 || Friend of Wardens || +5% Amber gain
|-
| 4 || Tamer of Cycles || +10% [[Tribe]] worker/hired-hand speed
|-
| 5 || Warden Ascendant || +5% all skill XP again — '''active only while you currently hold The Sigil'''
|}

These stack additively with the matching perk above (e.g. a maxed Deep Memory plus both XP tiers is +30% skill XP, not a smaller compounded number).

== Trophy Case and heirlooms ==

Beyond the Spark economy, two categories of items are simply immune to the reset:

* The '''Trophy Case''' — every one-of-a-kind effect item in the game survives automatically, whether it was sitting in your Bank or equipped when you walked through. That is '''57 items''' in total: the rival-raid relics and tribe banners, the Depths relics, quest-reward trinkets, the Rift Standard and Riftbound Trinket, the Riftheart Relic, the Bounty Exchange's four unique pieces, the Completion Log's Banner of the Vale, the '''twelve Tyrant relics''' (v0.59.0 — a first kill can never be earned twice, so the Trophy Wall walks through intact), and the '''three Rift Bazaar keepsakes''' (v0.60.48).
* The '''Primal Catalyst''' is the one ordinary consumable that carries at full stack — its only use (aiming a Mutation Lines clutch) unlocks two Ascensions after you can first collect it, so hoarding one before you can even spend it was always the point.

== Achievements ==

A dedicated '''Ascension''' track, all six tier 3 (none count toward the Census that unlocks your first walk, since a walk-gated achievement can't gate the walk):

* '''Through the Amber Door''' — ascend for the first time.
* '''Keeper of Seasons''' — ascend a second time.
* '''Friend of Wardens''' — ascend a third time.
* '''Warden Ascendant''' — ascend a fifth time while holding The Sigil (also grants the '''Warden Ascendant''' title).
* '''Every Spark Spent''' — buy every rank of every perk, the longest chase in the game.
* '''High Water''' — bank a high-water Ascension score of 30,000.

See [[Achievements]] for the full list.

== See also ==

* [[Chronicles]] — The Sigil, the capstone reward Ascension's fifth tier and one scoring row key off
* [[Rifts]] — Rift Ranks (Beta/Alpha) unlock at your first Ascension; several Bazaar offers wait on Ascension count 1 or 3
* [[Blueprints]] — the v0.53.0 top wave and the Cast Quality/Rite of Refinement system unlock past Ascension count 3
* [[Player]] — the Gear Locker's quality-tier breakdown and the Rite of Refinement, in practical terms
* [[Tribe]] — Elder's Cadence and Steward's Gate reach directly into camp mechanics
* [[Museum]], [[Achievements]] — two of the nine Warden's Census categories

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[[Category:Progression]]
[[Category:Game Mechanics]]
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