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

== 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. Twenty-five 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 15 perks ==

Sparks buy permanent perk ranks — purchasable only '''after''' your first ascension, since that's also when you first earn any Sparks to spend. Every perk's total catalog sums to exactly '''40,000 Sparks''' to fully max.

{| 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-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: the number of dinos you can carry through the Door is ''min(rank + 1 + priorAscensions, rank + 5)'' — at rank 1 you always keep just 1 (your very first walk) up to a max of 5 after four more cycles; at rank 3 (max) you start at 4 and cap at 8. Preserved dinos keep their veteran XP, imprint, 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.

'''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 (rival-raid relics, the Depths relics, quest-reward trinkets, the Rift Standard and Riftbound Trinket, the Riftheart Relic, the Bounty Exchange's unique gear, the Completion Log's Banner of the Vale) survives automatically, whether it was sitting in your Bank or equipped when you walked through.
* 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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