Abilities
One resource, three keyed slots, and — since Calibration — three whole sets of abilities waiting behind them, one per class. A bar draws every number it fires with: Charge in the rail, cost in the pips, cooldown in the sweep, and how far you’ve levelled each one in the ring around its tile.
01 Charge
Every ability draws from the same cell — Charge, a resource rather than a stat. It fills on its own while you fly and drains only when an ability actually fires; nothing else touches it, and the cell always starts a dive full.
- Glide, or sit parked, and the cell tops up at its fastest — well under a third of full stick is enough to get the fast rate.
- Push the stick to its limit and the fill rate drops to roughly half that resting speed — a smooth gradient between the two, never a hard cliff, so easing off even a little starts paying you back immediately.
- The cell’s ceiling and its refill rate are both ordinary stats, so a part or a Ledger bonus can raise either — see Your Drone.
02 Sealed until Calibration
All three slots are visible from Level 1, and all three sit empty — the bar draws them sealed, not missing, so the promise reads as a tease rather than a gap. Nothing fires on Q, W or E until you reach Level 5 and Calibrate (see Pilot & Classes): the moment you pick Hauler, Scout or Salvager, that class’s whole set of three drops into the rack at once, bolted to the same Q/W/E keys every class shares — so the reach for a key never changes, only what answers it.
A respec swaps the fitted set wholesale, but nothing already earned is lost: each ability’s own progress is banked separately, so a class you leave and come back to later picks up exactly where you left it.
Three classes, three abilities each
Reverse the collector coils. Loose ore comes to the hull on threads you can very nearly see.
Blow the trim tanks and let the hold breathe out. For a minute the drone will carry anything.
Dump the whole ballast at once. The water leaves before you do, and everything loose goes with it.
A hard ping off the hull. Everything within the wave answers, and keeps answering for a breath after.
Dump the cell into the thrusters. The water tears white behind you and the camera has to catch up.
Match the water's own hum and the animals stop reading you as a thing at all. Fly how you like.
A shaped thump against every seam in reach. Stone that would take an hour by hand simply lets go.
Overcharge the mounts until the claw rings. Whatever you hit next remembers it.
A slow sweep at a wavelength stone is bad at keeping. What is behind it comes back as a shape you know.
Numbers above are each ability’s base, fitted level — what Level 1 of that class actually fires with. Every row is blocked the same way once fitted: the tile dims and a coral rim flashes on a refused press, while it’s on cooldown, already running, or the cell can’t pay its price.
03 Reading the bar
Bottom-centre in open water, the bar is drawn, not a row of web buttons — a Charge rail over three glassy tiles, each carrying its own keycap, a row of dots for its price, a radial sweep for its cooldown, and a thin ring for how far you’ve levelled it. Before Calibration the same three tiles are still there, drawn dark and unlit — the rack, not the abilities.
The ability bar, schematically
04 Levelling — drilled, then bought
Every ability runs 1 through 5, and a level is never simply earned by using the key enough times, nor simply bought outright — both have to happen, in order. Flying an ability banks toward a drill quota; once that quota is met, the next level is for sale at the Skill Bench (the Skills tab of the Console, key K — see Pilot & Classes), priced in crystals and one skill material specific to that ability. A rich pilot who has never pressed the key cannot buy their way past level 1.
Skill materials — Crab Plate, Hound Fang, Ray Barb, Lurker Ink — aren’t sold; they drop from fights at the Trial Grounds. Each ability names exactly one material, and the price climbs at every step, never cheapens.
Sonar Burst’s ladder, as one worked example
| Level | Drill (total uses) | Hound Fang | Crystals |
|---|---|---|---|
| +2 | 6 | 2 | 500 |
| +3 | 12 | 4 | 1,500 |
| +4 | 18 | 7 | 4,000 |
| +5 | 24 | 11 | 10,000 |
Every one of the nine abilities runs the same two-step shape — its own drill count, its own material, its own climbing crystal price — Sonar Burst is simply the one worth showing in full.
- A bought level shortens that ability’s cooldown and stretches its duration or magnitude, but only modestly — cooldown can never fall below 60% of its base, so a maxed ability is stronger, never a button you can hold down.
- What actually grows five times over is what it looks like. The numbers move on purpose in small steps; the spectacle on screen at level 5 is the real reward for getting there.