History VideoGame / HardspaceShipbreaker

* DifficultySpike: The jump from the standard Mackerel to the larger variant is fairly tame, since the only difference is slightly increased size and a more complex thruster assembly. The Gecko, on the other hand, is huge by comparison. You're required to decompress multiple rooms, the Class 2 reactor requires a much more complex disassembly process, the hull sections are larger and require additional tethers to get them moving, and it's a bigger time sink in general.

* DifficultySpike: The jump from the standard Mackerel to the larger variant is fairly tame, since the only difference is slightly increased size and a more complex thruster assembly. The Gecko, on the other hand, is huge by comparison. You're required to decompress multiple rooms, the Class 2 reactor requires a much more complex disassembly process, and in general you'll be spending a lot more time on it.

* GoingCritical: Reactors start to melt down as soon as you pull them from their mounting, giving you limited time to get them to the barge.

* KillItWithIce: Larger ships may have one or more struts covered by heat-resistant cut guards that cannot be melted by the Stinger. To break them, you have to freeze them using coolant. Force pushing an object into them also works, but you have to be careful about what else that object might hit.

* InterchangeableAntimatterKeys: Utility Keys are used to cut the flow of power from a ship's reactor to its thrusters. These keys have to be found in ships or bought at a moderate fee at the Hab's terminal, but they can appear even if a ship has nothing to use it on. In this case you'll just put them in your pocket and hold onto them until you're working on a ship that does, at which point any of your keys will work in the terminal and you're unable to retrieve them once used.

* NothingIsScarier: The Ghosts Ships are devoid of their original crews and passengers with readily apparent evidence of what happened to them. No skeletons, no bodies, nothing. When you start finding helmets inside of them even Weaver chimes in with just how uncomfortable he is by it.

* KillItWithIce: Larger ships may have one or more green struts that cannot be melted by the Stinger. To break them, you have to freeze them using coolant.

** You drain the coolant from the pipes in Geckos by removing the three small canisters from inside their Enviromental Control Unit's central compartment, but doing so when the fuel lines are already cut or vice versa will immediately trigger the start of a reactor meltdown. Work fast.

* BreakableWeapons: Your tools degrade with use. Though they can't completely break, they don't function nearly as well when damaged, so finding or buying repair kits to keep them in top condition will make your a lot job faster and easier.

* GrapplingHookPistol: Aside from your Laser Cutter, you have the Grapple/Tether gun. It's mostly used to move things around, but you can also use it to launch yourself around - either by accident (trying to push something much heavier than the gun can handle will push ''you'' instead) or on purpose (''a la'' BuildingSwing, just in zero G). You can also use it to shoot tethers that link things together or pull them towards a certain point; super useful for moving things that are a bit too heavy to push around normally.

* InterfaceScrew: All the time. Your visor can crack (or even breach), your HUD elements can glitch out, and when your scanner unit is worn down it'll frequently glitch out whilst in use.

* BreakableWeapons: Your tools degrade with use. Though they can't completely break, they don't function nearly as well when damaged.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The scanner lights up material with certain colors depending on where it goes or what it does. Primarily, this allows you to identify structural points marked with yellow that can be melted with the Stinger.

* PuzzleGame: A fairly open ended sandbox, but a large part of the challenge is figuring out the right way to disassemble the ship, without destroying valuable components or tripping something that will blow yourself up. As you progress through more advanced ships, you'll find more intricate, increasingly inter-connected systems that can spell doom for your salvage operation if not tackled in the correct order.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Apparently enough of a crapshoot to be illegal under some Earth laws and for [=LYNX=] HR to get twitchy over the ideas of [=AIs=] being involved in an in-universe ''roleplaying game'', evidently. The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by a rogue AI which serve as the first genuinely hostile threat in the game. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently threatened however, and since LYNX wants them destroyed you ''will'' sooner or later be considered a threat, they are extremely dangerous. They're capable of messing with doors and pressurization allowing them to put you in explosive decompression scenarios that you can't avoid. If even one node is active on a ship they can even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* AIIsACrapshoot: Apparently enough of a crapshoot to be illegal under some Earth laws and for [=LYNX=] HR to get twitchy over the ideas of a AIs being involved in an in-universe ''roleplaying game'', evidently. The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by a rogue AI which serve as the first genuinely hostile threat in the game. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently threatened however, and since LYNX wants them destroyed you ''will'' sooner or later be considered a threat, they are extremely dangerous. They're capable of messing with doors and pressurization allowing them to put you in explosive decompression scenarios that you can't avoid. If even one node is active on a ship they can even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* AIIsACrapshoot: The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by autonomous AI which serve as the first genuinely hostile threat in the game. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently threatened however, and since LYNX wants them destroyed you ''will'' sooner or later be considered a threat, they are extremely dangerous. They're capable of messing with doors and pressurization allowing them to put you in explosive decompression scenarios that you can't avoid. If even one node is active on a ship they can even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* CloneDegeneration: Weaver used to be a Cutter, until an unspecified issue with cloning prevented him from returning to the job. Now he helps new Cutters around the ropes.

* ContinuousDecompression: Small rooms will take a surprisingly long time to depressurize sometimes.

* LaserCutter: One of your primary tools is the Stinger laser cutter. Whilst it's only good for small things at first, the player quickly receives the Splitsaw upgrade which allows it to slice neat chunks out of glass, aluminum, and some other materials. The Splitsaw can be further upgraded later on to let it cut through the tougher nanocarbon and titanium components as well, allowing you to salvage pieces that are welded onto to cheaper furnace scrap.

* LaserCutter: One of your primary tools is the Stinger laser cutter. Whilst it's only good for small things at first, the player quickly receives the Splitsaw upgrade which allows it to slice neat chunks out of glass, aluminum, and some other materials. The Splitsaw can be further upgraded later on to let it cut through the tougher nanocarbon and titanium components as well.

* TimedMission: Outside of the first couple of tutorial missions, Open Shift, and Free Mode, every 'shift' is limited to 15 minutes or so in length, as well as your suit's fuel and oxygen supplies. You can buy O2 refills during a shift and find refill canisters on most ships though.

* AIIsACrapshoot: The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by autonomous AI which serve as the first genuinely hostile threat in the game. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently threatened however, and since LYNX wants them destroyed you ''will'' sooner or later be considered a threat, they are extremely dangerous. They're capable of messing with doors and pressurization allowing them to put you in explosive decompression scenarios that you can't avoid explosive decompression. If even one node is active on a ship they can even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* AIIsACrapshoot: The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by autonomous AI which serve as the first genuinely hostile threat in the game. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently threatened however, and since LYNX wants them destroyed you ''will'' sooner or later be considered a threat, they are extremely dangerous. They capable of messing with doors and pressurization while also putting you in situations where you can't safely defuse them. If even one node is active on a ship they can even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* AIIsACrapshoot: The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by autonomous AI. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently agitated however, and LYNX wants them destroyed you ''will'' agitate them, they are extremely dangerous, capable of messing with doors, pressurization, and if they're attached to the reactor even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* AIIsACrapshoot: The October update, by sheer coincidence, adds [[spoiler:Ghost Ships, vessels that have been overtaken by autonomous AI. If left alone the AI is harmless, barring some audio interference. Once sufficiently agitated however, and LYNX wants them destroye you ''will'' agitate them, they are extremely dangerous, capable of messing with doors, pressurization, and if they're attached to the reactor even ''trigger a reactor meltdown if you cut the power to the thrusters.'']]

* CoolStarship: You're being paid to take them apart, or more accurately taking them apart to pay off your debt. Admittedly some of them aren't really very cool or glamorous, nor do they possess particularly impressive class names; the two ship classes so far are the Mackerel and Gecko, both civilian cargo/passenger transport ships.

** You drain the coolant from the pipes in Geckos by removing the three small canisters from inside their Enviromental Control Unit's central compartment. As of a recent patch this will however immediately set off a reactor meltdown and is ill-advised before getting the reactor out.

** There's a bind for each of the player's hands to cling to surfaces with their magnetic gloves that can be used to move around or brace yourself for impact/charged pushes. They're so strong that they'll hold you firmly in place even with the full force of a room decompressing in your face. This will also help with the random, often violently explosive coolant/fuel tanks. By making sure the section of the ship they're attached to isn't moving at all, magnetize yourself to the tank, hold your brakes, and tap your grapple key as the tank is about to come loose and you can prevent the tanks from rocketing away, striking something, and usually starting an often lethal chain reaction.

* SandboxMode: If you just wanna cut ships apart for practice or fun (for example, seeing what happens when you overload a reactor or depressurize a larger ship), you can play in Free Mode instead; no limits, no restrictions, and everything's upgraded to its maximum levels (so be careful with that Splitsaw!).

* ShockinglyExpensiveBill: Each day, you can expect to be paying somewhere to the tune of $500,000 to [=LYNX=] in rental fees and interest.

** There's a bind for each of the player's hands to cling to surfaces with their magnetic gloves that can be used to move around or brace yourself for impact/charged pushes. They're so strong that they'll hold you firmly in place even with the full force of a room decompressing in your face. This will also prevent a nasty bug with fuses that causes them to rocket you across the bay. Likely into a wall that will break your helmet. In addition this will also help with coolant/fuel tanks. By making sure the piece they're attached to isn't moving at all, magnetizing yourself to the tank, and holding your brakes you can prevent the tanks from rocketing away, striking something, and violently exploding.