Delphi
What it is
A mirror-lake surface biome rendered as a reflective dark-water plane studded with oil-rig platforms and vertical rig beams fading down into the waterline. Visually it is the only biome in the game that uses a horizontal wave grid underlay instead of the default hex grid, and it leans on a high-density triple starfield to compensate for the otherwise empty water surface. Mechanically it is a racer-pressure planet: the only biome that runs the racer-leaning bug roster, and the only place where the supersonic Sprinter elite gets threaded into the rare slots. The biome’s planet attaches to the Delphi Crystal level preset, which draws hub/spoke geometry in violet on near-black so the gameplay plane reads as crystal-violet over a cool-blue mirror backdrop. There is no BIOMES entry for this biome in the world generator — at run time the terrain pass silently falls back to the Landing Site asteroid topology, while everything else (parallax, palette, level preset, enemy set, grid underlay) routes through the Delphi-specific path.
Identity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Player-facing label | Mirror-lake surface with rig platforms and submerged beams |
| Terrain content | Asteroids (inherited from Landing Site fallback — no Delphi-specific terrain mix) |
| Buildings allowed | Yes |
| Default level preset | Delphi Crystal |
| Generator mode | Standard ring-based hub-and-spoke (via Landing Site fallback) |
| Role | Racer-pressure planet — the only biome that runs the racer roster, with Sprinter as the elite candidate |
| Attached planets | One |
| Gameplay grid underlay | Wave pattern (time-animated horizontal ripple) |
| Faction tie-in | Delphi Mining Guild (mission postings) |
Visual and ambient
The biome runs the sunlit mastering preset with a light atmospheric fog. The parallax recipe is built to read as a polished water plane: it opens with a strong source-over deep-water tint that literally darkens and tints the nebula behind, then a slow ripple-haze layer, then three nested starfield layers at staggered parallax and density (deep / mid / bright) so the water surface never feels empty. Three more atmosphere passes layer over the back of the scene — a reflection band, a chrome-sheen specular streak, and a close-range chrome flicker — to sell the “liquid chrome” mirror read without blowing the scene to white. Silhouettes of rig beams stamp through the mid and near slots, fading into the waterline. Near-surface shimmer and a faint foreground spray cap the stack. The level palette is near-black violet base with dark-violet line color, light-violet accent, and bright-violet illumination — so the gameplay plane reads as crystal-violet over the cool-blue mirror backdrop. The preferred palette presets are crisp-blue, soft-pastel, and a dim dusk alternative. The background nebula is a planet-pinned violet “Delphi Nebula” archetype rather than a shared smooth-nebula pull.
| Backdrop and lighting knob | Value |
|---|---|
| Atmospheric fog alpha | 0.15 |
| Post-processing mastering | Sunlit |
| Shadow offset multiplier | 1.0 |
| Background nebula pool | Planet-pinned Delphi Nebula archetype (violet crystal) |
| Preferred level palettes | Deep Frost, Cotton Sky, Voidmilk |
| Gameplay grid underlay variant | Wave (horizontal, time-animated) |
| Parallax layer | Slot | Parallax | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep-water tint | Back | 0.03 | Source-over, opacity 0.65 — tints nebula below |
| Ripple haze | Back | 0.06 | Lighter blend, opacity 0.18 |
| Deep starfield | Back | 0.04 | Tile 640, density 22, small stars |
| Mid starfield | Back | 0.09 | Tile 640, density 12 |
| Bright starfield | Back | 0.16 | Tile 640, density 4, larger and accented |
| Reflection band | Back | 0.12 | Screen blend, opacity 0.18 |
| Chrome sheen | Back | 0.14 | Screen blend, opacity 0.14 |
| Chrome flicker (close) | Near | 0.78 | Screen blend, opacity 0.10 |
| Rig beams (mid) | Mid | 0.36 | Tile 260, density 1.5, opacity 0.20 |
| Mid water haze | Mid | 0.50 | Opacity 0.06 |
| Rig beams (near) | Near | 0.68 | Tile 420, density 0.7, opacity 0.22 |
| Surface shimmer | Near | 0.80 | Opacity 0.05 |
| Foreground spray | Foreground | 1.50 | Opacity 0.025 |
| Level visual knob | Value |
|---|---|
| Base color | Near-black violet (#0e0020) |
| Line color | Deep violet (#7e22ce) |
| Accent color | Light violet (#c084fc) |
| Illuminated color | Bright violet (#e879f9) |
| Spoke style | Energy |
| Hub style | Nexus |
| Hub particle effect | Embers |
| Spoke flow speed | 0.6 |
| Illumination speed | 0.5 |
| Danger tint | 0.6 |
| Pathable wilds | Yes |
| Lantern preset | Shatter |
| Layout pattern | Chaotic |
Terrain mix
The biome does not register a dedicated entry in the world-generator biome table — the generator’s biome lookup silently falls back to Landing Site for terrain content and topology. At terrain-fill time the world therefore runs the standard ring-based hub-and-spoke generator with the asteroid-only shape pool inherited from Landing Site, while every other Delphi knob (parallax, palette, level preset, enemy set, grid underlay) routes through the Delphi-specific paths. The attached level preset overrides the inherited terrain density to a denser fill and runs a chaotic layout pattern; the preset also declares pillar terrain, but with no Delphi entry in the biome table, the active shape pool at fill time is the inherited asteroid pool.
| Layer (inherited from Landing Site fallback) | Shape pool weights |
|---|---|
| Centers (large pieces) | asteroid_xl 60, asteroid_lg 40 |
| Mediums (intermediate ring) | asteroid_lg 40, asteroid_md 40, rock_shard 20 |
| Smalls (outer ring) | asteroid_sm 40, asteroid_md 30, rock_shard 30 |
| Topology and density | Value |
|---|---|
| Level radius | 2500 |
| Terrain density (biome fallback) | 0.85 |
| Terrain intensity (biome fallback) | 0.7 |
| Terrain density (level preset override) | 0.85 |
| Hub min distance | 400 |
| Hub max distance | 1000 |
| Hubs per ring | 6 |
| Hub clear radius | 200 |
| Spoke width (ring generator) | 150 |
| Hub size factor (level preset) | 0.45 |
| Spoke width factor (level preset) | 0.8 |
| Density factor (level preset) | 0.99 |
Enemy bias
Uses the racer-leaning bug roster — the orb family is the swarm archetype and racer / sprinter / charger fill the leader slots. This is the only biome that runs this enemy set. Spawn pools shift across run progress from near-pure orb commons with racer commons early on, through orb commons and uncommons plus Sprinter commons in the early-mid bands, to orb rares and epics with rare racer / sprinter elites in the late bands. The Sprinter is a supersonic frail racer variant (very fast, low health, melee) that exists specifically to punish lingering in one spot, and it appears in the rare slots once the player’s kit can survive its speed. Spawn pressure sits at the default baseline with the standard one-second warmup grace.
| Spawn pressure | Value |
|---|---|
| Enemy count multiplier | 1.0 |
| Spawn grace before full pressure (s) | 1 |
| Enemy set | Racer-leaning bug roster (orb / charger / racer / sprinter) |
| Swarm archetype | Orb |
| Leader archetypes | Charger, racer, sprinter |
| Crate density (of 100) | 40 |
| Debris density (of 100) | 12 |
| Spawn pool band (progress %) | Composition focus |
|---|---|
| 0–8 | Orb commons dominate, charger common, racer common |
| 8–20 | Orb commons + first orb uncommons, charger common, racer common, first sprinter common |
| 20–40 | Orb commons and uncommons, charger common, racer uncommon, sprinter common |
| 40–60 | Orb uncommons and rares, charger uncommon, racer uncommon, sprinter uncommon |
| 60–999 | Orb rares and epics, charger rare, racer rare, sprinter rare |
| Event pool weighting | Weight |
|---|---|
| Magnet | 2 |
| Weapon | 1 |
| Artifact | 1 |
Boss-arena default
The boss is keyed per-planet, not per-biome. The boss assignment slot on the Delphi planet currently points at a boss identifier whose definition has not yet been implemented in the boss-definition table, so the encounter falls back to the global default at T-zero. The arena pattern is not yet declared for this boss.
| Planet | Boss at T-zero | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Delphi | Apex (declared, not yet implemented) | Falls back to global default boss until implemented |
Which planets use it
A single player-facing planet attaches to the Delphi biome. The planet sits in the player-facing planet order and uses production planet art rather than a placeholder.
| Planet | Numeric ID | Player-facing |
|---|---|---|
| Delphi | 35 | Yes |
The planet’s reward-track XP curve and base run-XP grant are both at placeholder values matching the Landing Site baseline (XP multiplier 1.0, base run XP 10), so each meta-progression level on Delphi currently costs and pays the same as the starter biome. The planet has a faction tie-in (Delphi Mining Guild) that surfaces in mission postings.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Delphi is the only biome in the entire game with no entry in the world generator’s biome table — its terrain content and ring topology silently fall through to the Landing Site fallback at run time, while every other Delphi knob (parallax, palette, level preset, enemy set, grid underlay) routes through the Delphi-specific paths. This silent fallback is unique to Delphi and is the single highest-impact fact on this page. Worth a one-line callout on world.md and biomes.md under the biome-vs-preset override rule, with Delphi explicitly named as the only “missing biome entry” case.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: the gameplay-grid underlay branches by biome — Delphi gets the time-animated wave pattern, Old Earth gets the lat/long topographic grid, every other biome gets the default hex grid. The mapping lives in a single switch in the gameplay-grid renderer. Worth a “gameplay grid variants” table on world.md rather than restating per biome page.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: per-planet boss assignment (Delphi → apex placeholder) is duplicated between this page, biomes.md, and bosses.md. Acceptable repetition per the wiki stat-table rule — flagging only. Also worth noting separately on bosses.md that the apex boss identifier is declared in the boss-id union but has no entry yet in the boss-definition table, so any planet pointing at it currently falls back to the global default boss.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: the planet-pinned violet “Delphi Nebula” background archetype is one of two planet-specific archetype pins on this biome’s planet (the other being shared smooth-nebula pulls on other biomes). Same shape as the Sunrise City “Dusk Haze” pin — candidate for a “planet-pinned nebula archetypes” table on planets.md.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: the Sprinter enemy is unique to the racer roster used by Delphi — it does not appear in any other biome’s spawn pools and is the only place in the game where the supersonic / melee / very-low-HP archetype is rolled into rare slots. Worth a one-line callout on enemies.md under the “biome-exclusive elites” pattern (paired with Speedway’s Spitter and Network Station’s Burner — all three are biome-exclusive variant elites of an existing archetype family).
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: the Delphi planet’s reward-track XP multiplier and base run-XP grant are still at placeholder values (1.0x and 10), matching every other post-Voidstar planet. The placeholder pattern (Landing Site / Sunrise City / Voidstar tuned, everything else at 1.0x / 10) is repeated across progression.md, economy.md, and every late-game biome page. Acceptable repetition for an access-pattern table — flagging only.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: the level preset declares pillar terrain but with no Delphi entry in the biome table, the active shape pool at fill time is the inherited asteroid pool — the preset’s terrainType field is overridden by the biome fallback. Pattern is unique to Delphi (because Delphi is the only biome missing from the biome table). Already covered by the first extract candidate; flagging separately because it specifically calls out the level-preset terrainType vs. biome shape-pool divergence.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: the Delphi Mining Guild faction tie-in is one of eight named factions threaded through the mission-postings system. Each faction maps to one planet. Worth a “faction-to-planet map” table on missions.md and / or planets.md rather than restating per page.