+DEFENSE
What it is
An armor-block mod that grants both flat additional maximum hit points and flat additive damage reduction to the ship it is installed on. It is one of the templates in the global mod catalog and uses the standard rarity-merge progression: drops always enter inventory at Tier 1 (Common), and three of any tier merge into one of the next tier up.
Identity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Display name | +DEFENSE |
| Archetype slot | Armor block |
| Stat block | hpMax and damageReduction (both flat additive) |
| Effects | none |
| Drop rarity | Common (T1) |
| Merge ceiling | Legendary (T5) — never drops, only merged |
Base stats (T1 Common)
| Stat | Bonus | Stat type |
|---|---|---|
| Max HP | +60 | flat additive HP capacity |
| Damage reduction | +4 | flat additive damage reduction |
Two stat fields are carried; both apply additively on top of base ship stats and any other sources in the run.
Per-tier values (T1–T5)
Rarity multiplies the entire base stat block by a fixed factor. Both fields scale together at the same multiplier.
| Stat | T1 Common | T2 Uncommon | T3 Rare | T4 Epic | T5 Legendary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rarity multiplier | 1× | 2× | 4× | 8× | 16× |
| Max HP bonus | +60 | +120 | +240 | +480 | +960 |
| Damage reduction bonus | +4 | +8 | +16 | +32 | +64 |
| Tier | Acquisition |
|---|---|
| T1 Common | Mission drop |
| T2 Uncommon | Merge 3 commons |
| T3 Rare | Merge 3 uncommons |
| T4 Epic | Merge 3 rares |
| T5 Legendary | Merge 3 epics |
To reach a single T5 copy requires 81 T1 drops of this template (3 → 1 at each step, four merges deep). Legendary never drops directly.
Shape and footprint
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Bounding box | 2 wide × 3 tall |
| Filled cells | 6 (fully filled rectangle) |
| Shape | solid rectangle, no cutouts |
| Rotation states | 4 (2×3 and 3×2 footprints depending on orientation) |
The footprint is a solid 2×3 bar with no empty cells, so it occupies a contiguous rectangular region of the mod grid. Rotating swaps the bounding box between 2×3 and 3×2 but does not change the cell count.
How it fits
- Lives in the account-wide global Mod Grid, not on a per-ship backpack — the same installed mod benefits whichever ship is taken into a run.
- Provides both HP and damage reduction in a single placement, making it the densest pure-defense option per cell pair.
- Stacks additively with HP and damage-reduction bonuses from other sources (ship base, other defense mods, passives). There is no diminishing return on stacking either field flat-additively.
- The 6-cell footprint is the largest among the templates listed in this catalog directory, so it demands a large contiguous run of unlocked cells and competes for space with multiple smaller mods.
- Effective on every ship — there is no ship for which more HP or damage reduction is wasted — but the relative value of the damage-reduction component is higher on low-HP, frequently-hit ships, while the HP component scales linearly regardless of ship.
Drop info
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Where it drops | Post-mission rewards (uniform roll across all templates in the catalog) |
| Tier at drop | Always T1 Common |
| Path to higher tiers | Merge 3 of the same tier into 1 of the next tier (Common → Uncommon → Rare → Epic → Legendary) |
| Grid-unlock gating | None at the template level — placement requires a contiguous 2×3 (or rotated 3×2) region of unlocked cells |
The number of drops awarded per mission depends on tier-reached versus the player’s per-planet best — see the mods overview for the drop-count table. New drops surface a “NEW” badge until viewed.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Rarity multiplier row (1×/2×/4×/8×/16×) and acquisition table (Common = drop; T2–T5 = merge 3 of prior tier; 81 commons → 1 legendary) repeat verbatim on every per-mod page and on mods.md. Per project rules numeric duplication is acceptable, but the prose explanation of the merge ladder belongs on mods.md only and could be replaced here with a link.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: “Where it drops / Tier at drop / Path to higher tiers” rows in the Drop info table repeat across every per-mod page with identical wording. Candidates for a shared transclude or a single “drop rules” reference paragraph on mods.md.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: The 2×3 footprint analysis (rotation states, contiguous-region requirement, bounding-box swap on rotation) is mechanical and derivable from size: { w: 2, h: 3 }. A shared footprint-shape reference table on mods.md or an authoring guide would let per-mod pages link to it instead of restating the geometry.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: block-armor.ts defines no effects array, so the “Effects: none” row is true here but is template-by-template. Per the type definition (ModTemplate.effects) some templates may carry triggered effects via the unified effect engine — worth a one-paragraph note on mods.md explaining when a per-mod page’s Effects row will be non-empty.