A rare-rarity Backwater hull — the middle weight class in the four-hull Backwater roster (Batwing uncommon, Caiman uncommon, Lizard rare, Killer Croc legendary). Rotating chassis with 3 weapon slots, the rifle starting weapon, and the family-standard front-loaded heat curve at the standard Backwater 12 buildup / 10 cooldown values. Sits between Caiman (uncommon, 2 slots, 180 HP) and Killer Croc (legendary, 4 slots, 290 HP) on the family ladder, sharing the 0.36 exponential drag and 0.14 turn rate that define the Backwater drive profile. Renders at native 1.0× sprite scale. Carries the baseline jack-of-all passive (no per-hull override), and its ★5 entry uses the minimal four-field delta override form.
The faction data field reads solaris because every hull inherits BASELINE_STATS.faction and no per-hull override changes it; the Backwater grouping is the prefix on the hull key, used by the sprite folder and rarity table. The rare tier maps to the blue outline color (#44aaff) baked into the v5 sprite asset.
Star-1 stats
Stat
Value
HP
200
Shield
80
Armor
4
Speed
140
Acceleration
180
Drag
0.36
Turn rate
0.14
Weapon slots
3
Upgrade slots
3
Weapon damage %
10
Fire rate %
5
Heat buildup
12
Heat cooldown
10
Heat curve
front_loaded
Burnout severity
0.35
Shield regen rate
6
Shield regen delay
4
HP regen
0
Melee mult
1.0
Luck
8
Magnet range
130
Currency bonus
6
Ship scale
1.0
Starting weapon
rifle L1
Star deltas
Stat
★1
★5
HP
200
250
Shield
80
100
Armor
4
5
Weapon damage %
10
12.5
The ★5 override pins only the four numerics above — every other field falls back to the ★1 value via the s5Val ?? s1Val defaulting rule. Lizard has no per-hull ★2/★3/★4 pin entries, so intermediate stars lerp linearly between the two endpoints (lerp factor t = (star − 1) / 4):
Star
HP
Shield
Armor
Weapon damage %
★1
200
80
4
10
★2
212.5
85
4.25
10.625
★3
225
90
4.5
11.25
★4
237.5
95
4.75
11.875
★5
250
100
5
12.5
Star tier never changes the starting weapon (always rifle L1), faction, rarity, hitbox, drive feel, ship scale, weapon-slot count (3), speed, acceleration, drag, turn rate, or any heat field — only the four lerped numerics above plus the mod backpack grid size.
Star
XP required (cumulative dupes)
Mod backpack grid
Grid cells
★1
0
3 × 3
9
★2
1
4 × 3
12
★3
3
4 × 4
16
★4
7
5 × 4
20
★5
17
5 × 5
25
Drive feel
Field
Value
Rotates
true
Fixed angle (deg)
0
Accel curve
linear
Drag curve
exponential
Stop shake intensity
0
Heat shake intensity
0
Heat shake threshold
0.85
Stop spring amount
0
Free-rotating chassis with linear thrust ramp and an exponential drag profile — when thrust is released, velocity multiplies by a constant factor each frame, producing the characteristic “space drag” coast where the ship bleeds speed quickly off the top end and asymptotically approaches zero. All four Backwater hulls share this 0.36 / exponential drag combination. The heat curve runs at the Backwater-standard 12 buildup / 10 cooldown with a front-loaded shape (peak boost early in the heat ramp, falling off as heat approaches burnout), so the overheat-boost loop engages reliably under sustained fire.
Hitbox
Custom convex polygon (no octagon fallback). Normalized to the sprite content box on a ±0.95 / ±0.69 envelope — wider than tall — and applied at native 1.0× sprite scale.
Property
Value
Source
HULL_HITBOXES[‘Backwater_Lizard’]
Vertex count
16
X range
-0.950 to 0.950
Y range
-0.690 to 0.690
Vertices (x, y):
#
X
Y
1
-0.195
0.690
2
-0.377
0.664
3
-0.664
0.560
4
-0.716
0.534
5
-0.742
0.508
6
-0.950
0.013
7
-0.950
-0.013
8
-0.742
-0.508
9
-0.716
-0.534
10
-0.351
-0.664
11
-0.195
-0.690
12
-0.065
-0.690
13
0.924
-0.221
14
0.950
-0.195
15
0.950
0.221
16
-0.065
0.690
Passive
Field
Value
Passive ID
jack_of_all
Passive name
Jack of All Trades
Effect
+{value}% to all stats
Stat target
all
Is percent
true
Values per rank (1–5)
3, 6, 10, 15, 22
The default baseline passive (no per-hull override). Applies a percent buff to all stats at run start, scaling with passive rank. Tier scaling moves with the passive rank roll, not with stars on the same copy.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE
Backwater family signature: front-loaded heat with 12/10 buildup/cooldown. Three of the four Backwater hulls (Caiman, Lizard, Killer Croc) pair front_loaded with 12 buildup / 10 cooldown; only Batwing zeros out both numbers despite declaring the same curve type. Lizard is the rare-tier mid-rung example of the active configuration. Worth a canonical “Backwater heat profile” paragraph on gameplay/ships.md documenting the family-wide pattern and the Batwing exception.
Rare-tier outline color reference. Lizard is the first per-entity page in the wiki at the rare tier (A grade, 44aaff blue outline). Other tiers documented so far: uncommon (B, 50ff78 green — Batwing), legendary (L, ffaa00 orange — Killer Croc). A canonical rarity-to-color/grade/name table on gameplay/ships.md would let entity pages reference it instead of re-pasting the row.
Minimal-delta ★5 override form. Lizard’s ★5 entry pins only four fields (hp, shield, weaponDamagePct, armor) and relies on the s5Val ?? s1Val defaulting in getShipDef for the other ~35 fields. Same compact shape as Caiman and Killer Croc; contrasts with the verbose pattern used by Ancients Rune / Batwing that re-asserts dozens of unchanged baseline fields. Already flagged on Bomber, Cargo, and Killer Croc pages — Lizard reinforces the case as the rare-tier example, and the case for a one-shot mechanical pruning pass continues to strengthen.
No per-star pin entries at all. Lizard is absent from SHIP_STATS_S2, SHIP_STATS_S3, and SHIP_STATS_S4, so the lerp runs straight from ★1 to ★5 with no breakpoints. This is the cleanest data shape in the roster — pure two-endpoint hull with the minimal-delta override. Worth flagging on gameplay/ships.md as the recommended authoring pattern for new hulls that don’t need mid-star pivots.
jack_of_all baseline passive on a rare hull. Lizard inherits the +3/6/10/15/22% all-stats baseline passive — no hull-specific passive override despite the rare tier. Same shape as every other documented hull so far; the design intent (per-faction passives shipping later vs. baseline as the permanent fallback) is still undocumented. Recurring extract candidate — should be resolved on gameplay/ships.md with a single design-intent paragraph.
Hull faction prefix vs faction enum field. Repeats the cross-page flag: the faction data field is solaris for every hull including this Backwater rare, and the actual faction grouping is the prefix on the hull key. Canonical paragraph on gameplay/ships.md is now overdue across at least five entity pages.
Wider-than-tall hitbox. Lizard’s hitbox runs ±0.95 on X and ±0.69 on Y — a markedly wider-than-tall footprint, in contrast to Batwing’s near-square ±0.79 × ±0.95. Combined with the rifle starting weapon (forward-cone fire), the collision profile favors lateral exposure on broadside contact. Worth a sanity-check on gameplay/physics.md against the canonical hitbox catalog and a possible “hitbox aspect-ratio audit” entry on gameplay/ships.md.