DreamBlaster is full of magnificent worlds of every shape and size: some wear rings and some are rings, halos with nothing at the centre, and a rare few are giants packed with nodules all the way to the core. Fly past a world and blast every nodule to conquer it. Fly on and its defenses grow back behind you.

A Blaster’s life revolves around ten Zones, rings laid out from the middle: the Core, the Shallows, the Frontier, the Reaches, the Verge, the Badlands, the Halo Fields, the Deep, the Maw and the Expanse. Each one holds a richer seam of a different ore than the last, and each one guards it harder. You start in the Core. As you journey out the difficulty increases, and there are new worlds and traps to discover. The outer world has no end — it keeps expanding. Press M, or tap the mini map, to open the Sector Map and see the Zones.

The authorities need a way to keep the galaxy in check, and Heat is it. Somebody is keeping count: every nodule you blast is a mark against you in a ledger the world authorities keep, and the running total is your Heat. They tolerate a great deal of it. Then they send a raid to remind you who charts the rings. Conquering raises HEAT. Max it and a raid comes for you — the level is how many ships get deployed in a 3-wave attack.

You will be back here often. The Space Depot is the one neutral ground in every Zone: bosses do not come to it and raids do not follow you in. Tap the SPACE DEPOT button on your game screen, or press V, and the concourse opens. This is the concourse, where you visit store fronts and rooms to upgrade your guns, defenses, Marks and ordnance; take work from the Contracts Board and the Mission Bureau; jump to any Zone with Rift Runners; trade ore at Mira’s Exchange; browse the Customization Shop and Walt’s Wares; and step into the Hangar and the Trophy Room. Sell, buy, fit out, take a job, and warp back out. Each store front is explained under THE SPACE DEPOT below.

Ore and credits are what the stores charge, and the Space Depot is where a Blaster spends them. There is one in every Zone, neutral ground where bosses do not come and raids do not follow, and every store front on the concourse makes the ship better. Volt’s Armaments sells the guns: fire rate, damage, more barrels, the twin barrel, missile capacity, warheads, bomb yield and the EMP's reach and freeze time, a level at a time. Bulwark Defenses sells what keeps you alive: hull, shields and thrusters. The War Arsenal sells the Marks, three lines, Guns, Armor and Thrust, each climbing to MK-C, and with hull resizing it is the Marks that open each larger hull, from the starter rig at size 20 all the way to hull size 95. The Ordnance Bay stocks the Timed and Single Use Ordnance, and Mira’s Exchange refines one ore into the next when you are short of the one a store wants. More than a hundred upgrades in all, and every one of them is speed, blasting power, hull strength or resource collection you keep for good. The further out you mean to fly, the more of them you will want.

The game has two currencies, Resources and Credits. Resources are gathered; credits are both earned and minted. Mira is always willing to mint credits, because the demand for ore is so high: one credit for one diamond, forty steel or ten gold. Credits are the Bureau’s ledger, not cargo: they take no hold space and cannot be raided. Bosses, Missions and Raider Traps pay them and they buy the maps, the Heat Purge and the fire patterns your guns spray, and every store on the concourse takes them toward any ore price when your hold is short, a credit for a diamond’s worth. Your ore is spent first and credits cover the rest.

A Blaster really starts to find their bearings when they discover how much easier Timed Ordnance makes everything, from blasting to collecting. A shield that shrugs off raids, guns that fill the sky, an engine that outruns anything the authorities send, ore that flies to the hold on its own: this is where the grind ends and the fun begins. Timed Ordnance makes blasting a dream. Seven of your ordnances run on a clock: Aegis Shield, Multi-Blasters, Blaster Booster, Super Thrusters, Mass Attractor, Auto-Targeting and the Coolant Field, on keys 1 to 7. Fire one and it runs for three minutes, shown by a timer bar under your hull and shield. Quick swipe 1-7 and you’re running all ordnance at once (recommended). Fire another and they stack, each on its own clock. A charge is spent when you fire it, so carry spares. The Coolant Field is the odd one out: it does not arm the ship, while it runs, the worlds you conquer count only a tenth toward the next heat raid and the next world attack, so they come 90% less often. The ones that do come are full strength; to clear the tally against you, buy the Heat Purge.

Three of your ordnances are fired one at a time: the Missile on the Space bar, the EMP on E and the wide-area Bomb on B. They are the answer when guns are not enough. A Missile is a bomb you aim: it flies slow enough to follow, and its blast takes out a whole small world, growing to a 600 radius with Warhead Yield, an EMP hits every ship and nodule within 500 of you for 500 damage and freezes whatever survives for 20 seconds (900 and 40 seconds with the EMP Bay), holding back every new ship, raids included, until it thaws or you fire on something it didn't freeze, and a Bomb clears a whole patch of sky at once. Each shows its count on its button at the right of your screen. One is spent every time you fire, and when the count hits zero the button stays put and reads 0 until you restock. Strategic use of Bombs and EMPs will help clear World Attacks and Heat Raids more quickly, and it's also useful in clearing Prospecting Contracts quicker. Carry spares.

The Sovereigns are the light beings that rule the Zones, and every Zone has one waiting. Most of what you see is threat display; the real part is a life force that shoves your ship away but never wounds it. Its defense is everything it puts between you and itself: a ring of nodules, the two Archs it sends first, and the drones it calls, and while any of them are in the air the Sovereign takes no damage.

Every fight is the same shape: clear the screen, then hurt him. Wear the core down and he rages, and a rage is a window you cannot shoot through. Out of the rage comes the charge: he stops, winds up, and comes straight at you, and the wind-up is the only warning you get. Dodge it, blast him while he recovers, and repeat until one of you is done. His drones drain your ship the whole time, so shields, boosters and thrusters burn down faster the longer you stay in it, and a higher MK line is how you outlast that.

The Archs are a Sovereign’s chosen guard, a warrior caste that trains for one thing: combat in defense of their Sovereign. You will know one on sight by the breathing double-ring core at its centre. They come in pairs, and while either still stands the Sovereign stays out of reach, so the Archs are always the first fight.

They fight the way their Sovereign does: they hold with a ring of nodules, screen with drones, and answer with the charge. Their drones drain your ship the same way, so the longer the fight runs the heavier everything gets. One Arch is almost always stronger than the other, and when the first falls it gives its last energy to the survivor, so the second Arch you face is stronger than the one you just beat. Clear both and the Sovereign comes forward.

The Expanse has no organized mining operations, and the Raiders out here are just waiting for an adventurous miner to come flying by. Their tool is the gate: a pull field left lying in the dark past the last charted ring, and the pull reaches far wider than the gate itself. If you are cruising fast enough you will not see it until you have already been trapped. It is a toll gate. You are the toll.

Blast them and you get warped back out the same way you were warped in. Break out and the gate pays for the privilege. Escaping strips the raiders of everything they were holding — every material and a purse of credits, both scaled to your Boss level, which is why a trap sprung deep is worth more than one sprung early. Then the gate runs the same warp in reverse, spits you back into open space and collapses behind you. Every escape is counted, and the tally feeds the Raider Traps Escaped award ladder.

A boss does not have to fire on anyone. It takes a field and runs it — a toll on the lane, a haul route shut, a claim seized — and the work stops paying: crews will not launch, no hauler will run the lane, and the seams are abandoned. The display is why nobody argues. That is what the Mission Bureau posts against, and why it asks for someone able-bodied to go and settle it. It is your choice. You can fly, mine, upgrade and conquer the whole galaxy without ever facing one — but the lives of countless millions can be relieved if you do.

The Worlds you clear repair themselves, or reappear if fully conquered. The Light Beings and their Archs are not killed — every Boss you take down is on display in your Trophy Room, where you can view them running their full light display, mechanisms and all, alongside the Archs they deployed.

The ships that come at you are pilotless drones — remote hulls without a soul on board, deployed by bosses or world authorities as cover, or as deterrents from unauthorized mining. They are the only thing in the game that actually gets destroyed — but 10 more are made to replace it, so you never run out of fun! They run on ore the way the bosses do, storing it and smelting it to keep flying, so a downed drone leaves a scatter of it behind: a few pieces or a handful, depending on how full it was, and richer ore the deeper out you meet it.

Your Gleaner drones sweep the zones you cleared and leave a cache at the dock once a day. Open one every day in a row to climb the 7-day ladder: ore, credits, Bombs on day 3, EMPs on day 4, Missiles and diamonds on day 5, Bombs again on day 6 and a heavy cache on day 7, each day bigger than the last. Every full week makes the next week's caches bigger. Miss one day and you can keep the streak by watching a video (a pass’s Pass Shield covers up to 2 missed days a week); miss more and it starts over. Tap LATER and the cache waits for you behind a glowing credits button beside the Au button. Tap that button any time to claim a waiting cache, watch the free videos and see your past caches. Once you have opened the day’s cache, watch a video for a bonus crate: the same cache again, once a day. With a pass there is no video; the bonus crate is yours to claim. A Dream Pass also claims the Free Ordnance without a video, and Dream Pass Ultra or a Mission Pack adds a second bonus crate every day. Without a pass, the bottom of the cache is Banner Rewards: run a small banner under the game, pick one speed-up (faster re-buys, shorter batch gaps or bigger batches) and free charges that arrive on their own clocks while the banner runs: one at Stage 1, two at Stage 2, three at Stage 3. They wait on the Banner Rewards strip until you tap COLLECT, then you install them in the Hangar.

Contracts are paid jobs, posted at the Contracts Board in the Space Depot by whoever the trouble happened to. Take several at once, then find them on your map or chase them down using the coloured chevrons at the edge of your screen; each kind has its own colour. Finish one and its pay waits at the Depot until you cash it in. The Bureau counts your finished contracts before it opens a Mission. Every boss you beat opens six more, the ones you don’t use stack up, and the Board always keeps a couple of Core-side jobs on offer for an easy run home. Each kind, and how to play it, is under CONTRACTS below.

Missions are posted at the Mission Bureau and you take one at a time. Each one answers to a Boss holding a region, and they run outward ring by ring. Once you accept one, Rift Runners will jump you straight to it — from the Bureau itself, or from their own store.

A Special Mission is not a Contract: it has no client and runs past the charted rings, so only the Mission Bureau can post it, one at a time. The Deep Run is that flight, and the payout is Extreme. How it works is under MISSIONS below.

Nobody dies out here. If your ship is overwhelmed with firepower and the hull gives, you are not killed; you are raided for 5% of your hold, the ore gone with the wreck, and flung clear of the world or drones that took you down. A short count runs while you catch your breath, then you are back in the fight. If it was a raid that got you, the raid is still out there. The ledger, your Marks, your worlds and your ordnance are untouched. Fly a full hold into a hard fight and the raiders eat well; fly light and it barely stings.

Every Blaster keeps a ledger, and yours is the gold Au symbol on your game screen. Tap it, press N, or tap View on your controller (on a computer View opens both maps side by side, or the Sector Map alone if you pick SECTOR FIRST under CONTROLLER MAPS in Settings; on a phone it opens the Sector Map; with the Sector Map alone, the D-pad left or right flips to this one), and the map drops down: what you are carrying, what you have mined from the Zone you are in, and what every Zone has paid you so far, ore by ore, with the Zone where each ore runs richest. This will come in handy when you are trying to unlock the next boss and need a high amount of a specific type of ore: this map shows you the Zone with the highest concentration. Put that beside your Sector Map and you know where to fly to gather it the quickest. It is how you find the seam the Bureau wants before the next Mission. Open the Sector Map as well and the two sit side by side. The Hangar’s Map Style switch sets whether the Mining Map holds the game while it is up (Overlay) or lets it run (Live). The full read is under THE Au MAP below.

The charts the authorities keep, and the one thing of theirs a Blaster is glad to have. Tap the mini map on your game screen, press M, or tap View on your controller (on a computer the Mining Map opens beside it, unless Settings > CONTROLLER MAPS is set to SECTOR FIRST), and the sector map opens: the ten Zones as rings out from the Core, your ship and its distance from the centre, every Contract you are carrying as a coloured dot, and every Prospecting claim as a violet ring. The charts stop at the Maw; past that ring the map only knows the Expanse is there, because no survey has ever come back to fill it in. Open the Mining Map too and the two sit side by side.

Two dials in the Hangar set how the maps come up. Map Style: Overlay holds the game and dims the screen while a map is up; Live keeps the game running under see-through maps. Live maps, shown once Live is picked: Full size or Small, Centre or Top, and with both maps open, Together or Wide. Each dial is explained under THE HANGAR below.

The framed box at the top right of your screen, with BOSS N METER in bold yellow, is what stands between you and the next Mission. On a new game it opens with your First Flight, seven lines: conquer ten worlds, claim five Awards, accept a Contract, open the Mining Map, open the Sector Map, visit the Hangar, sample every Visual Control in the Hangar, each turning green as you do it. Then, until Volt’s Armaments and Bulwark Defenses are bought out, it shows one line for each store, the levels you have bought against the levels you may buy before your first boss, each with its own bar, and each turning green when the store is bought out. The screen calls out PHASE 1 BOSS METER COMPLETE the moment your First Flight is done, and PHASE 2 BOSS METER COMPLETE when both stores are bought out. After that it shows the three things the Bureau wants before it posts Mission N: the ore mined since your last boss against the amount required, the named ores that ore has to include, and the contracts completed against the contracts needed, each line turning green as it is met. When all three are green it reads MISSION N AVAILABLE — MISSION BUREAU, and while a Mission runs it reads MISSION N UNDER WAY. After your first boss, the Boss 2 meter opens with its own Phase 1 before Mission 2’s lines: Volt’s Armaments, the levels you may buy before Boss 2, and all three MK-II Marks from War Arsenal (Guns, Armor and Thrust); PHASE 1 BOSS METER COMPLETE is called when both lines are done. It steps aside during a boss fight and in the Hangar. Check it before you fly: it tells you what to mine and where to spend your contracts.

On a new game the Boss meter opens with seven things every Blaster does once: conquer ten worlds, claim five Awards in the Awards panel, accept a Contract at the Contracts Board, open the Mining Map (the Au symbol, or N), open the Sector Map (the mini map, or M), visit the Hangar (H), where the Map Style switch lives, and switch on every Visual Control there once: Fire and the seven Timed Ordnance. Each line turns green as it is done, and the Mission Bureau stays locked until all seven are. When they are, the meter moves on to the Store Meter. They belong to a new game: once done they do not come back until you start another.

Once your First Flight is done and before your first Mission, the Boss meter carries the Store Meter, two lines you will not see again: Volt’s Armaments and Bulwark Defenses, each showing the upgrade levels you have bought against the levels you may buy before Boss 1, with its own bar that fills as you buy and turns green when that store is bought out. Under them one line tells you to buy both out at the Space Depot to open Mission 1. They show only before your first Mission: the moment both stores are bought out the meter switches to its ore, named-ore and contract lines, and for the rest of that game the Store Meter does not come back.

Three dials sit under the Boss meter and read your ship as it flies. SPEED is how fast you are going right now, in units per second, and the dial sweeps against your top speed, so it swings as you throttle and jumps when Super Thrusters fire; the line under it shows that top speed and your Thrust Mark. FIRE POWER is the damage per second your main guns are putting out, barrels, cadence, Marks and Booster included; the dial is your Gun Mark, empty at MK-I and full at MK-C, so every Mark you buy moves it. HULL STRENGTH is your maximum hull, with your maximum shield and your Armor Mark on the line beneath, and the dial is the Armor Mark on the same scale. Buy an upgrade or turn a Mark dial in the Hangar and the gauges move the moment you are back in space. They step aside in the Depot, the Hangar bay and boss warps.

This is where the real fun begins. Your ship starts as an MK-I, and the ladder runs all the way to MK-C, a hundred Marks, on three lines: Guns, Armor and Thrust. Every Mark you buy raises your firepower, your hull and shields or your speed, and with hull resizing each Mark opens a larger hull, from the starter rig at size 20 all the way to hull size 95. Buy them all, and if you prefer a slower ship with max guns, the speed Mark can be dialed down in the Hangar while Fire and Hull stay at the top; nothing you bought is lost. The War Arsenal at the Space Depot sells them, a tier at a time, for ore. With a Pass you can upgrade as many Marks as you want instantly, and without a pass you are only allowed one Mark per Boss.

Under the Ship Gauges sits the MK meter, a box like the Boss meter with MARKS in yellow and your three Marks, Guns, Armor and Thrust, on its title line. Each line below names the next Mark on that line and what stands between you and it. Green means you can buy it now, outright or by refining at Mira’s Exchange, and the line shows what you hold against the price, both as their worth in credits, one credit to a diamond, the same scale the War Arsenal prints beside every ore price. The Mark itself is bought with ore, with BUY when you hold the recipe or with BUY with Mira’s Exchange when refining covers it. Amber means you are short even through Mira, and the line still shows your hold’s worth against the price in credits, with the bar filled to that ratio, so any ore you collect moves it. At MK-C the line reads maxed. When any Mark is buyable the box ends with GUNS MK-N AVAILABLE — WAR ARSENAL, or Armor or Thrust, in the same green as a Mission call-out. It steps aside in the Depot, the Hangar bay and boss warps, the same as the gauges.

Want a cleaner screen? In Settings, SHOW ON SCREEN hides or shows the Boss meter, the MK meter, the Ship Gauges and your Single Use ordnance counts, each on its own. Hiding one only takes it off the screen; on a touch screen, hiding Single Use also hides its Missile, EMP and Bomb buttons.

The game marks everything it wants you to find, and the shape tells you what kind of job it is.

Small coloured chevrons around the edge — one for each Contract you are carrying, pointing the way to it. They show only while that job is off screen and wink out as it comes into view. The colour is the job: Bandit Barricade, Rescue Run, Strike Job, Mining Op, Prospecting — the same colours the Sector Map uses, so a chevron and a map dot always agree.

A breathing coloured circle with a name over it — that is the Contract itself, once you are close enough to see it. It pulses so it reads as live, carries the job’s name above it, and disappears the moment the Contract is finished. If there is no circle, there is nothing left to do there.

The big gold arrow — your Mission Bureau job, and you only ever carry one. It behaves differently from the Contract chevrons on purpose: it never leaves the screen. It rides a circle around your ship and points at the beacon from wherever you are, so you can always turn and follow it. The line along the bottom of the screen names the job and counts the distance down — SPECIAL MISSION — 42k to the beacon.

The big gold circle — the beacon’s footprint, and the one marker drawn out in the world rather than on the edge of your screen. It appears when you reach the beacon and the fight starts, and it is the ground you have to hold: stay inside the ring. A dashed inner ring shows you the middle of it.

On the jobs themselves — a green dashed line to a SAFE ZONE marker is the route you are escorting a rescued ship along. A blue bubble around a trapped ship is its captors’ containment field: clear them and it drops. A Strike Job relay wears rotating shells and a SHELL n / N bar — break the outer one to reach the next, and a shell reads SEALING for a moment after it opens, during which your shots will not bite.

Prospecting. The fifth chevron colour is violet, and it belongs to a Prospecting Contract. The claim itself is a violet ring three times the size of a beacon, with PROSPECTING CONTRACT over it and a count of the worlds cleared against the worlds inside. The chevron stays up whenever the ring is off screen, and the label turns to CONTRACT MINED when the last world falls.

Mining Op masses. An ore mass tells you what it wants. SCOUTS HOLD THE <ore> means it cannot be mined yet; CLEAR THE SCOUTS — N LEFT counts them down as you blast them; MINE <ore> — N% is the mass itself, going down as you strip it.

In a boss fight, the screen edge carries trackers so you never lose him: LV N BOSS with the distance, one for each Arch by its type, and N SHIPS for the escort. Turn toward the tracker and the target comes into view.

Banners you will see as you play: ENTERING <zone> as you cross a ring, with the MK the zone is recommended for underneath; MISSION AVAILABLE when the Bureau posts one; HEAT RAID in red when the authorities come; WORLD ATTACK when the worlds themselves do.

On the bottom of the screen you will see a gold indicator letting you know the current Mission Bureau job and how far it is: SPECIAL MISSION — 42k (distance in game measurement) to the beacon on a Mission, TREASURE MAP — distance on the way to a Motherlode, and MINE THE MOTHERLODE — N sections left once you’re on it.

Passes are designed to give you advantages in the game. There are three paid passes to choose from, two are monthly and one is a Day pass for those that want to experience the finer blasting in life before committing. A pass takes waiting out of the equation: experience faster speeds & greater blasting and collecting capabilities right away. There are more than 100 ship upgrades that increase speed, blasting power, hull strength & resource collection, and a pass is the quickest way there. Find them at Walt’s Wares in the Space Depot, and read each one under IN-GAME PURCHASES below.

You can play the whole game without a pass; the trade is time and the occasional advertisement. Without a pass the War Arsenal opens one Mark per boss: MK-II is open from the start, then one more with every boss you beat, MK-III after Boss 1, MK-IV after Boss 2, and so on, and every ordnance charge has a re-buy cooldown after purchase, from fifteen seconds for Super Thrusters to two and a half minutes for the Blaster Booster. A pass lifts both while it runs. Timed ordnance is also bought one charge at a time and installed one at a time: buy one, install it in the Hangar, fire it, and the Bay sells the next once its re-buy cooldown clears, so at most one is running and one is installed. Single Use ordnance has no such limit; stock up as much as you like once its cooldown clears. Visiting the Hangar never cancels a running ordnance. A pass lifts the one-at-a-time rule as well. If your pass ends, you keep every Mark you bought; nothing is ever taken back. But a Mark above your boss count is held: you must first beat the boss with its number in game before that Mark can be used, so a ship that bought MK-LVI on a pass cannot fly MK-LVI until Boss 56 falls, and until then it flies at the highest Mark its bosses allow. Reinstate a pass and the gate lifts at once; the speed, firepower and shields of every Mark you own come straight back. Each of the three lines is judged on its own. Ordnance you bought outright is kept too; only the free Locked and Loaded surplus above five of each goes when a 1-Day Pass ends, and the cooldowns return.

Hitting his core is what provokes him. Take enough off and he breaks away from whatever he’s doing and charges you head-on — so pick your ground before you land the shot that sets him off.

When he stops moving he is winding up, and then he comes straight at you. That windup is your tell: hold your ground until he commits, then cut sideways — he cannot turn mid-charge. Every clean dodge is +2.5% reward, and taking no hits at all pays a +25% bonus on every front. Running is what gets you clipped.

He does not hunt you. A Sovereign takes his ground and holds it, and everything he does is defense. His ring of nodules is the first wall. His drones are the second: while any are in the air he cannot be touched, so every fight is clear the screen, then hurt him. Wear his core down and he rages, and a rage is a window you cannot shoot through. Out of the rage comes the charge: he stops, winds up, and comes straight at you, and the wind-up is the only warning you get. When the charges are spent he calls fresh ships and starts again. That is the cycle, ring, ships, rage, charge, and he runs it until one of you is done.

The cycle is not fixed. A higher Sovereign has more to defend himself with, not thicker skin: the ring comes back after he releases his ships, the charges come in pairs and then threes, and the Archs he sent first can return at his side. Deep in the ladder he stops pausing between charges at all and comes at you until the end. Learn the rhythm on the early Sovereigns, because the rhythm changes on the way up.

In Free Play, once the early, easy ore has gone into Volt’s Armaments and Bulwark Defenses and you need valuable resources, go to the Ordnance Bay and stock up on Wide-Area Bombs. A Diamond nodule is hard to blast with your guns, but two bombs blast everything in the area, and you can easily collect over 1,000 Diamonds.

After you bomb an area and gather all the Diamonds, go to the Ordnance Bay and buy a Blaster Booster: it frees up Diamonds for the next three minutes. While you are loading up, add an Aegis Shield so you don’t lose your loot to a raid. When the Booster runs out, repeat the process for the best results: Bombs, Boosters, Shields, until you have bought all of Volt’s Armaments and Bulwark Defenses to unlock the boss. Then keep repeating it until you can buy a full set of ordnance, which is recommended before you go up against your first boss; beating him unlocks greater firepower, hull strength and shields, and MK-II.

As soon as you’re able, add a Mass Attractor to the loop, so you don’t have to fly around collecting and leave valuable resources behind to fade away. You’ll want Auto-Targeting as soon as possible too, because then you only have to point your ship at the areas you want to mine. Add Multi-Blasters as soon as you can as well, to loosen the ore even faster. Speaking of faster, don’t forget to add Super Thrusters to boost your ship’s speed and mine even faster. And if you’re pulling too much heat, add a Coolant Charge to the mix to buy down the heat from the authorities.

Feel free to swipe 1–6 or 1–7 as you add items. The game won’t start a purchased ordnance until the one already running is depleted, so you don’t have to worry about which key launches which. Just swipe them all to add the new ordnance into the mix.

A camp of drones squatting a claim. They defend the camp and nothing else. They will not chase you past its edge, so you go to them. Blast the pack and the camp calls up reinforcements, wave after wave, until it has none left. When the last wave is down, the job is done.

A crew caught inside their captors’ containment field. Break the captors and the field drops. Then escort the crew home and stay with them until they are clear. Four times on the way home a ring of raiders closes round the crew. The screen flashes red and the crew stops until you clear the ring, and a red MAYDAY tells you when they are taking fire. Their owners pay five times what anyone else does, because they are buying people back. Lose the crew and the rescue fails, but the contract slot comes back to you: pick any job off the Contracts Board to replace it, a rescue or anything else.

A relay wearing rotating shells, one inside the other. Each shell has to be broken before the next will take a hit, so keep your fire on it and work inward. When the relay goes, the job is done.

A Mining Op is three ore masses in a zone with no worlds. Each mass is held by a pack of scouts, and the mass cannot be mined until every scout is down; the label over the mass tells you how many are left. Clear them and the mass shows its three rotating shells, the same shells a Strike Job relay wears and every bit as tough: break the outer one, wait out the seal, break the next, and the ore is yours when the last shell goes. The marker then moves you to the next mass. When the last one is gone the zone stays empty until you fly out past its edge, and the worlds come back behind you.

A Prospecting Contract is posted by an exploration company: a claim in an authorized zone, anywhere out to the Maw, marked by a violet ring three times the size of a mission beacon. Fly in and mine every world inside it. What you blast stays blasted, even if you leave and come back, and the claim is complete when the last world falls. It is authorized work, so none of it goes on your Heat. The ring holds until you fly out past its edge.

Missions are posted at the Mission Bureau, one at a time, and each one answers to a Sovereign holding a Zone. There are a hundred of them, Mission 1 to Mission 100, and Mission N is Boss N. They run outward ring by ring, so the first six never leave the Core, and once you accept one, Rift Runners jump you straight to it.

Every Mission has its own requirements, and they climb with the number. Three things have to be true before the Bureau posts it: you have mined enough ore since your last boss, 75,000 for Mission 1 and 5,000 more for each Mission after, 570,000 by Mission 100; you have completed enough contracts, and that count climbs with every Mission; and a fifth of that ore came from the right seams, mostly the Zone’s own ore, with a share from the Zone inside it and the Zone beyond. Mission 100, the Core, wants an equal share of all six. The Boss meter on your screen tracks all three, and the Bureau’s ACCEPT button reads LOCKED until they are met.

A Special Mission has no client: it runs past the charted rings, so only the Bureau can post it, one at a time, beacon and all. The Deep Run is that flight: a long haul out into the Expanse, then a five-wave gauntlet at the beacon. The payout is Extreme, and each run charts one more piece of the Expanse.

A treasure map is a bearing to a Motherlode, a mass deep in the Expanse where every ore was folded into one body. There are five, sold for credits at the Rift Runners’ door, and the deeper the map the longer the haul. Short on credits but long on ore? Mira’s Mint strikes the credits from your hold and launches the map in one tap. You mine a Motherlode the way you mine anything, except the Expanse does not want it mined and sends siege after siege while you work. Strip it and a Mining Report rises over your ship with every ore it paid and the total; everything you blasted out of it is yours, and the map is spent. There is always another.

Level up your ship at the various stores, or find new adventures. A Space Depot is always nearby no matter what zone you're in — look for the button on your game screen.

See where you are and where your contracts and Mission are. Tap the mini map on your game screen to open the full sector map.

Collect Awards for accomplishing Achievements — mining, world domination and more. Tap the AWARDS button on your game screen to cash them in; the game pauses while the Awards panel is open.

Your mining stats, per zone. If you're into it, you can use your mining map to earn more achievements and collect more rewards — otherwise, blast away. Look for the gold Au symbol on your game screen.

Your running totals: worlds conquered, the boss tier you’ve reached, and credits banked, the Bureau’s ledger, one credit to a diamond. Nothing to click here, just a tally of your accomplishments.

A monthly pass, in two sizes. The Dream Pass unlocks the whole store to buy from: every fire colour, spray, ship skin and hull size, the Rift Runners’ door and every tier of the War Arsenal. It unlocks, it does not pay. Everything still costs the ore or credits it always did, but you don’t have to wait to unlock all the advanced ship modifications. Dream Pass Ultra adds unlimited ordnance every day and 100,000,000 of every material every month: $8.99 a month for your first 3 months, then $12.95 with no ads, or $8.99 for good with a few ads (each time you play, up to 3 short ads or a 15-minute banner, your choice in Settings). Find both at Walt’s Wares in the Space Depot. If you want EVERYTHING included see the Dream Pass Ultra.

Twenty-four hours of everything, so you can play the deep game today. The Mission Pack is a Resource Pass, 10,000,000 of every material, plus Locked and Loaded: unlimited ordnance for the day, every purchase installing itself, no Hangar trips. Every upgrade and every Mark you buy while it runs is yours to keep when the timer ends; the paid looks and hull resizing stay only with the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass. Its 1-Day Pass unlocks every upgrade and the whole War Arsenal instantly. Buying a second one while the first is running adds another day; it never throws away time you already have. A New Game resets the ship and the Resource Pass. The Mission Pack is at Walt’s Wares, and it is offered once when you first launch.

Make the ship yours in the Hangar. Fire colours recolour your bullets and missiles. Fire sprays change the pattern your guns throw: Scatter, Helix, Storm and Bloom, unlocked for good with the Fire Pattern Pack at the Customization Shop, 12,000 credits, and each spray can fire in your Fire Color or its own pack colours, switched spray by spray in the Hangar. A new ship starts at 20, pass or no pass, grows to 30 at thirteen worlds and to 42 at forty-two, with a flash and an Award each time. Hull resizing comes with the Ship Mods Pack: pick 20, 30 or 42 any time, and once you have blasted your way to 42, each larger size up to 95 as you climb Marks. Ship skins and hull colours pin a look, or leave the hull on Auto and it follows your Mark. Each unlock is a small one-time purchase, and all of them are free with a Dream Pass.

On Android, tap SETTINGS and the game should go full screen automatically. If it doesn’t, tap FULL SCREEN in there. Installing the game to your home screen makes it full screen for good.

Starting a new conquest keeps the one you had. Open SETTINGS and tap RESTORE PREVIOUS CONQUEST to bring it back. The conquest you were on is kept in its place, so you can swap back the same way. Only the most recent one is kept.

Pause, settings, how to play and quit. Progress auto-saves, so quitting is safe.

Every Blaster keeps a ledger, and yours is the gold Au symbol on your game screen. Tap it, press N, or tap View on your controller, and the map drops down.

The top of the map is ON HAND: every ore you are carrying, mined or bought. Beside each one is its name and, under CONCENTRATION, the ring where that ore runs richest. Every ring holds a little of everything, but each one is known for one ore above the rest, and that is the column to read when you need a particular haul.

Below that is MINED, your take from the ring you are flying in right now, ore by ore. Under it sits the full chart: every ring you have worked, what you pulled from each, and the grand total at the bottom. The ring you are in is lit. This is your record of where you have been and what it paid.

The next Mission does not open for free. The Boss meter on your screen names the ores the Bureau wants to see before it posts, and the amounts. When it asks for an ore you are short of, open the Au map, find that ore’s ring under CONCENTRATION, and fly there. Mine until the meter is satisfied, then move on. You are not chained to one ring for the whole haul. Take what you need where it runs richest, and come back when the meter says MISSION AVAILABLE.

The further out you mine, the richer the seams, and the more interest you draw.

One neutral ground in every zone. Bosses don’t come to it and raids don’t follow you in. Below is every store and room on the concourse, and learning what each one sells is half the game.

Blasters and missiles. Fire rate, damage, more barrels, the twin barrel, missile capacity, warheads, bomb yield and the EMP's reach and freeze time, each bought a level at a time for ore.

Hull, shields and thrusters. What keeps you in one piece and gets you out of trouble.

The seven timed charges: Shield, Multi Blasters, Booster, Thrusters, Attractor, Auto-Targeting and Coolant, plus bombs, missiles and EMP. Each charge has its own ore price, printed with its worth in credits, and credits cover what the hold lacks. Every price steps up about 11 percent with each boss you beat, in step with what your ship earns, so the Bay is always one or two charges at a time. Buy them here, install them in the Hangar.

The Marks. Three lines, Gun, Armor and Thrust, each climbing to MK-C, bought a tier at a time for ore. Every Mark at a tier costs the same on all three lines, and each card prints that worth in credits beside its ore price; what your hold lacks, your credits can cover. The Auto buttons apply each new tier as you buy it. Without a pass the Arsenal opens one Mark per boss on every line: MK-II is open from the start, then one more with every boss you beat, MK-III after Boss 1, MK-IV after Boss 2, and so on. A Dream Pass or a 1-Day Pass opens every Mark at once; you still pay the ore.

Bandit Barricades, Rescue Runs, Strike Jobs, Mining Ops and Prospecting Contracts, posted by whoever it happened to. Take several, find them on your map, cash in here.

One Mission at a time, each answering to a Sovereign holding a ring, and it will not talk to you until you’ve proven yourself on the Board.

A jump crew. For a fee in diamond they put your ship in any zone you name, instantly.

Short of one material? Trade for it. Mira trades on the credit scale, the same both ways: 2 of anything makes 1 of the tier above and one breaks back into two, except platinum, where five make two diamonds. Steel → Silver → Gold → Titanium → Platinum → Diamond, and a diamond is forty steel at every step. If a trade says not enough, it tells you which refine to do first — do that one and the next unlocks.

Any item you can’t quite afford gets a BUY with Mira’s Exchange button. One tap refines everything it needs and buys it — no trips to the stall. It’s greyed out when even converting isn’t enough, and it’ll tell you how much more ore you need.

Fire sprays, fire colours, ship colours and hull sizes. Make it unmistakably yours.

Everything the galaxy sells under one awning: the Dream Pass and the packs.

Install your ordnance and make ship modifications. The Visual Controls, Fire and the seven Timed Ordnance, let you see your appearance changes right there in the bay. The Map Style switch is here too: Overlay holds the game while the Mining Map is up, Live keeps it running, and Live maps can be set smaller, moved to the top of the screen, or pushed wide apart when both are open. Find your Hangar once you’re in the Space Depot.

Every Sovereign and Arch you’ve taken down, on display and running their full light show. Open one to see it large and step through the rest with the arrow keys. Use the BAYS control in the header to size the room: 12, 6, 3 or 1 across. Twelve shows the whole collection at a glance, one gives a single being the entire room. Switch any time; your choice is remembered.

Every Blaster keeps a bay at the Depot, and it’s the one room out here that’s yours. Ordnance bought at the Bay is installed here, parts go on the ship here, and the ship shows them: more cannons, thicker hull, brighter drives. Hit READY to launch straight back into space.

Everything you’ve bought but not yet fitted waits here with its count. Install them one at a time, or INSTALL ALL in one tap. Nothing you buy works until it’s installed.

What’s on the ship right now, charge by charge: Shield, Multi Blasters, Booster, Thrusters, Attractor, Auto-Targeting, Coolant, and your bombs, missiles and EMP counts. This is what the number keys fire.

The Bay emulates flying around so you can apply ship modifications and see them in action to help you make your selections on the various visual mods. Fly the ship with your normal controls, and the Visual Controls on the right switch Fire and the seven Timed Ordnance, Thruster, Shield, Multi, Booster, Auto-Aim, Attractor and Coolant, on and off so you can see exactly what each one looks like on your hull before you spend a charge in the field. GLOW FX is the same switch the pause menu has.

Three dials, Guns, Armor and Thrust, one per Mark line. Each shows the highest tier you own and lets you fly a lower one. Auto keeps the dial on your newest purchase so every War Arsenal buy applies itself. Turn a dial down when you want a slower ship or a lighter fight, and turn it back up any time. The dials never spend anything.

Find your Rhythm. With more than 100 upgrades to your ship’s Speed alone, not everyone will want to use the fastest speed. Here you can fine tune your Hull, Fire Power & MK Thrusters to match your desired gameplay.

Every new ship starts at 20, pass or no pass, grows to 30 at thirteen worlds and to 42 at forty-two, with a flash and an Award each time; you blast your way there the same whoever you are. Past 42, once Hull Resizing is unlocked with the Ship Mods Pack or a pass, the hull follows your Mark up the ladder on its own; step it down in the Hangar to pin a smaller size, and step it back to the top to let it follow again. A bigger hull is more ship to hit and more ship to admire. The Dream Pass opens the whole ladder.

Pick a colour for your bullets and missiles, and switch any time. Opened by the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass.

The pattern your guns throw: Scatter, Helix, Storm and Bloom, all four yours once the Fire Pattern Pack is bought, chosen here and switched any time. Each spray has its own colour switch beside it: your Fire Color, or its own pack colours, stream by stream. The standard fan is always there, in your Fire Color.

Every Mark you reach unlocks its livery. Auto paints the ship in the colour of the Mark you fly; pin any earlier colour to keep it.

Pick a colour for your engine flame, then fly the bay to watch it burn. Opened by the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass.

Recolour the Aegis shield that wraps the hull when you fire one. Opened by the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass.

A glow that radiates from behind the hull. Opened by the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass.

Change how your guns look on the ship. Opened by the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass.

Dual Flame, a white-hot core inside your thrust colour; Twin Jets, two hard exhaust cones; Afterburner, a long flame trailing shock rings; Ion Trail, a stream of fading embers; Plasma Flare, a wide cone with a bright rim. Seen only while Super Thrusters are running; the AUTO FLY switch under them flies the ship for you so you can watch each flame. These three looks are opened together by the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass.

Halo Bubble, the classic glowing sphere; Hex Shell, a honeycomb lattice over the bubble; Gyro Rings, three rings tumbling around you; Solid Dome, a heavier, denser shell. Seen only while an Aegis Shield is up.

Burn Aura, the classic pulsing heat field; Shock Rings, rings hammering outward from the hull; Vortex, sweeping arcs spinning around you. Seen only while a Blaster Booster is running.

The eight switches beside the column: Fire, then under Timed Ordnance the seven timed charges, Thruster, Shield, Multi, Booster, Auto-Aim, Attractor and Coolant. Each one turns that effect on in the bay so you can see the colour, the spray or the look in action while you fly.

Two cards under the MK dials set how the Mining Map (N) and the Sector Map (M) come up. Overlay holds the game and dims the screen while a map is up, the way the maps have always worked. Live keeps the game running while you read: no dim, the maps go see-through, and you can still fly. Open both and they sit side by side either way; a map on its own takes the centre of the screen.

Pick Live and a second card, Live maps, appears with three pairs of buttons. Full size / Small: Small shrinks both maps together. Centre / Top: Centre puts the maps in the middle of the screen; Top moves them up, level with the top of the Boss meter. Together / Wide: with both maps open, Together sets them side by side in the middle; Wide pushes them apart, the Sector Map beside the Boss meter and the Mining Map the same distance the other way, leaving the middle of the screen clear. These placements need a wide screen; on a narrow one the maps keep their old places. Your picks are saved and carry into a new game.

Monthly. Unlocks every store item, every skin, every hull size past the 42 that every new game earns by conquering worlds, the Rift Runners’ door and the whole War Arsenal. No cooldown between ordnance buys, 75% off every heat reduction, and no ads. It unlocks, it does not pay: everything still costs the ore or credits it always did, but you don’t have to wait to unlock all the advanced ship modifications. If you want EVERYTHING included see the Dream Pass Ultra.

Monthly. Everything in the Dream Pass, plus the two things that end the grind: unlimited ordnance every day, click as many of anything as you want at the Bay for free and it’s auto-installed on the ship, locked and loaded, so Locked and Loaded is included, and 100,000,000 of every material straight to your hold every month. You never mine for an upgrade again unless you want to.

24 hours. A Resource Pass, 10,000,000 of every material, plus Locked and Loaded, unlimited ordnance for the day with every purchase installing itself, plus the 1-Day Pass. Reloads on every new game, and whatever of its ore you have not spent when the day ends carries into a new game, like the Resource Packs. Whatever you upgrade while it runs is yours to keep: every Volt’s and Bulwark’s level and every Mark you buy stays on the ship when the timer runs out, and your game is intact. The exceptions are the paid looks and hull resizing: fire, thrust and shield colours, under glow, gun style, the ordnance looks and the hull picker run while the pack does and stay only with the Ship Mods Pack or a Dream Pass; without them the hull settles back to the free ladder when the timer ends.

100,000,000 of every material, steel, silver, gold, titanium, platinum and diamond, straight to your hold, 600,000,000 in all: ten Resource Packs at once, enough to walk the War Arsenal and both upgrade stores a long way without mining a nodule. Whatever of it you have not spent carries into a new game; whatever you bought with it does not.

10,000,000 of every material, steel, silver, gold, titanium, platinum and diamond, straight to your hold, 60,000,000 in all. Ore is what every store charges, so this is how you buy ship upgrades without the wait. Whatever of it you have not spent carries into a new game; whatever you bought with it does not.

Unlimited ordnance for the day, and every ordnance purchase, click as many as you want for FREE, installs itself: no trip to the Hangar to install required, you buy at the Bay and it’s automatically installed on the ship. Included with the Mission Pack.

The permanent cut: Heat to Level 1, the meter cleared, and a 24-hour ceiling at Level 25. World attacks stop with it until you climb back to 50. It opens at Heat Level 25; below that there is nothing to purge, and it never charges twice.

Five Motherlode maps, the deepest hauls in the Expanse, sold for credits at the Rift Runners’ door. Short on credits but long on ore? Mira’s Mint strikes the credits from your hold and launches the map in one tap.

Scatter, Helix, Storm and Bloom gun sprays, one buy of 12,000 credits at the Customization Shop, yours for good with all four ready in the Hangar. Each spray fires in your Fire Color or in its own pack colours, switched spray by spray in the Hangar. Short on credits but long on ore? Mira’s Mint strikes the credits from your hold and buys the pack in one tap.

Every look for your ship and hull resizing in one buy: Fire Color, Thrust Color, Shield Color, Under Glow, Gun Style, the Ordnance Looks for thrusters, shield and booster, and Hull Resizing. Set them in the Hangar Bay, switch any time, keep them forever. Any Unlock button on a mod offers it. Hull Resizing lets you pick your hull size in the Hangar: 20, 30, 42 and, once you have blasted your way to 42, each larger size as your Mark earns it. Every new game starts at 20 and climbs to 42 by conquering worlds, pack or no pack; without the pack or a pass it stays there. Every new size is an Award, under First Hulls.

A small launcher for your browser toolbar. DreamBlaster still runs online, so nothing big is downloaded and you always play the newest version.

Click the DreamBlaster icon in your toolbar and press PLAY. If the game is already open, it brings that tab forward.

Once a day it lets you know your Gleaner Drone Cache is ready to claim. You can switch that off in the extension.

Your game is saved by DreamBlaster itself, just as it is now. Adding or removing the extension never touches your conquest.

Chrome and Microsoft Edge on a computer.