Progression Guide — The Permanent Game

The currencies

Biomass dies with the run. Everything else persists: Genome Cores (meta upgrades), Tower/Hero Shards (stars and unlocks), Gene Essence (archive leveling), materials (equipment crafting), and prestige currencies deeper in. Losing a run never loses progression.

A sane spending order

First: the cheap genome economy tiers (they compound). Second: stars on the two towers you actually field every run. Third: your main hero’s stars to ★5 for the first ability fork. Fourth: equipment set completion. Prestige when the game tells you the curve has flattened — not before.

The labs

The Tower Lab evolves the roster; the Hero Lab builds your champions; the Gene Archive levels your draft pool; the Armory manages equipment; the Mulligan Lab assembles per-tower organisms. Each lab reads the same currencies — the order above keeps them from starving each other.