Co-op

Couch co-op means two ships on one screen, in Arcade and Orbit. Each player flies their own ship with their own weapon, jump and defense. You share XP, skill points, boons, novas and lives.

To play on two computers, use online co-op.

Starting

1. Play → CO-OP card → difficulty → Take-off. This starts Arcade with two players.
2. Player 2 is already in the loadout screen.

Without a connected controller, the co-op row waits; as soon as a controller reports a button press, player 2 joins. Browsers only expose a controller after a button has been pressed while the window is open.

In Arcade and Orbit you can also team up afterwards: click Join in the co-op row of the loadout screen — whoever clicks plays with keyboard and mouse; whoever selects it with the controller and presses A plays with the controller.

Devices

• Keyboard + mouse against a controller — the most common setup.
• Two controllers — keyboard and mouse then stay with player 1 as well.
• Use ⇄ in the co-op row to swap devices.
• If a controller is disconnected and a player is left without a device, player 2 leaves. If they rejoin during the same run, they carry on with their weapon, levels, path, hull and shield.

Unlike in solo play, a controller does not switch off the mouse in co-op — here, mouse and controller belong to different players.

Choosing your loadout

Both players pick weapon, jump and defense in the same rows. A frame in the player’s color marked 1P or 2P shows who chose what.

Changing your choice cancels “ready”. The flight starts only once both are ready.

In flight

• 1P is blue, 2P orange — projectiles, muzzle flash, the ring around the ship and the label beneath it.
• Each player has their own status corner: 1P bottom left, 2P bottom right, with weapon, hull and shield. On top of that, every ship carries its shield display right on the hull.
• Enemies aim at the nearest ship, and loot flies to the nearest ship.
• At level 5, each player chooses the upgrade path of their own weapon. The skill tree shows a separate weapon card and a separate stats block for player 2.
• Companions belong to both: ion satellites and the drone swarm are split between the two ships in turn, the minefield surrounds each ship (each at 60 % damage), the lightning arc jumps from each ship in turn, and every ship trails its own ion wake. If one ship is down as a wreck, the companions keep working for the other.

Downed and salvaged

A downed ship drifts as a wreck with a ring and a countdown. If the partner flies into the ring and holds position until salvaging is complete, the ship returns with half its hull. Leaving the ring makes the progress drain away. A life is only lost when both are down at the same time or the timer runs out.

Co-op balance

Co-op should be a challenge, not a comfort. That’s why co-op turns up the incoming fire instead of just enemy hull — and everything scales with difficulty:

These values stack on top of the difficulty level’s own. Enemy hull is tuned so that a fight lasts about as long as it does solo.

Co-op in Orbit

The open star system has a few specifics:

• The camera sits between both ships and zooms out when you drift apart. Beyond roughly 1100 px a leash holds you together — it pulls both gently toward each other so nobody falls off screen.
• Stations, signals and the gate react to whichever ship is closest. Whoever docks opens the station for both.
• The system map shows both ships in their colors.
• Player 2 starts next to player 1 at the edge of the system, and each ship aims on its own — with its own stick or the mouse.

Not in co-op yet

Track mode is still in development and will come in a later update — and even then without co-op at first: there, polarity and the beat jump are tied to exactly one ship, which needs its own rule.

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