Mechanic

Damage and difficulty

Your damage

Every weapon has a base damage (see each weapon's page). The game multiplies it like this:

damage = base
       × ship damage                (Vanguard 1, Wasp 1, Bulwark 0.9, Specter 1, Nova 1.25, Comet 1.1, Warden 1)
       × (1 + 15% × Payload level)
       × (1 + 5% × Might upgrades)  (Hangar)
       × (1 + 2% × Overdrive count)

On top of that

Effect	What it does
Critical hits	Targeting gives an 8% chance per level for a hit to deal double damage. Gauss Lance and Kill Sat always crit.
Frozen enemies	Enemies frozen by the Stasis Ray take +40% damage.
Not on screen yet	Enemies just above the top of the screen can be hit, but take half damage until they come into view.
Area	Amplifier makes blasts, beams, orbs, fields and pools 10% bigger per level.
Fire rate	Ship fire rate × (1 + 10% × Overclock level). This shortens every weapon's cooldown.
Duration	Stabilizer makes beams, orbs, pools, freezes and bounces last 12% longer per level.

How enemies scale

The game runs on a difficulty clock that moves 1.25 times faster than real time. At real minute t, the difficulty minute is m = 1.25 × t.

enemy HP      × (1 + 0.2 m + 0.04 m²)
bullet speed  × (1 + 0.025 m) × planet bullet speed   (max 1.5)
fire rate     × (1 + 0.05 m)  × planet fire rate      (max 1.9)

Time	Difficulty minute	Enemy HP	Bullet speed	Fire rate	Between waves
0:00	0	×1.00	×1.00	×1.00	3.2 s
1:00	1.25	×1.31	×1.03	×1.06	2.8 s
2:00	2.5	×1.75	×1.06	×1.13	2.4 s
3:00	3.75	×2.31	×1.09	×1.19	2 s
4:00	5	×3.00	×1.13	×1.25	1.6 s
5:00	6.25	×3.81	×1.16	×1.31	1.2 s
6:00	7.5	×4.75	×1.19	×1.38	0.8 s
7:00	8.75	×5.81	×1.22	×1.44	0.65 s
8:00	10	×7.00	×1.25	×1.50	0.65 s
9:00	11.25	×8.31	×1.28	×1.56	0.32 s
10:00	12.5	×9.75	×1.31	×1.63	0.32 s

Waves also get bigger: every 2.5 difficulty minutes adds more darts and swarmers to each wave, gunner rows grow from 2 to 4, and spinners come in pairs later on. Bad Omen makes regular enemies 10% tougher and waves 10% more frequent per level, in exchange for more XP and gold.

Boss health

Bosses are one target, so they scale gently: HP = 500 × (1 + 0.6 × boss number) × (1 + 0.1 m), where the first boss is number 0.

Time	Boss	HP
2:00	Boss 1	625
4:00	Boss 2	1200
6:00	Boss 3	1925
8:00	Boss 4	2800

Elites have 4 times the HP of a normal enemy of their kind.