OUT TO THE BLACK

Every action in Out to the Black earns experience points. Destroying enemies, mining asteroids, surviving long stretches without dying — all of it adds to your XP bar. When the bar fills, you level up. Each level grants ability points you spend on your ship's eight stats.

XP sources rank roughly like this:

• Killing the hit-list target — double XP. The biggest single payout. See the combat page for hit list strategy.
• Killing other players — scales with their level. Killing a level-30 pilot is worth dramatically more than killing a level-5.
• Killing AI ships — the everyday XP source. Patrol kills add up.
• Mining — small XP per second of beam contact. Slow but reliable.
• Surviving a Blood Moon Purge — bonus XP for staying alive through the chaos.
• Destroying enemy structures — modest XP per turret destroyed.

The XP curve is steep. Early levels (1-10) come quickly; mid levels (10-25) require sustained play; high levels (25+) are reserved for committed pilots who put in serious hours. The top of the leaderboard is usually populated by level 40+ ships.

When you level up, you earn ability points to spend on the eight stat categories. Each stat has a max (the cap) and a rate (the speed of regeneration where applicable). Investing in rate tends to outperform investing in max — see the pro tip at the end of this page.

Health

Maximum hull HP and hull regeneration rate. Hull damage is what kills you when shields fail. A high Health stat means your ship can absorb hits during shield reboots without dying outright. Hull regen is slow, but it's the only way to recover from hull damage without a respawn.

Invest in Health if: you find yourself dying to single big hits or you're playing a tanky front-line role.

Shield

Maximum shield HP and shield regeneration rate. Shield is your first line of defense — bullets and collisions damage shields before hull. Shield regen happens automatically as long as you have fuel.

Invest in Shield if: you take a lot of incoming fire (front-line factions, patrols). Shield rate compounds in long fights.

Fuel

Maximum fuel capacity and fuel efficiency. Fuel powers your engines AND your shield regeneration. Low fuel = no shields = paper.

Invest in Fuel if: you fight long engagements or fly long distances between mining stops. Higher fuel max means more shield regen between mining runs.

Engine

Maximum engine power (thrust strength) and anti-force (resistance to gravity pulls). High engine lets you accelerate harder, escape situations faster, and resist getting sucked into wormholes during gravity storms.

Invest in Engine if: you play hit-and-run, you fly through high-gravity zones often, or you're an Outlaw who relies on speed for survival.

Storage

Maximum material capacity (cargo hold size) and harvest efficiency (mining yield per laser tick). Storage determines both how much you can carry and how fast you can extract.

Invest in Storage if: you mine a lot. Higher Storage means longer mining circuits between unloads and higher yield per asteroid stripped.

Weapon Damage

Bullet damage per hit. Higher Weapon Damage means enemies drop faster. The single most direct combat stat.

Invest in Weapon Damage if: you do most of your XP through kills. Outlaws and aggressive Concordium pilots prioritize this.

Bullet Speed

Projectile velocity. Faster bullets are easier to land at long range and harder to dodge. Bullet Speed is a force multiplier on Weapon Damage — high-damage shots that always hit are better than high-damage shots that miss.

Invest in Bullet Speed if: you snipe from medium range or fight pilots who use heavy evasive maneuvering.

Command

Maximum Command Points (CP). Each Command point raises your CP cap by 1, allowing one more simultaneous structure. See the building page for the full structure mechanic.

Invest in Command if: you play the territory game. Building a base requires CP, and CP is gated entirely by this stat.

There's no "correct" build. The eight stats are balanced enough that committed investment in any direction works. Here are four archetypes experienced pilots have settled into:

The Tank

Health, Shield, Fuel (heavy investment). Engine and Weapon Damage at moderate. Storage and Command low. The Tank takes a beating and keeps fighting. Good for Concordium front-line patrol or for defending high-value Unbound mining circuits.

The Glass Cannon

Weapon Damage, Bullet Speed, Engine (max). Everything else minimal. The Glass Cannon kills fast and dies fast. Outlaw favorite. The math is: if you can one-shot most opponents before they hit you, defense doesn't matter.

The Miner

Storage, Fuel, Engine (max). Weapon Damage and Bullet Speed at moderate (you need to defend yourself, but you're not the aggressor). Command at moderate (to build your bases). The Miner runs long economic circuits and converts materials to structures faster than anyone.

The Architect

Command (max). Shield and Health moderate. Engine moderate. Weapons low. The Architect's strength isn't combat — it's the fleet of turrets they've built across the galaxy. Their ANTI-AIR network does the fighting for them. Best for late-game Concordium or Unbound players who already have a strong sector presence.

The All-Rounder

Even investment across all eight stats. The flexible default. New players often start here without realizing it — they spend each level point on whichever stat seems most relevant at the moment, and end up balanced. Nothing wrong with this. The Architect is just a specialist; the All-Rounder is a generalist.

Every stat has both a max value and a rate value. When you put a point into Shield, you can choose to raise the max (bigger shield bar) or raise the rate (faster regeneration). New players almost always pick max, because bigger numbers feel better.

Pick rate when you can't decide.

Rate compounds every tick of the game loop. A 10% faster shield regen means a 10% shorter gap between full and broken in every fight, for every second of every session, forever. A 10% bigger shield bar means a 10% bigger one-time buffer in each engagement. Over a session, rate wins by a wide margin.

The exception is when you're dying to single huge hits. Then max matters more (because you need to survive the hit, not regenerate from it). But most deaths in Out to the Black are death-by-many-cuts, where rate is the dominant factor.

The same logic applies to Fuel (rate of efficiency vs max capacity), Health (regen rate vs max HP), and Storage (harvest efficiency vs cargo cap). When in doubt: rate.

Your level and allocated stats persist across deaths. When you die, you respawn at full health and shield with all your investments intact. The only things you lose at death are 50% of your fuel-and-materials inventory (dropped at the death location for anyone to scoop) and your immediate position in the field.

You also get a respawn faction choice. Stay with your current faction or switch to a new one. Switching destroys all your structures from the old faction (and refunds the Command Points). The level investment carries over either way.

This persistence is why Out to the Black rewards sustained play over single-session brilliance. A pilot who logs in daily for short sessions racks up levels gradually. A pilot who plays one marathon session and disappears doesn't keep their lead.

• Combat — which stats matter most for which fight type
• Building & Claiming — the Command stat in practice
• Factions — faction-specific stat priorities
• Highscores — what the top of the leaderboard looks like