How to play Last Radius

Everything you need to hold the line, from your first tap to Overclock. New commanders fly a short Boot Camp before Sector Zero; this manual covers the same ground, and everything after it.

Boot Camp

Your first launch runs four quick drills. Finish them and you deploy straight into wave 1 over Sector Zero.

Fire: Tap a hull to fire the laser. Destroy three targets.
Parry: Wait for the ship to reach the shield, then tap anywhere on the shield as the ring closes.
Missiles: Tap the Missiles hex and watch the volley hunt down every target.
Build: Tap Build, pick Tesla Tower, then tap the field to place it.

Controls

Everything happens on the battlefield and in the hex buttons at the bottom left. There is no virtual joystick, and nothing to hold down.

Tap the field: Fires the orbital laser from the planet to where you tapped. The beam snaps to the first hull in its path and bursts on impact, catching anything close by.
Tap the shield: Shield parry. Tap as a closing hull’s ring tightens and up to two hulls near your tap are flung back out as projectiles that smash into the swarm. Every parry grows your chain and pays salvage.
Drag a line: Lays a flak barrier along your finger. Its grippers hold light hulls while the flak tears them apart. It recharges between uses.
Flick a closing hull (next update, 1.1.2): Orbital Slingshot: a quick flick that starts on a hull at the shield throws it where you aim. Heavier hulls hit harder, and a throw through a Gravity Well whips back out faster.
Missiles hex: Opens the silos. Every missile in the volley picks a hull and curves after it.
Pulse hex: A shockwave from the shield that blasts every hull close in and shoves the survivors back. It also sets off nearby mines.
Build hex: Opens the build drawer and slows time to 0.2× while it is open. Repair the core, recharge the shield, or deploy ordnance you have unlocked.
Pause: The button at the top right. The pause menu holds Resume, Retreat, sound effects and music (COMM FEED) switches, the sound pack, and One-Thumb Assist, which fires your missiles when they are ready and pulses when three or more hulls crowd the shield.

Laser heat and crits

Heat: Every shot adds heat, shown on the Laser hex. It cools while you hold fire.
Overcharge: From 60% heat the laser overcharges: twice the fire rate and +1 damage per shot. Living between 60% and 99% is the sweet spot.
Vent lockout: At 100% the laser locks and vents. The hex counts the vent down. Parry, pulse and missiles still work while it cools.
Natural 20: Any shot can roll a critical: triple damage and a much wider blast. You will know it when you see it.

Parrying

Timing: A hull can be parried once it is inside the strike window just outside the shield. Tap the shield on its side: the parry catches hulls within about 45° of your tap, two at most.
Misses: A whiff costs nothing but time: parry locks for 0.6 seconds, so it cannot be spammed.
Chains: Each parry adds to your chain and pays salvage that grows with it. Chain 5 earns the Chain ×5 achievement.
Cannot be parried: Bulwarks, Carriers, Hammers, Heralds, Scramblers, Bastions and Motherships, plus ram-class hulls, decoys and any Leech already latched onto the shield. Shoot those.

Reading the HUD

Planet integrity: The core, top left. When it reaches zero, the run is over.
Shield: The hex bubble and its percentage. It absorbs hits and recharges. When it is down, hits go to the core.
Wave and score: Top right, with your run salvage just below.
Threat Radar: Bottom right: every hull on the field, heavies marked larger.
Ability hexes: Laser, Missiles, Pulse and Build. A ring fills as each one recharges.
Banners: New hull types, boss arrivals, counters and combos are called out across the top. Read them; they are telling you what to do next.

How a wave plays

Inbound: Hulls enter from the edges of space and close on the planet. Your orbital station fires at them on its own; everything else is you.
Escalation: Every wave is harder than the last: faster hulls, a quicker spawn tempo, more armor, more counter-traits and smarter tactics. There is no plateau.
Sectors: Every five waves is a sector, and each sector flies under a condition: Home Perimeter, Tailwinds, Cryo Veil, Ion Storms or Gravity Tide. Each one bends the rules, such as faster hulls with quicker missile reloads.
Bosses: A Bastion arrives every fifth wave. A Mothership arrives every tenth, and each third of its hull you burn away makes it empty a bigger drone salvo into the sky.
Breach: From wave 10, a dropped shield means an extra core strike and a swarm frenzy that only ends when the shield is back up.
Decoys: From wave 16, Darts, Shrikes and Hammers can fly holographic decoys. Track the real hull.

Between waves

Clearing a wave opens the Wave Secured hub: the salvage you recovered, intel on the next wave and the next sector’s condition.

Upgrade Shop: Cards bought with run salvage for this run: Missile Barrage, Rapid Reload, Wide Flak, Heavy Flak, Station Overclock, Shield Capacitor, Shield Regen, Pulse Capacitor and Hull Plating. Cards stack up to a cap.
Resonance Fusions (next update, 1.1.2): Max out the right cards and a fusion appears: Shatter Wave, Singularity Cluster, Thermal Lance or Arc Battery. One per run.
Threat Dial: Standard ×1, High ×1.5 or Extreme ×2. Higher settings mean more hulls, faster hulls and bigger salvage. An Insurance Key protects an Extreme wave’s haul.
Retreat: Ending a run on purpose banks part of the salvage you are holding and returns you to Command Center. Sometimes it is the right call.

Run salvage and the Vault

Run salvage: Earned from every wreck during a run and spent during that run: Build items, repairs, shield recharges and Upgrade Shop cards.
Vault salvage: What you bank for good. It pays for Armory unlocks, Systems Garage levels and the planet’s Core rank. Part of any run salvage you did not spend is banked when the run ends.
Other vault income: Daily login streaks, daily ops, sector records and bounties, the Weekly Op (waves 10, 20 and 30), Threat Archive scans, combo ranks, rival wins and achievements.
Matrix Gems: An optional premium currency for the Vault Terminal: Booster Blueprints, planet skins, Insurance Keys and supply crates.

Armory and Systems Garage

Armory: Seven pieces of ordnance unlocked with vault salvage: Tesla Coil (250), Gravity Well (900), Aegis Net (1,400), Rotary Saws (1,800), Deadstick (2,200), Hellstitch (3,500) and Apex-9 (4,500). Once unlocked, deploy them from Build for that run’s salvage.
Test range: Every Armory card has a free Test button, so you can watch a weapon fight before you buy it.
Tether Buoy (next update, 1.1.2): A cheap Build that snags the first hull to pass, even a Carrier, and holds it until you tap the buoy to fling it into the swarm.
Systems Garage: Seven systems with ten levels each: Missile Silos, Ion Shield Nodes, Hull Plating, Tesla Coils, Laser Arrays, Salvage Vacuum and the Deadstick Pilot. Levels climb from Initiated through Masterwork and Mythic to Legendary.
Attunement: Only two systems can be attuned at once, and the top perks need attunement, so your build is a real decision.
Core rank: The planet itself: Outpost, Colony, Bulwark, Citadel, Fortress, Stronghold, Aegis, Sentinel World, Last Radius. Each rank adds integrity, shield and salvage, and no system can be more than one level above it.

Modes and commanders

Endless Defense: The classic: hold as long as you can. Clear wave 30 to unlock Overclock, where every level pushes the run six waves deeper on the threat curve and pays more.
Three-Wave Blitz: Clear 3 waves. Bank 100% of your salvage plus a 50 vault salvage bonus.
Sector Assault: Clear 5 waves including the Bastion. Bank 100% plus 100 vault salvage.
Daily Sortie: Three waves under the day’s condition with a bonus objective (destroy 20 hulls, reflect 3, or finish above 50% shield), claimable once per day.
Rivals: Every mode has three rival scores to beat, set by EMBER, VECTOR and AEGIS. Each first win pays vault salvage.
Commander doctrine: Balanced (no penalties), Sentinel (more shield, faster pulse, slower missiles), Gunner (faster missiles, cooler laser, less core) or Conductor (stronger, longer Tesla charge, hotter laser).

Combos

Mixing weapons pays. Each combo has its own rank (Initiate at 5, Specialist at 20, Ace at 50), and every rank pays vault salvage.

Thermal Breach: Prime a hull with three laser hits, then finish it with a missile.
Arc Warhead: Hit a Tesla-charged hull with a missile before its charge wears off.
Chain Pulse: Pulse a Tesla-charged hull and chain into another live hull.
Orbital Slingshot (next update, 1.1.2): Flick a caught hull into the swarm and take two or more down with it.
Storm Surge: Keep the kills coming: a ×15 combo triggers a Storm Surge.

Threats that need a plan

The full Threat library with stats for all eighteen hulls is on the main page. These are the ones that punish autopilot.

Leech: Latches onto the shield, drains it and blocks regen. It cannot be parried once latched: burn it off with the laser, the station or a pulse.
Herald: Speeds up every hull near it and calls in dives. Kill it first and its swarm stalls.
Reaper: Hunts your deployed ordnance, the Deadstick and Apex-9 especially.
Scrambler: Detonates an EMP when it strikes or dies near the shield: towers and station offline, missiles dropped, laser heat spiked. Kill it far out.
Sower: Seeds proximity mines that drift toward the core. A pulse sets nearby mines off.
Lancer: Parks on the rim and fires charged beams through the shield. A deflector soaks your first shots, so commit to it.

Playing on a foldable

Tabletop: Stand the phone half-open on a table. The top screen is the battlefield, the bottom is the Tactical Command Deck: status, big ability buttons and an aim pad you tap instead of reaching up to the field.
Tactical Fold: Half-fold during a wave and time slows to 0.3× for a short planning window. It recharges, so save it for the moment the swarm stacks up.
Fully open: Unfolded, the extra width shows the whole field with the radar and status in a sidebar.

Tips

Watch the counter icon: If your hits show as blocked, that hull counters the weapon you are using. Switch weapons before you burn another cooldown.
Parry before you spend: A timed parry buys breathing room without using a cooldown, and the chain pays salvage.
Mix your damage: Prime with the laser or a Tesla, finish with missiles or a pulse. The combos pay out and the Threat Director has a harder time countering you.
Use the slow-mo: Opening Build slows time to 0.2×. Use it to think, not just to build.
Know when to bank: Low on core with a big haul? Retreating banks part of it. A defeat keeps less.
Practice for free: The Armory test range costs nothing. Use it to learn pulse spacing and parry timing.