Riftspinner Ash Market

Every permanent upgrade, what it really costs, and a sensible order to buy them in.

Ash is the currency of Riftspinner. You earn it from defeated hosts, scrapped loot, finished missions and the daily task, and you spend it in the Ash Market on permanent ranks that carry into every future run. This guide lists all 24 upgrades with their real prices, explains how the costs grow, and suggests a sensible order to buy them in. Every number on this page is read from the game's own data.

How the Ash Market works

Open it from the main menu, the pause screen or between waves. Every upgrade has a base price and a maximum rank. Rank 1 costs the base price times 1.7, and every rank after that costs 55% more than the one before, so the early ranks are cheap and the last ranks are very expensive. Kinetic Hymn, for example, costs 85 ash for rank 1 and 10,546 ash for rank 12. Ranks are permanent: they survive death, a finished run and a new map. Only the Reset account button on the main menu removes them.

The core upgrades

These eleven upgrades help every rig, gun or melee.

A few details the short descriptions leave out. Second Skin gives 3% damage soak per rank, 36% at rank 12, and your soak from every source together is capped at 48%. Afterimage shortens the dash cooldown by 0.09 seconds per rank, from 1.35 seconds to about 0.63 seconds at rank 8, and makes the dash itself last a little longer. Scavenger Iris also adds one pack slot for every two ranks, so a full pack holds 13 items instead of 8. Four Rig lets you carry up to four weapons, switched with the keys 1 to 4 or the mouse wheel, and it works for melee rigs as well. Loaded Dice adds 4 luck per rank, and each point of luck raises both the chance that a host drops loot and the quality of what drops.

What to buy first

This is our suggested order, based on what each upgrade costs and what it changes. It is advice, not a rule.

1. Four Rig, ranks 1 and 2 (369 ash). Carrying two or three weapons means fewer drops are scrapped, and you can pair a short-range weapon with a long-range one.
2. Marrow Vat and Kinetic Hymn, up to rank 3 (336 and 421 ash). The cheapest way to survive longer and kill faster. The price climbs steeply after rank 5, so the first few ranks are the best value.
3. Stride Coil, up to rank 3 (380 ash). Move speed is the best defence against most hosts, and it makes the dash easier to use well.
4. Scavenger Iris, up to rank 2 (152 ash). A wider personal magnet and a bigger pack, so you spend less time walking to drops.
5. Tempo Nail and Afterimage, up to rank 3 (464 and 589 ash). Faster fire rate (faster swings for melee rigs) and a shorter dash cooldown.
6. Loaded Dice, up to rank 4 (885 ash). Better and more frequent drops pay for themselves over a long run.
7. Glass Nerve and Open Vein together (1,719 ash each to rank 5). They work as a pair: Glass Nerve makes crits more common and Open Vein makes each one hit harder. Buy them later, once the basics are covered.
8. Second Skin, last. Soak is strong but the ranks are costly: rank 6 alone is 989 ash.

Weapon training

These nine upgrades only help one type of gun. Buy the one that matches the rig you play most, and ignore the rest. Melee rigs have no weapon training; they benefit from the core upgrades above and from field mutations.

All nine together cost 11,381 ash, but you will rarely want more than one or two, so each is a cheap, focused boost. They apply to any weapon of that type, including ones you find, not only the one your rig starts with.

Power-up cells

Elite hosts and silver and gold missions drop glowing power-ups: a magnet surge, fury, stride and ward. These four upgrades make each one last longer or hit harder.

How much does everything cost?

The core upgrades cost 202,023 ash to max out, weapon training 11,381 and the power-up cells 6,141: 219,545 ash for the whole market. Nobody maxes it in one run. The sensible goal is to buy the cheap early ranks first, then spend on whatever your usual rig leans on.

Earning ash faster

• Rift II pays 40% more ash from kills. See how to unlock it.
• A goblin cell pays about 200 to 290 ash at wave 10, against 1 for a basic host. How goblin cells work.
• Missions pay ash on top of a guaranteed item, and the daily task pays 150, 260 or 420 ash.
• The Miser Eye mutation adds 10 to 32% ash from corpses for the rest of a run. All mutations.
• Press the salvage key on a drop to turn it straight into ash, and scrap duplicates from your pack.

Ash also pays for upgrades inside a run: the rare forge spends the same ash on weapon levels, so decide whether to bank it for permanent ranks or spend it at the forge. Rarer gear is covered in the loot guide, and the strategy guide shows how to put it all together.