The Ascent lets you shape combat through two equipped weapons, armor with damage-type defenses and passive bonuses, allocated skills, and equipped augmentations. Weapons gain damage as they are upgraded at a Gun Smith, while skills improve selected capabilities and augmentations add active abilities that consume regenerating energy. Use these entries to compare specific supported choices and progression systems, then adjust equipment to the enemies and situations you face.
Choose a topic to see how it works, where it helps and what to consider.
A Gun Smith can raise an owned weapon to its next MK level when you have the required components. Each level increases that weapon's damage, and its upgrade level persists across duplicates of the same weapon.
Understand this choiceWeapons differ in stagger damage as well as raw damage. Stagger knocks enemies back, and sufficiently high stagger can briefly knock them down, leaving them vulnerable while they recover.
Understand this choiceHolding the aim-high control lets shots pass over small enemies and obstacles. Aiming high also inflicts more stagger, giving this firing mode a crowd-control benefit as well as a line-of-fire use.
Understand this choiceEach armor piece provides individual defense ratings for different damage types. Choosing armor that protects against the damage you expect to face can tailor your defenses to an encounter.
Understand this choiceVital Signs is a named skill associated with surviving longer. The supplied Skills page identifies its purpose but does not specify the exact numerical effect or any per-point scaling.
Understand this choiceBody Battery is a named skill tied to staying energized. It is relevant to a build that relies on cyberware abilities, though the supplied skill description does not give a numeric energy increase or per-point effect.
Understand this choiceHydraulic Slam delivers a forceful punch that propels enemies away from you, making it an active ability aimed at creating space in crowded combat.
Understand this choiceNeutron Beam is a continuous energy beam that pierces armor and deals heavy damage. Its listed attribute requirement is Motorics 15.
Understand this choiceLockon Fire empties the remaining ammunition in your clip with perfect accuracy and extra efficiency. The listed attribute requirement is Motorics 18.
Understand this choiceLooten deploys a companion drone to help collect loot. Its listed attribute requirement is Cybernetics 24.
Understand this choiceEquipment progression and build choices in The Ascent: weapon upgrades, armor, skills, augmentations, and hacking access. No sequel, DLC, or alternate-edition mechanics are included.
Explanations prepared with GPT-6 Luna and checked against the linked references. These are source-reviewed guides. They do not establish independently tested optimal builds or exact upgrade budgets. How coverage works.
