Cosmo Rider

Cosmo Rider is a space game about joining the Cosmo Riders guild, which pays bounties for capturing outposts and disassembling ships. Warp portals let you travel to other galaxies, but their use has also made other space dwellers aware of humanity, and not all encounters are peaceful.

Expeditions

You travel through galaxies and solar systems, completing stages with different conditions and events, such as destructible asteroids and flying comets. You fight waves of enemies, extract cargo and components, then jump through a warp portal to the next stage. Enemies use different weapons and modules, which you can shoot off during combat through node-based destruction.

An expedition takes about an hour, with roughly 20 minutes per phase. Progress saves every one to three minutes, so you can postpone an expedition almost any time. You can define about half of your ship build before setting out; the other half comes from choices made during the expedition.

Research and upgrades

Between expeditions, you research weapons, modules and modifications. Researched items appear during expeditions and can also be crafted before one begins. During an expedition, you upgrade your ship by installing researched equipment and changing its basic attributes. Completing contracts unlocks new research tiers, and completing a galaxy grants a permanent bonus attribute point.

Galaxies and ship builds

The game has 18 galaxies with unique conditions and six difficulty levels, configured per galaxy. Beating all galaxies at one difficulty takes at least 20 hours. After completing all galaxies, you can reset all progress while keeping your statistics.

Three ship-build archetypes are described: a ranger focused on weapons, a ranger focused on modules, and a melee hyper-boost rammer. The ship modification system lets you combine different styles.