The Escalation update was released in March of 2020. It included significant changes to outfits, game mechanics, and included a new map and vehicle.
Sanctuary
Escalation introduces the Nanite Systems Sanctuary, a space for all factions to congregate peacefully. It includes news updates from the Nanite News Network, shops, weapons terminals, and serves as hub for folks to jump into the game. Sanctuary will be continuously expanded in future updates.
Outfit Resources & War Assets
Outfits have seen a huge overhaul with the addition of merit, loyalty rank, resources, and war assets. Merit is a currency earned while playing with your outfit, and can be used to purchase things in Sanctuary, while loyalty dictates which types of items you can access. The higher your loyalty (earned by playing with your outfit), the more items you have access to in Sanctuary.
War assets are craft-able items that can impact the battlefield. There are a variety of assets at launch, including airdropped vehicles called A.N.V.I.Ls, a deployable shield known as the Citadel Shield, orbital strikes, and steel rain. The biggest war asset, and marquee of the update, is the Bastion Fleet Carrier – a massive flying carrier that can carry up to 48 outfit members, is armed with numerous anti-air and anti-ground weapons, and deploys free empire-specific fighters.
War assets are crafted using outfit resources, which are earned from capturing bases. These resources trickle in when you participate in a base capture. If your outfit is the dominant outfit at a fight, then you’ll also receive a steady trickle until the base is lost or the continent locks.
Outfit Wars
Outfit Wars are a new, tournament structured competitive event for outfits on a server. The top participating outfits bring a platoon to space on Desolation – a new, asteroid themed map. In this Faction v Faction v Faction outfit showdown, outfits battle it out to reign supreme on their server. Outfit Wars is introduced in an Alpha state, and will be changed in the future.