If Chapter 1 starts collapsing around Bombing or Onslaught, the answer is rarely “place more guns.” HEXSTORM asks one network to do three jobs at once: reach Tear deposits, supply enough energy, and keep overlapping fire around Arcadia. A collector placed only for a distant crystal can become both an expensive target and the power node whose loss shuts down the next turret.
This route covers missions 1–20 and was reviewed on August 23, 2026. The supplied run was recorded around launch, while the newest official update is 1.04.00 from August 21. Early mission balance, rewards, the build ring, unlock levels, several skills, and multiple turrets changed between those points. Use the sequence and failure checks below, but let the objectives, prices, and tooltips in your current client override any launch-window number.
Read every launch as three budgets
Before building, separate the resources shown across the top of the battle screen:
- Tears pay for structures, repairs, and in-mission upgrades. A deposit is potential income; it is not income until a collector covers it.
- Energy limits the network you can keep active. If a collector is destroyed and your available energy falls, a replacement gun may remain impossible even when you have enough Tears.
- Time and position decide whether a deposit can be harvested safely. In flight, slowing down buys collection time but also keeps Arcadia inside the same attack window longer.
Use a simple launch readback: identify the first reachable deposit, the first attack direction, and the energy left after one collector plus one weapon. If any of those is unknown, delay the second economic structure. A stable opening has one funded collector, one gun already covering the approach, and enough energy to answer a bomber or a rear attack.
Missions 1–3: prove the loop before spending on range
The tutorial teaches the pieces in a forgiving order. Build the requested gun, observe which hexes it covers, and take the offered temporary boost. The important lesson is not the tutorial kill count; it is that collectors both harvest Tears and extend where the network can build. On the next mission, place the first collector so its radius touches the intended deposit without forcing the gun outside mutual support.
Do not upgrade merely because the button is available. Start the upgrade, then watch what actually changes: range, accuracy, rate, armor, capacity, or energy. Several launch-window mistakes in the supplied run came from paying for an upgrade without first reading its result. If the next enemy arrives before the upgrade matters, a second basic weapon may create more immediate coverage.
After the early story transition, the permanent ship tree opens. Buy only an upgrade whose effect solves a failure you can name. Starting Tears fix openings that cannot field a collector and a gun. Collector efficiency fixes deposits that remain in range but empty too slowly. Turret damage or rate fixes enemies crossing covered hexes alive. Hull and structure durability fix a line that works tactically but fails its HP objective.
Mission 4 Bombing: let the Railgun support the line
Bombers punish a thin outward chain because they can erase the collector that paid for it. The Railgun is introduced as a long-range answer and, in the launch capture, also helps basic guns aim. Build it where its coverage overlaps both Arcadia and the exposed economic side; do not isolate it beside the farthest deposit.
A safe order is collector, basic gun on the first approach, then Railgun once the economy supports it. If a bomber enters Railgun range while the nearby guns keep missing, inspect the Railgun’s active range and upgrade state rather than adding more inaccurate guns. If the collector is already doomed after its deposit has emptied, do not spend the entire reserve repairing a node that no longer has an economic job. Reclaim or replace it only after checking what its loss will do to energy and build reach.
Mission 5 Onslaught: treat the HP objective as a live threshold
Onslaught introduces repair and fortification while asking for a collector upgrade and a surviving ship-health threshold in the observed route. Read that objective continuously. A late repair may restore the bar, but it cannot recover a structure that was destroyed or undo a separate bonus failure.
Restart early when all three conditions are true: Arcadia is already under the required HP line, the first collector is damaged or lost, and the reserve cannot buy both coverage and recovery. Continuing that state teaches little because every new Tear is consumed by emergency repair. On a better attempt, place two ordinary guns before a luxury economic upgrade, add the Railgun on the bomber side, then fortify only structures that are actually being focused.
Use boosts by failure type. Shields prevent the next burst and are strongest before contact. Repair fixes damage that has already landed. Area damage answers a dense swarm. An instant Tear grant can rescue an opening with no fielded weapon, but taking it after the network is already stable gives up a combat effect for money that may sit unused.
Missions 6–8: speed becomes an economy control
Mission 6 takes Arcadia into sustained flight. Collectors now harvest deposits passing beneath the ship, and the speed controls become part of the build. Slow Ahead is useful when a covered deposit is about to leave range and the defense has spare time. Full Ahead is correct when the next wave is already stressing the line, altitude pressure matters, or the deposit would require an unsafe collector chain.
Use this flight cycle:
- Pan forward and identify the next deposit before it enters the build ring.
- Place one collector whose radius covers the deposit and whose body remains inside weapon coverage.
- Slow only after the collector starts producing; a slow ship with an uncovered deposit gains nothing.
- Return to Full Ahead when the deposit empties, the attack indicator changes side, or the collector becomes a liability.
- Before selling a spent collector, verify the energy total and every structure that depends on its extended hexes.
Mission 7’s observed bonus asks you to lose no collectors. That changes placement more than it changes weapon choice. Start the collector closer to Arcadia, accept slightly less reach, and give it overlapping fire. If a launch offers large clusters on opposite sides, do not automatically build two collectors. One protected collector plus an upgraded range can be safer than two exposed nodes.
Mission 8 introduces jamming and pushes the Dronary. A jammed sector is an energy and coverage event, not just a damage event. Keep at least one weapon outside the same vulnerable branch. Drones can move toward a threatened side, but a Dronary that consumes the last energy point leaves no room for the gun needed after a collector falls.
Missions 9–10: visibility and pursuit punish static layouts
Desert Storm reduces visibility and turret reach. Build inward. A gun that barely covered an outer hex in clear weather may no longer protect a collector after the storm modifier applies. Pan ahead, use enemy indicators in the current client, and keep one uncommitted central hex for the side that becomes visible late.
Eye of the Storm is a pursuit check. The supplied run showed randomized starting deposits and attacks shifting from behind to the front, so a memorized opening was unreliable. The success condition is to escape while Arcadia survives, not to drain every cluster. Use Full Ahead after the opening collector has paid for the minimum defense. If the chase reaches a side with no gun, sell or stop upgrading the quiet side before spending on a second economic branch.
The official 1.01.02 patch made Chapter One Tears easier to obtain and improved auto-turret accuracy; 1.02.00 added manual aiming and expanded the tutorial; 1.03.07 placed starting crystals within range of the new collectors. If your opening does not resemble the video, that is expected. Read the current spawn and range rather than trying to reproduce the old hex exactly.
Return to the hangar with a failure ledger
Replaying an earlier mission is useful only when the reward buys a named breakpoint. Do not grind every branch evenly. Before Chapter 2, record the last two failures and spend toward the repeated cause:
| Repeated failure | Permanent priority | Battle proof |
|---|---|---|
| No gun before the first contact | Starting Tears or earlier income | Collector plus first weapon are online before impact |
| Covered targets survive and cross the ring | Turret damage, rate, or the support skill shown by the current tree | The same wave dies without adding another exposed node |
| Deposits remain in range but the run stays poor | Collector efficiency | The next covered deposit funds a second defensive layer |
| The correct layout loses a bonus to one burst | Structure armor, hull, repair, or shields | The threatened node survives the known focus window |
| A collector loss turns off the response | Generator/energy capacity or a less dependent layout | One node can fall without freezing the whole answer |
Chapter 2, missions 11–14: protect objectives before chasing deposits
Tir-Veya Valley raises the value of objective-specific defense. The supplied route opens with fighters, then introduces Gasmen and Vipers while shifting between flying and ground maps. Official screenshots show launch-window objectives such as losing no structures to a named enemy and keeping Arcadia above an HP threshold. Treat those as two separate contracts.
On fighter waves, several basic guns with overlapping arcs can be safer than one early upgrade because losing any structure fails the bonus. Against a Gasman or other disabling threat, use enemy indicators and place a long-range answer where it can attack before the effect reaches the network. Against Vipers on a finite ground deposit, harvest the nearby Tears but stop expanding when the deposits are depleted; the late waves become a survival test, not an economy race.
Level 12 and later rewards were increased in 1.03.10. If a launch guide tells you that Challenge grinding is mandatory at this point, test the current campaign reward first. Clear the mission on the selected difficulty, return to the hangar, and compare the actual reward with the price of the upgrade you need.
Missions 15–18: build a reversible two-sided defense
Pursuit resumes in mission 15, while In a Vise explicitly threatens two directions. Do not mirror the entire build. Put durable, flexible coverage near Arcadia; add a Railgun or current long-range option to the busier side; keep a small Tear reserve for the direction that reveals its real pressure later.
Mission 17 adds hostile ground sites while air enemies can remain outside short-range coverage. Pan beyond Arcadia instead of waiting for a missile to land. If an objective refers to destroying SAM sites, confirm the current control or ship ability that can actually reach them. Do not assume an ordinary turret will fire at a ground target merely because it is visible.
Jammer missions expose single-branch layouts. When three adjacent weapons depend on the same outward node, one disable can remove the entire side. Use Arcadia’s central ring as the bridge between two smaller groups. If a structure becomes jammed, identify the source and the structures that still have power before rebuilding anything.
Missions 19–20: lightning changes what “no loss” means
Mission 19 combines ordinary attacks with lightning. In the observed run, a bonus distinguished structures lost to lightning from structures lost to enemies. That distinction matters when judging a retry: repair drones and shields may preserve lightning targets, but they do not replace enough firepower to stop attackers.
Keep the first collector inside the defense rather than at the front edge. Spread cheap structures so one environmental strike does not concentrate every repair need on the same branch. Add a Dronary only after there is enough energy to preserve at least one gun if the collector disappears. Then read whether drones are repairing Arcadia, structures, or both under the current upgrade tree.
Mission 20 introduces the Capacitor in the launch route and asks Arcadia to survive the storm while holding a higher HP line. Do not copy its old behavior. Update 1.04.00 turned the Capacitor into a flying proximity weapon: everything inside its area takes a set amount of damage, and the note prices it at 50 Tears. The same patch moved its unlock to level 8, moved the Dronary to level 11, added Blizzard and Repulsor T2 turrets, replaced Reagents with Diagnostics, and strengthened the first Fire Rate stack.
Do not enter Chapter 3 until six readbacks pass
- The current difficulty is the one you intend to play; difficulty selection was added after launch.
- Your opening can field one collector and one covering weapon without spending the entire reserve.
- A destroyed outer collector does not make the remaining network unusable.
- You have one answer to dense swarms, one answer to ranged or airborne priority targets, and one repair path.
- Your permanent upgrades solve observed failures rather than filling the cheapest nodes.
- You can state which current tooltip replaced every old launch-window assumption you are relying on.
The Chapter 3 strategy guide begins at mission 21, where Tear deposits arrive through meteor impacts and the safe opening from Chapters 1–2 stops being safe.
Sources and version boundary: the official Steam listing and update history supplied the identity, release date, campaign scope, present systems, screenshots, and 1.01.02–1.04.00 changes. The developer’s official Tearevo site corroborates the studio and network-defense premise. Mission routes were cross-checked against the verified Shrike gameplay above; its launch-window values are not treated as current rules.