“Each faction has its own macro buildings. These buildings unlock technologies and upgrade all units on the battlefield. The faction you play as has three of them.” That is the mechanic in the developer’s own words, from the demo launch announcement of 15 June 2026.
He also named the reference and the departure from it. The buildings behave “similar to progressive upgrades from starcraft (like tier 1 armor and tier 1 damage)”, but “they are combined together with the building to reduce unnecessary buttons and increase using of base building mechanic.” In other words, the upgrade is not a menu you open somewhere else — it is the structure, and putting it down is the decision.
The three, as he lists them: “Foundry - upgrades vehicles toughness”, “Arsenal - upgrades units damage”, and the Complector, which is the interesting one. “Complector - semantically, this structure should upgrade infantry health, but that would be out of style for the faction. Therefore, it provides free infantry, the ’Brutes’.” A design constraint became a mechanic: the Empire does not buff its infantry, it prints more of it.
The prices in the files separate them clearly. The Arsenal is the cheap entry at 200 minerals, 100 energy and 100 gears. The Foundry costs 300 minerals, 250 energy and 100 gears — the most expensive of the three in minerals. The Complector costs 200 minerals and 80 gears but draws 320 energy, more than either of the others and second only to the Matter Fabricator’s 500 across the whole Empire roster.
That energy figure is the planning constraint. A Power station produces 250 energy, the largest single block in the Empire roster — and the Complector alone draws 320. One macro building is already more than one power station, before you have powered a single turret.
And the Brutes the Complector produces are not a token gesture. At 35 minerals they are the cheapest unit the Empire fields, and with 1 400 hit points plus a 500-point reserve for five population they carry the best health per point of supply in the roster. Free infantry that is also efficient infantry is the reason the Complector is worth its energy bill.
Quotations from the announcement of 15 June 2026; costs read from build 23882143.
Values read from game files · version 23882143