# The Garage — permanent upgrades v0.5.1

Earn Gears when a run ends, including defeat: floor(seconds / 15) + floor(bots / 10), plus 6 for the final boss and 10 for victory. A three-minute win with 50 kills pays 33; a 45-second loss with 20 kills pays 5. Abandon/restart/close before results does not bank that run. Earning rates have not been reduced.

Open Garage from the main menu. Core Mods and Utility Projects contain **52 purchasable ranks**. Purchases save automatically and apply next run. In the browser, wait for the saving banner to clear before closing. Run mods and evolutions reset each shift; Garage purchases remain.

| Upgrade | Benefit | Ranks |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hull Plating | +5 starting/maximum hull per rank; +40 maximum | 8 |
| Magnet Core | +4% damage per rank; +32% maximum, stacking with level power and Sharp Edges | 8 |
| Servo Tuning | +3% movement speed per rank; +24% maximum; not dash speed | 8 |
| Pickup Coils | +10 pickup pixels per rank; +80 maximum | 8 |
| Reserve Hopper | +1 starting scrap per rank; starts with 6 at maximum, same capacity | 3 |
| Boost Capacitor | Dash cooldown multiplied by 0.96 per rank; about 27.9% shorter at maximum | 8 |
| Emergency Cell | One lethal-hit rescue each run: 15% / 25% / 35% max hull and 1.5s protection | 3 |
| Salvage Patches | Golden kills repair +4 / +8 / +12 hull; carrier/mini-boss/final-boss repairs gain the same bonus | 3 |
| XP Cache Radar | Nearest valuable offscreen cache marked within 700 / 1,100 / 1,800px | 3 |

Core ranks cost **10 / 25 / 45 / 75 / 110 / 140 / 210 / 300 Gears**. Hopper costs **15 / 35 / 65** and stays capped at 3 so starting scrap does not exceed capacity. Each utility costs **45 / 90 / 150**. All utility effects are automatic. Repairs stop at full hull; a second lethal hit can end the run after the cell fires. Radar marks golden or weighted pickups, ignoring ordinary single scrap.

The complete portfolio costs **5,545 Gears**, compared with the previous 1,095. A previously maxed owner retains all old ranks and unspent Gears, with **4,105 Gears of new optional goals**. There are no retroactive charges. Early purchases stay inexpensive, utilities give nearby goals, and ranks 6–8 provide a longer optional tail. These are initial tuning values, not a promise of a fixed number of runs or a requirement to max everything before winning.

Cards show owned rank, maximum, actual current/next benefit and exact next cost. Capped/stale callbacks cannot spend extra Gears. There is no respec/reset button.

## Saves and compatibility

v0.5.1 migrates v1/v2/v3/v4 saves to **schema 5**, preserving wallet, ranks, selected weapon, discoveries and paid-run ledger. The first successful migration archives the old profile as garage.cfg.legacy-v1.cfg or garage.cfg.legacy-v2.cfg / garage.cfg.legacy-v3.cfg and upgrades the prior-state backup too, including backup-recovered profiles. Earlier binaries cannot read the new format; automatic web rollback refuses a lower schema.

Windows saves remain at %APPDATA%/Godot/app_userdata/Junkyard Magnet/garage.cfg, outside OneDrive. The prior complete save is garage.cfg.bak. Browser saves are separate, within that site's browser profile. Use one live instance per profile and close old sessions before opening an update. There is no cloud sync or in-progress run resume. Clearing browser site data can remove primary, backup and archives.

Writes use a temporary file, checksum/range checks, prior-state backup and atomic replacement. A corrupt primary tries its backup; unknown newer formats block downgrade and writes. Failed purchases/rewards roll back; results offer retry. Duplicate endings cannot pay twice. Back up native profiles only with the game closed. Manually restoring a legacy archive loses progress earned since that archive.

The updated Windows candidate owns its save profile exclusively while running; a second copy exits before reading or writing it. If a loaded profile has changed on disk, saving is refused with a reopen message instead of replacing that newer progress. Close old pre-fix copies before launching the update.

Browser storage must be available before gameplay starts. During play, results say **SAVING GEARS...** until the actual browser database confirms the write. A failed sync shows **GEARS NOT SAVED** and a persistent warning; unconfirmed progress remains in memory while retries run. Keep the tab open. Retry does not pay the same run twice. Quit waits for saving and, if it still fails, offers retry, return to menu, or explicit quit without saving. These durability checks also cover purchases, settings, records and unlock announcements. They do not provide cloud backup or protection from clearing site data.

Developer checks use isolated test paths/transient profiles. No real player ranks or currency are granted during verification.

Crew and district unlocks cost no Gears. See DISTRICTS.md. Existing expanded Garage ranks and utility projects are unchanged; current run-card comparisons include crew bonuses.

0.5.1 expands to six crew members and six weapon families, six districts and25 challenges. See CAMPAIGN-0.5.1.md and CHALLENGES.md for unlocks, suggested build paths, the new weapons/evolutions, forcefields and the four-second paused transformation. The candidate launcher uses separate profile files; do not rename its executable.