Outback Uprising

Scavenge, build, return

1. Leave the pub to fight, open chests and fish. Bring back scrap, run coins, supplies and augments.
2. Use the one metre building grid to place towers, connected fences and gates. Repair damaged structures before the next push.
3. Carry found augments back into the pub, then fit them at the workbench to improve pub weapons, health and tower auras.
4. Spend the shared run wallet at the workbench. The eligible buyer commits the purchase directly; no crew vote is needed. Saved metagame coins stay separate.

A found augment belongs to its finder's carried inventory until they return. Press I, or your rebound Inventory action, to review augments and stored drinks in one compact drawer. Entering the pub delivers carried augments to the crew stash automatically; the workbench then lets you fit, remove or salvage them.

Enemies must attack fences, towers and the pub to damage them. Ordinary rubbing and contact cause no damage. Melee swings have a visible windup, impact and recovery, with a cooldown for each enemy. Attackers weigh travel distance against the effort of breaking through, favour weaker sections and use holes other enemies open.

In new official runs, normal enemies acquire outdoor players within 64 metres and pursue them out to 96 metres. Living outdoor players within 100 metres of the pub take priority even beyond an enemy's ordinary detection range. A much closer explorer can keep local enemies engaged; indoor players do not draw attackers away from the pub. Bosses and marching enemies keep their own behaviour. Cyclists and charging emus deliver one damaging structure impact, then die, even if an outdoor defender is nearby.

Fit the pub's augments

Each pub level opens one socket, up to ten. Fit only one of each kind at a time; carried and unsocketed finds have no effect. Item and socket swaps have a 5-second cooldown. Salvage Common / Rare / Exceptional finds for 15 / 25 / 40 shared scrap.

Common strengths are shown except where noted. Rare and Exceptional strengths multiply the base by 1.2 and 1.4. Tower and fence auras reach 12 metres from the pub centre. Mounted damage bonuses from Tin Roof Volley and Flyscreen Special combine up to 75%; tower aura damage has the same cap.

Maintain the crew's defences

New official towers have 2× their previous health. Fences and gates start at 900 HP, before augment bonuses. Keep weak sections repaired so attackers cannot open an easy route through.

Press B, or your rebound Build action, and choose Maintain. The drawer lists turrets, fences and gates within 10 metres with their health and repair costs. Select a row, click a defence in the world or right-click it during ordinary play to open its card. Movement stays available.

Active crew members can upgrade and repair each other's defences using the shared wallet. Repair all repairs damaged towers and walls nearby for the displayed total scrap price. Only the builder can sell their defence; maintenance does not transfer ownership.

Choose another defence directly from the Build toolbar without closing it. Close or Back returns to combat without opening Pause. Building another of the same defence no longer increases its price. Every ordinary defence upgrade costs 2× its build price, regardless of rank or earlier purchases. The ATM keeps its separate upgrade prices below.

Choose the pub's weapons

Front, rear, left and right fittings are independent. Each starts with a cannon. Buy Defences rank 1 to choose and upgrade weapons at the pub workbench. Unlocking a new type for that fitting costs 150 scrap. Changing to a type already unlocked there costs 75 scrap. The fitting's mark survives weapon changes.

New official fittings upgrade from Mk 1 to Mk 10. Every mark costs 150 scrap and improves damage, range and reload rate. The mark cap follows the pub level; Mk 10 unlocks at pub level 9before the final upgrade ends the run. Weapons keep tracking living targets during reload and check aim and line of sight before firing.

Each Defences rank adds 15% damage; rank 3 also adds 20% firing rate. The workbench shows the selected fitting's base damage, range and reload for its weapon, mark and Defences ranks.

Invest in automatic scrap

Build an unarmed ATM for 400 scrap. The 0.10.9a hotfix also corrects the old 50,000-scrap price in continued official runs; custom presets keep their chosen cost. It pays straight into the crew wallet every 30active seconds; its screen shows the payout and countdown. Keep it protected, and upgrade it for larger earnings. It no longer sells XP. Pausing or leaving the run does not earn offline income.

Official defaults are shown. Existing runs keep their frozen build-cost tuning.

Explore a bigger outback

Fresh islands are 1020 × 1020 metres, three times the old width and length. Find the Broken Telegraph Station, Ironbark Railway, Opal Crown Mine, Meteorite Listening Post, Stockman's Bore and Lost Squadron Wreck for shared salvage, optional short story scenes and a chance at exceptional pub augments. Each site pays once; reloading cannot reroll its find.

Fresh islands populate the larger area with more ponds, chests, challenge pylons and scrap. Standard placement targets are 180 ponds, 27–180 chests, 36–54 pylons and 45 initial scrap pickups; clear-site availability can reduce actual counts. Existing saves restore their captured layout rather than refilling it.

Look for salvage mounds among the inland loot. Stand nearby and hold the interaction key for three seconds to dig. A mound has a 60% chance of yielding 150–500 shared scrap; an empty find spends the site too. Moving away, going down or leaving cancels the dig. Spent sites stay spent after saving and returning.

The Exceptional Publican's Patchbot repairs the pub automatically when socketed. Keep exploring for it while your towers hold the approaches. Enemy strength, variety and environmental events follow pub upgrades; waiting at the same pub level does not trigger a hidden survival ramp. Regular arrivals alternate coastal attackers with local patrols around explorers. Separated groups add pressure within the population cap. Nearby discovered finds have world and minimap markers.

Collect run-long crew boons

Pylon boons benefit the whole crew for the rest of the run. Collect each distinct boon once; its HUD indicator and Inventory describe the benefit. Feed the Swarm is a separate bargain with up to three ranks. Pylons keep two available choices: if boons and bargains run short, one-off crew rewards offer 120 scrap or 3 building supplies.

Continuing an older save turns still-active timed boons into run-long boons. An expired boon stays expired; saving does not grant it again.

The upgrade budget

These are the official costs for the next pub level. Each purchase is one rank in an available branch. Rank 2 requires pub level 4; rank 3 requires level 7. Finish each milestone encounter before buying another pub rank.

Base HP excludes Structure and augments. Each Structure rank adds 15% to the level's base HP. An upgrade heals by the increase in maximum HP, rather than filling the whole pool. The shed grows through ten exterior stages, adding an upper storey at level 6, a balcony at 7 and a covered upper verandah at 8. Structure, defence ranks and augments make the local more capable as well as bigger.

Bosses and the race that stops the nation

At pub level 5, the run pauses until every active crew member chooses a horse and wager or Skip betting. Closing the panel leaves your choice pending. New races use your personal saved coins for stakes and winnings, never the shared run wallet. Already-saved races keep their original wager rules. A failed payment leaves your choice pending; recorded returns retry if saving the payout fails.

Cup horses pass over buildings without damaging them and down a player instantly on contact. Shelter does not bypass the stampede. Each crew member can back a horse with their own wager.

The First Fleet arrives at 29:48 of active run time. Tall ships land convicts and ranged redcoats, all attacking the pub. Boomerangs deal double damage to landed First Fleet troops. Protected guards remain aboard the ships and fire more quickly at players near the ramps, so camping a landing is dangerous. This event never turns the pub into a colonial HQ: defend the door.

Air support

A rare RAAF augment lets you draw a strike line on the map, up to 72 metres. The F111 makes a low dump-and-burn that torches ordinary enemies and deals bounded boss damage, up to 10% of maximum boss HP. The crew shares a 180-second cooldown.

The dusty runway already exists when the match starts, separated from the pub's defence space. Big white X marks show it is out of service. A living crew member must visit the airfield on the ground before activation. Discovery is shared for this run and retained when continuing. Return to the pub workbench; from pub level 4, activate deliveries for 200 scrap, 100 run coins and 6 supplies. The strip stays in place and its X marks clear.

Flights launch every 180 active seconds, unloading during a 12-second flight. Repair stops at maximum pub health. Pausing or leaving earns no offline deliveries. The field gains buildings, lighting and a perimeter fence that enemies must move around. In build mode, protected pub and airport cells appear as red grid squares so you can see where construction is blocked.

Buying Regional field calls a free F111 clearance pass before installing the airport fence. Its dump-and-burn clears the living mobs inside the yard, then the new service level activates. This does not spend the callable airstrike cooldown. Existing saved and tuned runs keep their original delivery amounts.

Call to nearby mates

Hold V for proximity voice in a crew run. Rebind Push to Talk in Settings → Controls. Use Settings → Voice for reception, microphone mute, playback volume and individual player mutes. Steam uses your Steam microphone setting; LAN uses the input device selected in Audio. Voices fade with distance and muffle between inside and outside the pub. Voice is never recorded or saved.

Your selected character also speaks during the departure intro and reacts to the battle. Nearby crew dialogue is audible within 30 metres, with voices scheduled to avoid overlap. Change Character voices, Dialogue volume and Dialogue subtitles in Settings → Audio.

Day/night ambience, dangerous enemy wind-ups and pub damage warnings help you follow the battle. Dialogue and nearby voices lower the music while they play.

Save the defence and return

Solo and crews of up to four can save and resume. The host owns the shared checkpoint. A disconnected teammate remains an Offlinepatron in the pub, with their character and crew place reserved. Returning restores the latest personal state retained by the host and queues shared level-up choices earned while absent. New players can join an active battle through a cancellable waiting queue. If the host is lost, a surviving member can recover the crew from their latest saved checkpoint. Recovery is manual, not automatic host migration.

Update every crew member to the same version before joining or resuming. Defence saves accept valid Supercharged gear in owner-state saves and correct tiny terrain reconstruction differences during live joining. It retains the earlier cooldown and transfer repairs; existing defence saves remain compatible.

Existing defence saves retain their frozen balance and older weapon-mark limits. The new health, detection and Mk 1–10 tuning applies to fresh official runs. Already activated saved airports remain usable.

Open Defence tuning through Housekeeping or the Trip table before starting a run. Solo players and crew hosts can use named importable presets for costs, HP and enemy pressure. Custom rules are unranked. This page displays official defaults from pub_defence_0.10.0_v1. Enemy fields identify their subject, and XP inputs name the enemy awarding that XP per kill, with help and name search.

Keep the crew moving

Between runs, the menu VIP Lounge offers shared blackjack and roulette for up to four players. Each seat uses personal saved coins, with one dealer or wheel result for the crew. These tables close for departure and do not become a combat pause. See the VIP Lounge guide for betting and hand inspection.

In multiplayer, Esc or controller Start opens your own menu while the battle continues. Use Pause crew / Unpause crew to toggle your shared pause request. Everyone can open their menu and choose upgrades while paused; combat resumes once all requests are released. Solo Esc still pauses the game.

Confirming Give Up ends a solo defence with the ordinary defeat cinematic and summary. In a crew, it starts a 30-second majority vote: two of two, two of three or three of four connected players must agree. The starter counts as Yes, and downed players can vote. Closing the drawer casts no vote; the ballot does not pause combat and also works during a crew pause. Crew changes cancel it.

If scenery traps you outside the pub, choose Unstuck in that menu to move to nearby clear, dry ground, keeping your health and kit, with a 15-second cooldown. Downed solo players can still use it without being revived; downed crew members stay in place for teammates. Completing an active run Yarn grants its reward and draws a new objective of the same difficulty, counting fresh progress. Its remaining work is saved with the defence. Defence Yarns exclude race horses; unfinished older horse objectives become ordinary enemy kills with the same target, difficulty and reward.