Active Matter Strategy Guide · Cosmo Strategy Guides

01 · Before the Raid

Most runs are decided at the loadout screen, not in the Zone.

Learn the exit in Isolated Same map, same loot, same collapse, no rival squads. Stay until portals feel routine.
Magazines, not variety No alternate round types exist yet, so count magazines. Carry two more than you planned.
Leave stash room Extraction dumps the haul home at once. A full stash turns a clean run into ten minutes of sorting.
Load the safe container first Only the container survives death, and evacuating it consumes it. Put your one irreplaceable item inside.
Take contracts on your route Contracts pay on top of loot, but a far-side objective turns a flexible loop rigid.
Carry bolts A thrown bolt discharges or reveals an anomaly ahead of you. One slot, most anomaly deaths prevented.
Pick the squad size first Raids hold one to three operatives. A trio clears a block; a solo hears the map.
Stay on one map Dalniy Island, Downtown, Airport Africa and the Gigastructure each hide portals differently. Depth beats breadth.
Gear the run you queued Titan plates are wasted on a route-learning run. Gear the intent, not the mood.

02 · Raid Types and Queues

Three queues, three different games. Read the header before you deploy.

Isolated PvE only, full progression

No rival operatives in the instance
Distorted, Flowermen and the collapse still apply
Shares stash and ladder with every mode

Bring: A mid kit, spare magazines, one container.
Take: Map knowledge and a steady credit floor.

The only queue where you can stand and study an anomaly. Use it for that.

Open PvPvE, the full risk curve

Rival squads share the instance
Portals are watched, especially late
Best density of high-value active matter

Bring: A mid-range primary, a close-range sidearm, beacons.
Take: The richest hauls and real practice against people.

Most Open deaths land a minute after a fight you already won. Noise is the problem.

Nexus Team versus team, separate maps

Fought on temples, towers and built arenas
The Agency issues gear you keep between matches
Nothing from your stash is at risk

Bring: Nothing. The queue hands you a loadout.
Take: Gunplay reps with no economy attached.

The cheapest place to fix your recoil, because a loss costs only time.

03 · Anomalies and Zone Physics

Active matter bends gravity and topology. An anomaly is terrain, and terrain can be used.

Gravity Anomalies Rewritten up, walkable walls

Redirect which surface counts as the floor
Let you walk walls, ceilings and undersides
Read as a shimmer and drifting debris

Bring: Bolts to probe the edge; cross slowly once.
Take: Flanks nobody holds, and an exit from a pin.

A gravity field is a two-way door. What carried you onto a roof carries the next squad.

Ball Lightning Drifting, lethal, avoidable

Charged spheres that drift toward movement
Kills outright instead of chipping health
Gathers in corridors and open yards

Bring: Distance. No plate rating helps here.
Take: Area denial at no cost if you bait a pursuer in.

Never reverse into open ground while watching a fight. It punishes attention, not aim.

Scorch Thermal, static, area denial

Burns anything inside its footprint
Sits on fixed ground rather than drifting
Often seals the obvious way into a building

Bring: A bolt, and a second route chosen early.
Take: Choke control, since everyone routes around it.

Scorch decides where squads walk. Learn the ones on your block and hold the exits.

04 · Hostiles of the Zone

Five behaviour classes, plus Turned Soldiers and the rivals who use them as cover.

Distorted Former humans, distortion regions

Operatives lost to active matter exposure
Push in numbers once one is alerted
Carry active matter worth collecting

Bring: A rifle you control and room to back up.
Take: Reliable matter without touching a player.

They path to noise. Clear a group by a portal and the next arrives while you loot.

Mimics Ambush, distortion regions

Hold still until you are close
Read as scenery on a first pass
Punishing in tight interiors

Bring: A shotgun or fast sidearm for the next room.
Take: Little. Avoiding them is the win condition.

If a room feels one object too full, it is. Slow the entry.

Hellhounds Fast pack pursuit

Close faster than you can rotate
Arrive in groups and split your aim
Lightly armoured, fall to focused fire

Bring: A close-range weapon and a wall behind you.
Take: A short loud fight you win by holding still.

Never take a pack in the open. A doorway turns four attackers into one.

Flowermen Overgrowth regions, nest bound

Anchored to nests rather than roaming
React violently to gunfire near the nest
Guard the better overgrowth loot

Bring: Patience, and a plan for where noise travels.
Take: Dense loot if you clear the nest quietly.

A nest is a weapon. Rounds near one with a rival team adjacent settles the fight.

Dendroids Overgrowth regions, heavy

Slower, sturdier, harder to break
Hold ground instead of chasing
Frequently sit on the route you wanted

Bring: Sustained fire, or the sense to walk around.
Take: Good returns clean, a wasted magazine otherwise.

Ask whether what is behind them is worth the ammunition. Usually not.

05 · Weapons by Class

More than sixty firearms across nine families, plus improvised tools found on site.

Class	Effective Range	Best For
Pistol	0–25m	Backup for a botched rotation, and light kits that keep volume for loot.
SMG	0–35m	Stairwells, labs and interiors. High output, magazines you will miss later.
Shotgun	0–12m	Room entries and Mimic ambushes. One shot ends most doorway fights.
Assault Rifle	20–90m	The default primary in every queue, controllable against wildlife and operatives.
DMR	50–150m	Semi-automatic precision across yards and roofs. Best holding a portal angle.
Sniper Rifle	150m+	Opening from outside the other squad’s effective range. One per squad, never two.
LMG	20–80m	Suppressing a position or grinding Dendroids. Heavy, loud, and it announces you.
Melee	Contact	Silent finishes on isolated targets. Knives, hammers and spears all swing differently.
Improvised	Contact	Screwdrivers, wrenches and heavy flashlights. A last resort that still wins runs.

06 · Plates, Sleeves and Helmets

Protection is a slot puzzle. Coverage, material and weight trade against each other.

Plates are per body part Torso, legs and hands each take a plate. A perfect chest and bare hands loses winnable fights.
Size sets coverage and weight Small, Medium and Large set surface covered, not quality. Bigger plates cost stamina and speed.
Assault plates fill the XL slot One Assault plate replaced the paired Large slots: slightly less absorption, one simpler decision.
Steel is the honest baseline Heavy, easy to replace, predictable. While you learn a map, steel keeps the lesson affordable.
Ceramic absorbs most per hit The highest single-hit absorption, and the most brittle. It wins the first exchange, rarely the third.
Polyethylene handles melee UHMWPE now stops melee like steel at far less weight, but breaks sooner. A mobility pick.
Titan trades bite for durability Titan absorbs slightly less per hit than ceramic, endures many more, and weighs far less.
EDH-Gen V is the mid ladder helmet A real step up once the starting kit is behind you, without top-tier weight.
TFMK-I and Active Headsets The most bullet-resistant helmet. Its Active Headset muffles gunfire while amplifying footsteps and doors.

07 · Pouches, Body Sleeves and Backpacks

Three systems people routinely confuse. Only one of them is armour.

The pouch is your floor The pouch is the inventory you always have, and better ones grant category bonuses.
Body Sleeves are armour and carriage A Sleeve sets your plate layout and adds typed pockets. Pick it before any weapon.
Typed pockets take one kind of kit Pockets are cut for magazines, medical items, grenades or mixed gear. The wrong category wastes one.
Sleeve passives are real numbers Endurance, resistance, regeneration and damage-type protection vary by model. Read the passive line.
Hunter is no longer the default The rebalance reshuffled plate slots, and several models now take Large plates in hands and legs.
Backpacks are volume, never safety A backpack raises what you can haul. Its contents drop as loot the moment you fall.
Nothing you wear protects an item Pouch, Sleeve and backpack give no death protection. Only the container does, and only once.
Volume is the first failed run New operatives fail their first extraction on space, not health. Leave the rusty rifles.
Sort at cover, not at the portal Dropping junk and merging stacks costs seconds you will not have at the exit.

08 · Active Matter, Credits and the Refiner

Three currencies, three sources, three very different replacement rates.

Active matter is the point The Zone is built around it, and your watch tracks what you carry. Everything else is secondary.
Clusters are the calm source Passive clusters harvest without a fight, which is exactly why they are contested.
Transformed creatures are the loud source Distorted, Hellhounds and the rest give up matter when killed, paid for in noise.
Downed operatives carry mindvaults You can draw matter from a downed rival, but the process signals the body to the district.
Owners and allies draw faster Pulling from your own squad’s vault is quick. A stranger takes longer, which is when their teammate returns.
Credits are paid on extraction The Refiner counts your haul only after a successful run. Dying pays nothing at all.
The Refiner turns hauls into supply Refining turns raw material into ammunition, consumables and Chronogene parts. Boring common loot refines best.
CAM is finite inside a timeline Crystallised active matter arrives as one grant plus daily objectives. Spend it on containers.
Blueprints are the real economy A weapon, optic or attachment unlocked at the Replicator can be rebuilt forever. Blueprints make losses survivable.

09 · Extraction and the Collapse

The exit is the run. Everything before the portal is unrealised.

Portals are marked, and watched The exits are on your map, and on everyone else’s. The last hundred metres kill the most operatives.
The border decides, not you Unstable Zone raids shrink until one portal is left. Route toward where the map is going.
Noise pulls monsters to the exit In Isolated, wildlife paths to sound near portals. A fight at the exit buys a second fight.
Robot Dogs carry what you cannot A signal grenade calls a dog that hauls real volume and can be sent to a portal alone.
Dog pathing has hard blockers Gravity tiles, fences and doorways stop a dog dead, and it must reach the portal radius.
Sleds are for cargo contracts A sled makes you slow, loud and obvious. Take one only when a contract demands it.
Beacons arm themselves on death A beacon sits in its own slot and arms when you fall. Placed beacons can be retrieved.
Tactical beacons return rental kit Coming back through one puts you in Agency-issued gear, not your loadout. Alive, but not who you deployed.
Extract on good enough Leave when the bag is worth the walk, not when it is perfect. The extra pickup kills hauls.
Hold ten seconds and listen Before stepping into the ring, listen for reloads, swaps and footsteps. Ten seconds is cheap.

10 · The Shelter and the Monolith

A twelve-tier ladder in Greek letters governing everything you can build.

Walk the terminals in order Missions first to choose the raid, then the Monolith terminal to spend what it paid.
Access levels run Alpha to Mu Twelve tiers, Alpha through Mu. The terminal shows the next criteria and the rewards behind them.
Monolith Tokens gate everything Early tiers ask roughly 20 to 350 tokens per item; late tiers run 900 to several thousand.
Shelter upgrades come first Stash extensions, extra queue slots and equipment rental compound across every later run.
Replicator blueprints are the backbone Weapons, armour, optics and attachments unlock as permanent build rights. That is what lets you take fights.
Refiner recipes widen supply Recipes for Chronogenes, ammunition and consumables turn dead loot into kit. Take ammunition early.
Body Sleeves unlock here too Several Sleeve models sit behind objectives rather than raw tokens. Read the objective text carefully.
Raid access is a tier reward Entry to some locations is itself an unlock. A missing map is usually a tier, not a bug.
Harmonization moves the universe The harmonization bar tracks the universe migrating from one phase to the next. At full, everyone moves together.
What survives a reset Resetting at Mu clears credits, stash, blueprints and Chronogenes. CAM, dog tags and reset rewards stay.

11 · Pro Tips

Habits that compound across a hundred raids.

A banked run beats a great loss The haul exists only once the Refiner counts it. Anything in your pouch is a loan.
Learn one anomaly properly Use gravity fields until crossings are automatic. One anomaly you understand beats nervous respect for all.
Track the collapse, not the clock The shrinking border is the real timer. Glance at the map edge every few minutes.
Fight at doorways, not in rooms Packs, Distorted groups and rival trios all shrink when they arrive one at a time.
Silence is a position Stand still for twenty seconds after a fight. Most third parties announce themselves to a quiet operative.
Refine the boring things Common components feed the ammunition and consumable recipes you use. Rare objects decorate the stash.
Rebuild the same loadout One repeatable kit teaches recoil, weight and stamina as constants. Three variables teach nothing.
Use Nexus as a range When your gunplay slips, take it to Nexus where gear is issued and a loss costs nothing.
Name the run before you queue A contract run, a token run and a map run want different kit. Naming it prevents bad calls.
Review the death, not the raid Nearly every loss traces to one choice: a greedy pickup, an open reload, an unlistened portal.