Mycopunk Upgrade Patterns: How to Think About the 7x7 Grid

The upgrade grid basics cover what the system is. This page covers the part that actually separates good grids from scraped-together ones: how to think about patterns like a solver.

Know Your Shape Budget

Every weapon runs a hexagonal 7x7 board, so you are planning around 49 cells minus the footprints of everything you place. Three shape classes cover almost every piece you will handle:

The 1.0 balance passes pushed several notorious pieces down the size ladder — Bruiser's Hard-Light Prison dropped from 22 to 15 cells, Hold The Line from 8 to 5, Wrangler's Blood Sweat Tears from 5 to 4 — so chunky pieces are less oppressive than they were in Early Access, but the principle holds: your biggest piece is your layout's spine.

Big vs Small in 1.0

Before 1.0 the answer was easy: shrink everything, stack stats. Now size is strength. Infusing a larger pattern into an upgrade improves most of its stats, while infusing a smaller one reduces them — with the exception of upgrades whose stats depend on surrounding cells, which Pigeons at Play said are not affected by the scaling.

The practical read:

• Big patterns win when the effect is your build. A single-bullet revolver running Big Fat Doobie wants every stat point the full-size pattern gives. Keep the big shape and design the grid around it.
• Small patterns win when the effect is support. A movement or quality-of-life piece at 60% strength is usually fine if it frees six cells for damage.
• The middle path is most grids. One or two chunky spines, medium enablers around them, slim fillers in the cracks.

Infusion: Shrinking Has a Price

Pattern infusion, unlocked at player level 13 through the Incursion mode, lets you copy one upgrade's pattern onto another at the Pattern Infuser in the HUB. Antimass Substrate pays for it, and the more cells you remove, the more it costs.

The decision that matters is not "can I make it fit" but "what do I lose by making it fit":

1. Try rotation first — it is free. Rotation unlocks by rarity at player levels 3, 8, 16 and 30, so a grid that refuses to close today may snap together after the next tier unlocks.
2. Check whether a smaller pattern's reduced stats still beat the alternative piece you would slot instead. Compare the post-infusion stats on the confirmation screen, not the pre-infusion numbers.
3. Remember infusion unequips the upgrade — you have to re-socket it, and anything that was leaning on its position may need refitting.
4. Spend Antimass last, on the one piece whose effect you cannot replace.

A Solver-Style Placement Workflow

You do not need a community grid solver if you place in the right order:

1. Pick the spine. Choose the one upgrade your build cannot function without. Place it dead center-ish so rotation keeps its options open.
2. Place second-tier pieces along the edges. Edge placement wastes fewer interior cells than center placement for medium shapes.
3. Rotate before you infuse. Cycle orientations on every stubborn piece before touching Antimass.
4. Fill the cracks with slim pieces. Single-cell and line shapes are your tetromino I-pieces — save them for last.
5. Check application order. Hold CTRL (L3 on controller) on the upgrade screen to see the order upgrades apply in. When two pieces modify the same stat, order can change the result.
6. Leave one or two open cells. A grid you cannot add a future drop to is a grid you will rebuild next mission.

Grid-expanding pieces exist for committed planners — Lead Flinger's Edge Fault and Boundary Incursion increase grid size, and Multiversal Thievery commandeers a column from each of your other grids. Those rarities are late-game finds, but they change the math from 49 cells to more.

Pattern planning is half the build — the other half is choosing which effects deserve the cells. Our best builds page has finished grids to copy, and the build maker guide walks the full design process from weapon choice down.