Exark Combat Build - Military Buildings and the Survival Mode Record

What Is the Combat Build in Exark?

The combat build wins by turning your ark into a weapons platform: military buildings deal raw damage every cycle, crit and multi-hit stats multiply that damage, ignite and freeze control the enemy, and necromancer guilds recycle consumed crew into an endless army. I ran it to a new survival-mode record — 29 seconds on stage 9.

Core Damage Buildings

These are the damage sources that carry the run. Every one of them is a military building or a guild that mounts one.

Building	Cycle	Damage	Notes
Volley launcher (MK5)	7.7s	17 base, +5 per assigned crew/item (30 total)	The workhorse; stack crew on it
Guild Hall MK1	4.8s	10 + ignite equal to damage dealt	Doubles as a platform that mounts another building
Boom ritual	4.0s	3, +1 per cycle this voyage	Scales every time it fires; applies slow
Frost dragon	2.4s	8 + freeze target 1s	Control + damage in one slot
Crimson dragon	3.5s	2 + ignite equal to damage	Upgrade path from the dragon egg crew

How Do I Multiply the Damage?

The build stacks crit rate, crit multiplier, and multi-hit from buildings, relics, and crew.

Source	Effect
Crystal Tower	+100% crit rate to buildings on its left tiles, +1 crit multiplier to its right tiles
Furious Griffin (relic)	All buildings +100% crit rate for this voyage
Fate Calculator (consume)	Permanently +0.4% crit multiplier to the building
Capacitor Tower	-3 resource output and -3 damage to adjacent buildings, but +50% multi-hit chance
Archmage (assigned)	+70% multi-hit chance to the building

A finished volley launcher in the run showed crit rate 60%, crit multiplier x2.4, multi-hit 90% — before the relic and tower buffs pushed it higher.

How Does the Necromancer Loop Work?

The necromancer engine keeps your crew count from shrinking as you consume them:

• Necromancer Guild: whenever you consume a non-stitched crew member or item, 35% chance to gain a Stitched crew member.
• Death Palace: makes temporary buffs that would expire at voyage end permanent instead.

The loop: consume crew to fuel the engine → the guild refunds stitched crew → the palace preserves your scaling. It keeps the ark’s economy from collapsing while you burn through bodies for damage.

What Is the Final Ark Layout?

The run leaned on damage and scaling over production:

Slot	Buildings used
Damage	Volley launcher, Guild Hall (with mounted building), Boom ritual, Frost/Crimson dragon
Buff	Crystal Tower, Capacitor Tower, Fate Calculator
Recycling	Gear Crusher, Tomb (gain gold per crew/item consumed)
Economy (minimal)	Tool Workshop, Hematite Mine, Nerve, Workshop of spells
Crew engine	Necromancer Guild, Death Palace, dragon egg → Crimson Dragon

How Does Armor Work in Combat?

Armor reduces the morale loss you take from enemy attacks — and negative armor increases it. Keep a positive armor pool before the stage-9 fights, because the final enemies hit for hundreds of morale.

Does It Clear the Endless Void?

Yes. The build’s strength shows in survival mode: it cleared stage 9 with a new 29-second record and the scoreboard logged 73,590 points on the run. The damage was enough to melt the 5,000/5,000-HP enemies before they could drain morale.

Relic Priority

From my runs, in order:

1. Furious Griffin — +100% crit to everything, immediate power spike.
2. Fate Calculator — permanent crit multiplier scaling.
3. Crew-recycling relics (Tomb, gear crushers) — keep the necromancer loop fed.
4. Everything else is situational — take what the board offers.