Starting at Node 7
The Last Signal opens in Node 7 Shelter with four basic resources: signal, power, scrap, and rations. The receiver produces signal automatically, while most active actions consume power. Scrap is used to construct permanent upgrades, and rations pay for travel and rest. Intel and relay keys appear later and are deliberately scarce because they gate major upgrades and the route to the final encounter.
Your first goal is not to buy everything visible. It is to establish a stable loop. Use Listen whenever you have spare power, use Scavenge nearby when you need scrap or rations, and purchase the inexpensive upgrades that improve passive signal and maximum power. The shelter is always safe, and returning there does not erase location progress.
Understanding every resource
Signal
Signal is the main currency and the only resource produced continuously. The initial receiver creates it slowly, but the Wire Antenna, Salvaged Mast, and Phase Array increase production. Many upgrades require both signal and scrap, so waiting for signal while actively gathering scrap is a normal part of the rhythm.
Power
Power limits how many actions you can take in a burst. Listening costs one power, scavenging costs two, broadcasting costs both signal and power, and travel costs an amount based on a location’s range. Battery upgrades increase the maximum, while Solar Cloth begins regenerating power automatically. Before Solar Cloth, avoid draining power to zero unless you are ready to wait.
Scrap and rations
Scrap comes from scavenging, caches, and defeated machines. Rations appear less reliably, but the Ration Rack improves scavenging yields. Scrap is permanent until spent; rations are operational supplies. A player with excellent equipment but no rations can still become temporarily stuck at the shelter.
Intel and relay keys
Intel comes from transmissions, first visits to story locations, certain story encounters, hidden milestones, and—after the archive is complete—repeatable decoding. Relay keys come from major bosses. Intel buys advanced technology; three relay keys are part of the Carrier Key cost.
Shelter actions
Listen searches for the next authored transmission. Seven transmissions are tied to listen-count milestones, so repeated listening is essential even after the receiver begins returning static. Some transmissions unlock locations directly.
Broadcast sends a call into the network. Most responses are atmospheric, but cumulative broadcast milestones produce meaningful rewards. Broadcasting is not a replacement for listening; it is a secondary progression track.
Scavenge nearby trades power for scrap and a chance at rations. It remains useful throughout the game because advanced upgrades are scrap-heavy. The twelfth scavenge also contains an intel reward.
Rest spends a ration to restore health and some power. Rest becomes more effective after building the Sealed Canteen. It is usually better to rest before a boss than to enter with missing health and rely on emergency repairs.
Decode archive appears only after all transmissions have been recovered and the Cipher Wheel is installed. It converts 75 signal and 2 power into 1 intel. This is a repeatable late-game safety valve, so a player who purchased every earlier intel upgrade can still afford the Carrier Key.
Travel and exploration
The Field tab lists every location the receiver currently knows about. A visible location may still be unavailable if your range is too low. Range comes from the Salvaged Mast, Phase Array, Map Table, and Carrier Key. Boss keys also unlock locations whose coordinates were already known.
Travel costs one ration plus power equal to the destination’s range, with a minimum of one power. Once you arrive, the main panel offers an Explore action. The progress label—such as Explore (1/3)—shows completed encounters versus total encounters at that location. A location remembers progress even after you return to the shelter.
Encounters can be caches, story discoveries, ordinary enemies, or bosses. Caches resolve instantly. Story encounters provide intel and text. Combat encounters open a separate turn-based interface.
Combat basics
Strike deals damage based on your Damage stat with a small random variation. Guard reduces the next incoming attack and is especially effective when the enemy’s damage range can otherwise remove a large portion of your health. Emergency repair becomes available after installing the Field Repair Kit and spends scrap to recover health. Retreat ends combat, sends you back to Node 7, and applies a small health penalty.
Winning grants the enemy’s listed rewards and advances that location by one encounter. Losing does not erase the campaign. The shelter performs an emergency reboot: combat ends, health is restored, some power returns, and a percentage of signal is lost. This makes experimentation possible, but repeated underpowered attempts can become expensive.
Choosing upgrades
The Workbench contains several parallel paths. Signal upgrades accelerate every later purchase. Power upgrades let you act more often. Damage and armor upgrades determine which enemies are practical. Utility upgrades improve rest, repair, decoding, rations, range, and scrap rewards.
Prerequisites matter. The Phase Array requires the Salvaged Mast, the Pulse Rifle requires the Arc Cutter, and the Carrier Key requires both the Phase Array and Pulse Rifle. A disabled upgrade card usually means a prerequisite is missing; an enabled card that does not purchase means you lack one or more listed resources.
For a comfortable first run, build the Wire Antenna and Battery Bank early, then work toward Solar Cloth and the Salvaged Mast. Add the Sharpened Bar before fighting multiple enemies. The exact order remains flexible, but ignoring both economy and combat creates long waits or repeated losses.
Saving, exporting, and resetting
The game autosaves in local browser storage. Closing the tab and returning later on the same browser should restore the current state. The Export save button copies an encoded save string to the clipboard. Store that text somewhere private before clearing browser data or moving to another device. Import save replaces the current local state with an exported one.
Erase save permanently begins a fresh run after confirmation. It is not required for updates: new game fixes normalize older saves automatically, and moving the game from the homepage to /play.html does not change the storage origin.
Reaching the ending
The long-term route is to defeat the three relay-key bosses, recover all required resources, build the Carrier Key, and clear the second Sky Array encounter. The final battle unlocks the Far Horizon. There, the player chooses between opening the network into many imperfect voices or joining the Carrier to create a single flawless signal.
Both choices complete the campaign. The guide intentionally avoids declaring one ending correct. The story is built around the tradeoff between uncontrolled human plurality and imposed machine certainty, and the final decision asks which failure mode the player is willing to accept.