DNA

DNA is a material that drops from destroyed enemies and is auto-collected when the player gets close enough to it.

Generation Mechanics
Enemies, upon destruction, drop amounts of DNA which vary based on enemy type and variant, enemy level, and whether any champion modifiers are present. These initial DNA gains are boosted based on the killer's DNA drop stat to obtain the DNA "subtotal". This amount is dropped into the world as green capsules.

DNA does not only drop for the ship that lands the killing shot on an enemy unit - it drops for every ship that damaged the unit as well as all Astrolaxes which used S-Link or Y-Link to boost one or more ships while they were damaging the unit.

Danger
The Danger system improves DNA gains based on the number of enemy bullets on screen at once. Its effects are represented by an orange bar in the interface. Getting hit by a bullet briefly resets the Danger level to 0%, encouraging effective dodging to maintain increased DNA gains.

Depending on the Danger level of at the time of an enemy's destruction, a percentage of the DNA subtotal is duplicated and dropped into the world as yellow capsules. Duplication percentage is approximately equal to Danger level until the Danger level exceeds ~30% - above this threshold, the duplication percentage grows non-linearly with Danger level (duplication % > Danger level). At the maximum Danger level of 100%, 300% of the subtotal is duplicated and dropped as yellow capsules, effectively quadrupling DNA gains.

Ship Leveling
While the current ship is below level 10, all collected DNA drops contribute toward the next ship level (indicated by DNA drops leaving green trails upon collection). For the purposes of DNA leveling requirements, the Gemeter R and the Astrolax 500mg are low-tier ships; the Gemeter SX and the Astrolax 1g are mid-tier ships; and the Gemeter DX and the Astrolax 2g are high-tier ships.

Greed Leveling
While the current ship is at level 10 and the player is within a T4-6 system, collected DNA contributes towards increasing the player's Greed level (indicated by DNA drops leaving blue trails upon collection):

Unlike normal ship levels, Greed levels reset to 0 whenever the player changes to a different system or warps to a motherbase. Additionally, they decay over time at a rate of 1.25% of the next Greed level's required DNA per second; taking damage from bullets instantly removes a 5% chunk. However, whenever DNA decays or is otherwise reduced down to 0%, 25%, 50% or 75% of the next level's DNA requirement, a grace period of 3 seconds occurs during which DNA cannot be reduced further - collecting DNA during this grace period ends it immediately and re-enables DNA decay and removal until another grace period triggers.

The player's current Greed level gives conquest reward and conquest speed bonuses based on its magnitude. The conquest reward bonus increases Sector Point (SP) and Credit gains from capturing zones (and, by extension, from conquering whole sectors), and the conquest speed bonus speeds up zone captures by increasing the rate at which the player's zone capture bar increases.

Crew Leveling
While the current ship is at level 10, collected DNA contributes toward the leveling of any equipped crew - see Guide:Crews for more details.