Love and Deepspace features a Stamina system, but it’s not as deeply tied into the game’s RPG mechanics as you might think – and, just to head you off from the obvious follow-up joke, no, it’s nothing to do with the dating sim side of things either, despite what those ultra-thirsty adverts for the game might have led you to believe.
So what is stamina in LaDS all about? It’s actually more to do with the game’s live service features first and foremost. Stamina is a limited resource, which you’ll need to consume in order to farm levelling materials for Memories pulled from the gacha. And levelling those Memories is, in turn, essential for keeping your party combat-ready as you progress through the main story and participate in endgame activities.
Keeping your stamina bar optimally full is important if you want to progress through Love and Deepspace’s story, but the game doesn’t go out of its way to explain the best way to do this. Should you allow your stamina to overflow past the cap, or ensure that you always deplete it in full before logging out? Read on for our full explanation of Love and Deepspace’s Stamina system, including every method to get more stamina.
Love and Deepspace Stamina explained
You might have noticed that certain screens in Love and Deepspace feature a stamina bar in the upper right-hand corner. The number on the left tells you how much stamina your character currently has, and the one on the right indicates the maximum amount that can be regenerated once depleted.
You consume stamina whenever you challenge a Bounty Hunt or Core Hunt stage, both of which can be found in LaDS’ Battle system. Bounty Hunts are used to farm all of the various levelling materials for Memories, while Core Hunts drop Protocores which can be equipped to Memories to further enhance their stats.
It costs 8x Stamina each time you challenge a Bounty Hunt stage, and 20x Stamina each time you challenge a Core Hunt stage. After completing each Bounty Hunt stage once, you unlock the ability to freely repeat that stage on autobattle 10 times in a row at a total cost of 80x Stamina.
Note that you don’t consume stamina when playing Love and Deepspace’s story chapters (including battles), going on any type of dates, participating in events, or engaging in other battle types such as Deepspace Trial, Hunter Contest, or Abyssal Chaos. The Stamina system really is just about material farming for levelling and enhancing Memories.
LaDS’ gameplay loop requires you to level up Memories very frequently, and running out of stamina is one of the most common barriers to progressing through the story. However, it’s very important to understand that you can hold a basically unlimited amount of stamina above your current cap, which only shows the maximum amount of stamina that can regenerate on its own.
Stamina regeneration is capped at somewhere between 100-200 points depending on your Hunter level, but you can potentially bank thousands of points if you find a way to get extra. Overflowing your stamina bar isn’t something you need to worry about, as the extra points you accumulate will just sit there until you use them – and you’ll probably want a more generous daily allowance than the base amount in order to keep levelling up your team.
How to get more Stamina in Love and Deepspace
In line with most other live service RPGs, LaDS’ stamina bar regenerates on its own, at a rate of one point every six minutes. In practice this means that even a fully-depleted stamina bar should refill to the cap in about 12 real-world hours. However, you’re actively encouraged to overflow the bar: for example, a pair of recurring daily tasks require you to spend 100 and 300 Stamina, respectively, even though at the highest Hunter levels your regen cap will still only be around 200 points.
That’s where the following methods for gaining extra stamina come in:
- Daily log-in bonuses: LaDS encourages you to log in twice daily by offering two stamina bonuses for logging in at specific times of day: 30 Stamina for logging in between 10am-2pm, and a separate 60 Stamina for logging in from 4pm-8pm. (Note that this is based on server time, which might differ from the actual time in your region – for example, if you’re based in the UK and playing on the Europe server, server time is an hour ahead of BST.)
- Energy Capsules: Many reward drops in the game include Energy Capsules of various rarities. Stylised as cans of energy drink, there are three potencies: Light (pink can) which grants 30 Stamina; Vigorous (purple can) which grants 60 Stamina; and Powerful (gold can), which grants 100 Stamina. Note that Energy Capsule items tend to expire about two real-world weeks after redeeming them, and since there’s no penalty for banking additional stamina, you might as well consume them as you get them.
- In addition to reward drops, Energy Capsules are included in many of the packs available from LaDS’ in-game store. Be sure to claim your daily and weekly free packs when they become available, but avoid spending real-world money, as this is a costly and inefficient way of gaining stamina.
- Levelling up: Upon attaining a new Hunter Level, you’ll usually be gifted with a top-up of around 40-50 Stamina. Levelling also intermittently raises your overall stamina cap by a point or two, but this doesn’t happen every time you gain a new level.
- Trade with friends: Adding other players to your friend list allows you to receive up to 30 Stamina per day through mutual gifting, which is also a regular daily task.
- Exchange Diamonds: In dire straits, you can exchange your precious Diamonds for a stamina boost, at 1:3 exchange rate which limits you to spending 20 Diamonds per day to get 60 Stamina. However, Diamonds are the game’s primary free-to-play currency and an important gacha resource for F2P players, so we don’t recommend dipping into your reserves for a short-lived stamina boost unless it’s really urgent.