How do faction upgrade trees work?

The faction upgrades panel has two sections: a core branch, which cannot be undone, and a special branch, where a faction picks up to 6 of 8 trees and can swap them as loadouts. Upgrades are paid for with faction respect, which is assigned to them rather than spent, and many need a challenge completed first. The sources do not say which permission lets a member set upgrades.

Structure

• Core branch: member capacity, armory upgrades, dirty bomb lab, territory upgrades and chaining upgrades. Core upgrades cannot be undone.
• Special branch: a faction can choose up to 6 trees from a list of 8, and can swap them instantly with another loadout of upgrades.
• Special branches are bonuses that all faction members receive.
• Extra special branches unlock by number of active upgrades: II at 20, III at 45, IV at 75, V at 110, VI at 150. A branch stays unlocked even if upgrades later drop below the number.

The wiki's Upgrades Panel section (captured 2026-02-05) also covers the Criminality tree and the Organized Crimes 2.0 upgrades.^[1][2]

Costs and unlocking

• Faction upgrades are bought with the respect the faction has earned. Respect is assigned to upgrades, not spent.
• Special branch cost depends on the slot: the first slot pays base cost and each later slot doubles the previous one (1000, 2000, 4000).
• Member Capacity I to X gives capacity 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 65, 80 and 100, at respect costs of 1,000, 1,412, 2,173, 3,067, 4,719, 6,662, 10,251, 15,773, 22,265 and 34,258.
• The Aggression branch total cost is 563,249 respect.
• The wiki points to a Respect Simulator on YATA and a challenge spreadsheet for predicting the respect needed per upgrade.

Chaining is an example of a challenge-gated upgrade. It must be unlocked with respect, and each longer chain length is unlocked after completing a chain of the set length.^[3] If the challenge is complete and enough respect is available, upgrading mid-chain does not break the ongoing chain.^[4]

What upgrades give

• Aggression: Speed and Strength main trees give up to 20% passively (1% per upgrade). Secondary trees: Accuracy up to +2.0, outgoing hospitalization times up to 50%, Damage up to 10%.
• Criminality: the main tree gives up to 25% crime skill and exp boost (1% per upgrade), but players in Crimes 2.0 can receive at most 10%.^[1]
• Organized Crimes II unlocks Simple Assignments for 4,719 respect and needs 5 organized crimes completed.^[2]
• Nerve upgrades (2021 wiki capture): I gives +1 nerve for 500 offences and 1,105 respect. V gives +5 for 7500 offences. X gives +10 for 30000 offences. XL gives +40 for 1000000 offences and 19,831 respect.^[5][6]

Changing upgrades

Core upgrades cannot be unset. Special upgrades can only be unset 72 hours after being set. At the January 2017 launch, unsetting took one minute for the first couple of weeks, then reverted to a default of 100 hours.

Players asked in February 2016 whether respect already spent would be restored. The sources show no answer, and no refund rule is documented.

History

Chedburn announced the tree in February 2016 as replacing the old Upgrades and 10 Special abilities. The initial release had 47 upgrades, each with 1 to 40 steps. The system launched on 2017-01-17, replacing all previous upgrades and special abilities.

Not established by the sources: which permission lets a member set upgrades, whether any refund exists, and the full list of special branches and their perks.

Where sources disagree

• The 2017 launch post gave a default unset delay of 100 hours; the 2026 wiki says 72 hours, so the newer figure is used.^[1]