Life Point

Life Point (LP) is a numeric value in Arknights which determines how many enemies can pass through the Protection Objectives in any given operation.

Overview

Whenever an enemy enters a Protection Objective, 1 Life Point will be deducted, but the following enemies deduct more:

• Most bosses, the Urban "Whirlwind Walker"/"Tornado Trendsetter", and the Theater Golem deducts 2 LP.
• Few bosses such as The Endspeaker, Will of We Many deducts 3 LP.
• Enemies with "transport" capability, such as Competitive-Grade Beach Buggies and "Sandwalkers", deduct additional LP based on the passengers (e.g. a Buggy that carries 3 Alcohol Lovers will deduct 4 LP, 1 for the Buggy and 3 for the Alcohol Lovers).

There are several additional LP deduction scenarios:

• A Command Terminal will cause the player to lose 1 LP when destroyed.
• The following allied units will cause the player to lose LP when defeated/destroyed:
  • Ursus Civilian (-1)
  • Talulah, the Fighter (-2)
  • Competition Transport Vessel (-2)
• In All I Ask of You, if the boss, Big Sad Lock, is not defeated in 8 minutes, it will self-destruct and causes the player to lose 30 LP.
• In Lofty Silverfrost and Gardener, if the respective boss, Samivilinn, the Resolution of the Very North and Crazelyseon, the Ascendant of Cosmoi, is not defeated in 10 minutes, it will self-destruct and causes the player to lose 30 LP.

There are three exceptions to LP deduction:

• The following enemies will not cause LP loss upon entering a Protection Objective:

Normal
Elite
Boss

• The following enemies will "despawn" instead of going for the Protection Objectives, which do not cause LP loss:

Normal
Boss

• Allied units do not cause LP loss when they entered a Protection Objective (Incursion Point for Talulah, the Fighter).

Any Life Point loss will prevent the player from clearing the operation with 3 stars. In Contingency Contract, Multivariate Cooperation: Defence Protocols, Interlocking Competition: Hymnoi Wisdom, Stationary Security Service, and Trials for Navigator operations, LP losses will not affect the final outcome, so the player(s) could let one or two enemies leak through if it would not compromise the operation. In Annihilation, enemies who incurred an LP loss upon entering a Protection Objective will not be included in the defeated enemy count, lowering the rewards that the player would receive. There are few exceptions to this:

• LP loss from Ursus Civilians in Abandoned Mine will lower the defeated enemy count.
• In Flooded Seashore, LP loss from destroyed Command Terminals do not lower the defeated enemy count.
• LP loss from enemies that are excluded from the enemy counter, most notably Originiutant Excrescences/Tumors and Waregeists' true forms, do not lower the defeated enemy count.

Should the Life Points reach 0, the operation will end in a mission failure, thus the player must prevent too many enemies from "leaking" past their Operators at all costs. In S3 and TN operations however, the bosses (only for those exclusive to S3 in the former) will deduct LP equal to the amount given, which means leaking them will instantly compromise the operation! In Annihilation, losing all LP will end the operation without compromising it, although as mentioned above, the rewards given will be affected.

In earlier operations, the player starts with a generous amount of Life Points in each operation. As the operations progress, however, the amount of LP is steadily reduced to 3 in most operations or even 2 in some, making Arknights much less forgiving about leaks when compared to other tower defense games.

• Playing an operation's Challenge Mode will reduce the LP to 1; thus, any leak will compromise the operation. The same can be achieved in C.C. operations by using the Objective: Last Line of Defense Contract.
• The player is given 5 LP in TN operations except for the Ultimate Trial mode where the LP count is reduced to 3.
• In Multivariate Cooperation operations, the LP count is shared between both players.

Integrated Strategies

In Integrated Strategies, Life Points or Objective HP also act as the player's lives; should the LP reaches 0, the run ends in a failure. Because of this, losing LP in operations does not merit any penalties (before Mizuki & Caerula Arbor, see below) but the player must be especially careful against I.S.-exclusive bosses (except the Lost Colossus) as they will deduct more LP than usual (3 or 5 for the mid-bosses, 30 for the final bosses).

LP also acts as a resource which can be exchanged for other valuables and given in certain Encounters and Downtime Recreations. However, the player cannot give away their LP if they would be left with less than 1 LP in the process, thus it is impossible to compromise the run by losing all LP outside of operations.

• Choosing Spearhead Squad will lower the player's starting LP to only 1 in return for buffing friendly units' ATK and DEF.
• "End of Times" (and "Beauty and Ugliness in the Age of Terra" in Phantom & Crimson Solitaire) give the player a "second wind" in the event they failed an (Emergency) Operation by making them proceed to the next node instead of failing the run and gains LP, but only once per run.
• Since Caerula Arbor, the player's LP is capped to a certain amount, which can only be increased by certain Collectibles and raising the Command Level. Increasing the LP cap also gives LP equal to the increment, although there are some exceptions to this.
  • Because of this, Leader Squad is now adjusted to increase the LP cap by 2 and gives 1 whenever an operation is cleared.
  • Sometimes the LP cap can be reduced, which causes the player to lose LP as well if it would exceed the reduced cap! Fortunately, LP cap reductions will never lower the cap to below 1.
• In Crimson Solitaire:
  • Choosing Research Squad increases the starting LP by 2.
  • The "Sensitive" Hallucination causes the player to gain and lose twice as much Life Points. Therefore, the player must exercise extreme caution as normal enemies will now deduct 2 LP and bosses will take away dozens of LP when they leak, but at the same time, the player will be able to compensate that by gaining more LP than usual.
• In Caerula Arbor:
  • If the player loses LP during an operation, they will lose 5 Light after the operation is cleared. The same also happens if their current LP is less than 50% of the LP cap at the time, and both of the aforementioned does stack for a total of 10 Light!
  • The Echoes: Overgrowth Call of We Many doubles all LP losses but increases the LP cap by 1 when an operation is cleared.
• In Expeditioner's Joklumarkar:
  • The player starts with +4 LP cap in the first two Braving Nature difficulty levels.
  • Clearing an operation after losing LP increases Collapse by 1. From Braving Nature +3, this penalty is increased to 2.
  • The Eternal Hunting Squad increases the LP cap by 2 and reduces Collapse by 2 after clearing an operation without losing LP, but increases the Collapse penalty (see above) by 1.
  • The Convergence Consumption/Deficiency Collapsal Paradigm causes the player to lose 1 LP cap whenever an Anti-Interference Index is lost, which increases to 2 when deepened.
  • The Partial/Complete Cecity Collapsal Paradigm, which has a rare chance of being gained, causes the LP counter to show the value as question marks based on the digit instead of the usual exact numeric value (e.g. having the LP in two-digit amounts cause the counter to show "??"), making it difficult for the player to keep track of their LP count!
  • During Deep Investigations, quitting out or failing an (Emergency) Operation no longer compromises the run, instead having the player proceed to the next node at the expense of reducing the LP cap by 2.

Objective Shield

Objective Shield, known as temporary Life Point/Objective HP before Mizuki & Caerula Arbor, act as bonus Life Points which will be consumed before the player's own LP, effectively acting as a safeguard from LP losses. However, this is only effective on LP reductions from leaks in operations; LP losses outside them will not consume Objective Shields.

• Before Caerula Arbor, choosing Leader Squad gives 4 Objective Shields during operations.
• In Crimson Solitaire, "Ode au Triomphe" gives 5 Objective Shields on the operation it is activated.
• Since Caerula Arbor, choosing Research Squad gives 3 Objective Shields at the start. This is also the case with Special Training Squad in Expeditioner's Joklumarkar.
• In Caerula Arbor, unlocking the "Danger Awareness" Cognitive Shaping nodes give 1 Objective Shield after clearing an operation while having more than 10/8 .
• The following Collectibles give Objective Shields:
  • Fragmentation Mine (1 during operations)
  • "Self-Defense Handbook" (2 during operations)
  • "Durin Overground" (1 during operations in Crimson Solitaire; 4 in Caerula Arbor onward)
  • "Gaulish Toponym Origins" (2 during operations in Crimson Solitaire; 6 in Caerula Arbor onward)
  • Acahuallan Bowl (2)
  • "Multipurpose" Hair Clip (1)
  • Defender-2 (5)
  • Embedded Armor Plate (8 at the cost of -2 LP cap)
  • "King's Fellowship" (exchanges all but 1 LP into Objective Shields by an equal amount + 2)

Trivia

• Before the A Walk in the Dust update on the Global server, Life Points were officially named (Map/Objective) HP Seals. The change is likely to avoid confusion with HP (Health/Hit Point).