Love and Deepspace Protocore Guide: Shapes, Rarities, and Core Hunt Farming
What every Protocore shape actually gives you, which ones belong on which Memory Card, and how to stop hoarding cores you'll never use.
A Protocore is the gear piece you equip onto a Memory Card to boost its stats, similar to an artifact or relic system in other gacha games. Protocores come in three rarities (Common, Super Rare, Extremely Rare) and four groups — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta — where Gamma and Delta go on Lunar Memory Cards and Alpha and Beta go on Solar Memory Cards. The core's shape decides its stat pool: Cube cores lean toward Oath's Strength and Energy stats, while Pyramid cores are where you'll find Crit Rate and Crit DMG. You farm and upgrade them in the Core Hunt mode.
It's easy to mix up Love and Deepspace's two gear systems when you're new, so here's the split: a Memory Card is the character/card itself that you pull for through Wishes, while a Protocore is a separate accessory you equip onto that card afterward to push its stats higher. Think of the Memory Card as the unit and the Protocore as the gear you slot into it.
- Protocores don't come from the Wish gacha — you earn and upgrade them through gameplay, mainly the Core Hunt mode.
- A well-built Protocore can meaningfully change how a Memory Card performs, but it can't replace leveling and Awakening the card itself.
- New players should prioritize getting their main Memory Cards to a usable level before spending heavily on Protocore optimization.
Protocores come in three rarities: Common (blue), Super Rare (purple), and Extremely Rare (gold) — higher rarity generally means stronger stat rolls and more substats to work with. On top of rarity, every Protocore also belongs to one of four groups, and this is the part that actually determines where it can go.
- Gamma and Delta Protocores are built for Lunar Memory Cards.
- Alpha and Beta Protocores are built for Solar Memory Cards.
- Before farming or upgrading a specific Protocore, check which Memory Cards you're actually building — a beautifully rolled Delta core is wasted if none of your active team uses Lunar cards.
Beyond rarity and group, a Protocore's physical shape decides which stat pool it draws from, and this is the detail that decides whether a core fits your build.
- Cube-shaped cores roll from ATK/DEF/HP Bonus, Oath's Strength, Oath Recovery, and Expedited Energy — useful for characters who lean on frequent Ardent Oath (ultimate) usage or need faster energy generation.
- Pyramid-shaped cores also roll ATK/DEF/HP Bonus, but their standout stats are Crit Rate, Crit DMG, and DMG Boost to Weakened enemies — the pick for a straightforward damage-focused build.
- If you're building a DPS Memory Card around consistent crit damage, Pyramid is generally the shape to chase. If your build depends on ultimate uptime, Cube is worth prioritizing instead.
Once equipped, a Protocore can be leveled up to increase its main stat (ATK, HP, or DEF) along with its secondary effect. As you level a core, it also gradually unlocks and strengthens its substats: roughly every 3 levels, the core either reveals a new substat or upgrades an existing one further.
- Prioritize leveling Protocores that already rolled substats useful for the Memory Card wearing them, rather than every core you happen to pick up.
- A core's substats are partly luck-based on top of its shape and group, which is why two Protocores of the same rarity and shape can perform very differently in practice.
- Don't feel pressured to max every Protocore immediately — leveling is a resource sink best spent on cores you're confident you'll keep.
Protocores are farmed in a dedicated mode called Core Hunt. Running it repeatedly is how you build up a supply of cores to sort through, level, and equip. Because Core Hunt naturally produces more cores than you'll ever use, Love and Deepspace lets you convert the excess into something useful instead of letting them sit in your inventory.
- Breaking down extra Protocores you don't need converts them into Core Energy, which you can then use to help upgrade the cores you're actually keeping.
- Before breaking a core, double-check its shape, group, and rarity against your current builds — it's easy to accidentally break a Pyramid core you'll want later for a new DPS pull.
- A simple keep-or-break rule: keep a core if its shape and group match a Memory Card you actively use and its substats are already decent; break it if none of that applies.
We're keeping this guide updated as we confirm more detail on Core Hunt's specific difficulty tiers and drop rates — for now, treat farming frequency as tied to how much Core Energy you currently need rather than a fixed schedule.