Dome Keeper Pacifist Run Guide: How to Win Without Weapons

To complete a pacifist run in Dome Keeper, you must clear a Relic Hunt run without purchasing or using lethal dome weaponry. Your win condition shifts entirely from clearing monster waves to outrunning wave scaling: select the Shield dome, bore narrow vertical shafts directly to the bedrock to uncover the primary relic, and reserve your cobalt to patch structural damage during the relic's final activation sequence.

Select the Shield Dome and Delay Gadgets

Without primary weapons to kill attackers, survival depends on passive damage mitigation and prolonging the intervals between monster waves.

Primary Dome System: Select the Shield dome instead of the Laser or Artillery domes. The shield provides a regenerating barrier that recharges every cycle at no resource cost, protecting your hull from flyer dive-bombs and ground strikes.
Support Gadget: Choose the Repellent gadget whenever possible. Repellent sprays pheromones into the atmosphere to delay the arrival of hostile waves, buying additional minutes to mine underground.
Secondary Alternative: If Repellent is not available, pick the Orchard. Its fruits provide shield overcharges that boost movement speed and barrier recovery to withstand wave impacts while you mine.

Focus Mining on Deep Vertical Shafts

Standard wide grid-mining slows your descent and exposes the dome to high-tier late-game swarms. In a pacifist run, strip-mining empty rock is a fatal mistake because enemy health and damage scale upward with every passing cycle.

Dig straight down: Bore narrow, two-tile-wide shafts directly beneath the dome.
Branch only for visible veins: Do not clear empty stone tiles. Turn sideways only when you spot iron clusters, cobalt chunks, or gadget chambers.
Upgrade mobility first: Put your first iron hauls into Drill Strength Level 1 and 2, followed by Carry Capacity. This prevents you from making multiple slow trips for small ore deposits.

Upgrade Priority and Cobalt Management

Because you spend zero iron on weapon targeting, weapon damage, or heavy shotguns, your entire resource economy feeds directly into dig speed, dome defense, and emergency maintenance.

Upgrade Category	Priority Tier	Function and Resource Allocation
Drill Strength & Carry Capacity	Top Priority	Maximizes descent speed through dense rock layers and limits travel time.
Shield Capacity & Overcharge	High Priority	Increases the damage threshold absorbed by the shield before the hull takes damage.
Jetpack Flight Speed	Moderate Priority	Speeds up the transit loop between deep bedrock layers and the surface.
Dome Hull Repair	Emergency Only	Spend cobalt exclusively when structural dome health falls below 30%.

Invest early iron into Shield Invulnerability or Shield Battle Overcharge to absorb burst damage from heavy flyers. Preserve cobalt strictly for emergency repairs. Keep at least three to four cobalt chunks in reserve to restore hull integrity when large mid-game swarms breach your shield.

Best Utility Gadgets for Non-Lethal Runs

Prioritize utility tools from underground chambers that speed up exploration and reduce travel time:

Teleporter: Eliminates transit delays. Place one pad in the deepest active dig zone to instantly return home when a wave warning triggers, activate shield skills, and warp back down immediately after the attack ends.
The Lift: Automatically transports mined iron and cobalt to the dome, freeing you to focus exclusively on opening paths to the relic chamber.
Blast Mining or Mining Rig: Uses explosive detonations to clear dense lower-tier rock formations without burning drilling time.
Stun Laser: If an upgrade chamber forces a combat tech choice, take crowd-control upgrades such as pulse stunning or beam freezing. Freezing flying and walking enemies reduces dome collision damage without dealing lethal blows.

Retrieve and Activate the Relic

Once you reach the bottom biome and expose the relic chamber, stop all resource mining and prepare for the final extraction:

Clear a direct route: Carve a straight, unobstructed vertical path back to the dome so the heavy relic parts do not snag on jagged rock edges.
Haul the components: Carry the power cells or core spheres directly up the shaft, utilizing a Teleporter or Lift if available.
Trigger the final sequence: Insert the relic into the dome terminal to initiate the charging sequence.
Hold the dome: Pop your remaining shield overcharge abilities and burn your stockpiled cobalt to repair structural breaches while monsters attack the glass.

Once relic charging hits 100%, the global purge sequence fires automatically, eliminating surface threats and completing your pacifist run.