Deployments with teeth

Weapons

• Every level is a quarter more. A weapon level used to add a quarter of the gun's base damage, so each level was worth less than the last, down to +14% at level 5. Each level now adds 25% on top of the one before, so a level 5 gun hits 2.44 times its base instead of 2, and overcharged levels past 5 keep compounding. The 40mm Cannon and other damage-growing guns gain; weapons that level a signature stat (bounces, shrapnel, mines aloft) are unchanged.
• Orbital Designator narrows. It fires every 4 seconds at base, up from 2.5, and its round hits a tight column: the painted target and whatever is hugging it. Levels quicken the paint and extend its reach but no longer widen the strike. It was carrying too many runs on its own.

Specializations

• Broad Column replaces Kinetic Rod on the Orbital Designator: the full wide column, growing with the card. Salvo still walks three columns across the field and Firestorm still leaves a wide fire, each with its own area.
• Wide Bore replaces Splintering Payload on the Railgun. The slug flies as a broad bar of light and hits anything brushing the line. Punch-through still counts from the nearest body, so a leveled rail is what makes the bar pay.

Waves

• Leaks hurt from wave 10. The damage an enemy deals on reaching the array has always climbed each wave, but only from wave 20. The climb now starts at wave 10: by wave 20 an impact lands about 40% harder than it did, and by wave 30 about twice as hard. Bosses are unchanged.
• Why. Most runs ended on a boss wave, because a normal wave moved on after its clock and the odd leak healed back. Now letting enemies through in the teens costs more than the drones repair, and a thin build can fall between bosses.

Sites

• Every complication bites harder. Choosing where to deploy should mean deciding what you can afford to give up. Swarm season sends 50% more arrivals (was 30%), dust storm cuts weapon range by 35% (was 25%), brittle panels take 50% more damage from every impact (was 25%), and ion interference slows fire rate by 25% (was 15%). Overcharged foes stay 25% faster.
• Three new complications. Signal blackout cuts run XP by 30%, so levels and their drafts come slower. Supply blockade cuts flux bounties and cells by 35% for the whole run. Rationed requisition deals one card fewer in every draft, never below two.
• Complications explained where they appear. On the defeat screen, the complication and any buff under the site's name are tappable and show the same stat chips as the offer card. In the run menu, their stat chips now sit under their names.

Interface

• The defeat screen in figures. Wave, time survived, run level, flux, scrap or damage, and damage per second sit in six tiles in fixed places, with the final loadout and its levels under them, so two runs compare at a glance.
• Render scale. A new Options row: Sharp is the picture as it was, Balanced draws a little softer for about half the work per frame, and Fast for a quarter. It is separate from Effects, which used to lower the resolution on Minimal, so a phone that stutters can drop a step and keep every effect. It applies to a live run on the spot.
• Show frame rate. A new Options switch, off by default, puts a small line in the lower right of the battlefield with the frames per second and the resolution the field is drawn at, so you can see what each Effects or Render scale step buys.
• The Systems menu closes on its own when you pick a page, instead of staying on top until a second tap.
• Glints are easier to tap. The tap area around a glinting wreck or flux cell is now about twice as wide on a phone, roughly a thumb's width. The glint itself is drawn the same size.

Fixes

• A reload can no longer wipe your save. If the run page reloaded and resumed its run before the cloud save arrived, the first bounty could land on a fresh save that then replaced the real one: weapons, perks and cannons gone. The game now waits for the cloud save before saving anything, and the server refuses any save that would take cannons, run count, best wave, research or the arsenal backwards.