Every sky rebuilt, every card fixed

Sites

• Every site is a live 3D landscape. Mojave's buttes stand in ranges that fade into the haze. The Himalaya rise snowbound over a stony plateau, Serengeti's acacias stand in the grass, Atoll's lagoon runs from turquoise to deep blue, Svalbard's ranges sit under the aurora and Antigua has its volcano. Neo-Osaka's towers climb out of the dark, and Atacama's salt flat holds a sheet of water that catches the moon.
• The sky moves. Clouds drift and billow, the sun's glare shimmers and stars twinkle. The aurora folds, surf rolls in, sun and moon paths glitter on the water, city windows flicker, snow blows off the peaks, and Antigua erupts every few seconds. Distant ranges slide slower than near ones when the view pans, as a real horizon would.
• The invasion worlds too. The garden world's ringed giant, the colony's lit domes under two moons, the foundry's spires over magma seams, the outpost's split hives, and the fortress's shattered moon and sweeping searchlights.
• The scenery follows the battle's clock. It holds still while the battle pauses for a draft.
• Everything on the battlefield is modelled. Every enemy and boss, your cannon, solar panels, launch pad and rocket, and the shells, darts, supply drops and wrecks are now lit, shaded and plated 3D models. Each keeps its old silhouette, so it still reads at a glance.

Weapons

• Flak Battery keeps firing beside other guns. It can't land a shell right on top of the emplacement, so whenever another gun kept a close enemy the nearest threat, the battery used to sit idle. It now works the nearest target past its dead zone.
• Balloon Mines pop on everything. A drone parked on the emplacement, or a boss hull, used to swallow balloons without a blast. Every balloon now pops on whatever it meets, and big bodies set it off from their edge.
• Orbital Designator marks the thickest cluster in reach, the farthest among equals, and now finds bosses too. It used to mark the farthest enemy, so each level's longer reach found a lonelier straggler and it hit harder at level 1 than at level 10.
• Each Lockdown dart picks its own capture: the nearest enemy not already frozen. Every dart used to re-freeze the same one, so a leveled Lockdown held no more than a new one.
• Lockdown's ice jams the sky. Enemies that fly into a frozen body stall behind it, and the stream bunches up for flak, rockets and the Orbital.

Specializations

• Tethered Mines lay tripwires. Whatever crosses a filament pulls both balloons onto itself, and the pair pops wide.
• Focus Lens carries the whole volley. The beam lands the full damage of the level's volley from the first shot. At level 10 it used to carry a third of it.
• Thermal Drill spreads out. It moves on to the next toughest target when its mark dies, and drills no longer pile onto one hull. It cooks a little cooler: still the boss killer, now good against the stream too.
• Thunderstorm shares the sky. It strikes slower and its bolts barely grow with level. It still clears the sky, but the gun beside it gets its share.
• Repulsor shoves straight back up-field. Pushing sideways used to throw enemies out of the other guns' reach.
• Seeker Warhead fires at full burn from the tube. Each rocket keeps its own mark and only moves on when it dies.
• Shatter darts go for a frozen enemy to crack, and freeze a fresh one when there is none.
• Trident's prongs each find their own mark, and Stun Burst stuns everything on the line when it lets go, not just the far end.
• Slag's scar cools slowly, so there is slag to cross.
• Fire Whirl's vortex holds what it burns instead of drawing it toward the array.
• Cryo Cloud: enemies frozen in the bank crack easier.
• Blue Flame keeps the full reach: a narrow jet, far hotter.
• Kinetic Slug staggers what it throws.
• Small buffs. White Phosphorus and Molten Orb burns grow with level. Implosion Charge pulls from farther out, Sabot Rounds reach farther behind and hit harder, and Three-Round Burst fires more often.

Bosses

• Bosses shrug off half of every freeze and stun. Bosses and their guns take half the hold from Deep Chill, Cryo Cloud, Stall Pulse, Lockdown and Flash Freeze alike.
• Deep Chill can't chain. Shards landing on a target that is already frozen build no chill. A boss used to spend most of the fight on ice.

Draft

• Synergies retired. Pair cards have not dealt since August 30, and they are now removed for good. Reaching level 5 with a weapon deals its Specialize card, and Priority Requisition still guarantees that card a slot.

Perks

• Range Amplifier lengthens the Thermal Lance and Flamethrower. Their reach now grows with it, as the Flamethrower's aim already did.
• Payload Chemistry stretches Napalm's burn and Slag's slow and brittleness too.

Orbit

• Metal reflects. In Orbital Command, the deploy globe, the star chart and the Orbit gallery, hulls, satellites and platforms reflect the light around them: the bay's door and lamps, or the sun and the planet below. The satellite dish reads as gold instead of a dark ring.
• Lights glow and hulls are plated. Light strips, beacons, the hologram, city lights on charted worlds and the Home marker bloom softly. Walls, crates and hulls carry panel seams, rivets and wear, with rounded edges that catch a highlight.

Interface

• Locations gallery tab. Every deployment site and invasion world as its live 3D landscape, with a line on what you are looking at and sites marked day or night. Drag to pan: the ranges slide past one another at their own depths, then ease back when you let go.
• A close-up on every enemy card. Each enemy's model sits in a small box beside its description, above the demo of how it attacks. Boss mounts show in their own colours.
• Gallery search covers specializations. Typing a specialization's name finds the weapon that carries it.
• Gallery demos match the run. Weapon demos follow the run's level rules, so a level 5 Tesla or Railgun demo no longer hits harder than the real thing. The Lockdown and Tethered Mines demos stream enemies, so the ice jam and the tripwire have something to catch.
• Damage recap. Cluster Warhead, Hanging Razors and Pyrophoric Swarm damage shows under the specialization's name. Older runs keep every source in their recap, retired synergies included.
• Minimal effects keeps the landscapes but stops their animation, so the scenery only redraws when the view moves, and turns off the glow in the orbit views.

Fixes

• Kinetic Slug no longer throws bodies out of the top of the sky.
• Thermal Lance no longer misses targets near the left horizon.
• Corkscrew Beam ticks at its stated rate. It was running about 10% slow.
• Standing Arc and Ball Lightning no longer vanish when an enemy passes the top-left corner of the sky.
• Tether's hold ends when the tether lets go, even inside a vapor bank.
• Collapse caves in however the well ends, including a well that drifts off the field.