The bosses take shape

Bosses

• The Dreadnought is a battle saucer. A wide disc with a plated deck and a heavy rim whose lights run slowly around it, faster as it takes damage. Its eye rides an arm on top that swings round to watch where it is about to fly. Its guns hang where they always did.
• The Hive Carrier trails a long tail. A segmented tail with lit joints and brood sacs runs back from its carapace into the distance, rippling and curling behind it as it flies.
• The Revolver spins inside a gyro ring. A second hoop tumbles around its core in every direction, faster as the hull weakens. Its gun drum is unchanged.

Perks

• Hazard Protocols. A new perk: each rank lets you switch on one more mutator at once, up to all seven. You can always switch on one without it.
• Deployment Network costs far less: 300 flux for the second location and 900 for the third, down from 1,200 and 4,800.
• Silver Linings is gone. Every location now carries a buff, so there is nothing left for it to raise. Flux spent on it is not refunded.

Orbit

• The worlds never run out. Every probe reaches further than the last, and the chart shows how far out each world lies. Further worlds are defended harder and pay bigger bounties, but the climb is now gentle enough for a growing fleet to keep up, where before every probe made all later worlds a third harder and the fleet soon could not take anything.
• Every kind of world turns up early. Your first probes find one world of each kind before any repeats, so the five weapons held by the enemy are all within reach.
• Probe prices climb more slowly. Each probe costs a fixed step more than the last, where each used to cost a third more.

Sites

• Mutators replace site complications. Every run now deploys clean. On the deploy screen you can switch on mutators: each one makes the run harder in one way and raises the flux and scrap the run pays. Dust storm +30%, Brittle panels +25%, Rationed requisition +25%, Ion interference +20%, Overcharged foes +15%, Signal blackout +15%, Swarm season +5%. The bonuses add up, and your choice stays on for the next run.
• Supply blockade is retired. It cut your pay, which fought the point of a mutator.
• Every location carries a buff. Each location on the deploy screen comes with one free upside: Calm skies, Charged grid, Fresh panels, Cold snap or Munitions cache. The offer only changes after a run, so reloading won't reroll it. Deployment Network shows more locations, and so more buffs to choose from.
• The daily challenge is the day's mutation. Each day everyone plays the same one or two mutators, with no buff. Today's challenge stays as it started.

Interface

• New: the Daily Challenge. One attempt a day, on the same field with the same weapons for everyone: no perks, prestige or Arsenal, just your picks. Flux for how far you get, and a board for each day with a replay for every entry. Every day grants 2 rerolls and 2 banishes plus two perks of its own that change how you build, and today's replays stay locked until you finish your own attempt, so nobody can copy a strategy first.
• Kills break ties. On both leaderboards a tie on wave goes to the run with more kills. Kills show beside each wave and on the defeat screen.
• Orbital lasers have their own icon. They showed the lightning bolt that means flux; they now show a dish, on the home screen, in the header's sky list (where they were missing), at deployment and in Programs. Jump Drives trades the bolt for a fast-forward arrow.
• The draft shows your weapon slots. Under each hand's title, a row of slots shows how many weapons you have and how many more you can take.
• Leaderboard. Sign in, pick a callsign and an icon, and see how your deepest wave ranks against everyone else. Earn more icons by buying weapons, taking worlds, beating bosses and putting hardware in orbit. Every entry has a replay you can watch. Set your callsign and icon from Options or your Command record.