A fix for the top bar: with the new ECONOMY button, MENU slid off the right edge of the screen at larger UI scales. ECONOMY is now the first step of the phase strip, and the bar tightens to fit at every UI scale the game allows.
Fixed
The top bar no longer pushes MENU off the screen at UI scales above 100%.
Changed
The ECONOMY button is now the first step of the phase strip (ECONOMY › RESEARCH › MOVEMENT › ACTIONS › ATTACK). Click it or press I for your latest economy report.
When the bar is tight, its buttons drop the [key] hints (the tooltips still show them) and POPULATION reads POP.
Line fleets can now take a Shroud refit and cloak: unseen, they slip past pickets and call down rocks from next to their target. Inhibitor Arrays, buoys and Wake Sensors answer them. Also new: blind rock fire, point defense along a rock's path, cracked planets, capture nets, planned moves, and the Ark as an optional rule.
New
Shroud refit: a Line fleet at Mark I or II can be refitted for stealth instead of strength. A cloaked fleet can't be seen, passes held sectors and can spot for rocks from the hex next to its target.
Ambush: a fleet that uncloaks and attacks the same turn strikes two columns harder, and the target gets no defending bonus. It stays visible until your next turn.
Inhibitor Arrays: built at a colony, no cloak works in that sector. Inhibitor Buoys fly to any sector within four and hold it for six rounds.
Wake Sensors, late in the research web: a chance each round to expose cloaked fleets near your colonies.
Blind fire: launch a rock at any planet you have seen, with no spotter, at a much lower chance to hit.
Point defense along the route: your grids can knock a rock down a size as it passes through your sectors on its way to one of yours.
Crack Planet: break an empty planet or a Ruin into an asteroid belt over three turns. A fleet can do it too, to deny a planet to a neighbour.
Capture Nets: grow an asteroid belt on an empty hex over about six rounds.
Rock filters: set the smallest and largest rock each mass driver keeps, and discard a held rock for free.
Planned moves: send a fleet several turns away. The route shows where each turn ends, moves on by itself, and pauses when something changes.
The economy report on demand: the ECONOMY button or I.
Ascendance is now an optional rule in New Game. Off, games end by conquest, the turn limit, or the Quiet Dark if it is on.
Changed
A destroyed mass driver takes its asteroid belt with it.
A colony can't be founded where visible rival fleets would blockade it at once. Bring escorts.
A dark civilization's hidden Ark stages are noticed only through noise it chooses to make, not fights it is dragged into.
Saves now live in a saves folder beside the game. Your earlier saves are copied in on the first start.
Fixed
A newly founded colony keeps the selection instead of handing it to your homeworld.
The research web now fills the screen without crowded labels, glows green on what you can afford, and pans with W A S D. Corvettes scout less freely. A dark civilization's Ark stages stay hidden unless a rival notices them. Ties are now settled by what each civilization built, never by seat.
New
Research web: nodes you can afford wear a green halo. H shows only those.
W A S D pan the research web when zoomed in.
A civilization that has gone dark builds its Ark stages in secret. Rivals notice a stage only by chance, more likely with good listening, a scout nearby, or if it makes noise.
Changed
Corvettes see only from where they stop, move 4, cost 2 credits, and you may keep two.
Ties at the end are settled by research, then development, then sector works, then military record, then the lowest Signature reached, then credits. Never by seat.
The research web is laid out to use the whole screen, and its count says when a node isn't in this game.
Research is now a web of three domains and six rings, with forks that close their twin and echoes that make a pair cheaper. The late game gains the Swarm, the Cage and the Silence, and new art for the pieces that arrive late.
New
The research web: three domains, six rings, gates between them, forks and echoes, and the Apex weapons on the rim.
The Swarm, the Cage and the Silence, with an optional Quiet Dark victory in New Game.
Art for the late-game pieces, Mark IV fleets and the app icon.