Wave 11 is no longer a wall. It was the sector’s only real hurdle: 36 % of runs lost a life there, the hull low-point dropped to 55 %, and damage taken per hull point jumped from 0.27 to 1.89 — a sevenfold jump within a single wave.
The reason was that six things happened there at once. Wave 11 is the switch to the next enemy generation, and until now it hit every enemy type all at once:
- every enemy 50 % tougher, their projectiles 12 % faster, their damage 25 % higher
- drones fire twice as many projectiles, orbs +6 per ring, spinners three arms instead of two
- fortresses get a second wall and missiles — a whole new projectile type
None of that is wrong on its own. All of it on one wave is.
- The upgrade is now staggered by enemy type. Drones and swarms first (wave 11), then orbs (13), spinners (15), and fortresses last (17). Over the full ten waves, the total ends up about the same — overall pressure across waves 11 to 20 sits at 96 % of the old value — just not all in one jump. The jump from wave 10 to 11 drops from 1.57 to 1.28, back within the normal range.
- The damage bonus now ramps up over four waves instead of arriving as a single step. On wave 11 it’s +6 % instead of +25 %, reaching its full value on wave 14. By the end of each set of ten it’s the same number as before; waves 1 to 10 are completely untouched.
- A side effect we like: the color coding by generation now actually means something. You can see that the drone has leveled up while the fortress next to it is still the old one.