Orbit+ gets weight, and everything you collect in Orbit has a purpose. The equipment audit showed that some properties were ineffective or too weak, legendaries were just a name, and marks, ore and components led nowhere. That is fixed now.
Orbit+ rebalanced
- Nova recharges. A reactor used to only shorten the 30-second lockout between two novas, hardly noticeable. Now it refills the nova stock: at a sum of 12 % one nova every 200 seconds, at 46 % every 52 seconds (2400 divided by the percentage). The lockout stays 30 seconds.
- Stronger properties: speed 5 instead of 2.5 % per item, fire rate 4 instead of 3 %, tractor 15 instead of 6 %. The tractor also pulls harder as the sum grows.
- Caps apply to the sum of all equipped items (no longer per item, where they were never reached): damage 60 %, fire rate 50 %, crit chance 25 %, damage against guardians 80 %, hull 100 %, shield 80 %, shield recharge 90 %, speed 30 %, nova 100 %, dash 50 %, ions 60 %, ore 80 %, tractor 150 %, experience 60 %.
- Quality affects the values: Rare ×1.1, Epic ×1.2 (an Epic’s first value another ×1.2), Legendary ×1.35. Legendaries now have all four properties of their slot.
- Ten legendary effects, active while the item is equipped; the equipment window names them in a line of their own:
- Comet Heart: your dash triggers a mini nova (25 % of nova damage, 220 px, at most every 4 seconds).
- Black Plumb: ion crystals no longer expire.
- Cartographer: places are discovered from 1.5× the distance, location arrows reach 1.5× as far (doesn’t stack with the long-range scanner).
- Hungry Core: every 50th kill fills your shield.
- Silent Shield: after 4 seconds without a hit the shield recharges twice as fast.
- Star Falcon: critical hits deal 50 % more damage.
- Night Trail: after a dash you are invulnerable 1 second longer.
- Ember Guardian: guardian loot drops one quality tier better (Legendary at most).
- Last Spark: once per flight you survive a lethal hit (hull to 25 %, 3 seconds invulnerable).
- Ash Crown: the Core drops one more item (three instead of two).
- Legendary gets rarer: rolling up from Epic to Legendary only succeeds at half the chance (on danger 5: 25 instead of 50 %).
- Aborting a flight no longer dodges the death penalty. Only when docked is the cargo stored on abort; in flight an abort counts like a death and the cargo is gone. The pause menu says so.
- Refitting with care: swapping an item mid-flight keeps hull and shield in the same proportion.
- Orbit+ is solo only: a second player can no longer join in Orbit+ (that was never intended).
Orbit: ore, marks and components have a purpose
- Leftover ore no longer expires silently. On recall, victory and abort, remaining ore is traded into ions at half the trade rate of your ring (outer 1.5, middle 2, inner 3 ions per ore). On death it expires. The end screen tells you (“46 ore → 92 ions (half rate)” or “46 ore expired”), and shows expired marks too.
- Upgrade with marks. At the station every equipped module you bought gets an UPGRADE button: one quality tier higher for 1 mark (Standard to Reinforced), 1 (to Rare), 2 (to Epic), 3 (to Legendary). Orbit+ item modules, system map and all-round targeting are excluded. The sale value stays as before.
- Swap components. In the shipyard, next to the depot: 3 → 1 opens a small table. Three components of one kind for any other. Plasma coils and energy cells, which are barely needed, become useful this way.
Texts and cleanup
- The help said the secured shipyard raises your weapon a level right away. That was wrong: it gives an escort ship. Fixed; the free repair applies in every secured zone at its stations and is now stated for all three.
- The station board reads ACCEPT · REWARD 1 MARK instead of “ACCEPT · 1 MARK” (it looked like a price).
- The reactive armor describes exactly what it reduces (all non-energy hits, Legendary 35 % on the hull).
- New help line ORBIT+ (unlock, danger levels, cargo and storage, death and abort rule, equipment window, legendaries, upgrading).
- Cleaned up: dead filters and image entries in the shop, three outdated comments.