Save wipe. Range, weapon levels and the curve from 0.74.0 don’t match old saves — everyone starts fresh.
Weapons now have a range. Before, projectiles flew all the way to the edge of the play area, and the laser hit everything on its line — in Orbit, up to 1,100 px, far beyond what’s visible. You could shoot down enemies that weren’t even on screen yet, which made positioning meaningless. Every weapon now has its own range, capped at what you can actually see:
| Weapon | Range | Power at max range | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spread Shot | 340 px | 45% | Swarm clearer |
| Drone Swarm | 430 px | 100% | Self-sufficient |
| Snake Gun | 560 px | 80% | Line breaker |
| Pulse Gun | 620 px | 75% | All-rounder |
| Homing Missiles | 720 px | 55% | Area damage |
| Ion Laser | 1,000 px | 100% | Boss killer |
Physical projectiles lose power over distance — measured: a missile at 680 px deals 56% of the damage it does at 120 px. The laser doesn’t, since it’s pure energy.
- New skill “Targeting Optics” in the attack branch: +15% range per level, and a gentler power falloff. Four levels.
- The combat drones’ leash now uses the same range, and the drawn laser beam now ends exactly where it actually hits.
The Ion Laser has become the boss killer. Longest range, no travel time — but it now only locks onto two targets at once (the nearest ones) instead of everything on its line. In exchange, it heats up the longer it stays on the same target: after two seconds, triple damage. Measured at level 5: 121 damage in the first second, then 239 per second after that. Switching targets cools it down twice as fast as it ramps up. Against swarms, it’s now the worst choice — before, it was the best.
Every weapon now tells you what it’s for. Role, strength and weakness show up on the ship screen and in the weapon select before launch, along with its calculated range and power falloff at max range.
Weapon levels now come from leveling up. Before, they only came from skill points. Now every level-up rolls the dice — calibrated so the highest weapon level lands around player level 50:
- 42% base chance, and after every hit the next level-up is locked out (never twice in a row); after three misses, the next one is guaranteed.
- Simulated across 20,000 runs: level 15 is reached 100% of the time by player level 50, and 44% of the time by level 40. Measured in actual play: player level 10 → weapon level 4, level 20 → level 7, level 27 → level 10, no back-to-back hits, biggest gap three level-ups.
- New hangar perk “Lucky Core”: +5% chance per rank. At five ranks, level 15 already sits at 99% by player level 40.
Flight time is now in the HUD. In Arcade and Track the clock was already running but never shown — Orbit already displayed it as a minute counter up top.
The Orbit leaderboard was empty, and that was a bug. The plausibility filter on the backend applied the same rule to both modes, but Orbit scores run much higher — rings, rage, longer runs. A genuine run with 21.7 million points in 1,578 seconds got filtered out and never showed up. The limit is now set per mode. Arcade was never affected.
One fire-rate skill instead of two. “Quickfire” (+10%) is gone; “Metronome” (+12%, five levels) stays and now also affects reprise volleys.