The shield now charges the ion chamber. The chamber already existed: grazes load the grazed projectile into it, and V plays everything back as a reprise volley. What was missing was the shield — a blocked hit was pure loss. Anyone building around shield got nothing from the chamber.
Now every hit the shield absorbs feeds the chamber as a charge too. No new system and no second resource: same chamber, same display, same button. The rate differs by defense type, so the four defenses keep their own identity — measured in charges per full reprise volley (a volley needs 12):
| Defense | Shield | Skill 0 | Skill 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deflector | 40 | 13 | 14 |
| Parry | 40 | 7 | 13 |
| Phase Hull | 24 | 4 | 4 |
| Armor | 10 | 2 | 2 |
A full Deflector shield now charges roughly a full volley’s worth, and so does Parry once its shield generator is upgraded. Armor and Phase Hull have their own strengths (hull, invulnerability) and barely charge the chamber. The Shield Generator skill also adds +12% chamber charge per level — building around shield now pays off in special attacks too.
Measured in-game: a full Deflector shield absorbs 8 hits of 6 damage each and yields 14 charges. The absorbed-damage counter now behaves the same way in every mode, not just Track.
Name prompt on first launch. New players are asked once for a pilot name, with a note that it’s only used on the weekly leaderboard and can be changed anytime. Skipping is possible and remembered, so the prompt doesn’t come back on every launch. Before, the name field only lived inside the leaderboard itself — anyone who never found it never showed up there, and never learned why.