RELEASE NOTES

THE COUNCIL: INQUISITOR'S MANDATE Balance

The Council was winning far more often than any other faction, and Inquisitor's Mandate was the main reason: revealing the enemy's entire largest ship handed over a big piece of the win in one move. This change has been live since August 28; here are the details.

• Effect — still locates the enemy's largest remaining ship, but now exposes one random undamaged cell of it instead of the whole hull. Repeated uses pick cells independently, so they won't trace the ship's outline.
• Uses per game — 1 → 2
• Cooldown — 4 → 6 turns. With two uses the cooldown now matters, so Iron Might's cooldown reduction finally helps Mandate too.
• Tactical mode's version works the same way.

MULTIPLAYER RELIABILITY Fixed

• Games no longer end mid-match. A room was closed 30 minutes after it was created, even while you were still playing — you'd be stuck on YOUR TURN with nothing happening. Rooms now close only after 30 minutes of inactivity, and if a game does go away you're told and returned to the menu.
• Ready means ready. After pressing READY your placement is locked, so what you see is what your opponent fights. In multiplayer, a new UNREADY button lets you change your mind until the battle starts.
• Opening the game in a second tab while waiting for an opponent no longer leaves you unable to place ships.
• Leaving a started multiplayer game now counts as a loss for the leaver and a win for the opponent.
• Blitz: a quick second shot right after the first is no longer silently ignored.

TACTICAL MULTIPLAYER New

• Phase timer — each move and fire phase has 120 seconds; when it runs out, the phase ends automatically. Three turns in a row with no action forfeits the game. Your clock pauses while you're reconnecting.
• Turn limit — a game ends after 100 turns per side. There are no draws: the winner is the side with the most fleet value left, then more ships afloat, then more hits landed, then fewer shots fired, and finally the player who went second.
• End Fire works — ending your fire phase manually used to leave both players stuck. It now hands the turn over as it should.
• Pressing Deploy Fleet after backing out of a tactical lobby no longer does nothing.

TACTICAL & MOBILE Improved

• Play Again after a single-player tactical battle now takes you straight back to the fleet builder with the same faction, instead of getting stuck.
• New on-screen Rotate button for everything the R key does, so phones can rotate ships, firing axes and row/column abilities.
• The tactical grid now fits on phone screens, and dragging ships from the dock works by touch in both modes.
• Fleet builder trait descriptions now show the real values (Transport and Capital were out of date).

CAMPAIGNS Fixed

Tactical Campaign

• Stat upgrades could actually lower a ship's stat. They now always raise it, trait upgrades are only offered to ships that have the trait, and existing saved runs are corrected automatically.
• Winning a tactical campaign now records the run as completed (it was saved as incomplete).
• Three elite and boss modifiers — Enhanced Sensors, Coordinated Fleet and All Traits Boosted — did nothing. They now take effect.

Both Campaigns

• Reloading the page mid-battle no longer erases a loss. Tactical battles try to reconnect you first; otherwise an abandoned battle counts as a defeat.
• Retreating from ship placement keeps you on the node you chose, so you can't back out to pick a different fight.

TOURNAMENTS Fixed

• The faction draft now works. The draft screen never received updates from the server, so drafts couldn't complete.
• Tactical tournaments play Tactical. Matches previously started a Standard game (or got stuck at the fleet builder), and tactical results weren't recorded in the bracket.
• Match deadlines now start once both players are known, instead of all at once when the bracket is created. Overdue matches are flagged for organizers rather than forfeited automatically.
• Organizers get new tools for seeding, recording results, deadlines, and withdrawing or disqualifying players.

SCORES & STATS Fixed

• A defeat no longer shows a score and stars, and losses can't set your best score on the leaderboards.
• Plain Standard single-player results and the Standard multiplayer leaderboard are recorded again, and multiplayer games now count toward your profile stats.
• REMATCH after a single-player game is a true rematch: same faction, difficulty and Blitz setting.

POLISH Improved

• The menu loads faster (about 40% on a mobile connection) and shows a loading state instead of ignoring clicks.
• On-screen notifications display properly again and no longer cut each other off.
• The winning shot's explosion plays out before the game-over screen appears.
• Miss markers are always blue, so they can't be mistaken for hits on red-themed factions.
• Kill feed coordinates now match the board labels (e.g. “N6”).
• Ships sunk by a Hunter-Killer Mine now show as destroyed.

TOURNAMENT FACTION DRAFT New

Tournament matches now feature a two-round faction draft system. Instead of both players picking independently, you negotiate which faction you'll both play.

How It Works

• Round 1 — Nominate — each player nominates 3 factions from the active roster.
• Round 2 — Pick — a draft pool is formed from the overlap of both nominations. If there's no overlap, all 6 nominations enter the pool. Each player picks 1 faction from the pool.
• Resolution — if both players pick the same faction, it's locked in. If they pick differently, the server randomly selects one of the two picks.

Both players fight with the same faction — pure skill, no matchup advantage.

TOURNAMENT MODE SELECTION New

Tournaments can now be configured as Standard or Tactical. The mode is set when creating the tournament and applies to all matches in the bracket.

NEW FACTIONS New

Three new factions join the roster, each with a distinct combat philosophy and three unique abilities.

The Collective

Chaotic insurgents

• Scrap Salvo — fire 3 shots at random unhit cells
• Kamikaze Drone — guaranteed hit on a random enemy ship, but reveals a 3×3 area of your own board
• Guerrilla Tactics — chance for a bonus shot when your opponent misses

The Council

Authoritarian precision

• Orbital Bombardment — scan a row or column and auto-hit the first ship cell found
• Inquisitor's Mandate — reveal the enemy's largest remaining ship
• Iron Might — destroying an enemy ship reduces all your cooldowns by 1

Severian Principate

Methodical military

• Probe Network — place a sensor probe that detects ships in its area each turn
• Hunter-Killer Mine — deploy a smart mine that seeks and auto-hits a nearby ship
• Damage Control — chance each turn to restore a damaged hull cell

UNDER THE HOOD Improved

• Reduced initial page load size with on-demand module loading.
• Reorganized frontend and backend code for improved maintainability.
• Removed legacy test pages that are no longer needed.

TACTICAL MODE New

A new strategic game mode where both fleets clash on a shared 25×25 grid with fog of war. Build a custom fleet, maneuver your ships, and outplay your opponent across alternating move and fire phases. Available in Solo, Multiplayer, and Campaign.

Fleet Building

• 30-point budget — assemble 6–10 ships from 5 universal classes (Fighter, Transport, Corvette, Frigate, Capital).
• Ship traits — each class has a unique trait: evasion, fire coordination, electronic warfare, spotter relay, or heavy armor.
• Fleet presets — choose from Balanced, Wolfpack, or Ironclad presets, or build your own.

Gameplay

• Fog of war — enemy ships are hidden until they enter your sensor range. Scouts and corvettes can jam or extend detection.
• Phase turns — each turn has a Move Phase (reposition up to 2 ships) and a Fire Phase (attack with up to 2 ships).
• Free abilities — faction abilities are free actions during the fire phase and don't consume your shots.
• Ship fire patterns — each class fires differently: single shot, broadside, 2×2 barrage, and more.

TACTICAL CAMPAIGN New

The roguelike campaign now has a tactical variant. Same 8-tier progression with branching paths, events, and bosses — but every battle uses tactical rules.

• Fleet persistence — your fleet carries over between fights. Damaged ships stay damaged.
• Auto-repair — 1 cell is automatically repaired on each ship after every battle.
• Tactical rewards — earn ship stat upgrades (sensor range, evasion, fire range) alongside standard ability upgrades.
• Separate leaderboard — tactical campaign runs are ranked on their own leaderboard tab.

BUG REPORTS Improved

• Screenshot capture — bug reports now include an automatic screenshot of the current game state.
• Auto-categorization — reports are automatically tagged based on the active game mode.

MENU & UI POLISH Improved

• Two-column menu — Standard and Tactical modes are now side by side with brief descriptions of each.
• Nebula background — the tournament hub and other pages now share the animated space background.
• Game guide updated — the guide now covers tactical mode, campaign progression, and updated battle rules.
• Ability tooltips — hover over tactical ability panels to see detailed descriptions.
• Turn counter & timer — tactical battles now display a turn counter and phase timer banner.

ROGUELIKE CAMPAIGN New

A brand-new single-player campaign mode. Fight through a branching 6-tier map of escalating battles, random events, and boss encounters. Ship damage carries over between fights — manage your fleet carefully.

Key Features

• Branching map — choose your path through standard battles, elite encounters with AI modifiers, and risky events.
• Events & choices — encounter random events with risk/reward decisions. Repair ships, gain upgrades, or gamble for big rewards.
• Ability upgrades — earn rewards after each victory to boost cooldowns, add extra uses, or unlock new abilities.
• Elite modifiers — elite and boss enemies gain modifiers like extra ability uses, fast cooldowns, double shots, armored hull, or aggressive targeting.
• Ghost Fleet event — a special encounter with unique ghost ship mechanics.
• Run persistence — mid-battle exits save your run. Return to the main menu and resume from where you left off.
• Faction theming — the campaign map screen uses your faction's colors and ability palette.

TENIXIR REVENANTS New Faction

A new campaign-only AI faction. The Tenixir Revenants appear as opponents throughout the roguelike campaign but are not available for player selection.

• Random loadouts — each encounter assigns abilities dynamically from the full ability pool, making every fight unpredictable.
• Unique crest — a dedicated faction logo and red color scheme.
• Campaign exclusive — filtered from standard game modes and the faction picker.

CAMPAIGN LEADERBOARD New

A new Campaign tab on the leaderboard ranks players by their best roguelike run score. Compete for the highest total across all tiers.

MENU REDESIGN Improved

The main menu has been reorganized into clear Solo and Multiplayer panels. All game modes are now grouped logically with better visual hierarchy.

PROFILE BATTLE STATS Improved

Your player profile modal now shows detailed battle statistics and faction usage breakdown, giving you a full picture of your play history.

MULTIPLAYER IMPROVEMENTS Improved

• Reconnection during placement — you can now reconnect even if you disconnected during the ship placement phase.
• Rematch fix — rooms stay alive after game over so rematches work properly.
• Clean room exit — leaving a room now immediately cleans up the room instead of waiting for timeout.
• Back button — a new back button on the ship deployment screen lets you return to the lobby (hidden during tournament matches).

GAMEPLAY POLISH Improved

• Multi-cell repair — the Repair ability can now target cells across different ships, not just the same ship.
• Blitz score normalization — blitz scores are now normalized to Knight difficulty for fair leaderboard comparison.
• Campaign bug reports — the bug report tool now includes a dedicated Campaign category.

UNDER THE HOOD Improved

• Strengthened server-side request validation and session handling.
• Improved browser compatibility and resilience in restricted environments.
• Tightened content delivery policies for safer page loads.
• Resolved 50+ stability issues across gameplay, animations, networking, and data persistence.

PLAYER PROFILES New

You now have a persistent player identity. Stats, leaderboard entries, and tournament history are all tied to your profile.

• Automatic identity — you get a player profile on first visit, no signup required.
• Optional registration — claim a callsign and receive a recovery code so you can access your profile from any device.
• Stats tracking — wins, losses, best scores, and personal bests are tracked per mode and difficulty.
• Menu profile button — your callsign appears in the menu footer. Tap it to view stats and manage your profile.

Unregistered players will see a subtle pulse on the profile button as a reminder to claim a callsign.

DIFFICULTY TIERS New

Single-player games now offer three AI difficulty levels. Choose your challenge before each match.

Your preferred difficulty is saved to your profile. Leaderboards and stats are tracked separately per tier.

NEW GAME MODES New

Blitz

A fast solo challenge with no AI opponent firing back. Sink all 5 ships as efficiently as possible — your total shot count is your score. Lower is better. Deflect is disabled to keep the pace up.

Time Trial

An optional toggle within Standard single-player. Same gameplay, but your completion time is tracked and ranked. Beat your personal best to climb the leaderboard.

SCORING & STAR RATINGS New

Single-player games now award a performance score and up to 3 stars at the end of each match.

Your score is based on:

• Shot efficiency — bonus for staying under par, penalty for going over.
• Accuracy — higher hit percentage earns more points.
• Fleet preservation — losing ships costs points.
• Speed — finishing under 3 or 5 minutes earns a bonus.
• Difficulty multiplier — Master games are worth 1.5x, Apprentice games 0.75x.

GAME GUIDE Improved

The How to Play guide has been completely redesigned. It now covers all game modes, player profiles, and tournaments in one place. Faction cards and ability details are loaded dynamically from the server, so the guide always reflects the current roster.

View the Game Guide →