Zero Strain was too hard for the wrong reasons.
The game itself is very different from other shmup games, which is not bad on its own, but it means everyone needs more time to get used to the game. Shields help this a lot. But their current implementation means they break often and stay broken for very long periods of time, often resulting in newer players dying very quickly. There are so many things to learn in the game, and it is very hard to learn them when constantly dying. This update reworks how shield regeneration works.
Damaged shields regenerate faster.
Broken shields no longer require the player to damage enemies to restore them. Instead, shields regenerate to full after a few seconds.
Energy is another tricky part of the game. The energy bar is meant to prevent mindless spamming, but the "tempo" each ship is meant to be played at is not always obvious. As such all ships have received a slight buff to energy regeneration, and the first ship, the Crystal Viper, has received a significant buff to its regeneration delay (this is the time it takes between releasing a button, and the energy meter filling back up). This should still force everyone to let go of buttons every now and then, but the actual down time will be much less.