Nebularena Demo soon live, What's New since the private bêta
New Features
Progression & Ships
- XP & Leveling system for your Cores and Loadouts, with 5 levels of growth and balanced thresholds
- Level-up rewards & effects with animated XP cards, gold flourishes, and unlocked starting tech points per level
- Core evolutions: new Mecha Core, Power Core variants, Hyperyield core, plus upgrades for hull life, armor, plating, and max tech capacity
- Ship names now displayed across the UI
New Units, Weapons & Buildings
- Carrier + Interceptors: deploy rotating carriers that launch interceptor drones with their own light 10mm shots
- Firing robots that reuse ammunition, with robot rarities and tiers granting a wide range of bonuses
- New weapons: Crossfire I/II/III, Solar Cannon (a piercing large-laser beam), Ripple III, and the Meca projectile
- New buildings: Repair Station, Extinguisher (removes status effects, can heal zones), resource Silos (burning, piercing, acid, napalm), and Gunpowder/Powder Catalysts
- Plasma Shield that physically blocks particles, projectiles, and enemy platforms
- New passives: Rocket Boost (faster rockets) and Solar Capacitor
- Zone healing mechanics
Modes & Meta
- Seasons: season resets that wipe XP, rankings, and progress for a fresh climb
- Offline ranking rebuilt with dedicated opponent loadouts and static AI battles
- Battle countdown / "Time's Up" system replacing the old battle timer, with score shown on the Victory screen
Presentation
- Redesigned Technology Tree with new frame art and clearer tooltips
- Overhauled tooltip & card system, harmonized across ships, robots, and buildings
- New main resource UI, refreshed energy bars, and reworked Victory screen
- New music tracks and reworked UI sounds
- Procedurally generated background elements
- 10+ new languages added, plus dedicated Chinese/Japanese/Korean pixel fonts
Quality of Life
- Warning before battle if you still have unspent technology points
- Battle resource forecast shown in Construction mode (income + regen/sec)
- Improved mouse-over highlighting (brightness/saturation) and tech-tree category highlights
- Sharper card & feature icons at low resolutions
- Camera improvements: lock during tutorials, smoother FPS-independent scroll, virtual mouse fixes
- Better part-slotting physics and platform-size validation
- Draggable building tooltips and a shortcut to hide health bars in battle
- Punch/scale feedback added across many UI elements, harmonized teal button styling
- Zone-influence highlighting for buildings
Fixes & Performance
- Major rendering optimization: shared/batchable materials + sprite atlases collapse thousands of objects into a handful of draw calls (buildings, platforms, robots, projectiles, grid)
- Fixed Rocket Boost applying incorrectly at zero investment
- Loadout purchases now save correctly; starting items granted on the first battle
- Fixed Aegis and other systems consuming energy properly
- Resolved camera idle repositioning stutter
- Fixed laser raycast layers, robot damage application, and homing bot attacks
- Silenced console warnings and various tooltip/localization/season-reset bugs