Combat runs from a dock of cards along the bottom of the screen. The center column is Power, Weapons, Operations, and Abilities, with Ship Status and Hostile Intel on the sides.
Damage pips are real-time and reactive to fresh damage, and healing. Free game key to the first ten people to DM me why it relates to The Wrath of Khan at roughly these timestamps :P
Theatrical cut (113 min): about 49:47
Director’s Cut (116 min): about 51:25
Off-screen contacts carry an edge pip labelled with range and a new reinforcements UI shows who's still alive and who's about to 'give them something else to shoot at'.
Target Subsystem is bound to Semicolon and cycles Core, Weapons, Engines, and Reactors and you can also target subsystems by clicking your target's paper doll. Scan gives a temporary targeting boost to the caster’s now, and no longer boosts other ships on a team.
Operations shows speed, turn, power effect lines, and ability recharge, with absolute numbers on hover.
Four bars share one reactor pool: Weapons, Defenses, Engines, and Sensors. Click a section or drag the handle to allocate power. Each bar has a lock and an emergency power override that lets you take energy from other systems.
Enemy ships allocate on the same pool by tier: captains hold neutral, lords shift, leaders use the full range.
The weapons ribbon is a compact row of group cards with per-group controls, color-matched to the Builder weapon groups.
Improved pathfinding for close-range NPCs that were occasionally trying to slow dance with you. (now kith)
A defeated captain’s surrender now let's you choose to Allow Retreat, No Quarter, and Consume. In the galaxy map, you can use the Comms system to Recruit captains you've befriended. A consumed captain joins the roster with an Ancient hull of their tier at full strength. Consuming a faction Leader runs succession the way a kill does; horde and prophet variants end their factions. People don't like you when you eat their leaders so be prepared for diplomatic consequences.
The Sol tutorial now has a First Contact panel with three doctrine cards and five tactical control cards (W A S D / Q E, collapsing to stick glyphs on a gamepad) to explain some critical game mechanics.
Also in this build:
There are now four difficulty rungs: Stowaway, Captain, Lord Captain, and Galactic Nemesis. Captain is the same difficulty as previous versions. You can change mid-run.
Builder now has more detailed module information, including the item tier and any buffs present from looted items.
Fighters have new attack patterns and flight pathing. They're not the best at finishing a ship off, but they're extremely useful at keeping a target from having room to heal, recharge shields, or maneuver.
Missiles, mortars, and torpedoes all have new VFX. Torpedoes are anti-hull ordnance that fire a damage cone into a ship after contact, so point defense is critical. Mortar shells do AoE damage in a blast pattern. Missiles have faction-specific terminal attack patterns to make them harder to intercept.
UI scaling grows panels, buttons, and their text together at 100%, 110%, 125%, and 150%. Text Size grows body text and leaves the rest of the UI alone, at 100%, 110%, and 125%. Both apply as you move them, and both persist between sessions.
Galaxy map: briefings raised mid-fight wait for the map and show once; answering an event in Empire Command clears it everywhere; retreated captains draw at the retreat destination as soon as you exit combat; fog lifts over owned territory more reliably; capture XP scales to node defense; captains advance every turn in owned or allied territory; one top-strip banner to rule them all in Empire Command.
Builder: mirrored weapon twins select one at a time with a dimmer twin and a hairline guide; 2 px snap and sibling-axis magnetize; armor chips Thickness 1–4; Inventory chip with live salvage count; unrepaired-ship prompt chained into unsaved-changes.
Camera: auto-frame holds a visibility floor on retarget; Near reaches the camera’s own minimum
Fixes: Steam Deck label fits at 1280×800; victory screen at the last kill; Hex of Dread scatters its target’s shots; shield regen re-seeds on revive; captain module damage survives save/load; consumed captain’s roster card reads full strength