A real first hour

• A scripted guided first battle. Your first fight teaches moving, aiming, firing and mining on a board built for the lesson, and the pirates take their turn too.
• Progressive onboarding. The interface arrives one piece at a time: Fleet Command opens after your second warp, and each lesson opens on the ship it is about. One tip per moment.
• The first sortie comes with a checklist, and the menu opens on one clear door.

Endless, sooner

• Endless mode unlocks the moment you clear Sector 1. No full campaign required: random faction bosses, +25% difficulty per kill, one life, no ceiling.

Stances are earned

• Stances unlock one ship level at a time. At level twenty the crew takes the helm: the AUTO stance becomes available, cancel any time.
• The stance you earn is announced on the victory screen where you earned it.

Two frozen turns fixed

• One click on your hotbar during the enemy wave could freeze the enemy turn for five minutes. Aiming now belongs to your own turn, and the watchdog clears a stuck aim instantly.
• A runaway visual effect could hold the turn hostage for a minute. Effects now run on a hard deadline, and anything that overstays names itself in the logs.

Nothing resolves silently

• Every hazard has a voice: the flare, the gravity wave, the wormhole, the jamming sting, the shield break, the funnel, the well, and the last three fields.
• Plasma damage over time now reads TOXIC everywhere it appears, and environmental deaths play their beat.
• Victory gets a fanfare instead of a thin sting. The fire cook-off gets the boom the ice shatter always had.

Combat and UI

• Health bars no longer lead the shot: display holds are per ship, and the bars wait for the beam to land.
• Grappling Hook, Tractor Beam and Force Push are visible again: the hook reaches its target and the fleet parks where the pull says.
• New module: Implosive. One hit up front, a 600m suction does the rest.
• The bastion casts a wider taunt, and every taunted ship turns to face it.
• Transports charge their drives on camera, and victory waits for the warp-out.
• Contested zones read as ground you hold, and the round announces who took them.
• Planets keep their atmosphere in combat, the round tally and ability prompts move off the board, and the END SHIP TURN button fits inside its own box.
• The right stick scrolls the fleet and inventory detail modals.

Housekeeping

• The equip modal opens on Unequipped unless the module you brought is already aboard. The delete prompt stops hiding behind the profile screen. The XO calls your ship by the name on its hull.