This update gives you the ability to refresh your directive choices (for a cost), adds a Protocol to handle HQ clicking for those looking to outsource, and finally lets you create a fully filled in dome of generators! It also expands Arena milestones and includes several balance changes and fixes.
Directive Refresh
You can now refresh all three Directive offers once per draft. Refresh favors Directives you haven't been offered yet.
Refresh costs Gold and can put you into debt. The cost and a warning are shown before you choose it.
New Protocol: Click Intern
Click Intern automatically clicks HQ six times per second, applying all normal click effects.
Costs 2 Tech Tokens to unlock and 2 Protocol Capacity to equip. Manual HQ clicking is disabled while equipped. Wanted to have this option for players that like to outsource their chores, but didn't want to make it OP/ a no brainer to grab!
Renamed Double Click to Click Power to better match its effect (during development before initial release, I really thought having a protocol that gives 2x click income was balanced... lol).
Building & Controls
Generators can now use tiles that partially overlap the circular dome, giving you more room around its edges, but most importantly, looking much nicer when you fill up your dome fully! Even a narrow visible edge Generator can be selected anywhere in its tile.
You can now sell buildings and change tower targeting while manually paused, including through building menus and the demolition brush (sorry I missed this! I don't use pause enough myself). Hardcore's pause restrictions are unchanged.
Placement previews now show the actual building design, with buildings and brushes centered on your cursor.
Right-click the Speed button to cycle backward through speeds; left-click still cycles forward.
Fixed Space activating a previously selected HUD button instead of pausing, and improved building-menu positioning at larger interface scales.
Arena Milestones & Progression
Alcove Crater and Sealed Basin now have full milestone tracks, including +1 Protocol Capacity for reaching Wave 50 on Hardcore in each Arena. Maximum permanent Protocol Capacity is now 16.
The HUD switches to recurring Tech Token progress after your final milestone. Hardcore's final milestone summary now appears at Wave 50, with earned capacity shown under Unlocked this run.
New Standard Hold the Line runs use the endless Tech Token earning rate from Wave 1, without a milestone track or milestone popups. Previously earned difficulty unlocks are retained.
Balance Changes
Close Quarters now grants 20% additional damage per level, up from 15%.
Veteran Arsenal now grants 0.25% damage per lifetime kill in new runs, down from 0.5%. Existing saved runs retain their original bonus. Seems to be consistently the best directive for late game runs.
Wave Subsidy now starts at 250 Gold, down from 350. Each wave's payout increases by another 250 Gold plus 2% of the previous payout. This paired with rush dividends, I found to actually be enough to beat hardcore for some players without clicking a single time! So let me nip that in the bud a bit lol.
Rush Dividend now uses a 240 Gold base on Easy, down from 260, with cumulative growth reduced from 3% to 2.5%. Existing difficulty reductions still apply.
Dome Expansion and Dome Compression can now be equipped together. Their radius changes offset, and their click-income modifiers add together.
Dome Plating now preserves your dome's current health percentage when increasing its maximum health.
Fixes & Improvements
Added clearer first-run HQ guidance, a dome-damage hint, and hotkey labels on building and Research tooltips.
Opening Salvo and Execution Threshold now show their current and next total bonuses in Run Research.
Improved HQ click audio during large battles and fixed missing or incorrectly clipped building previews.
Fixed older-save loading around the new dome edges, Tech Token recovery during storage errors, and Delete All Data leaving old guidance or saves behind.
Corrected Directive reward displays, localized HUD overlap, and wording across supported languages.
Thanks again for the feedback. Please keep sharing bugs and suggestions in the Steam Community discussions/reviews! I read all of it :)