Demo update: the sector comes alive, and the Zephyr arrives

WHAT'S NEW

The sector is full of things

Go exploring and you'll find hidden discoveries, nodes that drop scrap when you break them, and explosives you can set off on the horde. Watch where you stand: if you're inside the blast radius, it catches you too.

Somewhere out there sits a guarded wreck, watched over by The Reaper, a territorial guardian that patrols its hull and won't chase you across the sector. Beat it and the loot is yours. There's also a Free Station for trading between waves, and planets whose gravity slingshots you if you graze them.

New ship: the Zephyr

The demo's fifth playable ship. Fires in a spread, dodges better than anything else in the fleet, and its ultimate, Spectral Blink, is ready every 9.5 seconds: short teleport, five seconds untouchable, piercing shots. It's the ship for not being where the bullets are.

Every ship, its own arsenal

Each one gets two exclusive cards that only show up while you're flying it, plus its own upgrade tree. Switching ships changes what you can build.

Three-act boss fights

Bosses fight in phases, move fast and keep the pressure on. Each world also has its own wreck guardian, with its own face and its own way of fighting.

Your place in the world

When a run ends, the results screen tells you where you rank among everyone playing the demo.

IMPROVEMENTS

• The Map reads at a glance: shape tells you what kind of thing it is, colour tells you its family. Every icon is its own.
• Mark a destination with one click and the beacon follows you across map, radar and HUD.
• The inventory covers the whole run on TAB: systems, modules, reserves and the rules you're playing under.
• Terrain with cover in every biome, and a trait of its own per world.
• Sector directives: one optional objective per run, with a reward.
• Your Steam profile, one click from the leaderboard.

THE ARMOURY STARTS FRESH

This update resets upgrades, modules and the extra slot, and leaves your wallet at 2,000 credits to reinvest. The demo was paying out far more than it could spend, so picking what to upgrade first is a real decision again. The Armoury explains it the first time you walk in.

If you already have the demo installed, Steam updates it for you: just launch it.

A lot of this comes from what you've been telling us. Keep it coming, especially anything that breaks or doesn't make sense.

Nova Survivors launches November 5th.