HEAT is visible on the reward screen
After each wave you get a heat strip — a segmented bar of how hot you flew it — and the upgrade it earned gets a label. In co-op an ALLY HEAT panel sits under the scoreboard, one bar per teammate: bars only, showing how the squad flew.
Heat pays on time spent at a tier now, not the single hottest moment; a death costs the bump proportionally instead of wiping it; boss waves no longer pay heat.
Enemies come at you, not at where you're camping
Spawn fronts predict where you'll be a telegraph ahead from how you've been moving, and pick the front accordingly — including leading you around the rim by arc. Camping the edge no longer makes waves arrive politely in front of you.
Co-op waves also got less crowded: each extra player adds 0.45 of a wave, not 0.6. Two players read harder than solo. Solo and 3-4 player modes unchanged.
Weapons and balance
MISSILE and GRENADE stopped being the same gun. Since July they were statistical twins, with the missile simply easier to land. Distinct identities now: grenade has significantly larger AOE, missile does greater damage in a smaller area.
Starting boost drops 100 → 75. The old tank was generous enough that boost-ceiling upgrades relaxed a constraint ordinary play never hit; BOOST REGEN buys down the refill delay now.
Beams got a sharp bolt look — white core, colored rim, hard edges — on the ripper, lance and lancer rail shot. Fixed buggy appearance of ripper and lance.
Also
Tank, drone, sniper and suicide drone repainted with clearer color identities. New HANGAR: a full-screen 3D showcase of your hull from the profile page.