A whole new look
Every ship, enemy, rock, planet, sky and explosion rebuilt in HD.
Prefer the old look? It's in Options as RETRO.
Planet armor is now a shimmering veil. It changes with each armor upgrade, scars where it's hit and knits back together.
Enemies are colour coded by what they do: blue shields, lime heals, purple jams, steel is armored, teal drains the planet.
Bigger means tougher. You can read a threat by its size.
Enemies
The fleet comes as a stream now. More ships, and the small ones stay killable all run.
New: the Runner, a fast armored dart that hides in the dark.
New: the Heavy, a battleship carrying two carriers on its flanks.
Smaulduin has its own enemies: Skimmers race the highway decks and Perches land on rooftops to shell the city.
The Rival is back. It turns up at waves 7, 16 and 24, runs further each time, and fights to the death at the last meeting.
Some waves have a signature: Flood, Shield Wall and Blackout.
Crew
Your crew are your towers now. Hold the Uplink button to open the order wheel.
POST parks nearby crew on a lane ahead of you. They hit harder and take less damage there.
ON ME, FREE ROAM, HOLD PLANET, FOCUS and ON DUTY round out the wheel.
New trade: the Specialist, with paths that light up dark enemies, strip armor, slow the fleet or speed up your crew's fire.
The Crew page is one tree. One press buys the whole chain.
Flying
Hold Q or E past a roll to drift. The engine lets go and the nose swings round.
Hold the burn near top speed to break the sound barrier.
Aiming lifts the camera instead of zooming in.
New players learn by playing: the first five waves are the tutorial.
Upgrades
Chests: pay credits in the field for a pick of three salvage cards. Gold ones are free.
Ultras: 33 of them. Max out the right pair of parts and a chest can combine them into something much bigger.
New: Wrecking Ball, Tesla Coil, Hologram, Hijack and Rehire.
Card pass: dead cards cut, Bouncy now bounces off everything, Capacitor, Siphon and Emergency Burst reworked.
The Ship page is one board. Every slot, every gun and every upgrade path on one screen.
Switch guns any time. The one you leave starts over at Mk.1 Lv.1.
Your ship tracks kills for every gun and every crew member.
The fight
The enemy count is one number now.
The next wave clock turns amber at 20 seconds and red at 5.
Enemy markers fade out up close.
New rare pickup, Payday: every orb on the field flies to you.
Work orders
The Space Ship order is open from your first run: clear wave 25 with Buckshot equipped.
New order: clear 10 waves in a row before the clock runs out.
Fixes
Launching a run no longer freezes.
Moving across gun tiles on the Ship page no longer switches the upgrade path you picked.