Great news arrived.
### Gameplay VFX and Assets
- Replaced enemy death effects with dedicated explosion sprite sheets, including a standard version for common enemies and a stronger version for elites/bosses.
- `Roll again` transistors now use a new animated visual and a magnetic trail when pulled toward the player.
- Robot hit sparks were replaced with the new spark assets and scaled up for better combat readability.
- Low-health robot feedback now uses a smoke asset instead of the old spark effect.
- Bosses received animated damage and critical-state overlays, with reduced scale so they no longer cover too much of the main sprite.
- Robots, enemies, and bosses now have a subtle silhouette/halo readability pass to stand out against more colorful and detailed backgrounds.
- Common enemy readability was further strengthened with a larger, higher-contrast halo for detailed backgrounds.
- The level-up modal now has category-specific VFX:
- purple/magenta glitch for Corrupted Chips;
- green/cyan pulse for Protocol Chips;
- blue/metal glow for common choices.
### Projectiles
- Generic robot bullets were replaced with dedicated sprite sheets.
- Laser Pulsar, Laser Cannon, EMP, Saw, Nanobots, Micro-Missiles, and evolutions now use unique projectile visuals.
- Assault Drone/Nanobots now uses the new asset, reading more like a micro-drone.
- The Overclock burst now uses the dedicated asset.
- Robot special shots that use the base weapon now inherit the new visual from the robot's starting weapon.
- Added a fallback to prevent invisible projectiles if a custom projectile sprite fails to load.
### Region Backgrounds
- Gameplay now uses the new region backgrounds.
- Oceania, America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Moon, Brazil, and Area 51 now point to the new 2048x2048 tiles.
- Area 51 now specifically uses with a more internal-base, technological, and less saturated look.
- Brazil and Oceania were updated backgrounds, with calmer readability for enemies and less excessive color/detail.
- Background zoom was adjusted for a more distant, less distorted look during gameplay.
- Removed mipmap filtering from arena backgrounds to reduce white seams between repeated tiles.
### HUD, Loadout, and Feedback
- Corrupted Chips in the HUD/loadout now use corrupted-character markers instead of dot indicators.
- Protocol Chips are now included in loadout presentation while keeping visual separation from Corrupted Chips.
- Choosing a Corrupted Chip now randomly plays one of the new SFX.
### Balance
- **Unstable Firmware** was reduced to `+15%` special recharge to slow down progression.
- **Magnetic Bait** remains adjusted to `+30` pickup range to avoid overly long-distance collection.
### Fixes
- Updated region background loading to use the correct newly added file names.
- Reduced boss damage overlay scale so the assets no longer appear too large in front of bosses.
- Reviewed **UNIT-7**'s special to confirm it does not reproduce the boss-push issue previously fixed for Amazon-ia.