Nova Swarm Patch Notes: Sixty Wonders, Smoother Bosses & some bugfixes

Sixty Cabinet Wonders

The Cabinet has found fifty more things it probably should have left alone.

• Added 50 new Cabinet Wonders, bringing the total collection to 60.
• Wonders can now appear at safe transitions every third sector.
• Recently seen Wonders stay out of rotation, keeping repeat sightings uncommon.
• Every discovered Wonder is permanently archived in a new Threat Codex category and carried through Steam Cloud.
• Each Wonder has its own artwork, signal classification, field note, and original history—fragments of vanished expeditions, impossible machines, lost civilizations, and things the Cabinet may have been trying to forget.

Wonders remain atmospheric. They do not change score, rewards, enemies, difficulty, or Tactical Draft choices.

Boss controls no longer lose held movement

Fixed an input problem that could make a held movement direction stop responding briefly when a boss warning opened or closed.

Keyboard and controller steering now remain continuous through the full boss-warning sequence. Actual modal transitions—such as pausing, opening a Tactical Draft, or losing window focus—still clear input safely.

Cleaner warnings and reinforcement traffic

• Boss-warning framing has been cleaned up so decorative lines no longer cut through the boss portrait.
• Reinforcement warnings now use three intensity levels.
• Routine traffic receives a restrained positional warning.
• Major attacks receive a stronger alert.
• True headline events retain the full warning presentation.
• Routine reinforcements no longer trigger the same repeated voice-heavy announcement as major events.

The goal is to preserve the spectacle without treating every arriving ship like the end of civilization.

Drone and near-miss improvements

• Drone Constellation now produces genuine converging fire even when only one drone is active.
• Permanent drones render beneath the player ship, keeping the hull and practical hitbox easier to read.
• Diving, returning, and reinforcement-route ships can now award a guarded ship-graze near miss.
• Each eligible ship can award this only once. Ordinary formation movement cannot be farmed for repeated grazes.

Overrun rewards adjusted

Overrun Career XP has been increased from 65% to 85% of normal Career XP.

Skipped sectors still award no XP, and Overrun remains separate from global leaderboard submissions, achievements, checkpoint unlocks, and ranked records. Pure and Tactical still keep their own personal bests through Steam Cloud.

Faster Sector Run launches

Sector Run now launches immediately from your remembered checkpoint.

Changing the start point remains available as a clearly labelled secondary action, and your selected checkpoint is remembered for the next launch.

A clearer final death

Final death now leaves the battlefield visible for a full beat before the Game Over transmission begins, with a stronger impact frame and shockwave marking the moment.

The transition can be skipped with fresh keyboard, mouse, or controller input. Holding fire or another input before dying will not skip it accidentally.

The existing Game Over screen and its full-screen transmission artwork remain intact. The small repeated geometric signal has been replaced with 30 different luminous signal cores, each with its own pulse, orbit, echo, spin, and movement treatment.

Smarter Tactical Draft choices

• Tactical Draft no longer offers a completely ineffective damage-only augment when direct damage has already reached its cap.
• The Draft backfills a useful alternative instead.
• Mixed choices still show any effective secondary benefit.
• When damage itself cannot increase further, the preview now clearly reads DIRECT DAMAGE CAP REACHED.
• Real stat reductions and trade-offs remain visible rather than being mistaken for cap behaviour.

Run Report readability

The Combat section now uses larger text and a simpler two-column layout, making detailed statistics easier to read at normal, compact, and high-resolution display sizes.

Localization

The full run-mode briefing, Pilot Orders panel, Overrun explanations, launch rules, rewards, restrictions, and new Tactical Draft cap messaging are now translated across all eight supported interface languages:

• English
• German
• Spanish
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Russian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Simplified Chinese

Tyrian the Great

One boss previously known as Ro ro ro is now Tyrian the Great.

The name is a tribute to Tyrian, whose detailed reports have repeatedly helped make Nova Swarm clearer, fairer, and stronger. He has a rare habit of noticing not only that something feels wrong, but the exact moment, pressure, and sequence that exposes it—the half-second when steering goes quiet, the warning that names the wrong threat, or the number that promises more than the machinery can deliver.

In the Threat Codex, the Swarm intercepts those reports and reaches the wrong conclusion: Tyrian's attention must be a weapon worth copying. It builds a phase-shifting Mirror Hive examiner from stolen debriefs—an imitation that studies the pilot's habits and waits for a lazy solution. The real Tyrian taught the fleet that every pattern can be improved. The imitation intends to make you prove it.

This is a name and lore tribute only. The boss keeps the same position, artwork, movement, attacks, difficulty, balance, and save identity.

See you in the swarm.

Tiny Foundry