Nova Swarm

A small follow-up patch is now live. What Changed Boss fights now act as clean combo boundaries. Your combo ends when a boss encounter begins, boss hits no longer keep the timer alive, and combos built from support ships do not carry out of the fight. Compatible timed powerups can now run together, normally as one offense effect and one support effect. Picking up the same timed powerup now adds duration or charges, up to a two-pickup cap. A different pickup replaces only the matching offense or support slot. Fixed secondary powerup timing and charge handling so active effects do not retrigger, disappear early, or lose stored charges. Improved compact powerup HUD layouts so names, statuses, and charge markers no longer overlap.

Combat clarity Final deaths now show the impact and fatal cause clearly, clear lingering hazards, and transition into Game Over without the red vignette seam or secondary combat messages covering the moment. Game Over, results, and leaderboard transitions now stay composed while data loads instead of dropping to a black screen. Score, combo, survival, mission status, and high-score chase information have clearer priority during dense fights. Ace identity plates, combo feedback, first-run controls, and combat notifications now avoid the permanent HUD lanes. Ordinary full-health enemy bars are quieter while damaged, durable, elite, Ace, and boss health remains readable. Pilot Order progress respects its compact top-lane presentation and lower-priority messages are suppressed during life loss. Controls and run flow Added Fire Input Hold/Toggle and Mouse Steering Off/On options, with local and Steam Cloud persistence. Fire input now remains consistent through pause and presentation transitions and resets safely after focus loss or a new run. Combo progress now carries through non-interactive wave and boss transitions and expires only during active play. Bomb targeting and opening boss

Keyboard controls Added keyboard remapping for movement, focus, shooting, dodge or phase, and pause. Shift can now be rebound directly. Custom bindings persist with your settings, while Reset Keyboard restores the defaults. Fixed overlapping controls and buttons in the Settings remapping panels. Cabinet Wonders Every Cabinet Wonder now begins with a dedicated revelation sound. A wordless angelic choir and ceremonial bell rise before the Wonder appears, giving these rare events a more mysterious and grand entrance. Ships and Tactical Draft Fixed Tactical Draft sometimes losing a held card after moving the hold away and returning it. Cobalt Guard descriptions now match its actual combat properties. Fixed the Drone Constellation emblem becoming oversized during Fusion announcements. Ascendant support drones now keep a consistent combat size. Aegis Comet, Railbreaker, and Drone Sovereign are better centered against their focus rings. Ship mastery badges now carry more distinct hull specific visual signatures. Combat presentation Dense simultaneous kills now produce one cleaner camera impact instead of stacked shake. Regular boss attack warnings use a tighter presentation that covers le

Nova Swarm has received a major combat-readability, ship-identity, build-quality, and presentation update. The goal is still the same: keep the swarm fast, dangerous, and spectacular—but make sure the warnings tell the truth, controls remain responsive, rewards arrive safely, and every ship feels worth mastering. A New Nova Command HUD Combat messages have been rebuilt into one coherent Nova Command presentation system. Wave Start, Wave Cleared, Sector Clear, Boss Defeated, boss warnings, reinforcements, Side Directives, Near Miss, powerups, repairs, discoveries, and other combat notices now share a consistent visual language. Important events receive clear space while routine information moves into compact side or tactical lanes. Wave Cleared now hands off cleanly to Wave Start. Boss Defeated now follows the actual boss explosion before handing off to Sector Clear. Sector Clear transitions cleanly into the next boss signal and dossier. Mission Status yields during major events instead of competing with them. Queued messages now resume in the correct order instead of overlapping, duplicating, or hiding one another. Routine reinforcement warnings are smaller and calmer, while real d