Demo Patch 2.3 "A New Look"

A NEW LOOK. The biggest graphics update yet, much faster performance on Windows, new ships for the Alves, Goblites and Custodians, and a harder climb for everyone who told us the runs were too easy. Experimental WebGPU option for even more visuals (Heavy emphasis on experimental).

LIGHTING AND THE LOOK OF THE SHIPS

- Hard sunlight is the new default: one strong sun and deep shadows, so every hull reads with real shape. The old soft light is still in Options, Graphics.

- New lighting on every hull: sky light that follows the sector, the sun as a disc instead of a point, contact shadows where parts meet the plating, light from lit windows and drive plumes washing the hull, and brighter bare steel.

- Capitals carry decals and worn plating from a new material library: hull numbers, hazard stripes and panel wear sized to read at chase distance.

- Ambient occlusion and reflections are better on High and Ultra.

- Heavy hits now stay on the hull for the rest of the run: dents where the light bends round them, and on the hardest hits a puncture with a hot lip and a glow inside.

EXPLOSIONS AND EFFECTS

- Volumetric fireballs are on: a blast's fire is a ball of burning gas that breaks up and cools to smoke, instead of a flat sprite.

- The biggest blasts light the surrounding gas on Ultra, and space bends around the collapsed star and the Rift.

- Many effects were rebuilt so nothing draws as a flat circle any more: shock fronts, refit rings, the Bastion's ward, the well map's accretion disc (now one sheet of turning gas) and the Titan Escort's jump gate (now an energy field that charges as she closes).

- Shield surges show how the charge lands on the membrane.

- Effects age properly with time, so a pause or hit-stop no longer stacks smoke and sparks.

SPACE

- The Glass Ring and the Belt of Ashes are seen from inside their rings: a band across the sky with ringlets and the planet's shadow.

- Every sector has a sight of its own in the sky, such as the supernova remnant over Crown's Wake.

- Nebulae are lit by their own clusters of young stars, dark dust clouds sit in front of the galaxy, and the brightest stars have real spikes.

- Far off, fleets fight their own battle on the horizon, with flashes and the occasional death.

- New wrecks, distant mountains of rock on High and Ultra, gas lanes, sector dust, lightning between the Veil's cloud banks, and a sun that reacts when a flare is building.

- Ultra and High get volumetric gas (High a lighter version).

CAMERA AND IMAGE

- Better anti-aliasing and motion handling, a new tonemap that keeps colours true in bright light, eye adaptation from a histogram, glare that hides behind hulls, and a brightness setting.

- Motion blur is available in Options (off by default).

- Wide colour screens get a proper conversion.

WINDOWS PERFORMANCE

- Most Windows PCs were losing about 40 ms every frame: one dust shader failed to compile on Direct3D 11, and the graphics driver tried again at every frame. It now compiles, and frame rates on Windows are several times higher.

- The sky took minutes on slower cards to prepare on Direct3D 11, which froze the game when switching to High. It is much faster now, but the first switch to a new preset can still pause for up to half a minute while its shaders compile. Working on cutting that further.

- Compiled shaders are kept between launches.

- PCs with two graphics cards now draw on the stronger one, even when the monitor is plugged into the weaker integrated one.

- Automatic resolution scaling only lowers the resolution when the graphics card is actually the limit, and it reads your monitor's real refresh rate.

- If the game fails to start a few times in a row it steps down to safe graphics, never all the way to software graphics. (Whoops this caused me some frustration while playtesting)

- Options, Graphics, Benchmark waits for shaders to finish before measuring each preset, says what is holding the frame rate back, and can copy a full report for the forum.

- WebGL2 is the renderer by default. WebGPU (Very Experimental) is still in Options, Graphics, Renderer to try, with its effects on your graphics card (far more sparks and debris, smoke that drifts and curls); if it fails to start the game switches back to WebGL2 on its own!

GAMEPLAY OPTIONS

- Settle refit stops (Options, Gameplay, on by default): a refit stop waits up to 3 seconds while salvage is still being pulled in, and the next stop waits a few seconds of fighting after the last one closes.

- Rescued pilots join your fleet (Options, Gameplay, on by default): turn it off and rescued pilots go home and pay scrap instead.

- Steering with an unlocked cursor has a small dead zone at the centre, so the ship no longer keeps turning slowly.

SHIPS

- Hard sunlight is the new default: one strong sun and deep shadows, so every hull reads with real shape. The old soft light is still in Options, Graphics.

- New lighting on every hull: sky light that follows the sector, the sun as a disc instead of a point, contact shadows where parts meet the plating, light from lit windows and drive plumes washing the hull, and brighter bare steel.

- Capitals carry decals and worn plating from a new material library: hull numbers, hazard stripes and panel wear sized to read at chase distance.

- Ambient occlusion and reflections are better on High and Ultra.

- Heavy hits now stay on the hull for the rest of the run: dents where the light bends round them, and on the hardest hits a puncture with a hot lip and a glow inside.

EXPLOSIONS AND EFFECTS

- Volumetric fireballs are on: a blast's fire is a ball of burning gas that breaks up and cools to smoke, instead of a flat sprite.

- The biggest blasts light the surrounding gas on Ultra, and space bends around the collapsed star and the Rift.

- Many effects were rebuilt so nothing draws as a flat circle any more: shock fronts, refit rings, the Bastion's ward, the well map's accretion disc (now one sheet of turning gas) and the Titan Escort's jump gate (now an energy field that charges as she closes).

- Shield surges show how the charge lands on the membrane.

- Effects age properly with time, so a pause or hit-stop no longer stacks smoke and sparks.

SPACE

- The Glass Ring and the Belt of Ashes are seen from inside their rings: a band across the sky with ringlets and the planet's shadow.

- Every sector has a sight of its own in the sky, such as the supernova remnant over Crown's Wake.

- Nebulae are lit by their own clusters of young stars, dark dust clouds sit in front of the galaxy, and the brightest stars have real spikes.

- Far off, fleets fight their own battle on the horizon, with flashes and the occasional death.

- New wrecks, distant mountains of rock on High and Ultra, gas lanes, sector dust, lightning between the Veil's cloud banks, and a sun that reacts when a flare is building.

- Ultra and High get volumetric gas (High a lighter version).

CAMERA AND IMAGE

- Better anti-aliasing and motion handling, a new tonemap that keeps colours true in bright light, eye adaptation from a histogram, glare that hides behind hulls, and a brightness setting.

- Motion blur is available in Options (off by default).

- Wide colour screens get a proper conversion.

WEBGPU

- The game now draws with WebGPU where your PC supports it. If WebGPU is not available, or ever fails to start or crashes, the game switches to the WebGL2 renderer on its own and remembers that on this version.

- On WebGPU, effects run on your graphics card: explosions throw far more sparks and debris, blast fronts shove the debris and smoke around them, smoke drifts and curls, and sparks skitter off hulls instead of passing through them.

- Options, Graphics, Renderer lets you choose Auto, WebGPU or WebGL2 yourself. Safe graphics mode and software graphics mode always use WebGL2.

- If anything looks wrong on your PC, set Renderer to WebGL2 and please tell me on the forum ASAP.

SHIPS

- Every Alve ship has its own silhouette. The Lark flies inside two swept crescent wings, the Wren carries its ring on edge with torpedoes underneath, the Glaive is a spear through a ring, the Halo is a spire under a crown of light, the Loom spins crossed rings like a globe, the Heron is a long lance through three rings, the Aurel stands ward plates round its ring, the Lodestar raises its star on arched ribs, the Vesper launches Larks down a flight deck, and the Oathbreaker's ring is broken open at the bow.

- The Goblite Rammer has a ram, a jaw and a lit keep. The Junkmother has a deck keep and cranes building Skiffs. The Warboss now towers over its Warrocks with a war tower and banner, and nine drives.

- The Custodian Usher and Reclaimer have real form: shaped drive blocks, emitter pods and tractor rails.

- Five turret mounts that sat inside the rock or floated off the hull on the Junkmother and Warboss now stand on the hull.

- No ship's stats or weapons changed.

DIFFICULTY AND EXPERIENCE

- Runs were too easy. Late levels now cost more (8% more per level from level 10), each heat level adds 1.5% to the cost of every level, and elites come more often the hotter the run (up to 30%).

- At heat 0 a typical run still wins most of the time; at heat 10 very few do.

FIXES

- Champion and Haul field events no longer appear in runs with both the Goblites and the Alves switched off.

- In co-op, your partner's experience bar showed more progress than they really had at high heat.

- Sector dust never drew on Windows PCs using Direct3D 11. It does now.

PERFORMANCE

- Away from Windows, late fights run as fast as in 2.2.4. Ultra costs a little more on the graphics card for the new lighting; if your frame rate drops, High looks very close.

Engagement launches November 12th, 2026!