Demo Patch Notes: 1.1

Thank you to everyone who played the demo and posted in the discussions. I read every thread and will continue to take your suggestions to build Engagement into the game you most enjoy! This update is the biggest the demo has had: it rolls up several weeks of updates since the last demo build, a patch built straight from your forum feedback, quality of life fixes, bug fixes and new ways to build your ship. Here is what changed.

Suggestions from the Steam Forums

• Free-look. Hold a button to look around your flagship without turning it.
• A key that targets the nearest boss, and an arrow on the edge of the screen pointing at any boss you cannot see.
• The battle area is clear. You can see the edge as you approach it, an arrow points you back to the fight, and leaving gives a fair countdown instead of a surprise death. The old "lane" wording is gone.
• Every controller action can be remapped, sticks can be swapped (a Steam Deck preset puts pitch on the right stick), HOTAS and flight sticks are supported with axis assignment, and you can strafe!
• Display and overlays: A Windowed / Borderless / Fullscreen setting, smoother motion on high refresh rate monitors, and fixes for the Steam overlay. Changing graphics settings no longer rebuilds everything on older PCs (Please let me know if you still have issues here!).
• LONG endless runs without interruption. The frame rate no longer sinks after an hour, and sound no longer drops out past level 50. Play to your hearts content!
• Sound: The Glass Ring's shrill pulse is gone, the hit tick and the boss screams are toned down, and many of the remaining placeholder sounds are replaced with recorded ones I was finally able to afford.
• HARDER! Every heat is meaningfully tougher, heat 10 is properly brutal, more enemies need your own guns to crack, and I want to see you take them on now.
• Endless ramps up. After 15:00 the Hollow bring heavier ships, not just more bosses, so runs build to a finish instead of a stalemate.
• The Choir can finally die. Praise be! Its nodes return one at a time, slower and weaker, with the timer on screen.
• Escorts now fully work with more visuals. Escorts hit harder, survive longer, and grow tougher with every kill. Downed pilots eject in pods you can see and recover. You can dismiss an escort to make room, pick a heavier starting wing, or turn fleet cards off entirely.
• Auto-pick. Choose what it takes (best card, skip, repair or scrap), with an option to stop when something new is offered. It no longer flashes the card screen or drops your fire button.
• End Endless and keep it. Endless runs can be ended from the pause menu with the rewards banked. No longer do you need to actually keep playing the game forever to receive rewards, I promise it was just a little bit more of playing!
• Boss Campaign Salvage: When a boss dies, its salvage and experience are collected before the node ends.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL PILOTS...

• Upgraded Audio: an orchestral score, recorded guns, explosions and impacts, and pilots who answer on the radio in seven voices.
• The graphics update: volumetric nebulae on Ultra, a lens starburst from the sun, impact craters and scorch marks on asteroids, engine heat haze, tempered drive nozzles, and no more pop-in between detail levels.
• Ships that look built: about thirty design passes over every flagship, escort, module turret and Hollow creature, plus baked shading, hull numbers and lit bridges. Let me know what you think, this took me many sleepless nights!
• Boss kill cam: time slows and the camera swings round the wreck when a boss dies.
• Ten new evolutions so every module has a capstone, each with its own look on the hull.
• Commander Debrief: What Hurt You shows the four things that did the most damage, and new bests are marked.
• Torpedo Upgrade: fly much faster and get through point defence far more often.
• Wishlist buttons on the main menu and at the end of every run, if you would like to show support for my development journey and follow the full game.
• Many Bug Fixes: no crash when you die in Flight School, campaign modules keep their hardpoints between nodes, the controller orders wheel no longer sticks open, and about thirty smaller fixes across combat, the campaign and saves.