August 7, 2026
I focused on normal missions at Rank 8+ for this patch’s balance pass. The safest missions were made a bit harder, and the toughest missions (especially early in Act 1) were made less punishing.
Made easier: Anarch Captain, Base Raiders, Destroyer Armada, Lancer Swarm
Made harder: Pirate Hideout, Turret Perimeter, Tormean Shipyards, Duskwing Operation, Crevite Rush, Cytorin Miners, Nauth Patrol, Persistent Neurode, Protostore Complex, Imperial Assault, Energy Complex, Mounted Multi-Cannon, Covetous Neurode, Cytorin Demolishers, Prognite Perimeter, Adaptive Flitterbytes
Starting deck generation was reworked. Certain starting decks could set you up to lose very quickly in Act 1 at high Ranks, so I reworked that system significantly. The new system should guarantee you have the necessary tools to at least get through the Tier 1 missions, when playing optimally.
New Content
New Tech options relating to card draw and sustain: Predictive Mobilization and Research Lab
Quality of Life
Instead of getting a single Auto-Retreat warning mid-battle-phase you get the warning under two circumstances:
At the end of any Battle Phase where you took high enough damage for retreat to be worth considering.
At the moment of defeat if you could have retreated that battle phase to survive.
"Destroy all enemy ships" and "Destroy all enemy ships and structures" missions include a percent completion now.
If you have The Emperor's Due in your deck and have room to put it in your Reserves instead, you get a red exclamation point notification with an explanatory tooltip telling you to fix it.
Balance Changes
Gravwave Scanner now costs 1/1 and grants infinite attack range in addition to infinite detection range. Give it a try, it’s really strong now!
Solar Farmer was redesigned to simply give 2 Solar Arrays in hand (instead of Solar Arrays and Wardwings on the battlefield). This Trait was too weak, but more importantly it was too swingy; majority of the time it killed you in Act 1 because losing both Solar Arrays and having no Solar Energy was too common. BUT if you survived Act 1, you stomped the rest of the run, due to the huge income boost. The new design may be too strong, but it’s a less swingy starting point to balance from.
Nerfed Rigid Planner.
It starts with 1 Signature Strategy (down from 2).
It starts with 40K money (up from 15K).
Nerfed Notorious Pirate to no longer add a Pirate to your starting deck.
Buffed Master Tactician to gain 1 random affordable card (instead of drawing 1). This helps a lot in Act 1 where drawing too fast can be dangerous, AND it gives you a way to keep playing cards when your deck and hand become empty.
Buffed Escorted Politician to start with 50K credits (up from 35K).
Small Fixes and Improvements
Better icon for Reservist Manager.
Fixed a bug at Rank 10 where enemy players would hold onto too many cards and mill themselves in certain missions.
Fixed an issue where renamed cards could count twice towards "Victorious Cards" progress.
Fixed an issue where money appeared to go up for a split second when selecting non-money rewards.
It’s been just about a month since launch, and I’ve appreciated all of the interest so far! Please consider leaving a review if you haven’t already, it really helps!