Alpha v0.16.0

What's New

• Gameplay - The three bosses are now a difficulty ladder — you face them hardest-last, and each one hits harder, reads your dodges, and fights smarter than the one before.
• Gameplay - Bosses have new kinds of attacks — some stun or slow you, and some sweep a volley of telegraphed explosions across the arena.
• Gameplay - Your shots can now land critical hits — a chance for bonus damage on any primary shot, popping off the target as a bigger gold number.

What's Changed

• Gameplay - Weapons no longer shortens your fire rate. Each tier now raises your critical hit chance instead. Bullet damage scaling is unchanged.
• Gameplay - Every ship now fires at the same fixed cadence. Spectre gives up its fast trigger; Guardian and Wraith fire quicker than before.
• Gameplay - Guardian's health is down a notch. It still has the largest health pool, but its survivability lead over the other ships is no longer outsized.

Boss Tiers

The three bosses are now a difficulty ladder — a fixed order, each fight tougher than the last. The first is a fair, heavily-telegraphed slugger, a clean test of the basics. The other two escalate hard from there: they hit harder, soak more, and fight with real intent — reading where you'll run and boxing you in instead of shooting where you stand.

They also draw on a wider palette of attacks. Some are pure damage; others stun you or slow you down, and some sweep a volley of explosions across the arena. Watch the warning rings — every blast shows you where it'll land. Dodge through the telegraph and you take nothing, stun included.

Critical Hits

Every primary shot now rolls for a critical hit. Land one and it pops off the target as a bigger gold number. Spectre starts with the sharpest natural eye for crits, and every ship's chance climbs as you invest in Weapons — an Ascended Weapons Upgrade makes crits a real part of your damage. Cluster Bomb shards roll their own crits too.

One Fire Rate for Everyone

Weapons used to do two jobs at once: more damage and a faster trigger. Two multipliers on the same axis made high-tier Weapons snowball, and a quicker trigger quietly stepped on Drive's job of setting your tempo. So fire rate is now a fixed constant — the same for every ship, never moved by upgrades or power-ups.

That's a real shift. Spectre gives up the rapid-fire edge it used to have, while Guardian and Wraith pick up the pace. Weapons keeps its damage scaling and spends its second effect on critical hits instead — a payoff that rewards landing shots, not just holding the trigger.