Demo update v1.503

I mentioned in the prior dev talk that I have been working on a lot of architectural change, I won't bore you with details, but it is mostly complete. The current demo version is quite stable (AFAIK) and is reasonably close to the finalized version before early access.

Gameplay

• Ship modules retired. Their effects now live as regular implants you draft like anything else, and the Engineering Bay (post-boss) is the gated source for the strong ex-module versions.

• Augmentation Bay replaces Black Market in the dock (+2 Wildcard implant slots).

• Sharpen reworked. Stacks ARE the resource now, one drains per attack card. Cleaner to read, easier to plan around big hits.

• Tile cards simplified to step-on triggers only. No more end-of-turn tile bookkeeping.

• Teleporter map nodes added on floors 1 to 3.

• Striker Momentum fix. Movement on cards like Blitz, Dash Strike, Slipstream now banks momentum for your NEXT card instead of silently boosting the current card's damage. Tooltips match landed damage.

UI / UX

• Boot splash redesigned. New hex highlight palette in battle, card origin rail, cross-screen polish.

• Unified pile viewer for Deck / Draw / Discard / Exhaust. Click cards to inspect.

• Upgrade picker shows before vs after side by side.

• Sticky implant tooltips that don't vanish when you try to read them.

• Status badges replaced the wordy pill rows.

• New victory screen with contract result, commendations (Damage Lead, Kill Lead, Credit Lead, Survival), MVP. Works for SP, MP FFA, MP team.

• Design pass on corner radii, font sizes, animation timings, and the color palette to feel cohesive.

Multiplayer

• Privateer Drones tied-vote fixed. A 1-vs-1 vote could send host into combat while client saw "Toll paid" and no battle happened. Now deterministic.

• Rejoin works properly. Disconnect mid-battle, reconnect, pick up where you were.

• Steam invites from the main menu actually accept now (previous join guard was too aggressive).

• Bot scene watchdog. If a bot hangs, the run unblocks instead of stalling everyone for 15 seconds.

• Security hardening pass on RPCs (fuel grants, lobby size, class / implant validation)

• Various sync fixes: shop reroll, bot shop, starting bonuses, event fuel, boss kill credits, soft-targets stacking, victory screen player names.

Bots

• Stop over-drawing when stuck out of range.

• Stop over-blocking when defense is already adequate, frees AP for drone moves.

• Reject off-class shop / sabotage cards.

• Better turret priority, stance tooltip, falloff awareness.

Localization

• Keyword tooltips (AP, Shield, Drone, Overkill, Reshuffle, Backfire, Shock, etc.) on hover, with proper CJK highlight.

• Class-select, implant descriptions, coop event reveals, rest screen, top bar, shop, compendium all swept for translation gaps.

Quality / Polish

• Pre-demo hardening pass. Save crash fixes, PvP gate fixes, boot splash, large zh_CN sweep.

• Window and .exe icon updated (no more default Godot icon).

• Quit confirmation prompt.

• Settings has an Apply button so display changes don't commit by accident.

• Main Menu access consolidated into the Settings overlay.

• F1 to F4 enemy stat pass, F4 commons closer to F3 elite tier, F1 non-elite HP down 7%.