Easier to pick up, and easier to read. Before the tutorial, a short card explains how a run works. The tutorial counts its five steps, points at exactly what to tap, and nothing pops up over the game while you are learning it. Any dotted word explains itself in one tap, from garrison to Dark Matter. The long rule paragraphs that used to sit on screens moved onto those cards, so screens keep their labels and numbers. News, contracts and your next goal share one strip instead of stacking up. When a fight goes against you, the game says why and what to try next. Settings, Shop and NOVA give the tap button's space back to the screen. On iPad in landscape, the two-pane layout uses more of the display. The game follows your Reduce Motion setting, no text is smaller than 11 points, every button is at least 44 points, and large numbers no longer print as 1000K. Also: an engine update that fixes a memory issue.

Everything in the game is drawn now. The emoji are gone. All 30 ship classes have their own silhouette, drawn as one family, so the list reads as a ladder from the Probe Drone to the Omega Fleet. The three rival empires, the five species and the bosses fly their own crests. Every upgrade, achievement, wonder and mission has a drawn icon instead of whatever picture your phone's font happened to supply. All 64 worlds are drawn individually: continents and ice caps, banded gas giants, cratered mining worlds, lava cracks, crystal fields, Precursor ring-works. Colonies light up across their night side as you develop them. NOVA talks less. Routine log lines now tell you what happened and the numbers instead of ending on a joke, and the writing across the game is plainer. Fixes: the war advisor no longer says "Engage the The Void Lords", and the bank hint credited the wrong government with doubling your interest.

Your empire is now something you can carry. SETTINGS -> SAVE DATA -> TRANSFER CODE turns the whole thing into a block of text. Keep it somewhere safe, or paste it into Novafall on another device and pick up exactly where you left off. iCloud still backs you up automatically — this is for the times you want the save in your own hands, or want to move an empire you started in a browser onto your phone. Loading a code replaces the empire on that device, so it asks first. And a code that was only half-copied is refused rather than loaded, which means a bad paste can never quietly corrupt a run. Also: the shop is clearer about what a purchase actually gets you, and the save system now stands its autosave down while an empire is being swapped, so a restore can't be overwritten a second later. NOVA sends her regards, Commander.

NOVA takes on new recruits — and the spy network finally gets to work. She now explains the two things the galaxy never made obvious: that your empire keeps producing while the app is closed, and why collapsing a galaxy you have already won is the fastest way forward, not a loss. Three short briefings, at the moments they matter. Skip them any time. THE SHADOW WAR — your cell can now be pointed at the three rival empires instead of faceless pirates. Steal the schematics for their next hull. Burn a blockade off one of your colonies without risking a ship. And each government unlocks one signature operation of its own: the Empire authorises assassinations, the Federation foments defections, the Alliance runs economic warfare. They answer in kind. Rival agents will come for your alloy, your research and your production — and your only defence is the agents you keep at home, so every operation you launch leaves the door unwatched. THE IMPERIAL LEVY — tapping only ever made alloy. Now a levy on your colonies brings in energy and research every fifteen minutes, and the Minister of the Census will collect it for you once appointed. Also: every wonder pays double, the cabinet has taken its Roman titles, and besieged colonies no longer pay their taxes — which is exactly as it should be. NOVA sends her regards, Commander.

iPad, properly. Novafall now runs in landscape on iPad — and in landscape it uses the extra width. NOVA gets her own pane beside the game, showing her current directives and the ship's log without you leaving the screen. Tap a directive to jump straight to it. In portrait, and on iPhone, everything sits in a comfortable centered column instead of stretching across the glass. Rotate freely. The layout follows. NOVA sends her regards, Commander.

Diplomacy counts as conquest. • Buying a rival empire's last world now earns the Warlord and Galactic Conqueror trophies. An empire ended by invoice is still an empire ended — the peaceful route no longer costs you the banner. • Time Warps now say plainly what they skip: production only. Battle cooldowns, truces, sieges and the daily supply rotation all keep running on real time. • Purchases are written to your save the moment they arrive, so an interrupted session can never swallow one. • Steadier under the hood, and the usual quiet repairs. The galaxy is still waiting, Commander. Every world in it.

NOVA has been busy, Commander. - TIME WARPS: bank hours of full-rate production and spend them whenever you like. Earn them from supply drops, or stock up in the Shop. - BUY PLANETS: empires that don't oppose your constitution will sell frontier worlds outright. Conquest by checkbook. - WAR COUNCIL: a new permanent upgrade that shortens the battle cooldown. - Smarter Minister of Industry: Auto-Fleet now saves toward the best-value hull, and raids the bank to afford it. - Dark Matter packs now scale with your best-ever ascension, so they never shrink. - Low Power mode, clearer bank math, blockade intel, and a small mountain of fixes.