NOVA v0.23.0

What's New

Call off a fleet's route mid-flight

  • A fleet on a multi-hop route can now be told to stop: tap its "Routing onward to …" line and choose Stop at ⟨star⟩, and it lands and holds at the star it's currently heading to instead of relaying on. Works whether it's queued or already in flight, even while the game is paused.
  • Routed fleets no longer fly into a lost cause: if the final destination is destroyed — or your chain of stars to it is gone — the fleet halts at its waypoint and Comms tells you why, instead of silently throwing the relaunch away.

Invitations that tell you what you're joining

  • Opening an invite now shows the game's facts — its length, pace, galaxy size, and any custom rules — right on the join screen, before you're asked for a name.
  • The galaxy preview now works on every invite: tap a friend's link to a private game and you see the actual star layout, with each claimable home world marked, instead of "Preview not available."
  • Invites to games made on older versions of NOVA now take you straight to the simple join form, instead of wrongly asking you to pick a home world on a blank "custom" map.
  • Games waiting on an older build to start say so plainly: "The galaxy is generated when the game starts."

The game card is the whole story

  • Lobby cards got a complete overhaul: one glance now shows the game's name, who's in it (colored seat dots — yours is ringed), how many seats are open, and labeled facts for its length, pace, and galaxy — "14 days · Fast ×4.7 · 20 stars each" instead of raw numbers.
  • A game's custom rules sit behind a small "custom" chip on the card — tap it to see exactly what the host changed before you commit to a seat.
  • The whole card is tappable: tap anywhere to open the game's lobby, claim your seat, or see who else has joined.

Share from right where you are

  • Every card now carries a Share button on its face — copy the join link straight from the list, no need to open the game first.
  • The full share panel (join code and link) now shows for any public game you're looking at, even one you haven't joined yet — it's there precisely so you can pull a friend into a game you both want to play.
  • Typing a code by hand is now the fallback, tucked behind a small "Have a code?" link — though a code arriving from an invite still opens it for you, pre-filled.

Preview the galaxy before you claim

  • A forming game's card can open a map preview: the actual star layout you'd be playing, with each commander's home world marked — see the battlefield before you pick your seat.

Invite anyone with a link

  • Every forming game now has a share link — not just private ones. Copy it, text it, and your friend lands right in your game's lobby.
  • The invite even survives a fresh install: a friend without the app taps your link, installs NOVA from the App Store, and on first open the app offers to join your game. (Upgrading players are never bothered — this only happens on a genuinely new install.)
  • A game's link works as long as its lobby is open — no more codes expiring after three days.

Lobby cards, finished

  • Cards now also show a non-standard starting allocation (ships and credits), and tapping the Custom rules line reliably opens it.

Know what you're joining

  • Every lobby card now describes the game before you claim a seat: its pace and length, the galaxy size and layout, and a plain list of any custom rules — a host who tripled the nova-bomb price is no longer a first-turn surprise.
  • Games now always record their starting ships and credits, so the card can say exactly what you'd begin with.

A map that opens where you are

  • Opening a game now starts focused on your home world, as if you had just tapped it — no more hunting for yourself in a big galaxy.
  • Focusing a star keeps its whole range ring on screen: everything you could strike from there stays in view instead of being cropped by the zoom.
  • The fit button frames the map into the visible area above the panel, instead of hiding half the galaxy behind it.

A news wire that keeps up

  • The Comms wire now carries the latest 100 lines (up from 30), and in a busy galaxy your feed can no longer be crowded out by other commanders' events — you always see your own war.

Sign-in that stays signed in

  • The app never fires a request before its sign-in token is ready, and you can only be returned to the sign-in screen from a genuinely signed-in state — no more surprise sign-outs on a slow start.

Cheaper eyes on the enemy

  • Spy probes now cost 5 credits in new games (down from 10) — scouting before you strike is half the price, so there's even less excuse for flying blind.

Small fixes

  • Creating a game without touching the cost fields no longer marks it as having custom rules.
  • Game cards read "2 hours long" instead of a bare "2 hours".