NOVA v0.27.0

What's New

Play against bots

  • Start a private game against computer commanders: Step 1 of the new-theatre wizard now asks whether you're playing against Humans or Bots. Pick Bots, name your commander, choose how many opponents, and the game starts the moment you tap Start — no waiting for anyone to join.
  • Bot commanders have their own names, drawn from well-known stars, and each one's home world carries its name. You can reroll the draw before you start.
  • Bots play from the first production cycle. They hold their stars, send fleets, and can beat you, but they don't negotiate: there is no private thread with a bot and no contracts.
  • Try NOVA's opponent is now one of these bots, and it moves from the very first cycle.

Diplomacy

  • Offering a contract is easy to find: every private thread has an OFFER button next to the message field, and the Global channel always shows "Offer a contract…".
  • The offer form opens inside the bottom panel, so the star map stays in view while you compose. Back returns you to the chat, and you land in the recipient's thread once the offer is sent.
  • The commander dossier at the top of a private thread is a plain card now: who they are, their strength, and the deals pending between you.

Games

  • Games can be as short as 15 minutes.

The star map

  • The Layers panel remembers your choices across games and restarts, so the labels and strength cloud come back the way you left them. While a replay is playing the map uses the replay's own look, and the Layers button waits until it ends.

Notifications

  • The app-icon badge now clears reliably: it re-syncs on every screen, when the app returns to the foreground, and when a notification arrives while you're already in the app.