Scrolling or a position-only canvas refresh no longer pauses the game. A real viewport resize, hidden page or lost window focus still pauses safely. Repeated notifications while already paused do not repeatedly save. A pause caused by these events names the reason.

Grounded driving

Planet driving now grips rather than coasting indefinitely. W accelerates along the hull, A/D steers the hull, releasing W slows to a stop, and S brakes harder (S wins over W). Mouse still only fine-aims the weapon. Provisional starter targets: release stop about0.5s, S stop about0.3s,90° hull turn about0.35s. Drive Tune keeps245→300 top speed and300→375 acceleration; its full-speed stops take about0.6s/release or0.38s/S. Actual browser feel remains under playtest; collision geometry, weapons and save data are unchanged.

Aiming

Turn the hull with A/D in both modes. Mouse fine aim is limited to±15° from the nose, with the existing turret slew speed; pointing behind the hull does not fire backward. Nose aim fires along the hull heading. The short pale direction tick starts at the actual projectile muzzle and shows its current firing angle, not a lock-on or guaranteed hit. Switching modes clears held inputs and never resumes a paused game; while paused the tick retains the last simulated aim until Resume. Aim preference is stored separately; if browser storage fails, the current session still works and the gameplay save is untouched.

Earned upgrades

Explore and fight, then slow below harvesting speed near environmental debris. Recover the actual intact Pulse Tuning cache and install its one item for pulse damage18→30 (+12 provisional browser tuning, not legacy+4). The Drive Tune consumes1 earned Drive Stator +2 earned Raw Glimmer for speed245→300 and thrust300→375. This is a new provisional browser recipe, not recovered legacy crafting. Upgrade costs, boost, capacity and death rules are unchanged;014 deliberately retunes grip and stopping. There are no free upgrade grants.

One earned combination: installed Pulse Tuning registers PlasmaII once from its real consumed receipt. Future ordinary Skipper defeats each roll a provisional1/8 chance for a physical Seeker component. Collect it, then Fuse to consume PlasmaII + Seeker. Guided Bolt begins at38.43 damage, speed640, life2.36s, turn7.5rad/s within240 units, cadence0.21s. Earned duplicate Seekers rank up toV using the stronger component (+22% per rank); no XP or retroactive drops for imported kills. Existing simple projectile/pickup marks are reused; dedicated art is missing. Unlucky runs retain normal Pulse/Drive upgrades.

Site guards — existing role

Named Site/Route Guards are the existing territorial Skippers, not a new species. Their label follows their real state: guarding or patrolling, engaged, jump windup, recovering, or returning to post. They keep their original patrol routes, engagement distance and retreat rules; no extra enemies or rewards were added. Ordinary Skippers still pursue as before. A returning guard keeps its damage — retreat does not heal it.

World and encounter scope

Continue and012 import keep the exact recorded world. Only the explicit New Game button creates a new procedural map: connected clearings, native-size cliff footprints, encounters and conserved physical loot vary by seed. It retains35 source actors and103 starting loot records; no extra rewards. Fresh startup without a prior save starts the retained fixed reference world until you choose New Game. The cache has a provisional1,500–2,300-unit direct spawn-distance band and a collision-checked route no longer than3,000 units; this is not a measured travel-time guarantee.

Boss and Resonator Camp circles are explicitly labeled unavailable; their source actors remain present, not replaced by easier enemies. Defeat recovery is unavailable and a defeated run remains stopped. Procedural terrain is a bounded first-zone composition, not a full six-zone campaign. Wider enemy roles, broader synergies and the end-boss run are not included. Advanced reservations remain geographically distant: prior qualified A-seed routes span roughly6,280–14,267 units; these are certified path upper bounds, not measured travel time or shortest routes. Their native geometry is not shrunk to hide this pacing limitation. Terrain and some pickup shapes are temporary. Existing ship art is reused; no new-art completion claim.

Save safety

016 uses the same013 enhanced journal, with an explicit validated import from the current committed012/v5 checkpoint. It preserves the exact fixed world, positions, HP, cargo, consumed upgrades, kills, combat RNG and in-flight pulses. The original012 DB is read only and remains untouched; its older checkpoint cannot be used as fallback if the enhanced journal is corrupt. Enhanced initialization commits before play and retries do not duplicate rewards. This is not an original v0.68 save import.

In012, Save and wait for “committed”, then close all older012 tabs before import and keep them closed. The preserved012 version remains a separate branch; opening it may autosave even without movement and block013 until explicit recovery. After a procedural New Game commit, older013–015 cannot read the new world descriptor and will refuse it rather than reset; use016 or newer. The prior checkpoint is retained, not automatically restored. Close every older enhanced tab before New Game. Cross-database writes cannot be atomic:013 checks the old checkpoint before/after initialization and writes, and before Resume. If012 advances,013 pauses/blocks and retains both branches; do not reset or automatically re-import. New Game replaces only the enhanced branch. Autosaves still occur every two simulation seconds and earned outcomes. Abrupt termination can lose changes since the last acknowledged commit. Failed writes retain previous durable state and complete unsaved memory for retry or explicit Restore committed.