Daily Dev Update: Brighter Novas & Cleaner Restarts - January 5, 2026

Hey, here’s what we’ve been working on. Small update today focused on making the electric nova effect readable in real matches and fixing a restart issue that held onto old visuals. It’s a focused pass, not a big feature drop.

What’s New

• Electric nova is clearer and slower

  • Expansion speed reduced from 8 to 5 units/sec. You get more time to see it coming and react in PvP.
  • Start radius bumped from 0.5 to 1.0, so the first pulse doesn’t get lost in tower clutter.
  • There’s now a minimum overall radius of 10 units so novas remain visible on tighter island maps.
  • Gameplay effect: easier callouts in team fights, less “where did that come from?” moments, more counterplay windows.

• Ring visual polish

  • The nova ring is thicker and brighter, with the band now spanning roughly 0.8–1.0 of its normalized radius. It pops more against terrain and units.
  • The shader got a rewrite to use proper UV-driven, angle-based animation. The ring stays consistent across zoom levels and doesn’t wobble on camera moves.
  • This helps during chaotic overlaps with lasers and projectile trails where visual priority matters.

• Default starting tower change (testing)

  • Matches in this build start with a super-laser. This is intentional to stress-test nova interactions early in a round.
  • Heads-up: your usual openers will feel different. It’s just for this build so we can watch how the new visuals read under pressure.

What Got Fixed

• Cleaner restarts

  • Fixed an issue where restarting a session could leave stale visual data hanging around. We now clear renderer caches on restart and reset debug state.
  • If you saw ghost rings, old particles, or mismatched VFX after a restart, that should be gone.

• Laser particles behave

  • Particle cleanup now respects the intended lifetime cap. Fewer lingering laser streaks, less visual noise in extended fights.
  • Practical result: lower VFX clutter in long PvP rounds and more consistent performance when skirmishes stack up.

Under the Hood

• Renderer hygiene on restart

  • We clear adapter-level caches and reset debug toggles so each session starts fresh. It’s a reliability fix more than a speed-up, but it prevents bad frames from leaking between matches.

• Nova shader changes

  • Switched to UV-based, angle-aware math for the ring. This tightened up edge definition and made brightness uniform around the arc.
  • The ring’s visual profile is thicker (0.8–1.0 band) and slightly brighter for priority. Combined with the slower 5 units/sec expansion and larger 1.0 start radius, novas read earlier and more consistently on small maps.

• Match readability intent

  • The minimum 10-unit cap on nova size is there to prevent “invisible” pulses on cramped islands. It’s a readability safeguard so fights don’t hinge on a VFX you couldn’t see.

Closing

This update is mostly about clarity and reliability. If you’ve been calling out novas for your team or lining up counters, these changes should make that smoother. Thanks to everyone who reported the restart weirdness and shared clips where the nova got lost in the effects stack. Keep sending replays and screenshots when something feels off—we’re using those to tune readability and reduce VFX clutter.