26.9.25.0 – Mutations, relics, daily contracts and a faster start
Hotfix: Zoom in a run could get stuck and the run view could stay brown: an invalid zoom value blocked the camera for good. It is now caught and reset to 100%.
New: Event horizon, the second prestige: from nova rank 5 you can give up nova rank, nova points and the nova tree. In return you get horizon points for a permanent tree of its own with strong effects, among them +25% damage or yield per level, more nova points, a higher starting rank, and autopilot and planets that stay unlocked.
New: Season tiers: every run fills the free season track (28 days). 20 tiers with time skips, a season title at tier 10 and a season aura at 20. Claim them on the map.
New: Squad synergy: every further specialization your squad has in its builds this week (carrier, payload, chain) gives everyone in the squad +1% damage, up to +5%. Different builds in a squad pay off. The squad view shows which are covered.
New: Artifacts: every violet void relic you grab brings an artifact you are missing. There are 12, each with a small permanent bonus that survives supernovas too. The full collection adds +5% damage and +5% yield on top. See Achievements.
New: Weekly modifiers: every planet has its own twist this week, for example rich veins, soft crust, core quake, mutagenic radiation (4 cards), relic frenzy or swarm fever. It changes every Monday. The map shows what applies where.
New: Boss cores: every 5th planet tier has a boss core with 50 % more hp and double core loot. It is weak to one specialization (double damage), which changes with every boss tier. Everything else hits it as usual, no build is locked out. The map shows the next boss and its weakness.
New: Mutation offers now come at 25, 50 and 75 % of the planet depth and at the core instead of back to back late in the game. A new offer waits until the open choice is made, and while the cards are open the run plays in slow motion. Cards show category and effect in big letters; pick with 1–4 or A S D F.
New: Rare mutations on golden cards: Apex, Gold Rush, Time Loop and Hive Mind.
New: The run report shows what mutations and the swarm frenzy really added – as damage and share of the run.
New: New cosmetics: swarm auras and swarm trails, visible in every run right away. Plus an earned aura and titles from new achievements for relics and the mutation codex.
New: Synergies: four mutation pairs add a bonus together – Berserker, Drill Storm, Motherlode and Time Lapse. Cards that complete a pair show it with ⚡; the codex collects them.
New: Void relics: one relic in ten glows violet and starts a void frenzy – five times the damage and three times the yield for 10 seconds.
New: Three new drone hulls in the shop: Comet, Moth and Bastion.
New: Relic storms: on Wednesday evenings and at the weekend there are three times the relics. The map shows when the next storm comes.
New: New mothership upgrades: Relic Scanner, Frenzy Chamber and Gene Lab – they stay through every supernova.
New: On the swarm net: the control screen shows who cracked which cores in the last hours.
New: Relics: now and then a golden capsule floats in the shaft. Click it for a swarm frenzy – 7 seconds of triple damage and double yield. Leave it and it fades after 6 seconds.
New: Swarm tiers: every skill point milestone makes your swarm look stronger – bigger drones, engine trails, glow, orbiting sparks and finally a pulsing aura.
New: Next goals on the control screen: core, new world, swarm tier, drone milestone and supernova at a glance. Plus the mutation codex under achievements.
New: Mutations: from the first crust on, every run offers three mutations several times – pick with 1/2/3 or a click, or the swarm takes the first after 6 seconds. 16 mutations from Overcharge to Big Bang; the same mutation stacks.
New: Swarm milestones at 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 drones: more mutation offers, four cards instead of three, a mutation right at the start, finally two cards per offer.
New: Daily contracts: three goals a day that fit your progress, each pays a time skip, all three a bigger one, and every seventh day of a full streak one more.
New: Planet of the week: every week one planet, one seed and the same swarm for everyone – who cracks the core fastest? Ten attempts a day, the server replays each one. On the start page and at deepswarm.de/contest.
New: Demo without an account: three runs with a growing swarm right in the browser – to show friends who have no beta seat yet.
New: Notifications (settings): the browser tells you when the offline storage is full, a community core reward is waiting or a new planet of the week starts. Each one can be switched on its own.
New: Public profile with an image card to share (settings, or "Share" after the planet of the week). Off until you turn it on.
Balancing: Explosives deal less damage to the core and are now in step with the other carriers.
Balancing: Faster start: every broken crust adds 4 s of run time, the swarm starts with 6 drones, Mercury has twelve floors at tier 1 instead of eighteen, floors you already reached are much softer and skill ore costs went down. The first core now falls after about 20–30 minutes.
Balancing: The autopilot can be bought once the first core is cracked.
Quality of life: The run report compares with your last run on the same planet: depth, value, DPS and time, better in green, worse in red.
Quality of life: The bar of active mutations now sits below the zoom buttons instead of behind them and shows live how strong all bonuses are combined right now (damage, yield, speed). Rare cards come half as often.
Quality of life: A core crack gets its big moment on the monitor; relics appear at the swarm's height and can be grabbed with F, space or the hint button. "Strong Field" now widens the collectors' fields too.
Quality of life: Pick mutations automatically (settings): while you are not watching the big monitor, the swarm takes damage, yield or speed by your preference – rare cards first. The small monitor calls you back for offers and relics.
Quality of life: The swarm mother explains the first mutation offer, the first relic and the first frenzy. The daily skill level contract grows with your build.
Quality of life: Every purchase briefly shows what it changes (e.g. "Run time 12 s → 13 s").
Quality of life: DEEPSWARM can be installed as an app from the browser, and the game loads much faster on the first visit.
26.9.21.0 – Black monitor during long autopilot sessions
Hotfix: After long autopilot sessions the run monitor could go black and the run stopped moving – ending and restarting often only helped after several tries. The reason: when the graphics card stumbled (for example after a driver reset), the run itself stopped along with the picture. Now the run keeps going, the picture comes back by itself, and if it does not, the game rebuilds the display.
Hotfix: Desktop app 1.2.1: with the window behind others or minimized, the autopilot now keeps playing at full pace instead of nearly stopping. Get the new version under "Download".
26.9.20.10 – Dark run monitor after an update
Hotfix: If you had the game open while an update went out, the next run sometimes came up with a black monitor – it could neither be drawn nor stopped, only a reload helped. The reason: parts of the game are only fetched when a run starts, and after the update those exact files were gone. They now stay reachable for two weeks, and if one is missing anyway the page reloads itself, once.
26.9.20.8 – Squad order shows the goal it actually fills up to
Hotfix: The squad order showed "702 / 600" while the last tier was still open: the third tier sits at 120% of the goal, but the line named the plain goal. It now shows the value where every tier is done, and each tier names its points in the tooltip instead of a percentage.
26.9.20.7 – Autoskill: cheapest first, and it asks at a fork
Hotfix: Autoskill worked through the trees one after another: carrier and payload spent the points and the chain got next to nothing. Trees sharing a pool now compete for it – the cheapest level goes first, whichever tree it sits in.
Hotfix: Focus "cheapest": endless nodes have no last level and were the cheapest thing on the board again after every purchase, so they drained the whole pool. They now wait until nothing finishable is affordable.
New: Autoskill asks at a fork: nodes that rule each other out used to be skipped in silence. They are now offered in the autoskill card, and the skill tree carries a badge until you have decided.
26.9.20.5 – Zoom in a run, more cheap ore deep down
New: Run monitor: you can zoom yourself now – the + / − / 100% buttons top left, the mouse wheel, or the keys + and − (0 puts it back). Shift+wheel still scrolls the hand-held camera. The camera mode's own zoom rides on top.
Balancing: Every ore a world shows once now also drops on all floors below it – at least 15% of a band. Until now the cheap ores vanished on the way down (Venus: no more cobaltine from floor 22, Emberfall: no azurite from 13, Cirrusvault: no solferite from 19). The upper floors are unchanged.
Balancing: Ore converter: converting down – valuable ore into a cheaper one – keeps 80% of the value instead of 25%. Converting up keeps the old rate.
Quality of life: Follow camera: it dropped a whole floor every time a crust broke and pulled back up afterwards. It now rides the dig front.
Quality of life: Overview: the zoom eases more softly and no longer reacts to single breakthroughs.
26.9.20.2 – Hotfix: steadier camera in follow mode
Hotfix: Follow mode: the camera dropped a whole floor every time a crust broke and pulled back up afterwards. It now rides the dig front instead of stepping from floor middle to floor middle, with a smaller and calmer look-ahead.
Hotfix: Overview: the zoom eases more softly and no longer reacts to single breakthroughs.
26.9.20.1 – The run keeps going, camera and minimap
Hotfix: Display fixed: switching between the run and the map left a monitor black – first the run, then the map (no planets, no ship). Both keep their picture now.
New: A run keeps going when you leave the run screen: a small monitor keeps showing it, you can drag it around and pull it bigger, and one click puts you back in. The report and the autopilot wait for you there too.
New: Run monitor: camera modes with C (free, follow the swarm, overview) and a minimap with N. Weak points you have skilled for stand out more clearly.
26.9.19.5 – Hotfix: taking core splitters off in Firefox
Taking core splitters off did not work in Firefox: the browser keeps shift+right click for its own menu, so the game never saw the click. Ctrl+right click now removes a splitter too (shift+right click stays where it works).
26.9.19.4 – Hotfix: long anomaly runs, explosion flood
Anomaly: long runs got stuck when finishing ("server is checking the run …") and the account stopped responding afterwards. Fixed, the run counts again.
Gas storm with a big swarm: the flood of explosions slowed the run monitor to a halt. Explosions are capped now, the monitor keeps running smoothly.
26.9.19.3 – Autopilot route, explosive carrier
Autopilot route from nova rank 1: set how many runs the autopilot does on a planet. It then flies to the next unlocked planet by itself – in orbit order or to the world whose ore you lack most – and carries on there. A meteor swarm in the way is flown through first. Every planet runs on the base autopilot. Set it in the autopilot card during a run or in the settings.
"End run" shows the report without the autopilot starting again.
Explosive carrier: one more charge per plant.
26.9.19.2 – Tier 100 in every cycle, onward flight after the meteor
Planet tiers are no longer tied to the nova rank: every cycle can climb to tier 100 if the swarm cracks the cores. The supernova remains the way to the yield bonus, start points, slots and automation.
Meteor swarm: after the fly-through (or once it drifts off) the mothership flies on to the freed world by itself.
Autopilot: the pause after a run is exactly the set value, with no extra seconds for a cracked core.
Damage panel: right-aligned figures with a fixed unit column; the base row only shows with base drones. Swarm status no longer wraps.
Steering: a left click sends the swarm to a column. Drones far away dig a stair towards it, flatter or steeper by carrier. A click on ore marks the whole cluster. Holding leads, a single click lingers for three seconds.
Combo: crusts broken in quick succession build a combo; every level carried into the core chamber adds heat time there.
Weak points: three per run on the core surface, one each for kinetic, laser and explosive. The matching carrier hits three times as hard, every broken one raises all core damage by half.
Kinetic: afterburner instead of power dive. Key Q, twice the speed for six seconds, 15 s cooldown.
Refit: digger drones turn into carrier drones with the specialization level, complete at level 100 or through the new "Refit" node. The swarm gets smaller, every drone counts.
Drones fly curves and turn into their heading. Builds stand until the next supernova, the reset buttons are gone.
Time skips drop twice as often. Every beta account gets 20× 1 h, 10× 2 h and 5× 6 h to test with, new accounts too.
Settings: "Mute everything" and "Wipe progress" (not a supernova, cannot be undone).
26.9.17.24 – Fly there without a run, shorter after-flow
The map has a "Fly there" button next to "Deploy": the mothership changes worlds without starting a run. Background mining and autopilot move along.
After a run, ore already in tow counts as delivered right away; the after-flow only waits for loose ore. Runs and the meteor swarm wrap up promptly again.
26.9.17.19 – Collectors tow
Collector drones are tugs now: they take loose ore inside their field in tow, gather nearby for a moment, fly the load up on their beams, deliver and recharge on the way back. What a collector carries is set by its battery (thick clumps count double), how fast it is back by its speed. Without collectors only a fraction reaches the top late game, with too few ore is left behind: more mining needs more tugs.
Every 20 seconds the magnet storm lets each free collector reel in a full load from anywhere instead of magnetizing everything for free. The pointer stays the free magnet. Loose ore still rises slowly on its own. Measured with the bot: early game nearly unchanged, late game a built-up swarm's collectors deliver everything, far fewer leave ore behind, none at all leaves about two thirds.
The magnet speed nodes (Polarization, Superconductor, Field Compressor) now also speed up the tugs' climb; Holding Magnet applies to the pointer. The node texts say so.
How much ore may be in flight at once grows with the swarm: 1500 pieces for small swarms, every drone above 40 adds 90, up to 10000. Big swarms really need more tugs, small ones notice nothing. The simulation's neighbour search runs on a grid now, so a run costs a fraction of the compute it did.
26.9.17.18 – Console cards tidied
From bug report #13: the header strips of the console cards in the run now span the card cleanly instead of being squeezed. Numbers and switches left the headers: damage per second sits in a "Total" row inside the card, the autopilot switch in its own row.
26.9.17.17 – One run, many devices
You can be signed in on several devices, but a run only runs once. Starting on one device while another is mid-run gives a clear message, and the map shows the "Run in progress" panel: watch (the run plays live), take over (the other device hands off, you play on) or drop it. A run left open before a reload can be resumed the same way instead of being lost.
The map refreshes every 12 instead of 30 seconds: send the ship off on your phone and the PC sees it shortly after. The status line on the left reads "Run: Earth" while a run is going elsewhere. Background mining and offline yield count once per account, however many devices are open.
From bug report #12: the autopilot pause is an account setting now, not per device – set it on the PC and the autopilot on the phone follows.
Panels now carry their own title strip with screws and corner brackets with rivets – housings instead of plates. The supernova on the map got sound: wave and flash.
From bug report #10: new and auto-distributed extractors no longer pile up on one world. They spread over all cracked worlds, higher tiers carry more, ties go to the world with the scarcest ore.
From bug reports #9 and #11: the autopilot card in the run shows only the switch and the pause after. From #8: the unspent-point hint uses the singular for one point.
26.9.17.14 – Explosives on pace
Balance run across all carriers: explosive drones needed about two and a half times as long as lasers for the first core – not for lack of damage but of pace. Charges now detonate after 18 instead of 30 ticks and drones rearm in 12 instead of 24 ticks. In the bot the first core now lands between 96 and 161 minutes for all three carriers; late game explosives gain about a fifth.
26.9.17.13 – Server-side hardening
Only one run per account runs at a time, now enforced by the database too. Core loot pays with the multiplier the run was started with. Shop bookings are cleanly separated from server bookings.
26.9.17.12 – Invite thank-you: first core instead of ten runs
The invite thank-you now comes when the invitee cracks their first planet core – 50 stardust for both of you. The invite list in the settings shows who is there already.
26.9.17.11 – Autopilot switchable during the run
Follow-up to bug report #7: the autopilot card now sits in the run right above the audio card – on/off and the pause before the next run can be changed there mid-run. The run report is back to how it was.
26.9.17.9 – Help reorganised, autopilot under control
From bug reports #3 to #6: the glossary is a keyword list in five topics, click opens the explanation. The worlds tab shows unlock, ores as pictures, crust thickness and what hardness, brittleness, temperature, gas pockets, elasticity and vein density do to your swarm. Under specializations, "What does my combination do?" explains carrier, payload and chain in three steps.
From bug report #7: settings get an "Autopilot" group with on/off and pause length; the run report lets you change the pause right next to the countdown and switch the autopilot off.
26.9.17.8 – Invite friends, skins on display until the Steam release
Every player has a personal invite link in the settings: up to 5 friends register with it directly, no key needed. Once an invitee has played ten runs, both get a small thank-you. The closed beta is capped at 100 seats.
Skins and variants in the shop are locked until the Steam release and on display only; the pioneer set and designs already received stay.
The bug report dialog points feature requests and remarks to the Discord; bugs still go through the beetle icon.
26.9.17.3 – Ore icons in the stock, swarm mother hints
From bug reports #1 and #2: the stock, a planet's ore list and the loot table show the real ore sprites instead of colour squares. The swarm mother only points at unplaced extractors once a world can host them; the wording of the stock hint and the jump button were improved.
26.9.17.2 – Bug reports, update notice
In alpha and beta a small beetle sits by every panel, every window, the swarm mother and (shift+click) every skill node: click opens a bug report for exactly that element. Settings get a general report button too. A description and your own severity rating are required; version, planet, build, rank and your last steps come along automatically. Every report gets a number.
If your report is confirmed and fixed, the game tells you on the next load – with a small thank-you. Repeated misuse of reporting can lose you the feature.
After an update the game shows the newest patch note in a window on the first load; OK or a right click closes it.
26.9.17.1 – Help with ore, world and specialization tables
Help has four tabs: glossary with search, ores (every ore with value, family and the worlds plus the floor it occurs from), specializations (what each does as carrier and what it fires as payload or chain) and worlds (floors, unlock costs, ores, material traits). The tables come straight from the game data, so they stay current.
Glossary revised: crust of blocks, the core as a fireball, meteor field, farm tier, collectors and magnet, rich ore and veins, community core, squad, squad event, chronicle.
26.9.16.45 – Supernova in pixels
The supernova scene is now all pixel sprites: shockwave ring, dark disc, core glow, falling star streaks, the big-bang burst and the ember ring come from the map sheet – no vector shapes any more.
After the white flash it goes dark for a good two seconds; in the void a pulsing white seed grows, and out of it the big bang breaks. The whole show now runs about 14 seconds.
26.9.16.44 – Squad events
Squads now always have an event running: a new one every 48 hours, six kinds in rotation – Depth March, Collector Rush, Crust Breaker, Core Hunt, Record Hunt, Ore Flood. Every finished run of a member counts for the squad.
Points come from ratios, not raw amounts: share of a world's floors, delivery rate, crusts per run, share of the core, records, or your own best run as the yardstick. A beginner on Mercury contributes as much as a veteran on Pluto; plus a fixed base per run and a small nova-rank bonus (at most +50 %).
The goal grows with squad size; at 40, 80 and 120 percent the squad earns 1, 2 and 3 research points, booked automatically once the event is over. In the squad panel: progress to the three tiers, a member ranking with runs and points, and the result of the last event.
26.9.16.43 – No lockout after the meteor field
After passing a meteor field the next run was locked for about 50 seconds: the server took the early-ended run for abandoned and applied the anti-seed-fishing wait. A pass now counts as complete, like a cracked core.
26.9.16.42 – Mothership stays at its destination
After arriving, the mothership briefly jumped back to its origin on the map and in the mothership window until the game state was refreshed – also after a flight during a run cooldown. It now stands at its destination at once.
26.9.16.41 – Every effect has its voice
Eleven new sounds: sonic pulse (falling bell tone), acid (fizzing hiss), nanites (three rising chirps), a vein mined out (bright double chime), laser cascade (crackle), magnet storm (rush with a wobbling bass note), the laser payload's beam line (zap), the kinetic payload's shard burst (hard impacts), convergence strike (thunder), convergence surge (rising sweep) and the pass through a meteor field. Many effects used to share the quake or were silent.
26.9.16.40 – The core is one body
The 4×4 megacore and the hull of single blocks are gone. The core is one body with one pool: the swarm spreads over the whole arc of fire, every hit counts against the same pool, nothing is sealed. Damage carries over between runs as before; a core half beaten stays half beaten. When it breaks it drops two core splitters and the tier rises.
26.9.16.39 – Swarm over the whole core, soft laser beams
Laser beams no longer end blunt and all alike: every beam reaches a little differently, breathes in length, runs out into a thinner, dimmer tail and fades in and out softly when it fires and dies – each at its own pace.
At the core the drones crowded onto the 4×4 block in the middle. Now they spread over the whole core surface: targets already claimed or with claimed neighbours count less, a pinch of chance scatters the picks, and the middle only pulls once it lies open. Over the core the drones float slowly and wide, each to its own rhythm.
26.9.16.38 – Steam note on the website
Start and download page now carry the pixel-style Steam badge “soon”: DEEPSWARM comes to Steam as soon as it is possible. The website was checked on a phone – every page works without sideways scrolling, the menu got shorter labels.
26.9.16.37 – Meteor field ends after the pass
A meteor field run always ran its full 75 seconds. Now it ends two seconds after the swarm is through at the bottom or the last boulder is broken.
26.9.16.36 – Wide beam and prism trigger the payload
With laser carriers only the main beam armed the payload trigger; wide-beam rows and prism splits never set anything off. Now every row triggers at its deepest hit – the extra rows at half the main beam's rate and staggered, so sonic pulses and charges do not all land in the same moment.
26.9.16.35 – The core fills the deep
After the last crust there is only the core now: a fireball so big that only its upper arc shows – left, right and below it is all fire, in two drifting layers and the planet's core colours, with a cooling rim along the arc. The core hull is a mere hint of structure on the surface; digging works as before.
26.9.16.34 – The core is a fireball
Below the last crust the core is now one great, rounded layer of fire across the whole width – blazing, animated, in the planet's core colours. The core hull is a dark, slightly translucent shell over it; where the swarm breaks it, the fire shows through. The small 4×4 core in the middle is history; play is unchanged.
26.9.16.33 – Skill costs from the second world rescaled, chronicle aboard the mothership
Reaching a new world, you could buy its new skills three or four times at once because prices were tiny against the ore collected. From the second world on, prices now hang on what a world yields until the next one opens: level one costs a small share of it, every further level at least double. Mercury's skills stay as they were.
From level 3 these skills also ask for ore of the world before, the last level for the world before that too and, as before, the worlds after – the old planets stay worth a visit.
The mothership shows the chronicle of this cycle: how long it has run, when every world opened, how long its first core took, when the last one fell and its tier. Times are recorded from now on; running cycles show them from the next event.
26.9.16.32 – Crust hardness corrected
Since the last update the crust broke open after only half the intended damage. Opening at half the blocks stays, but it costs the full damage of before again.
26.9.16.31 – Crust of blocks, a core across the whole width, meteor fields
The crust is no longer a wall with a bar but a bed of single blocks that crumble where the swarm hits. Once half of the blocks are gone the layer breaks open and the way down is free – what remains is plain rock. The crust bar shows the way to the break.
How thick the crust is now depends on the world: hard worlds pack more layers, worlds with gas pockets fewer, and every second planet tier adds one – from one row on Mercury to six on deep tiers of a hard world. Crust hardness values stay as they were.
The planet core spans the whole width: below the last crust lies the core hull of glowing, cracked rock, and behind it the core glows far below the end of the mine. The shaft only scratches it.
Meteor swarms are loose piles of boulders in space – no core, no crust. Single clumps from 1×1 to 4×8, L and T pieces too, with an ore-free rim and ore inside, rich seams more often. The swarm has 75 seconds to work through to the bottom edge; then the world behind it opens.
26.9.16.30 – Discord linking fixed
Linking Discord in the settings always failed at the end in the browser. It works now; anyone who tried before can start it again.
Setting a first password on a Steam or SSO account now ends every other session of that account.
26.9.16.29 – Cut corners, more rings, hive pods
Rock, crust, hard and gas blocks are no perfect squares any more: every variant has its own cut corners and notches along the edges, with matching lit and shadowed edges. The mine reads as single stones instead of tiles.
Planet rings in four kinds – broad banded disc, two thin rings, a dusty haze, one narrow bright ring far out – in different tilts and sizes, now on five worlds.
Extractors are hive pods in the style of the new mothership: chitin shell with a plate seam, a glowing node, a beacon spine on top and three drill tendrils below.
26.9.16.28 – An alien mothership
The mothership is redrawn: a chitinous hive hull with plated segments, a dorsal crest, a forked tail, a pulsing core and glowing nodes – no human ship any more.
On the map it now holds a synchronous orbit above its world instead of circling it every few seconds, and points the way the world travels.
26.9.16.27 – Drone limits visible, mothership menu
The swarm window has a new card “Drones and limits”: digger drones, carrier drones and collectors each as count against limit – with where every drone comes from on hover. The mothership shows the hangar count against the limit too. Skill trees add drones; only the mothership upgrade “Drone Hangar” raises the limit.
The navigation is tidied: everything about the swarm itself now sits under “Mothership” in a second row – mothership, skill trees, swarm, swarm net, hangar, resonance. The top row keeps map, mothership, supernova, shop, achievements, help and settings.
26.9.16.26 – About the developer
The website has a new page “About the dev”: who makes DEEPSWARM, why an incremental, the role AI plays, how the game is funded, the line on the shop and the road so far. Found in the menu and the footer.
26.9.16.25 – The swarm mother has a core
The swarm mother is a machine intelligence now: a hovering core with a lens, rings, glyphs and a voice waveform instead of a face. She blinks, nods, glows amber when pleased and warns in red.
New hangar slot “Swarm mother”: the octahedron is the default; the shop has the icosahedron, the segment orb and the red rhombus – single or as a mini pack.
The swarm mother’s window is a panel in the interface style and follows the chosen interface skin.
26.9.16.23 – Supernova from the galactic core
The supernova now starts at the galactic core: the map pulls back to the whole galaxy, the wave runs from the core across the disc taking our system with it, everything falls into the core, a flash, the galaxy grows anew – and the map dives back into the system, world by world. About eleven seconds.
26.9.16.22 – The supernova can be seen
After firing, the game jumps to the map and shows the supernova: a shockwave races out from the sun wiping world after world, the system collapses into its core, a flash – and out of the core the new galaxy grows, planet by planet. About nine seconds, the map stays usable meanwhile.
26.9.16.20 – Collectors sort ore
Collectors that are recharging push rising ore nearby sideways towards three transport lanes (centre, left, right), so it drifts up bundled and clumps more easily.
26.9.16.19 – Rock and ore with more variety
Eight rock variants instead of four, four cavity variants and a soft backdrop without a grid – every cell picks its look from a hash, no visible pattern any more.
Every ore has four looks; deposits touching the same ore grow together into a dense seam.
Rich ore is a 2×2 seam now: a twice-as-big, faceted deposit over four cells, each with double drops. Only where the vein leaves no room a single rich block remains.
26.9.16.17 – Farm cores at a lower tier
On the map a planet can be set back to a lower tier (selector next to the tier). Rock is softer there and the multiplier smaller; the core pays ore and core splitters and grows back – but does not count as a cracked core and does not raise the tier. Switching resets the core progress.
26.9.16.16 – Swarm mother aboard the mothership
Aboard the mothership the swarm mother has a standing panel: she lists what the swarm should do now – open carrier, unspent points, splitters, extractors, autopilot, supernova, meteor swarm, weak delivery rate – with jump buttons, plus rotating tips and tricks.
26.9.16.14 – The swarm mother has a face
The swarm mother now speaks from her own window at the bottom left – with an animated portrait (seven motions, never the same twice in a row) and typed text. Click: stays longer, right click: close. The window stays up even after an autopilot restart.
On the first start she walks you through the essentials: map, first run, magnet pointer, skill trees, carrier, later payload, chain, core and supernova – every hint exactly once.
After a supernova she sums up what happened (points, rank) and what comes first now (start points, carrier, Mercury, nova tree).
Hovering the autopilot chip on the map shows which ore the swarm mines in the background per second.
26.9.16.13 – Magnet at the edge, trailer on the start page
When the mouse leaves the game view, the magnet field stays on the nearest edge and follows along it instead of vanishing – only leaving the window switches it off.
The start page has a trailer of seven late-game scenes and twelve new pictures – map, galaxy, trees, report, mothership, hangar.
26.9.16.11 – Gallery with a viewer
Stills and clips on the start page open large in a viewer instead of a new tab. Clips run like a little promo: the DEEPSWARM title card first, then the scene, then the next one. Arrow keys browse, Esc closes.
26.9.16.10 – Hold and compare reports
A checkbox in the run report keeps the autopilot waiting while you read; only “Again” restarts.
“History” lists the last twelve runs on this device – value, ore, multiplier, depth, delivery rate, damage/s, highest hit, XP – and compares two ticked reports column by column with the difference in percent.
26.9.16.9 – The swarm mother speaks
The hints on the map now come from the swarm mother, the AI of your swarm – from the first run over carrier, payload and chain to the autopilot, always just the one tip that applies.
After a run with a poor delivery rate she says what it was: pointer unused, too few collectors or ore too slow – and what helps.
The start page shows new screenshots and three short late-game clips.
26.9.16.8 – Delivery rate in the report
The run report shows the delivery rate: the share of dropped ore that reached the top, with the amount lost underway in the tooltip.
26.9.16.7 – Ore clumps and escort collectors
Magnetized ore pulls together: ore of the same kind rising close to each other merges into one clump that carries on with the fresher magnetization. Clumps are visibly bigger.
Every second collector is an escort: it chases the highest unmagnetized ore and re-magnetizes it on its way up; the others stay at the digging front.
26.9.16.6 – Ore rises all the way up, after-flow as time
Loose ore now rises all the way to the surface instead of just to the floor edge. The plain rise is twice as fast for that, one magnetization holds for 2 s (about one floor), collectors carry 5 charges and recharge in 1.5 s.
The after-flow no longer credits a share: after the run the flow keeps going in the background for 8 s (collectors keep magnetizing), every level of After-Flow, Fine Gleaning and Gleaning adds +2.5 s. Whatever reaches the top counts.
Collectors now prefer nearby ore instead of strictly the highest, so the digging front is not left waiting.
26.9.16.5 – Collectors magnetize
Collector drones no longer carry ore: they have a magnet field like the pointer and magnetize everything inside. Magnetized ore shoots upwards for a short while, then rises slowly again – until the next collector (or your pointer) gives it another push.
Every collector has a battery for a few magnetizations and recharges briefly afterwards. In the collector tree, cargo bay, cargo hold and folding store became battery, quick charge and holding magnet (magnet hold); the suction fields are magnet fields now.
New capstone Magnet Storm (from Ironspine): every 20 s every loose drop on the map is magnetized at once.
The run console shows how many collectors are charged right now; collector fields and magnetized ore glow in the colour of your magnet field skin.
26.9.16.4 – Extraction multiplier broken down
The swarm window now lists every factor of the multiplier: depth, planet tier, enrichment, core streak, nova rank, achievements, yield skills and community bonuses – with the skills behind them on hover.
26.9.16.3 – World record only for a real record
The same hit was celebrated as a new world or cycle record in every run (rounding in the comparison). Records now count only when the shown value is really higher.
26.9.16.2 – Explosive carrier tuned up
Explosive drones plant two charges per dive from the start, fall back and recharge faster; fuses burn shorter.
Blasts shatter less ore (25% instead of 40%) and hit the crust much harder.
In the bot comparison the explosive carrier now cracks its first core in 3 hours instead of 8.5; kinetic and laser stay as they are.
A fresh start for everyone: game states were reset. Accounts, stardust, the premium ring, boosts, skins, achievements, keys and Discord links stay.
The first choice is the carrier – kinetic, laser or explosives. Only its drones fly.
From nova rank 2 a payload joins: one of the remaining five specializations fires on the carrier's hits – acid etches, sonic pulses, nanites nest, explosives leave charges, laser burns beam lines, kinetic throws shards. The drones get refitted, none are added.
From nova rank 5 a chain hangs on the payload, firing on its effects – say ram → charge → the blast releases beam lines. Convergence opens at nova rank 10.
One XP bar for the whole build: every level is a point, free to spend on carrier, payload, chain and convergence. Levels come rarer but count for much more.
Hybrid trees and the 10/100/1000 skill point thresholds are gone; six new payload trees replace them.
Every layer of the build shows: payload modules under the drones, chain wings behind them, own effects for every trigger.
26.9.15.51 – Anomaly: return flight and cooldown
After a reload the anomaly appeared on the map only with the next change; now right away.
After every anomaly run the mothership flies back to your planet by itself, and the anomaly is ready again only after 2 minutes. A ship parked idle at the anomaly for 3 minutes heads home too.
26.9.15.50 – A livelier swarm
Collectors without cargo scatter over the working area and drift slowly instead of lining up diagonally.
Drones and collectors holding their spot hover a little instead of freezing.
26.9.15.49 – Anomaly: 60 seconds at most
An anomaly run starts with 40 s, every crust adds +2 s, never more than 60 s in total.
26.9.15.48 – Link Discord, rank roles
Discord accounts can be linked in the settings (ID and display name only). Linked members get the role of their leaderboard position on the DEEPSWARM server every hour: Weltenfresser (top 10), Schwarmfürst (top 100), Kernbrecher (top 1000), by nova rank and lifetime value.
26.9.15.47 – Specialization XP repaired
In anomalies, damage against the extremely hard deep floors counted like damage against tier-1 rock, and XP grew with the square root of the multiplier: levels beyond 100,000 followed, with ×2,800 damage and thousands of useless hybrid points. Damage now counts against the real hardness and the multiplier only applies logarithmically.
Specializations beyond level 1,000 are set to 1,000 once; trees carrying more points than the level allows are refunded.
26.9.15.46 – Meteor swarm as a sprite
The meteor swarm on the map is now a pixel sprite of tumbling boulders – the last vector shape on the map.
26.9.15.45 – Sprites load fresh
After an update, new graphics showed as grey or orange boxes for up to an hour because the browser kept the old sprite sheet. Every version now loads its sheets fresh. Reload once and sun, mothership, anomalies and extractors appear properly.
26.9.15.44 – Convergence strike visible
The convergence strike charges visibly: a ring around the swarm's working height fills, pulses just before the strike, then flash, shockwave, screen shake and the damage number with ⚡. Reminder: every 12 s, 60% of the damage the three specializations dealt since then is released in a radius around the swarm.
26.9.15.43 – Map in pixels
Sun, extractor pods, cargo craft and mothership are now pixel sprites from the same workshop as drones and planets – no vector shapes any more. The sun granulates, has prominences and a corona; the mothership is bigger, with a row of windows and an antenna.
Every anomaly has its own sprite on its orbit outside: Gas Storm as a vortex, Deep Freeze as an ice wheel, Fault Line as a glowing shattered disc, Mirror Rift as a prism ring.
The worlds differ in size: Jupiter and Saturn big, Ceres and Pluto small.
26.9.15.42 – Anomalies truly endless
Strong builds could reach the core. Now every layer is harder than the last, from the first on: up to layer 50 by 10%, up to 100 by 20%, beyond by 50%. Layer 100 is about a million times the first, layer 200 beyond any reach. We watch the leaderboard depths and adjust.
26.9.15.41 – Rings and the asteroid belt
Saturn wears its rings, Uranus, Neptune and Jupiter their faint ones; between Mars and Jupiter the asteroid belt turns with Ceres in it.
26.9.15.40 – Solar system to scale
Orbits now follow the real distances (log-compressed so Pluto still fits the display): tight inside, wide outside. The sun is big, the worlds small and marked with display rings.
The mothership is now a pixel sprite in the style of the drones, with bridge, wings, running lights and flickering engines.
Every anomaly has its own look around its planet: Gas Storm swirls around Jupiter, Deep Freeze ices Ceres, Fault Line cracks Earth, Mirror Rift lays prisms around Saturn. The mothership parks there beside the planet.
Zoomed out, the singularity sits at the heart of the galaxy, in the colours of your resonance chamber.
Extractors: new ones go to the planet whose ore you have least of. Ones taken off by hand wait in reserve until you place them. "Automatic" redistributes everything by scarcest ore.
26.9.15.39 – Approach visible and timed right
The approach countdown used the server time of the last load instead of the current one: after a while in the game it showed far too long times (e.g. 60 s instead of 18 s) and the ship seemed to stand still. Flight times are unchanged: 4 s plus 2 s per orbit, Pluto–Earth 18 s.
Extractors can be taken off the best planet again: a removed one parks on the next best instead of straight back. The autopilot display now sits above the stockpile on the left instead of the top bar.
During an approach every screen shows a bar with target and time left. The mothership has a new hull with wings, bridge, running lights and an engine trail in flight.
26.9.15.38 – Cargo craft
On the map, small cargo craft fly from extractor planets to the parked mothership.
26.9.15.37 – Autoskill with your own order
From nova rank 10 every skill tree in the autoskill tab gets its own purchase order: append nodes, sort them, drop them. Listed nodes are bought first, top to bottom, the rest follows by focus.
26.9.15.36 – Help brought up to date
Glossary and tooltips describe the mothership, background mining, extractors, endless anomalies and meteor swarms.
26.9.15.35 – Meteor swarms and the galaxy
From the third world on, a meteor swarm may hang in the way when a world unlocks (every second world on average, fixed per cycle). It is a short run through the rock of the world behind it with a small core: crack the core and the world opens. After three attempts it drifts off by itself, so it never holds you for long.
Map: zooming further out reveals the galaxy with our system on a spiral arm and other, still unexplored signals.
26.9.15.34 – Mothership dashboard
New "Mothership" tab: position and approach, what the swarm is mining, the extractors per planet with placement at a glance.
Mothership upgrades for ore, permanent through supernovas: Drive (−12% flight time per level), Drone Hangar (+16 base drones and +4 per specialization to the maximum per level), Extractor Yard (+1 extractor per level), Extraction Pumps (+25% extractor rate per level). The hyperdrive for other solar systems is announced but not for sale yet.
While the game is open and no run is active, the swarm keeps mining the autopilot planet: at the offline rate but without a cap, credited every 30 s. The top bar shows planet and rate. It pauses during an approach. Offline, the previous cap applies.
Extractors now sit on one planet instead of everywhere at once: right-click a planet of tier 2 or higher to place or remove them, "Automatic" parks them all on the highest-tier planet – new extractors do that by themselves. On the map they circle as small craft. The rate per extractor is much higher than before.
26.9.15.32 – System map and mothership
The map is now the solar system: the sun in the middle, the ten worlds on their orbits in unlock order, the anomaly on an orbit outside.
The mothership is visible on the map and orbits the last chosen planet. A run elsewhere begins once it has arrived: 4 s plus 2 s per orbit in between, 15 s to the anomaly. The button counts down the approach and then starts by itself.
26.9.15.31 – Faster run settlement
The server replays a run while it is being played: the client reports its inputs every 10 s, so only the tail is left to check at the end. Long anomaly runs settle in a fraction of a second instead of after a 10–15 s wait.
26.9.15.30 – Shorter anomaly runs
Anomaly runs last 60 s regardless of time skills. Every broken crust adds +2 s, always and without tapering.
26.9.15.29 – Anomalies equal for everyone
An anomaly is the same for every player: hardness, layers and ores come from its own planet at tier 1 instead of your strongest unlocked one. The depth leaderboard compares equal conditions.
Ore from anomalies is fixed: only the anomaly factor applies, no tier, refining or rank multipliers.
26.9.15.28 – Endless anomalies
Anomalies have no core any more: 200 layers, the first 50 like your strongest unlocked planet, after that every layer is 10% harder than the last. Every crust adds 10 s (up to 10 min). Nobody reaches the bottom.
The score is the deepest layer of your best run instead of the sum of all runs. The leaderboard shows depth.
Reward after the end, only when claimed: 1st place = 10 stardust and +3% yield, top 10 = 5 and +2%, top 100 = 1 and +1%; the yield bonus runs for 7 days. The top 10 still get the anomaly skin.
Acid and nanites keep working where they are after a crust breakthrough instead of vanishing at once. Only the drones move on to the new layer.
The run report shows the sources (magnet, collectors, rise …) with the multiplier at the moment of delivery, as they were credited.
26.9.15.27 – Real record hits, three music tracks
Record hits only count real single blows now. Acid had booked the damage of all corroding crust tiles of one tick as a single hit, hence records far above the damage per second. All hit records (personal, cycle, world) therefore start over.
Music: map and menus keep the calm pad, runs get a driving track with bass and arpeggio, anomalies a tense drone.
26.9.15.26 – Our solar system
The ten worlds are now Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, unlocked in order from the sun outward. Progress, tiers, ore deposits and balance stay the same per world, only looks and names change.
Five ores are renamed to match (same value, same costs): Rime → Sulphurite, Glacium → Vitriol, Helionite → Hematite, Plasmite → Olivine, Nebulite → Jarosite. The ore families ice and gas are now salt and oxide.
The Discord activity of the desktop app shows the game phase (alpha) and links to the website and Discord.
The swarm orders (Balanced/Ore/To the core/Rare/Stock) are gone: they gave nothing late and little early. The swarm always digs balanced. The skills "Swarm Orders", "Rarity Order", "Stock Demand" and "Collector Logic" are removed, their ore and start points are back in stock.
Numbers stay at most five digits: from 100,000 on it reads 100K, from a million 1.23M. This applies everywhere, damage numbers included.
Extraction during a run: total and per-second rate now stack, nothing overlaps any more.
Damage numbers are bigger, critical hits bold and red.
26.9.15.24 – The swarm digs thoroughly again
Sonic and acid no longer break the crust from afar: since the last patch the crust broke before the swarm had mined the layer, the camera jumped from crust to crust and sonic pulses and nanites were hardly visible. Acid only seeps in from the rows right above the crust.
Nanite drones seed their colonies in rock and ore instead of on the crust; a crowd of nanites on the crust no longer stacks the swarm bonus.
The "cycle stagnates" hint no longer suggests a supernova without nova points. At the tier limit it explains what the rank up brings.
26.9.15.23 – Beta keys on Discord
Closed beta: on the DEEPSWARM Discord, /key gives every member a personal beta key while slots are free. Only the person using the command sees the answer; lose your key and /key gives you a new one.
Invite codes can now be valid for several accounts, for community events for example.
26.9.15.22 – Live yield and the cycle wall
Live yield: ore counts at once on delivery with the multiplier of that moment instead of being scaled up at the end. Every depth reached raises the value of all ore from then on, even from upper layers. The depth factor now rises evenly with every layer, up to ×3 at the core.
Records apply at once: a cycle record hit (+10%) or world record hit (+100%) raises the yield from the hit on, a beaten ore record gives that ore its record bonus from then on.
Extraction during a run: total per ore plus the average per second over the last 5 seconds; the current multiplier is shown live in the bar.
Cycle wall: planets rise at most to tier 5 + nova rank. The map shows when the cycle stalls and a supernova moves you on.
Nova rank now gives +20% yield per rank. If the rank requirement asks for more planets than are unlocked, a higher tier on the unlocked ones counts instead.
Specializations: acid, sonic and nanite crack cores much better, sonic pulses hit crust from a distance too, acid seeps into the crust. Laser, acid, sonic and nanite grow more with base damage.
Autoskill has its own tab with a focus per skill tree and unlocks from nova rank 5.
Website: the current skill tree can be viewed and read without an account. On phones the map, skill trees and runs are now usable.
26.9.15.20 – Fixes
Convergence Strike: charges only from damage that actually lands and no longer counts as a record hit.
Nova record: existing saves start with their average supernova as the record instead of the sum of all points.
The squad bonus only counts members who have been in the squad for 24 h and finished a run in the last 24 h.
Squad leaderboard: points count for the squad they were earned in. The community core achievement only counts destroyed cores.
Card payments: prices are sent to the payment provider explicitly as final prices including VAT.
26.9.15.17 – Squads pay off
Squad bonus: +3% ore yield for every squad member who played in the last 24 hours (counts after 24 h in the squad).
The weekly squad core has three shells – each brings a research point instead of one for the whole core.
Squad research extended: Squad Wing (+drones), Formation Flight (+speed), Joint Departure (+nova points) and the capstone Squad Spirit (+10% damage).
Every squad core cracked unlocks a new squad emblem; new leaderboard "Squads (week)".
26.9.15.16 – Themes everywhere
Interface themes and accent colours now apply to every button, tab, frame and input – and can be tried on across the whole interface before buying.
26.9.15.15 – Thanks to the beta
Every beta player gets the Pioneer set for free: designs for all six specializations, the Crystal hull, a beam, an accent colour and the title "Pioneer".
Hangar: a new slot for sounds with a listen button; acid, sonic and nanite designs now preview the drone itself.
26.9.15.14 – DEEPSWARM commands in Discord
New slash commands: /status, /kern, /rangliste, /patchnotes and /spielen show game status, the community core, the top 10 and links right in Discord.
26.9.15.12 – Convergence: the triple tree
With three specializations the convergence tree opens with its own points (1 point per 25 levels of your three specializations combined).
Overcharge, Triple Squadron and Core Convergence for all three – plus a branch per specialization with Ascension (drones grow visibly), a signature ability and titans with an aura.
Convergence Strike: every 12 s part of the specialization damage unloads as a massive area strike in the colours of your specializations.
Swarm Storm: every 30 s the three specializations deal double damage for a few seconds.
26.9.15.11 – Nova rank with a requirement
The nova rank only rises when enough planet cores were cracked in the cycle: for rank R+1 on 3 + R planets; once all ten planets are needed, the required planet tier rises every three ranks.
A supernova is only possible when it brings nova points beyond the record or the next rank. The supernova screen shows a checklist with every planet.
26.9.15.10 – The swarm keeps up
Collector drones without ore in reach follow the swarm to the current floor in a loose formation instead of staying behind on old floors.
Big swarms get back to work faster: drones above cleared floors sink straight down open shafts to the active zone instead of digging where they are.
26.9.15.9 – Nova record, start points and a calmer camera
Nova points are now a record instead of a sum: a cycle only pays what it is worth beyond all nova points earned so far. A supernova still always raises the rank.
The supernova screen shows what this cycle is worth, your record and how much is left until new points.
Start points are no longer spent silently: when ore is missing, a click offers "Use a start point" (or Shift+click); nodes only a start point can buy show a star.
The camera glides smoothly to the new floor when a crust breaks instead of jumping.
Text can no longer be selected by accident in the game – dragging skill trees and the map stays reliable.
26.9.15.8 – Specializations without a level cap
Specializations keep leveling past level 1000 – every level still adds damage and a point for endless research.
26.9.15.7 – Community core with shells and core resonance
The weekly core has three shells: hull, mantle and core. Each destroyed shell unlocks its reward right away – not only the whole core.
Core resonance: when the core falls, every player gets +10% ore yield until the end of the following week.
New in the panel: top contributors of the week, your rank, how many take part and when the next core appears.
The claim button is only active when a reward is actually waiting.
26.9.15.6 – Clearer skill trees
Endless research sits in its own row under every tree and only appears once all other skills are maxed – a button jumps straight to it.
Core splitters show as purple frames: one ring per splitter, dotted for linked bonuses.
Buyable skills get a flashing pixel frame, and nodes sit further apart.
26.9.15.4 – Community and desktop app
The DEEPSWARM Discord is open: invite on the start page, the download page, in settings, help and the beta mail.
Desktop app: your Discord status shows buttons to the game and the community.
Desktop app: downloads open in your default browser instead of creating an empty file.
26.9.15.3 – Time skips, beta requests and comfort
Time skips now go to the boost inventory and are used with a right click on a planet – with a preview of the ore before you confirm.
Rare finds: finished runs can drop time skips (+1, +2, +6 h) into your inventory.
Skill trees: when ore is missing, clicking the skill offers a run on the right planet.
Autoskill from nova rank 2: switch it on per skill tree – after every run it buys the next best affordable level, preferring damage, resources or the cheapest.
Crust bonus time: full time up to 40 s, then it tapers off gently (still at most 60 s per run).
Clicking the logo in the top left takes you back to the start page.
Beta access can be requested by e-mail on the start page.
Shop prices adjusted.
26.9.14.31 – Shop, offline time and account
Shop prices adjusted.
Offline cap: skills raise it to at most 8 h (base now 4 h). Spare Battery (+1 h, 2×) and Large Battery (+2 h, 2×) in the shop go beyond.
New boosts: time skips (+1, +2, +6, +12 h) and the reverse supernova (nova points without the reset).
Delete your account in the settings; legal notice added.
Desktop app: icon in the Linux menu and dock, downloads keep their file names.
Interface size in the settings; larger automatically on 1440p and 4K screens.
26.9.14.28 – Start page and desktop app
New start page with news, patch notes and screenshots; privacy policy and terms linked.
Desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux to download (not signed yet).
With the desktop app, Discord shows which planet you are digging on.
Hits and explosions in two random variants; laser beams visibly fan out from the drone.
The map shows the offline cap and offline yield next to the autopilot.
26.9.14.22 – Record hits
Your highest single hit counts: a new run record (+10%) adds 1 s of run time, up to 15 s.
Best since the last supernova: ×1.1 yield. Crit world record across all players: ×2 yield.
New "Record hit" leaderboard.
26.9.14.21 – Skill costs, paths and nova
Final skill levels also cost ore from later planets; costs rise more steeply.
Every specialization has a path choice; collector, basic and hybrid trees are bigger.
Endless research only once a tree is complete. The nova tree grows with the game.
Offline yield 50%, bonuses multiply. The server checks runs 2.5 times faster.
26.9.14.18 – Acid, sonic and nanites
Three new specializations with their own hybrids; third slot at 1000 skill points.
Bulk buying (+1, +10, max) in the skill trees.
Leaderboards for top damage per second per damage type.
Volume controls in the run, M mutes.
26.9.14.14 – Megacore and operator console
Planet cores are a hull around a 4×4 megacore that has to be exposed first.
Crusts are two rows thick, the playfield uses the full width.
Runs play in an operator console with swarm status, damage meter and ore feed.
26.9.14.11 – The first days
Specializations up to level 1000, core splitters, ore records and the magnet cursor.