Hotfix (v0.6.22)

[p]A lot of testing for Star Vortex happens on Steam Deck, and I recently noticed the framerate taking a dive. This update improves performance there, along with gains on all lower-end systems.[/p][p]This is ongoing work, so if you notice FPS drops during specific fights or when using certain weapons, please let me know.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]• Shield Recharge upgrade increased from +5% to +10% per level.[/p][p][/p][h3]Quality of Life / Accessibility[/h3][p]• Menu and overlay blur transitions are now faster.[/p][p]• Death screen pause delay slightly increased.[/p][p][/p][h3]Performance[/h3][p]• Steam Deck now defaults to Fastest quality, medium particles, and ship shadows off.[/p][p]• Disabled anti-aliasing on Steam Deck for improved frame rate.[/p][p]• Shaders and ship templates pre-compiled during load to prevent first-combat freezes.[/p][p]• Fixed weapon aim-assist scanning further than needed.[/p][p]• Reduced HUD redraw overhead during combat.[/p][p]• Improved pathfinding efficiency for AI ships.[/p][p]• Ship explosions now use pooled effects to prevent stutters.[/p][p]• Ship debris chunks are now pooled with simpler physics.[/p][p]• Removed dark cloud overlay layer.[/p][p]• Debris smoke trails capped per ship class to reduce lag spikes.[/p][p]• Radial display now caches slider and text values to reduce unnecessary UI redraws.[/p][p]• Clouds shader now uses a baked noise texture instead of per-pixel procedural noise.[/p][p]• Ship shadows and outlines merged into a single half-res pass.[/p][p]• HUD notices are now pooled instead of created on demand.[/p][p]• Interaction prompts now cache resolved text per controller.[/p][p]• Health bars skip positioning while hidden, reducing overhead with many ships.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]• PDLs no longer appear in the linking panel as assignable.[/p]