Patch Notes — Swarm MMO

September 16, 2026

Fixed a bug where a sun relay held back by the one-minute firing gap waited for the next incoming swarm instead of firing the moment the gap expired. A sun produces nothing on its own, so a relay in that state could sit on a full garrison indefinitely.

September 15, 2026

Giving a planet, sun, black hole or base to a clanmate is back. The Give control has returned to their menus and to the selection toolbar.
Attack automation, planet and sun relays, now fires at most once every minute.

September 14, 2026

Fixed a bug where a new player's starter planets could be generated on a cell already holding a base or a meteorite.
A planet's attack-automation minimum threshold now rises with its own level, from 100 probes at level 1 up to 1,000 at level 10, instead of a flat 100 at every level.
Bases now project a tech radius that grows with their level: 1 grid unit at level 1, up to 10 at level 10, a bit further than a sun's 8. An owned base grants every tech upgrade the same way a friendly sun does; a neutral base grants nothing. Overlapping a sun's or another base's radius never stacks the bonus.
Zooming out switches to the cluster view of suns and black holes a step sooner now, so planets stop being drawn a little closer in than before.
Added a popup that appears when you hold no planets, suns, black holes, bases or meteorites, offering Restart for a fresh home system.
Fixed a bug where the log entry for capturing a sun from another player named you instead of the player you captured it from.
Fixed a bug where clicking your own sun with planets selected opened the sun's menu instead of sending the group at it, even though dragging to the same sun already worked. Fixed a second bug where clicking a body that was the only thing selected did nothing at all; it now opens that body's own menu instead.
Fixed a bug where the send dial quoted too few super-probes to take a sun or a base when the source had bought Assault. Sun and base combat reads no tech on either side, so the dial now quotes the real requirement regardless of Assault or Defense level.
Fixed a bug where the selection toolbar's Auto button could set upgrade automation on a group of planets but never clear it again, if the group included one already at maximum level. The button now skips planets at maximum level.

September 11, 2026

Fixed the Focus panel stuttering for players with many planets and many probe movements in flight. Its lists no longer rebuild from scratch several times a second while it is open, and no longer slow down the more planets a player holds.
The Command Center can now select bases too, the same way it already selects black holes: every base in the world, upgraded one level, upgraded as far as affordable, or handed to the map selection with one click. The Focus panel gained tabs for your bases and your meteorites. Fixed a bug where an attack on your own base or meteorite went unreported in the Movements list, or was misread as your own resupply.

September 10, 2026

New galaxies are now placed closer together. Centres sit at least 1,024 grid units apart, down from 2,048, so crossing the void between two galaxies takes about 4 hours 20 minutes at best speed instead of about 8 hours 30 minutes. Galaxies that already exist keep their positions.
The Command Center's CPU pool is bigger and refills faster: 10,000 points, up from 6,000, regenerating at one point per second instead of 50 a minute. Renting it costs more too: 150 credits for 30 days, up from 100, or 10 credits for a single day, up from 5.
New "murmuration" cosmetic, 600 credits: a flock that bunches and thins as it circles a planet or sun, and trails behind a swarm in flight.

September 9, 2026

New players now spawn with more room around them. A spawn stays 28 grid units clear of any planet another player owns, up from 20. Galaxies also stop accepting new players much earlier: the limit is now measured against the outer spawn ring, where everyone lands, instead of against the whole galaxy. When a galaxy's rim fills up, the next arrivals go to a fresh galaxy instead.
Meteorites no longer show a level ring. They never had a level that did anything: a meteorite cannot be upgraded and produces no probes, so its garrison only changes when swarms arrive or leave.

September 8, 2026

Bases: drag from one of your planets onto an empty cell to raise a neutral base holding 100,000 super-probes. Raising costs nothing and the base is not yours; taking it is an ordinary attack, and anyone can take it, including a player who did not raise it. A base burns its level in super-probes every minute and pays the same number in energy. It belongs to no galaxy, so it survives a collapse, and it despawns when it runs out. No tech affects a base, it cannot launch swarms, and it carries no automation of its own, but a planet's relay can be pointed at one to keep it supplied. You can only have one unclaimed base at a time.

September 4, 2026

Fixed a bug where an attacking swarm's probes and flight line appeared to launch from behind the source planet, cross over it, and only then fly normally toward the target. The client now reads the server's own clock for this, and for production counts, countdowns and time-since labels; before, all of these compared a server timestamp against the device's own clock, which could run a few seconds off.

September 3, 2026

Guest accounts can no longer found or join a clan; a verified email is required. Clans a guest led have been disbanded, and guests were removed from every clan they were a member of.
The Focus button now opens a panel instead of jumping the camera directly. Quick focus at the top does what the button used to: centre on your largest holding. Below it, tabs list every planet, sun and black hole you own, and every probe movement you are part of: attacks, movement between your own planets, support sent to allies, and support or attacks arriving from someone else. Clicking a body or a movement centres the camera on it, a movement at its current position along the line.
Fixed a bug where suns and black holes stopped being clickable once zoomed out far enough to become squares. Clicking one with a selection active cleared the selection instead of sending it there; they are now clickable at every zoom, the same as zoomed in.
Giving a planet, sun or black hole to a clanmate is temporarily disabled. The Give control is gone from the planet, sun and black hole menus and from the selection toolbar.
Assault and Salvage now apply when a swarm takes a neutral planet, not only when it takes one another player owns. The send dial already assumed this, so a swarm sent at its exact-capture mark could fall short against a neutral planet and bounce instead of taking it.
The game now says so when it loses its connection. After two seconds without one, a notice at the bottom of the screen says whether the browser has no network or the game is reconnecting, that what is on screen is from before the drop, and that nothing you do is being sent. It clears the moment the connection is back. Nothing pauses while you are disconnected: your planets go on producing and swarms go on arriving. Pressing and holding a target with a selection live now shows which of your bodies would fire and how much would arrive, before you let go. The map controls gained zoom-in and zoom-out buttons; tap one for a step, hold it to keep zooming. The top bar now fades at whichever edge has more buttons than fit, and opens scrolled to the account end instead of the help end.

September 2, 2026

A tab left in the background now drops the map view after 15 seconds and reloads it when you come back. The connection itself still goes after five minutes, as before, and nothing in the game pauses while a tab is in the background. Pages and the game are now sent pre-compressed, which makes the game's main file about 15 percent smaller on a first load.

August 27, 2026

Restart now puts you on a fresh home system straight away, without leaving the game. It used to drop you on the start screen with a PLAY button, which read as being logged out. Everything you held is still released; username, colour, credits, tech and prestige are kept as before.
Only guest accounts are fingerprinted, for the one guest per device limit. A verified account is not: nothing is recorded when it enters, and the fingerprint a guest held is dropped when it links an email or logs into an account. A verified account that loses its stored login is given a fresh guest on that device; logging in from the account panel with the same email discards that guest and restores the account.
Logging in no longer goes quiet after a code is accepted. The entry screen now shows each step (connecting, browser check, entering the galaxy) and reports an error instead of leaving the form on screen. Returning to an account you already have no longer waits on the browser check, and a check or a server call that never answers now times out with a message rather than hanging. A code request is limited to 5 per account and 12 per network address every 15 minutes; it used to be 5 per address.
Holding C while dragging onto a planet you or an ally already own now sends exactly the probes it still needs for its next level, instead of doing nothing. The send dial marks the same amount, labelled "levels up". It funds one level, priced against the garrison the planet will have when the swarm lands, and with Auto on the upgrade happens on arrival. A planet at max level, one that can already afford its next level, and a meteorite all open the dial as before.

August 26, 2026

Collapsing a galaxy no longer pays 100 credits. The prestige level is now the whole reward, and it goes to every clan member holding a sun in the collapsed galaxy as well as to the player who owned the black hole. One level each, however many suns they held; a member who held nothing there gains nothing. Credits still come from meteorites, quests and invites.
The Command Center's match list is now sortable and paged. Clicking the ID, Level or Probes header orders the list by that column, and clicking it again reverses it; the list opens on probes, highest first. It used to stop after the first 100 matches, which are now paged through instead.
A saved Command Center preset can now run on a schedule, every 15 minutes to once a day. A scheduled run works like Apply: it needs the subscription, spends CPU per changed body, and is skipped when the pool cannot cover it. Presets that select on the map cannot be scheduled.

August 25, 2026

The tech upgrades are now a tree with four branches. Economy runs Construction to Terraforming to Conversion, Offense runs Assault to Salvage, Defense runs Defense to Toughness, and Logistics runs Velocity to Navigation. The first step in a branch needs level 20 in the one above it, the second needs level 40. A requirement only decides when an upgrade unlocks: any upgrade you already hold a level in stays open, so nothing you have bought is affected.
New tech upgrade: Terraforming. A planet inside a friendly sun's radius pays 0.5% per level less for its next level, so at level 100 a level-1 planet costs 50 probes instead of 100. Upgrade automation waits for the discounted price rather than the old one.
New tech upgrade: Navigation. A swarm launched near a friendly sun loses 0.5% per level less at a galaxy border, so at level 100 a crossing costs half what it did. A galaxy still inside its spawn grace period is closed rather than expensive, and no level of Navigation opens it. Automations keep waiting for the undiscounted amount, the same way they keep paying the full conversion price.
New tech upgrade: Salvage. When a swarm launched near a friendly sun takes a planet, 0.5% per level of the probes it spent breaking the garrison join the new one. Toughness for the attacker, except it fires on every capture rather than only when you are attacked. It never changes who wins, only what is left standing afterwards.
New tech upgrade: Assault. Probes count for 1% more per level when the swarm launched from near a friendly sun, the mirror of Defense on the attacking side. Assault and Defense at the same level cancel exactly. The send dial reads your level and marks the lower requirement, so an attack never lands for more than the dial promised.
A black hole can now be added to the map selection from its own menu, and a selection of black holes can be given to a clanmate. NoAuto now works on a selection of suns as well as planets, clearing their relays.
Sun relays now take a threshold, like every other automation. A sun forwarding to another sun waits for the number of super-probes you pick, from 1 to 10,000. At 1 it forwards as soon as it has anything, which is what a sun relay always did, and relays that already exist keep that setting. Holding SPACE while dragging from a sun sets the lowest threshold; the dial's Auto is where a higher one is picked.
The send dial now takes the same keys as a launch drag: 1 to 9 and 0 send that share of the garrison, C sends exactly enough to take the target, and Enter sends the amount the dial is set to.

August 24, 2026

The universe now always keeps one galaxy with room left in it that can be attacked from outside. While every such galaxy is still shielded, a new one is created with no border at all: no shield, and no border toll at any age. Nobody spawns there, and taking its black hole makes another open galaxy appear elsewhere. New players now always spawn in a galaxy whose shield still holds, so a galaxy stops taking new players once its border opens.
Fixed a restart leaving you stuck on the browser check. It is now solved again whenever it is needed, not only once per page load.
A tab left in the background for five minutes now drops its connection and picks it up again when you come back, which takes a moment to reload the view. Nothing in the game pauses while it is disconnected.
Zoomed out to the galaxy-disk view, each galaxy now shows its black hole's countdown in the middle of its disk: the grace period, the border toll, the wait for instability or the time left before it collapses.

August 21, 2026

Black holes now move differently depending on their state: slower while still protected, a steady glow once garrisoned, faster arcs and the occasional spark once unstable, and a quiet collapse when one is consumed compared to a bright one when a player triggers it.
Command Center automation sending at the nearest unclaimed body now skips one that swarms already in flight are enough to take, and moves on to the next one out instead of piling more probes onto it.
The black hole menu now shows the exact time left, the next megaprobes it will eat and when, and what the coming day will cost to hold.

August 20, 2026

You get a one-time warning when your black hole turns unstable.
Black holes turn unstable 14 days after a galaxy is created, and start eating their own megaprobe garrison: 1 a day at first, doubling every day after. An ungarrisoned galaxy is destroyed at day 14; a defended one lasts about a month.

August 19, 2026

You can now hand a planet or a sun to another player.

August 18, 2026

Fixed sending swarms at suns.
Fixed attack lines not being drawn.
The intergalactic toll no longer tracks how much of a galaxy is claimed. It now falls with the galaxy's age: full for the first 3 days, then down 10 points a day until it reaches zero at day 13.

August 16, 2026

How the intergalactic toll is measured changed: it now weighs the black hole, the suns and the planets separately, with the black hole worth about 82% of a galaxy.
The Command Center now offers a 1-day rental plan alongside the monthly one.
French localisation added.

August 14, 2026

The share card is now a JPEG.
Box-select improved.
You keep your probes when a planet goes neutral, instead of losing them.

August 13, 2026

Sending swarms no longer clears your current selection.
New Tips panel, shown once per session unless turned off.
The Command Center's CPU budget doubled: 6'000 pooled, refilling fully in 120 minutes.
Attack automation can now be scripted through the Command Center.
Command Center presets can now be saved.

August 12, 2026

New "gyro halo" cosmetic.
Probe upgrades no longer lose probes to rounding when converting up a tier.

August 11, 2026

New pages comparing Swarm MMO to other space strategy games.
Meteorites can no longer be upgraded.
The language switcher is now a dropdown and defaults to your browser's language.
Simplified Chinese, Turkish and Spanish localisations added.
Collapsing a galaxy now pays 100 credits, on top of its usual reward.

August 10, 2026

Fixed a bug where the client could hang on "Connecting..." with a stale login.
Sun energy is now paid once per owner, not once per sun.
New attack animation.
German localisation added.

August 9, 2026

Comets no longer generate probes.
The intergalactic toll can no longer be avoided by routing around it.
New sun and black hole visuals.
A planet's level is now shown on the body itself.
Full UI overhaul.

August 8, 2026

The quest system and its descriptions were improved.
Intergalactic travel loss raised: only 10% of a launched swarm survives crossing a galaxy border, down from 50%.
New close-range "micromap" overlay.

August 7, 2026

The game can now be installed as an app.
Referral links added, with a credit reward for the referrer.
Meteorites added: temporary planets that spawn around a galaxy and pay a credit to whoever holds them when they expire.
The Command Center added: a paid subscription that lets you script automated commands.

August 6, 2026

Galaxies moved much further apart: at least 4 galaxy diameters apart, about 8.5 hours to cross at best speed.
Travelling between galaxies now costs 50% of the swarm at the border, on top of the normal launch cost.
The collapse threshold is 1'000 megaprobes, down from 100'000.
You must hold every sun in a galaxy, yours or a clan ally's, before you can collapse its black hole.
Collapsing a black hole no longer pays a one-time energy prize. It now permanently raises the energy every sun you own produces, by 1 per collapse.

August 5, 2026

Swarm MMO now has an itch.io store page.
The wiki and leaderboard are now public web pages, not just an in-game panel.

August 3, 2026

The help panel was rewritten.
New players now spawn into a ring covering half of a galaxy's area; when it fills, a new galaxy opens.

August 2, 2026

The game now guarantees at least one galaxy always exists to spawn into.
Fixed a bug where new players could get stuck on "Connecting...".

July 21, 2026

Fixed a bug where a new guest could fail to spawn into a new galaxy.
You can zoom out further on the map, and the minimap was improved.

July 20, 2026

Attack automation thresholds raised: you can now set them anywhere from 100 to 10'000 probes, up from 10 to 1'000.
Converting probes into super-probes now costs 100 probes per super-probe, down from 1'000.

July 15, 2026

New Upgrade panel for planets.

July 10, 2026

Attack controls updated.
Two new swarm animations: V formation and electric scatter.
The leaderboard now ranks players and clans by lifetime energy collected, not by planets held.
Account merging removed.

June 28, 2026

Premium features reworked around credits: skins, tech resets and recolouring now cost credits instead of a one-time unlock.
New players spawn further from the galaxy centre, and galaxies sit further apart.
Winning a galaxy now means holding 100 suns.
Neutral planets cost far more to take. Garrison now scales with distance from the core: 1 to 5 probes at the rim, up to 200 to 1'000 probes at the core.
Black holes added at the centre of every galaxy. Attack one with sun-swarms, and automate the attack.

June 27, 2026

Select multiple planets at once and command them together.
Planets no longer have a probe capacity. A planet holds as many probes as you leave on it.
You can now send swarms directly at a sun, and automate sun attacks per planet.

June 26, 2026

Solar surge and solar discharge removed.
Swarm speed no longer depends on how many probes are in it. Speed is now positional: 0.25x at a galaxy's core, up to 4x at the rim.