The Mobile App — A Complete Tour

Nova on phones and tablets (iOS and Android) plays the same game as the web app — it talks to the same galaxy, so a theatre is identical whether you join from a browser or a phone. What changes is the layout and the controls, which are built for touch. This chapter covers the differences; the rules and strategy chapters apply unchanged.

Signing in

If your Nova requires an account, the app opens on a sign-in screen — NOVA, Galactic Command, "Authenticate to deploy." Tap the Apple button and approve the native iOS sheet to sign in; the phone build is Apple-only for now. Your account is remembered between launches — there is no password. To sign out, open the Account tab (see below) and tap Sign out. If a session ever lapses or becomes invalid, the app auto-recovers to the sign-in screen so you can sign in again.

Development builds add a dev sign-in box: type any email and tap Enter dev mode to become that commander's account. It is for testing only and never appears on the App Store build. A Nova with authentication turned off opens straight on the home screen.

The home screen — My Games, Join, New Game, Map Editor, Account

New players land on the home screen, which has five tabs along the bottom (when you are signed in) in the familiar iOS style:

• My Games — the theatres you are in. A game still waiting for players shows a live monitor card — "Waiting for players…" while slots are open, then "All players joined — starting…" once the roster fills. These games auto-start the moment every slot is claimed, so there is no Start button to press. An active game shows commander pills instead: tap your pill to enter it. The app remembers your last commander and opens straight into it if you have played before. Empty state: "You're not in any games yet."
• Join — the lobby of theatres still forming that you have not joined. Each card shows the title (with a YOURS tag if you created it), a settings chip row (game length, e.g. "1 hour" / "3 days" / "45 min"; time compression, e.g. "×24"; galaxy size, e.g. "8 stars each"), and a roster — "Joined K / N", a pill for each claimed commander (yours tagged "you"), and "+ M slots still open". Below that is a "Your commander name" field and a Join button. Joining claims the next open slot and names yourself — one slot per user per game, so a second Join in the same game is refused once you've claimed a commander. Pull the list down to refresh it and pick up newly created theatres. Empty state: "No games forming."
• New Game — creates a theatre (see below).
• Map Editor — design and save your own galaxies (see the Map Editor chapter).
• Account (shown when you are signed in) — shows "Signed in as" your email and a red Sign out button. Sign out here to return to the sign-in screen.

To play a different game, use ‹ Lobby in the status bar — it returns you to the home screen (your game keeps running).

Screenshot: the mobile home screen — the Join tab with a forming-game card (settings chips, roster, a "Your commander name" field and a Join button), and the five-tab bar (My Games / Join / New Game / Map Editor / Account, when signed in) at the bottom. (Mobile screenshots are captured by hand from the simulator — see manual/screenshots/README.md — so this image is recaptured manually, not by the automated capture tool.)

Full parity with the web. The mobile New Game form now offers everything the web form does — the game's name, the same Map choice (either generate a galaxy and pick its style — Symmetric / Sym + scatter / Random — and number of commanders, or load a saved map, which fixes that count), stars per commander (any value, when generating), the pace settings (game length in real hours, with decimals, and time compression), and the optional Advanced (ships, costs) section — the home-world starting ships (default 250) and custom purchase costs. As on the web, when generating you set a number of commanders (a count, at least 2), not their names — players name themselves when they claim a slot in the lobby. See Getting Started for what each option does. Theatres you create on mobile can be joined from any device, and vice-versa.

Two layouts: portrait and landscape

The mobile game screen reshapes itself to how you hold the device.

Portrait — map with a bottom sheet

The star map fills the screen, with the status bar floating at the top and a draggable bottom sheet holding the HUD. Drag the sheet up and down between three heights:

• Peek (collapsed) — a thin strip; the map has the whole screen.
• Half — the sheet covers the lower half; used automatically when you select a star, so you can see the star up top and its details below.
• Full — the sheet rises to near full screen for reading all the panels.

The zoom + / - buttons sit near the top-right.

Screenshot: portrait mode — full-screen map with the HUD bottom sheet at its half-height detent.

Landscape — map with a right rail

Turn the device sideways and the layout becomes map on the left, a fixed rail on the right — much like the web app. The rail scrolls to show all the panels, and the zoom buttons move to the bottom-right.

Screenshot: landscape mode — star map on the left, HUD rail on the right.

Map controls (touch)

• Pan: drag one finger across the map.
• Zoom: pinch with two fingers (it zooms around the point between them), or use the + / - buttons. A fit-to-view button reframes the whole galaxy, and zoom-out is capped at that framed map.
• Select a star: tap it. The map gently re-centres the star (in portrait it slides above the half-height sheet) and its details open in the HUD.
• Inspect a fleet in transit: tap a moving fleet marker. A Fleet in transit panel opens with its type, ship count, origin and destination, and time to arrival, and its planned route — including any multi-hop path — is highlighted on the map.
• Deselect / cancel an order: tap empty space.

Fleets animate in real time just as on the web, and a small countdown beneath each marker shows the time remaining until it arrives. The map glides smoothly when it re-centres on a tapped or linked star.

The HUD panels

Whether in the bottom sheet (portrait) or the right rail (landscape), the HUD shows the same panels as the web app, and like the web app it is a drill-down: by default it shows your global panels (below); tapping a star switches to only that star's Contact panel, and tapping a fleet to only its Fleet in transit panel — each with a ← Back control to return to the global view.

• Contact (the star drill-down) — the selected star's details and, on your own stars, the command and build buttons.
• Standings — the scoreboard with star counts and bars.
• Command — your Treasury, Garrisoned ships, Range, and Battle power, plus the Speed +0.1 / Range +1 / Power +1 upgrade buttons.
• Auto-deploy (Orders) — your standing orders, each with a clear link.
• Fleets in transit — every travelling unit with its ETA and a progress bar, ordered by arrival (soonest first); tap a row to highlight its route on the map and open the Fleet in transit panel, where you can recall it or toggle its arrival alert (see Managing a fleet after launch, below).
• Comms — the news feed; tap a star name in a message to focus the map on it. Each production cycle adds a personal summary of what you produced (e.g. "Produced 5 ships, +¢15 (2 stars)"). Message timestamps are relative — "X ago" — and are pause-adjusted, just as on the web: they freeze while the theatre is paused and tick along live otherwise.
• Diplomacy — the chat panel for talking to other commanders (bottom sheet in portrait, right rail in landscape). A channel row runs across the top — a Global broadcast channel plus a chip for each other commander (a private 1:1 DM), each with an unread badge. Tap a channel to open its thread, then type in the composer ("Broadcast to all…" on Global, "Message {name}…" on a DM; up to 2000 characters). The Global channel also carries a pause-governance card (Second / Withdraw) and system log lines for pause proposals, seconds, and withdrawals. See Diplomacy — chatting with other commanders, below.

Issuing commands on mobile

The flow is touch-first and takes two taps plus a confirm:

1. Tap one of your stars to select it; the Contact panel shows its command buttons.
2. Tap an action — Send fleet, Spy probe, Nova bomb, or Auto-deploy. The HUD swaps to the command composer and a hint reads "tap a destination on the map."
3. Tap the destination star. The composer fills in the route, distance, target intel, and the travel time to that star with a reminder of your speed. When the trip needs more than one hop, it shows the routed star chain (A → B → C) and a leg-by-leg breakdown — one row per leg, reading origin → destination with that leg's distance, speed, and time, and a · gate mark on any leg that rides a jump gate. An unreachable target is called out instead of a time.
4. Finish the order:
   • Send fleet: use the stepper, type a number, or tap the ¼ / Half / Max presets, then Launch N ships.
   • Spy probe / Nova bomb: confirm (no ship count).
   • Auto-deploy: set the garrison to keep, then confirm.

For a fleet, spy probe, or nova bomb you can also flip the Notify on arrival switch before you confirm. It is off by default and applies only to this launch: turn it on and Nova will alert you the moment that unit arrives and its outcome is known — the battle result, the scouted intel, or the star's destruction — even if the app is closed. Leave it off for routine moves and save it for the launches you actually want to wait on.

Screenshot: the composer in the bottom sheet — route line, distance, the travel-time estimate and your speed, ship stepper with ¼ / Half / Max, and the Launch button.

The Build buttons (+ Factory, + 5, Probe shield, Nova shield) appear in the Contact panel on your own stars, and the upgrade buttons live in the Command panel — exactly as on the web.

Managing a fleet after launch

Tap a fleet's row in Fleets in transit to open the Fleet in transit panel — its From, Heading, ETA, and progress, with two controls:

• Notify on arrival — a switch that turns this fleet's arrival push on or off after it has launched, not just in the composer.
• Recall unit — shown only for the first 30 seconds after launch, and only while nothing has happened at the origin star since. Tap it to call the fleet back; Nova returns its ships (or refunds a probe/bomb's cost). Recall is measured in game time, so it still works while the theatre is paused. See Commanding Fleets for the complete rules.

Diplomacy — chatting with other commanders

Nova lets you talk to the other commanders in your theatre. Open the Diplomacy panel by dragging the bottom sheet up (portrait) or reading the right rail (landscape), or jump straight to it by tapping the unread-mail chip in the status bar, the pause status chip, or an incoming-chat toast when one slides up (it opens Global).

There are two kinds of channel — no group chats:

• Global — a broadcast channel everyone in the theatre reads. It also carries the pause-governance card and the system log lines for pause proposals, seconds, and withdrawals.
• 1:1 DMs — one private channel per other commander.

The channel row across the top shows Global plus a chip for each other commander, each with an unread badge for messages you have not yet read. Tap a channel to open its thread and type in the composer ("Broadcast to all…" on Global, "Message {name}…" on a DM; up to 2000 characters). Chat works while the theatre is paused, so you can still talk things over with the clock stopped.

Money-transfer contracts

A 1:1 DM can also carry a contract — a private money offer to that commander. Tap Offer a contract…, enter an Amount (¢), and optionally turn on Only if they send a fleet to attach a condition (a From star…, a To star…, and a Ships count); then Send offer. With no condition it is a plain payment. The offer shows as a contract card in the thread — the amount (¢120), its condition ("Send 30 ships from … → …" or "Unconditional payment"), and buttons: the recipient taps Accept or Decline, the offerer Withdraw. Your Global channel lists every pending offer under Pending contracts.

Accepting settles it all at once: the money moves to the recipient, and a fleet condition launches that fleet on the recipient's behalf the instant they accept — and a contracted fleet cannot be recalled. There is no escrow (affordability is checked only on accept, so a contract can simply fail and stay pending), and an untouched offer expires after 24 hours. Contracts are private to the two parties. The handshake works while paused and an unconditional payment can be accepted paused, but accepting a fleet contract needs the clock running, so its Accept button is disabled while the theatre is paused.

New messages reach you even when you are not looking at the panel: an in-app toast while you are playing, and an Expo push when you are away. The status bar carries a unread-mail chip, and your device shows an OS app-icon badge counting unread messages across all your theatres — so a different game's chat still gets your attention.

Staying in sync

Mobile devices put apps to sleep in the background, which can pause the live connection. Nova handles this for you:

• When you return to the app, it automatically re-fetches the latest galaxy state, so you never come back to a stale screen.
• If the connection drops and recovers, it re-syncs as soon as the link is back.

The status bar's live / linking… / reconnecting… indicator tells you the current connection state at a glance, alongside the Mission ends and Next production countdowns and your treasury. Two more status-bar controls keep you in the loop:

• A pause status chip shows the theatre's clock and lets you act on it: RUNNING (tap to propose a pause), PAUSED · resumes in … (tap to propose a resume), or PROPOSED (tap to jump to Diplomacy → Global to second the open request).
• A unread-mail chip appears when you have unread chat — tap it to open Diplomacy.

Event alerts

When something happens in your theatre — a fleet arrives, a battle is fought, one of your stars is scouted or nova-bombed — a brief banner slides up from the bottom of the screen with the news. Tap it to jump the map to the star involved, or tap the × to dismiss it (it also clears itself after a few seconds). Consequential events — losing a battle or having a star destroyed — also give a short haptic buzz, so you feel them even when you are not watching the screen. (Haptic feedback is an iOS feature.)

Push notifications

Banners only appear while the app is open. Push notifications reach you even when Nova is in the background or fully closed — so you can leave a theatre running and still hear about the things that matter. The first time you join, allow notifications when your device asks.

These events can notify you:

• When you are attacked — always. Nova alerts you whenever one of your stars comes under fire: a rival's fleet attacks it (and whether you held or lost it), a spy probe is stopped by your probe shield, or a nova bomb strikes (blocked by your nova shield, or the star destroyed). You never have to opt in to defensive alerts. (A spy probe that gets through a star with no probe shield is silent — you are only told when your shield blocks one.)
• When your own launch arrives — only if you asked. For a specific fleet, spy probe, or nova bomb, flip Notify on arrival in the command composer before confirming (see Issuing commands on mobile) — or on the Fleet in transit panel after it has already launched. You will then be pushed the result when it lands. This is off by default, per launch, so you choose exactly which units are worth an alert.
• When the theatre pauses or resumes — always. Pausing is a shared decision (see Core Concepts): you propose a pause or resume from the pause status chip in the status bar, and the proposal, its second, any withdrawal, and the automatic resume all land as system log lines in the Diplomacy Global channel (with a Second / Withdraw card there). Nova keeps everyone in the loop — each of these notifies all commanders, an in-app banner if you are playing and a push if you are away. You always know when the clock has stopped or started again.

Where the alert shows up. Nova never double-notifies. If a push is for the theatre you already have open, you will see only the in-app banner sliding up from the bottom — not a separate notification at the top of the screen. Pushes for your other theatres still arrive as notifications even while you are playing, so you always know when a different game needs you. Tap one and Nova offers to switch you to that theatre — it asks first, so a stray tap never loses your place in the current match.

When the match ends

A match ends either at its deadline or early — the moment one commander is the sole survivor (no rival has a star left). However it finishes, every commander gets a game-over push (delivered as an ordinary system notification, keyed to the game), so you hear the result even if you are away. In the app, a VICTORY or DEFEAT overlay appears over the map with the Final results — the closing standings with each commander's star count — and a Return to games list button that takes you back to the My Games tab to pick another theatre. The status bar now reads Mission: Ended.

You don't have to leave straight away: tap Explore the map (or the close button) to dismiss the overlay and roam the final galaxy — pan, zoom, and tap stars to inspect how the map finished (your own stars in full, enemy stars as far as your sensors ever saw). It is view-only — with the match decided, you can no longer issue commands or buy anything. A Final results chip stays on screen to re-open the standings whenever you like.

What is web-only

Mobile now has the map editor, the full New Game form, and saved-map deployment, so the clients are at parity for setting up and playing games. Only two minor things remain web-only:

• the editor's Download JSON export (the mobile editor saves to Nova but cannot export a design to a file), and
• the development-only delete theatre control.

Everything involved in creating and playing a game — the New Game options, the map editor, fleets, probes, bombs, shields, factories, upgrades, and standing orders — is fully available on mobile.