- 5.833 Pick And Watch - 11 September 2026
Full release notes here. Quality of life updates, and some clarity improvements. All of this is thanks to Badger. Enjoy! 5.833 Changelog Bugfixes Some improvements to Load-and-Go mode. Your flagships should now fly to pick up your units on a planet. Load-and-Go mode now identifies unarmed guard posts as hostile and orders its ships to unloadAdd a tip to the Maps section of the Game Lobby reminding players they can pick their own starting planet. I saw some mentions of new players not realizing this was an optionImprove the Watched Fleets tooltip to make it less likely to scroll off the top of the screen for large fleetsAdd some non-placeholder hovertext for DLC4 in the Expansions windowIn the Ships sidebar, the Watched Fleets button now tells you the fleet's destination, if it is moving between planets Heart of the Machine 1.0 Is Out Now! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart…
- 5.832 Mod Visibility - 28 August 2026
Full release notes here. More UI polish, and a much more prominent button for how to find mods. All of this is thanks to Badger. Enjoy! 5.832 Changelog General Add "Load and Go" fleet order. This sets the Fleet into Load mode, auto-departs once loaded, auto-unloads if arriving in combat. Bound to 'Y' by default. To use from the galaxy view, select your flagship(s), hit Y, then issue the move order. The goal is to replace the "Hit Load, wait till your flagship loads, then issue the move command and hit shift-U to queue the unload" with a single "Y and move command"DLC2 Fix a very longstanding bug where the Jabberwock AI Type could crash if DLC1 was not installed/enabledUI Polish Rework the Change Modules window to make it prettier; no functional changesRework the Metal management UI when you left-click on the Metal icon in the Resource bar. From this window you can now pause/unpause all…
- 5.829 Abyss Correctness And UI Polish - 20 August 2026
Full release notes here. Various pieces of polish to the UI, and fixes to the neinzul abyss. All of this is thanks to Badger. Enjoy! 5.829 Changelog Neinzul Abyss Fix some Neinzul Sapper bugsSome minor Neinzul Sapper buffs at higher intensitiesVisual Polish Minor polish pass on the Save/Load menus and campaign name displayIn the Tech menu, the command station type is now visible for each command station you can upgradeMinor polish for the Options settings in the Ships sidebarColor-code battlestation and citadel fleets individually in Direct BuildHacking menu polish. Make the name of the hack title pop visually. Tint hacking sidebar rows by target ownership; hostile/friendly/neutral targets now have a little visual differentiation. Use whitespace and different fonts/weighting in the hacking menu hovertext to break it up visually; previously it was very "wall of text". Sort the hacking si…
- 5.828 UI And Command Polish - 19 August 2026
Full release notes here. Various pieces of polish to the UI and the feedback for issuing commands. All of this is thanks to Badger. Enjoy! 5.828 Changelog General Opening the encyclopedia with only one unit type selected automatically opens up that unit type's encyclopedia entryIssuing a move or attack command now has a visual response. You get blue VFX for a move command, and Red for an attack command. Only fires when issuing commands in the planet viewSome minor additional UI polish. Add a bit of colour on parts of the Fleet sidebar to make the sections stand out more visually. On/Off settings now turn the button green when set to On. Add some colour to a number of Save buttons (for example, in the Settings menu) to make them stand out visuallyForge of Empires Ark sidekick flagships should be able to swap ship lines now Heart of the Machine 1.0 Is Out Now! https://store.steampowered.c…
- 5.827 Additional Tutorials - 5 August 2026
Full release notes here. Lots of additions, including new tutorials and other improvements to the new-player experience. All of this is thanks to Badger. Enjoy! 5.827 Changelog General Fix some bugs with the AISyncWaves and AISyncCPA featuresFix a bug where Nomad Planets could give you additional vision of the galaxyAdd some defensive code to TMPMinor visual tweaks to a couple menus.New Player Experience Improve in-game tips and journal entries to better explain Warden Fleet Bases and Gate Raiding. These are things that new players have been consistently confused aboutAdd two new tutorials. One covers claiming and defending an AI planet. The other covers the Fleet menu in more detailNecromancer Reduce the Templar wave income for Templar Difficulties below 10.Necromancer hacks that provoke a templar response now give some idea of how powerful they will beFix some bugs in the Elite Templa…
- 5.825 Intel Overhaul: Complete - 30 June 2026
Full release notes here. The intel menu's overhaul is now complete, and things are much more attractive and informative on that front. Also some forge of empires updates. This was all Badger, and the improvements are really exciting to see. Enjoy! 5.825 Changelog Intel Menu This completes the overhaul of the Intel menu; every base game intel objective has been given improved readability and functionality.Show the unit/structure in the intel menu tooltips. This should make it easier for new players to get used to the iconsFor "Get Resources" objectives, these are now broken out by type and planet. It now looks like "Destroy 4 things on Murdoch for science" and then the tooltip tells you what to destroy. Previously this section could get really long; it will now get slightly less longPolish the TSS/ODSS hack textPolish the Destroy AI Overlord prime objectivesPolish the Outguard objectives…
- 5.824 Teardown Hygiene - 26 June 2026
Full release notes here. I got some logs from players right after releasing the prior build, and based on their logs, there were two more classes of bugfix that I was able to resolve. Those are now out. Enjoy! 5.824 Changelog Bugfixes Fixed two bugs in LiteNetLib handling that could cause issues during initial connection.Updated over 500 sites in the game and the mods in order to handle multiplayer-reloading thread teardown more gracefully. This was something that was able to throw errors on multiplayer clients during getting a new pass of the world from the host. This was something that came about specifically relating to the updated threading model. It should no longer be able to bite anyone. Heart of the Machine 1.0 Is Out Now! https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/538879349212841215 https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/71002691260750730…
- 5.823 Multiplayer Lanes - 25 June 2026
Full release notes here. Okay, the multiplayer changes in this one were... intense to find. The good news is that I had some confirmation from at least one group that things were working great for them prior build. But there were still some systemic problems for other folks. The difference turned out to be mostly related to the ping between clients and hosts, and how exactly the multiplayer model handles high-load situations and clients-falling-behind spots. It took a lot of analysis, but these changes should hopefully solve the existing problem cases, as well as leaving more breadcrumbs in your local logs (which you can share with me if you still experience any problems). There was also a one-line serialization bug that would cause desyncs for anyone using a specific group of mods, or a specific custom feature in the base game. That is also fixed. I've done an exhaustive audit and cate…
- 5.822 Beautified Intel - 24 June 2026
Full release notes here. The intel menu is a lot prettier and easier to read, plus MP fixes. The intel menu improvements are not to be overlooked -- Badger has really gone all-out with them. They're useful in general if you're a new player... but if you're new to a specific player-type (aka, not playing as the normal humans) in one of his mods or in one of the DLCs, then they also have really great info that is well-organized and teaches you how to play those player-types, too. 5.822 Changelog Intel Menu Rework a significant number of intel menu items throughout the game (particularly the beginner tips). Large blocks of text are broken up, and use color as well/Multiplayer Fixed a desync issue in multiplayer where CustomOrder entries were not being deserialized properly. This actually would cause problems in savegames, too. This was a bug from way back in 2023, and only applies with cer…
- 5.821 Engineering 501 - 22 June 2026
Full release notes here. Multiplayer improvements, and other fixes. 5.821 Changelog Bugfixes Fixed a missing nullref guard from the galaxy map display mode for net metal, which could cause exceptions to happen in certain circumstances.Added a lower-bounds fix for Lists that prevents problems when the lower bounds are adjusted by multiple threads at once. Also adjusted our "OverLinkedList" so that "Contains" is now a pure-read operation and does not remove stale entries, since that was causing some cross-threading issues.Fixed yet another issues with the multiplayer sync logic after force-resync. Essentially, during this process, the host was still sending too much information to the clients, and that was causing the client to get stuck behind the host. This basically was a recover-spiral, but it should no longer have that issue.Fixed an issue where if there was a mismatch in existing sa…
- 5.820 Multiplayer Intel - 20 June 2026
Full release notes here. Multiplayer improvements, and improvements to the Necromancer intel menu. 5.820 Changelog General Suppress some harmless ThreadAbort errorsMultiplayer Further improved multiplayer full-resync handling. When a client finishes receiving a full world sync, it now tells the host which simulation frame it loaded through, and the host uses that to more accurately resume from the right point. This should reduce cases where a client finishes a force-sync and is then still treated as much farther behind than it really is.Improved the host's catch-up behavior when a multiplayer client is behind. If the host briefly pauses to let a client catch up, but the client still cannot catch up within the safety timeout, the host now waits before trying another hard catch-up pause. This should avoid repeated hitching/freezing in cases where a client is genuinely struggling or stalle…
- 5.819 Adaptive Frame Pacing - 18 June 2026
Full release notes here. Multiplayer fixes and additions, and a Dark Zenith update. 5.819 Changelog General Hosts no longer outright stop in multiplayer if a client is too far behind. Instead, the client tries to run faster (as it already was, but it does an even better job of it now), and the host starts running sim-steps a bit slower, too, to allow the client to catch up. Between the two of them, they should now converge in these cases, and it should stop the "everyone gets stuck with things being 2.1 seconds behind." Also fixed a bug that was causing some cases of this to get essentially softlocked in multiplayer when the client is that far behind; it shouldn't happen at all that way anymore.Added a new setting in the networking section of the setting menu: Host Only: Adaptive Frame Budget Under Load. EXPERIMENTAL. Only does anything on the host (or in single-player). When sustained…
- 5.818 Distant Signals - 16 June 2026
Full release notes here. Another two multiplayer fixes. 5.818 Changelog Fixed an issue where if a mod or other code changed a player type's information during gameplay, then it would cause the network gameplay to come to a halt.In general, if there is an issue with faction info being shared across the network from the client to the host, then it now slows that way down in order to avoid the entire game being blocked. Heart of the Machine 1.0 Is Out Now! https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/538879349212841215 https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/667242081733836806 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/
- 5.817 Docking Logic - 14 June 2026
Full release notes here. Another player-requested tweak and another multiplayer fix. 5.817 Changelog A more robust fix to the resync-desync network timing issue that I attempted to fix in the prior build. There's also some extra instrumentation that goes into the logs of the host and client at the time of a full resync, in case this happens again despite the new fix. In the event of that sort of issue, please send me both the client and host logs. But hopefully this nails it fully!Adjusted the ship strength column slightly over on the science sidebar so that it won't intersect with the defense strength column, as they were overlapping one another in some cases now. Heart of the Machine 1.0 Is Out Now! https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/538879349212841215 https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/667242081733836806 https://store.steampowered.c…
- 5.816 Sync And Time - 13 June 2026
Full release notes here. A few player-requested tweaks, including one to multiplayer. 5.816 Changelog Fixed an issue where force-sync was partially broken; when a full-sync was happening in multiplayer, the host was not properly pausing and waiting for the client to catch up. This caused issues since the client takes a couple of seconds to fix this. This would then lead to clients being perpetually 2.0 to 2.1 seconds behind the host, rather than the two being together. This fix makes it now work like the game does on initial client join, which should resolve this issue and keep clients and hosts at the same time link.Fixed a few spots where hacking points were being shown as a decimal when they were not functionally a decimal ever in those spots.The science sidebar and fleet management sidebar popout now both show strength values a bit more nicely. Essentially, it makes it so that if th…
- 5.815 Forge Of Empires Hotfix 2 - 8 June 2026
Four more bugfixes. Fixed two more missing files in the Forge Of Empires mod. Fixed a bug in the Reclaimers mod where it was failing based on a misspelled entry. Fixed a second latent nullref bug that could also happen in the Reclaimers mod. Fixed a nullref exception that could happen in the Macrophage Histiocytes mod.
- 5.814 Forge Of Empires Hotfix - 8 June 2026
One bugfix to the Forge of Empires mod.
- 5.813 Forge Of Empires Updates - 6 June 2026
Full release notes here. Updates from Badger to the Forge of Empires mod. 5.813 Changelog Forge of Empires Armada. Make the skrin ships cheaper. Rename the Skrin Buzzer to Skrin Wrecker (I got tired of Buzzer). Some nerfs to kzinti ai typeDyson Empire Enforce metal costs for the dysonLosing the dyson empire's HQ now actually loses the game; the dyson sidekick hq should die to remains and be rebuildableGive the Dyson some entries in the Intel menuThe dyson build menu now shows how much aip the drills will generate; drills no longer can be crippledFix a bug with warden mode for the dysonGive the dyson overloader a vaguely balanced responseThe Dyson Overloader is now much tankier and does real damage in a fightFix a bug where ships with drones and also children built through build points would see the drones as children, and not rebuild the children; fixes a neinzul moon bugBuff the tier 3…
- 5.812 AI Shield Generators - 2 June 2026
Full release notes here. One last small change for the moment. All of the other mods were working well, as is the main game, at the moment. 5.812 Changelog Code Improvements The AI Shield Generators mod by cml was the one mod that was meant to be functional but which was broken due to not having its source code updated. It has now been recompiled and functions with the other recent improvements to the game.. Heart of the Machine 1.0 Is Out Now! https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/538879349212841215 https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/664986477286917109 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/
- 5.811 Unfurling A Neutron Star - 30 May 2026
Full release notes here. Lots of updates in this one! Many of these are improvements along the lines of the Memory Inferno from a week or two ago. However, in this case, the focus was on background threads that generate memory pressure, rather than being on teh main thread itself. The main thread was almost pristine since Memory Inferno, and that has not changed. Similarly, the general GameCommadn framework, which was the hugest source of memory pressure in the past, has still been working great. Instead, this focuses on death by a lot of papercuts, especially in games with a bunch of factions, etc. In those situations, I was measuring 29 MB per second of added GC pressure, which is far less than the high water mark prior to Memory Inferno, but still absolutely huge. This has been cut down to more like 0.7-1.3 MB per second, which is a huge savings. This makes for less contention, and j…
