This month has been yet another month with a focus on polishing and improving the game. If you're just here to find out what new machines are added, then let me disappoint you immediately by saying 'none'. If, on the other hand, you feel that FortressCraft is already a massive and complex game, that's simply misunderstood at times by players, then read on!

Performance optimisations

• Loads and LOADS of machine now dynamically load textures when needed. This should massively reduce the footprint of the game, as well as speed up loading substantially!
• Texture footprint is down by 400 megs, a system has been implemented to easily, dynamically load textures in future, and main ram requirement has been reduced by several hundred megs.
  
• Reduced texture usage in a number of places (for example, the light cookie on the snowman is no longer 4 megs in size)
• Reduced texture footprint of minecarts-on-conveyor-belts by 25 megs.
• Reduced size of explosions from the intro sequence by about 40 megs, and quietly wondered why Unity felt the need to keep them loaded.
• Fixed a number of dynamic texture loads (It didn't work correctly when they were stored in a root folder)
• Added a much more generic Material dynamic loading system; used it on the MagmaBore, saving ~160 megabytes of GPU ram. This memory WILL be used again if you build one, of course, but it means you're not carrying around unneeded textures. The code can also form the basis of a dynamically-unloading reference counted system. (I wish Unity supported streaming textures like Unreal has since V3...)
  
• All Turret textures now dynamically loaded.
• All skins (player, ARTHER, Spider and Construct-o-Bots) are now compressed.
  
• Unloaded resources are now dumped appropriately.
• Fixed issue with magma bore gantry missing dynamic texture load

Quality of life improvements

• The game now pauses when you enter the options menu. This is far from perfect, I'm afraid, but I've been continually badgered to add it, so here you are.
• Added the Mission Report. You'll see this after the first 15 minutes of play, and it should tell you all sorts of interesting things about your base.
• Type /missionreport at any point to see it, or /missions to disable it
• Publically-listed servers should now correctly auto-refresh.
• Basic Robotics should be extra extra hidden away for non-patreons. Fingers extra-crossed!
• Context-sensitive 'Craft 25' button added!
• Help button added on the Craft screen!
• Added 11 new categories of item, and reworked all the existing items into it! (Example, Power has become Power Generation, Power Storage and Power Transmission - much easier!)
  
• Added support for Named Ore Extractors in the Mission Report. Don't know how to name an Ore Extractor? Stick a sign next to it!
  
• Fixed issue with too many mods installed - you can now reliably look through many pages of them. Best bug I've had to fix in a while! :)
• Made high-packet-loss servers more robust by increasing packet loss threshold to 400ms
• More helpfiles, thank you TabooRaver!
  
• Completely replaced Crafting UI panel. (Specific) feedback welcome!
• The 'first-hour' of missions has been substantially broken down for new players, and should guide them through locating their first resources, as well as completing scans.
• Laboratories should now go to Idle, not Finished, when researching. This should allow you to auto-feed them any amount of items for Research Points, without human interaction. (Thanks to Flexible Games for this!)
• Resin Handling now uses Green eyes from low level wasps and slimes.
  
• Added support in serveroverrides.ini for WorldName - this should force the game to load in a specifically named world. Setting this will also no longer break the RCON password.
• Working Night and Day doesn't let you know about progress so annoyingly often.
• RCON commands are now passed to local server sim (this means that builderlist, etc, will work)

Known Issues

• The conveyor count is incorrect on the Mission Report.
• Recommendation is never "Fix your damned Ore Extractors"
• Conveyor belts continue to animate when the game is paused, as do many other machines using SinRot or UVScrolling.
• Tabbing away from the game whilst the inventory is open doesn't pause it.

Misc!

• [Patreon-only]Added Pandora's Box mutator. Drop Pods will now drop between 1 and 150 items of questionable levels of use. There's a 1% chance of a LootSplosion, and that will drop 1-150 items of random types. Not all items are good, and can include really, really bad things.
• Signs now marked as Glass, so you can transmit power through them.
• Private servers now flag up dedicated/listen and linux/windows
• Laser Borer should now play sound effects without error.
• Threat should no longer do odd things when the game is paused
• Mobs should no longer move when the game is paused (large benefit to autopause dedicated servers)
• Fixed further pausing issues
• Resin handling now uses Crude ('green') Organic Eyes, available from lower-level wasps and slimes.
• Added 4 new achievements. No-one has 100% anymore, muahahaha!
• Rewrote large parts of the Crafting UI - you can now cancel automation o/
• Suit Panels now disappear appropriately - no more overdraw in silly aspect ratios! o/
• Lots of Category tweaks
• Added Freezon Injector handbook entry
• Added FCQuit command for RCON clients that are dumb.
• Reduced ARTHER Navlight from 800% to 500% brightness
• Mission Report should no longer list *all* the worst Ore Extractors, just a maximum of 2 worst and 2 best.
• The /Missions command now also disabled Mission Reports
• Added /MissionReport command to immediately show a report.
• Turrets no longer show their range during AFK or ORBIT modes
• Intellicam ('AFK Cam') now limited to tracking mobs within 64 metres
• Intellicam should no longer embed itself within large mobs.
• Fixed potential issue with 'tabbing away during load' and also improved and fixed logging for when it goes wrong.
• Removed debug key for missions
• Increased the number of categories from 11 to 22
• Categories are no longer case-sensitive.
• Added Smelting category and moved a number of Mining machines into it.
• Added ARTHER Upgrades category, clearing up the Progression category
• Added Storage category, clearing up the Logistics category.
• Added "Explore Deeper" mission recommendation, if the player has not located the Cold Caverns, but has located Lithium.
• Fixed an issue where unresearched categories would disallow selection of later categories.
• Added LPT0, Rack Railer, Slime Attractor, MK2 power pack, Agitator and Reducer helpfile categories.
• Updated a number of other category (ty Taboo Raver)
• New Power panel!
• Fixed Crafting panel icons!
• New crafting panel!
• New hazard panel!
• Mission Report, December 16th, 1991.
• Added MOD functionality for non-machine based network signalling.
• Ore Extractors no longer calculate efficiency on the wrong thread.
• An enormous amount of base introspection code added.
• Base Recommendations (more suggestions welcomed)
• Many turrets + Low Threat = Increase Threat
• More than 10% LPTs missing lenses = craft and fit lenses
• More than 16 Mynocks = Clear Infestation
• Mission system now tells you about un-researched Scans immediately.
• Mission system will now explicitly guide you to complete 8 scans
• Mission system will now explicitly guide you to complete 8 pieces of research
• Missions system now directs you to locate Tin and Copper; only once found are you instructed to Extract/Smelt it.
• SpiderBot base construction Mission raised from Important to Critical.
• Added "Critical Research : SpiderBot" mission
• Added "Locate : Organic Rock" mission
• Fixed Specular highlighting on Instanced Shaders.
• Improved error message for missing mod.config on Linux (Linux is a case-sensitive operating system, so mod.config, Mod.Config and MOD.CONFIG are 3 different files!)
• Fixed Orbital Strike Controller windup graphics
• Pandora's Box mutator expanded. I'm not going to go into details - it's a surprise. Sometimes good... sometimes not.
• Added Scan/Progression system to Research Panel. Somewhat buggy, but accurate at the end (I think!)
• Fuel Compressor now correctly draws power
• Added BarRainbowAlloy for mod authors
• Bumped WorldVersion to 5
• Added in storage for all 10 mutators
• Added network transmission for all 10 mutators.
• Mutators selectable! They don't work yet tho!
• Plasma Cutter Heads now require Advanced Miner Upgrades as well as Alloys.
• Tweaked the Laser Borer description to be clearer.
• Par times are no longer suggested for Creative play throughs.
• Spooky Aesthetics now costs 1RP
• Removed some spam from log files
• Significantly improved item handling CPU time under certain circumstances.
• Dedicated servers now re-request their IP every server readout
• Server readouts now happen every 10 minutes (3 was just too often!)
• Performance warnings now happen once per 30 seconds, as opposed to 3 times a second (oops)
• Fixed spam and performance warning for when wasps were killed AFTER the end of a wave.
• [Patreon]Critters should no longer leak.
• Mutators panel is now selectable.
• Corrupted Ini files should now fail gracefully, or at least 'more' gracefully.
• A change to the grappling hook means that server Visitors should be able to use them now. This *may* lead to weirdness in single-player; let me know if that's the case!
• Storage Hoppers no longer have Extract predicated off of AllowMovement; this means that guests should no longer be able to use them.
• Increased the chance of Quality loot from all Wasps from 3% to 5%.
• Manufacturing Plants should now correctly clear after auto-crafting the required number of items. Infinite loops should now also work. (Thanks to Dessi for this!)
• UV scrolling now pauses during pausing.
• Fix for Bars being sorted when you're using the Type filter
• Added description for HODOR and Fuel Compressor layout (3x1x3 and 3x3x3, respectively)
• Added support for server overrides of minimum latency for 'lost packet' calculation, and for network buffer size.
• Added BufferSize to serveroverrides.ini, which sets the outgoing server buffer size. This buffer is per-client, and defaults to 2000000 (2 megabytes). Decreasing this may decrease latency. Increasing it may increase reliability.
• Added MinLatency to serveroverrides.ini, which sets the minimum threshold for which a packet is determined to be 'lost' - this defaults to 200. Increasing this number may give a slower gaming experience for clients, but should reduce the resends. If you are seeing players being kicked from your server, you can try increasing this. I would not recommend going above 1,000. Decreasing this number may cause large amounts of RAM bloating.
• Removed the HydroJet Cutter requirements from all recipes.
• Removed the Required Modules display from the crafting screen.
• Crafting Automation queue only appears when there's automation taking place.
• If the player has a suit heater, but has not progressed lower than -280m, they'll get a new mission : "Traverse the Cold Caverns"
• Left-Clicking the crafting ingredients now jumps you to the appropriate sub-craft, or opens the help file if it's not craftable. Middle-clicking continues to open the help.
• Accessing the handbook from within the crafting menu should now lock the mouse.
• The in-game menu should now pause the game. You have 29 days to find issues with this before it goes live. This is an utterly terrifying and wide-ranging change that affects many, many threads, and can potentially cause all sorts of horrific issues, but I've been hounded into it.
• ARTHER readout should now be configurable from all threads.
• Added CryoTube spawnable prefab for mod authors