After much work with some of our most prominent community members and modders, we're proud to announce our Community Update!

Summary of Changes

• Community Mods in-game mod manager
• Custom Server support
• Server improvements
• New modding capabilities
• Numerous UI enhancements
• Tons of bug fixes

1. Community Mods in game mod manager

• added community mods in game mod manager to start menu
• added auto updating of mods
• added dependency tracking to automatically enable and disable dependency mods
• replaces PAMM (PA Mod Manager) external application

2. Custom Server support

• added game server browser support for hosting, joining and spectating custom server games
• added game invite support for custom servers
• added game configuration in new game support for custom servers
• added reconnect support for custom servers to start menu
• custom servers now advertise max players and max spectators

3. Servers

• added metalClusters, metalDensity, landing_zones_count, metal_spots_count and planetCSG_count to game beacons and system info
• added support for 32 colours
• added support for custom commanders
• added support for selecting of AI commander
• added server mod identifiers to game beacons
• added support for custom servers to advertise max players and max spectators in game config beacons
• added --max-players and --max-spectators command line options
• added --server-password command line option
• added --default-lobby-name command line option
• added --default-game-type command line option
• added --replay-timeout command line option to set timeout when replay will be written even if clients still connected
• added --replay-filename command line option
• added UTCTIMESTAMP token for --replay-filename to automatically name replays based UTC timestamp
• added support for lobby chat history
• added support for lobby custom json messages (will also add to playing)
• improved support for server mods status
• added support for server mods in replays and saved games
• fixed null secondary colour causing server crash when starting game and showing new game commanders cinematic
• added validation of secondary colour

4. Modding

• added support for Legion Expansion mod
• added support for companion mods to reduce the size of large server mods
• added game info to session, connect_to_game and various scenes:
• serverType / game_server_type (local|uber|custom)
• serverSetup / game_server_setup (game|replay|loadsave)
• gameType / game_type (Galactic War|Ladder1v1|FFA|TeamArmies)
• gameModIdentifiers / game_mod_identifiers (work in progress)
• deprecated joinLocalServer / join_local_server in preference to isLocalGame / is_local_game
• changed isLocalGame to use the same is_local_game session key everywhere
• changed join_lobby helper to use isLocalGame
• updated to latest knockoutjs 3.4
• added save method to storage extenders

• added support for model.send_message('set_ai_commander', {id: model.playerId(), commander: commanderSpecString});
• fixed empty spectators (playersWithoutArmies)
• added spectatorCount observable
• added emptySpectatorSlots observable
• added serverModsState (uploading/downloading/mounting/mounted) string observable
• added buildVersion string observable
• added isLocalGame boolean observable
• added gameModIdentifiers
• added serverMods observable array
• added gameCheats observable arary
• added localChatMessage(name, message)
• added mods lobby chat message type
• added registerHoldReady(identifier, info)
• added unregisterHoldReady(identifier)
• added registerJsonMessageHandler(identifier, handler, priority)
• added unregisterJsonMessageHandler(identifier, handler)
• added sendJsonMessage(object)

• exposed listen_to_spectators in GameOptionModel
• fixed lobbyId not set

• improved modability of build bar (wondible)

• added engine support for server mods and reloading (Uber)

• updated to latest strophe (xmpp used by uberbar and PA Chat)

• added api.download for community mods manager (Uber)
• added api.file.list for community mods manager (Uber)
• added api.file.zip for community mods manager (Uber)
• added api.memory.remount for community mods manager (Uber)
• added api.mods.getMounted (Uber)
• deprecated api.mods.getMountedMods (Uber)

• implemented watcher support for OS X / linux
• implemented memory mounted shader reloading

5. Polish

• added saving of game server browser filters with reset filters button

• added status messages when mounting server mods
• added busy animation
• added mounting of server mods when starting game (moved from new game lobby to fix many UI issues)

• changed default save name to include time

• added lobby chat history
• added planet radius, metal / custom metal, custom landing and custom csg in a tooltip to planets
• added halleys required and increased size of planet icons
• added highlights to econ rate when not 1.0
• moved mounting of server mods when starting game to connect to game

• changed default save name to include time
• changed global spectator chat default to team chat
• added spectator label for spectator chat

• added display of metal spots count to tooltip in planets summary
• reduced size of planets summary tooltip to minimise overlap with preview
• added metal spots count to planet list with localised metal tooltip
• reduced height of planets list for large systems with many planets

• added right click look at player in PIP
• added right click track commander in PIP

• added searching by display name
• added lobby status to game invites
• added cancelling of game invites if full or inviter leaves lobby
• improved reconnect handling

• added support for server mods in replays and saved games
• added downloading server mods status

6. Fixes

• fixed windows laptops with AMD GPUs to always use discrete (Uber)
• fixed negative output of dither in HDR compose pass... should fix crash on Intel 5xx GPUs (Uber)

• fixed windows 10 audio issues with updated FMOD (Uber)

• fixed display names not updating
• fixed buy missing content dialog description when a classic player is invited to a titans game
• fixed a long standing issue where a network / data issue or reloading the uberbar reset the user tag map and killed friends list
• fixed the ubernet extender to not lose data or use bad data from playfab or local storage
• fixed the ubernet extender to correctly check previous and not update on refresh
• fixed long standing issue with large user tag and id to interaction time maps (based on optimise user tag map)
• fixed a long standing issue where idToJabberPresenceTypeMap and idToJabberPresenceStatusMap were not written to session storage
• fixed long standing issue where searches of existing friends add duplicates to friends list
• fixed invites to private games
• fixed long standing issue where previously accepted game invite fails then later invite from same person teleports you into new game without confirmation

• fixed game password lost after refresh, selecting system, settings, etc
• fixed cannot join empty slot issue where player disconnects without leaving
• fixed the many issues caused by new game lobby loading without server mods ready and the freezes while server mods are uploading and remounting

• fixed alt-tab back to PA then backspace with chat window open triggering window back then reload or connecting to server

• fixed missing look at players for spectators

• fixed server freeze 30 seconds after game over while replay is being written which prevents chat, stats, review, etc