Every update, newest first

News from the Wake

What has changed in Mercy's Wake. The launcher shows the same news when you start it.

30 SeptemberMore room to grow, and a Watchman

You can now hold far more Theory: enough to master six skills instead of three.
Chat has tabs (All, Local, Town, Global, Party, Clan, Whispers), and How to Play has a search box.
Every scrolling list shows a scroll bar, hover help appears on every button (crafting techniques say what they do), and campfires and the big machines sit properly on the ground.
To keep scrip sellers out, new characters reach strangers (Global chat, whispers and letters) once they have played a little. Friends, your group and your clan hear you from the start. Please report sellers from their menu.

29 SeptemberThe Skirts rebuilt

Skirts Market is a crowded shanty town now: shacks and huts packed along its crooked roads and a winding ring lane, braziers and lanterns, washing lines, carts and cooking fires.
The smithy, the still house, the market canopy and Mother Ilse's meeting hall stand over their yards, with scrap watchtowers by the gates. It has its own sounds too.
The toolbar fits at any window size, job progress sits inside its box, and the world map has a compass.
The launcher updates itself to 0.7.1: if an update ever says a file was corrupted, it now fetches the latest list and finishes by itself.

29 SeptemberWake in the Spine

A new character creator: your figure stands large in the Mercy's waking hall, turning, walking and running as you choose. Pick colours from swatches, start from a preset, then choose where you were born from two painted cards.
New looks: topknots, crests, braids, a wide hat, a miner's cap with its lamp, beards and a brass visor, with new skins, hair colours, coats and trims (and dyes to match).
The Spine is a real town now: Keel Street and Chapel Walk meet at Memorial Plaza, with a forge yard, a furnace house, the market hall and Chapel Close, houses and shops along lamplit streets. Buildings fade when you walk behind them.
New characters wake in the Waking Hall at the south end of Chapel Walk, and anyone who falls near the Spine wakes there too. If you logged off where a building now stands, you will find yourself beside it.

29 SeptemberA gentler start

Townsfolk walk smoothly now instead of in jerks.
New characters start with a quieter screen: more buttons appear as you need them (or Show every button in the Task window), and every key works from the start.
Each step aboard the Mercy is given in person by whoever asks it, and a candle arrow points to what it needs.
Create a character and you go straight in.

29 SeptemberSign-ups are open

No invite code needed any more: anyone 16 or older can make an account in the launcher with Create an account. Choose a name and a password, add your email address, and enter the code we send it. Play opens once it is confirmed.
Tell your friends: they download the launcher from mercyswake.com.
The Terms of Use and Privacy Policy are on the website, linked from the launcher.
The launcher updates itself to 0.7. If a download is refused for a moment, it now tries again by itself.

29 SeptemberEmail, and Forgot password

Add an email address to your account: Email and news in the launcher. A code by email confirms it, and only you see it.
Forgot password? on the login screen sends a code to that address and lets you choose a new password.
Tick News by email for the odd letter about new zones and big events, and a note when your home's upkeep runs low or an arena prize waits for you. Every one has an Unsubscribe link.
Invite friends can now email an invite straight to a friend.

29 SeptemberSpaceMMO is now Mercy's Wake

The game has its name and its own home: mercyswake.com. The launcher updates itself and downloads from our new file server, which should be quicker.
New shortcuts are called Mercy's Wake. Your characters, settings and install stay exactly as they were.

29 SeptemberMail, and easier reading

Mail (B, or the toolbar): write to anyone by name from anywhere, for a scrip; letters arrive at once. Right-click a player for Write a letter.
At a Market Terminal you can send a parcel of goods and scrip. It waits for the reader in their stash at that market: nothing travels by post.
News from while you were away now arrives as a letter too, so it stays in your mailbox.
Easier reading: running text now uses a clearer pixel font with lower case. Titles, buttons and names keep the old lettering.

28 SeptemberHandy tools

Combat (Y): a fight meter for you and your group (Share puts it in chat) and a log of every blow.
When you fall, a recap shows what killed you, the last blows, and what dropped, marked on your maps.
Joining shows what happened while you were away: sales, deliveries, commissions, stall sales and more.
List on any recipe: what you are missing, where it comes from, what it costs here, and buy orders in one click.
Click the world map to walk there along the roads.
Tab picks the nearest creature; right-click a creature to attack it or send your robots at it.
Gear tooltips compare with what you wear, and the loot window can Take all nearby.

28 SeptemberOrders for your robots

Summoners can now command their robots from a panel under the health bars: Follow, Hold position (they stay put and fight only what comes within reach), Defend (only what fights you or your group), Attack (all of them at what you are fighting) and Dismiss. See How to Play, Robots.

28 SeptemberWorld bosses

Three colossi can now wake anywhere in the world: the Ashen Leviathan, the Choir Titan and the Iron Saint. The whole server is called to fight. Their great attacks are marked on the ground before they land, so step out of the red. Around a world boss is truce ground: nobody fights anyone else and nothing drops on death. Everyone who helps (damage, healing or taking blows) earns a share, paid in relic fragments, deepcore ore, heartlight essence and elder cores into your vault at the nearest settlement. See How to Play, World bosses.

Also: crafting windows show what you have beside each ingredient's name, the Talents window is wider, two Sentries no longer stand on the same tile, the Task window's lines wrap again and speech bubbles fit their text.

28 SeptemberFixes: summoned minions no longer stand on the same square, Study the Craft completes if you were already training a skill, the Task window's text wraps inside it again and speech bubbles fit their words. Behind the scenes, the server runs twice as lightly as this morning.

28 SeptemberThe Deepcore Rifts, north of the Slag Steppes: the first zone that is Wastes throughout (open fighting, full loot). Canyons down to the warm rock and its deepcore lodes, the camp Riftmouth, rift crawlers on the walls, Core Wardens whose shells only arc breaks, chasm bats and the Hollowed. Under the great drill rig lies the Deepcore Shaft, for five: the Drill Mother, then the Heart of the Rift. Also fixed: the Bloomheart, the Deck Warden and the Hull Colossus now show up properly.

28 SeptemberThe Relighting

The Spine's engineers have opened the Relighting Works beside the Pilgrims' Memorial: bring plate, steel, sealant, lumen cores and coil assemblies to wake the Long Mercy's drive, then its reactor, then its bridge. Every lit stage changes the world for good, and each season the Manifest and the Skirts race to hold them. Chapters 4 to 6 of the story are written. See How to Play, The Relighting.

28 SeptemberCodex fix

Codex entries from Gravemaw Downs, the Slag Steppes and Bloomwrack Hollow were not being kept (and some early logs showed as found by mistake). They are fixed, and anything you have already earned is given back when you next join. The "Things to try" list now suggests fishing too.

28 SeptemberFixes

Fixed a bug that disconnected anyone watching certain newer creatures use their abilities: the Old Foreman's shift call, the Barrow Keepers raising bones, the Slag Steppes' wurms, stalkers, moths and Slag King, and Bloomwrack Hollow's mantises and Mother Root. A home's Smokehouse no longer vanishes while its owner is away. Bloomwrack Hollow has more bloom, and lakes and pools repeat less up close. The launcher updates the game as usual.

28 SeptemberBloomwrack Hollow

A sixth zone opens south of Cinder Rise: Bloomwrack Hollow, all Frontier and thick with bloom, with the outpost Thornwatch. Mantises hide in the growth and pin you with their scythes, spore drifters spit from range and burst into a choking cloud, vine stranglers root in the thickets and drag you in, and shy lumen stags are worth the chase. The hollow is strewn with bloom-swallowed wrecks, a shattered greenhouse dome of the old colony and the skull of some ancient beast. Under a colossal hollow tree lies the Rootcellar, for one to three, where the Mother Root breeds her spores. See How to Play.

28 SeptemberCrafting techniques and trade talents

Every crafting trade now has techniques of its own, like a fighting style. Smelters, distillers, glassworkers, smiths, outfitters, tinkers, apothecaries and cooks earn technique points as they practise, and learn four techniques each: rush an order, save inputs, make more or finer, push the quality roll, or sign your work for extra renown. Pick one at the top of the station's window before placing an order; each rests twenty minutes after use. The Talents window's Trades tab has three new branches too: Refiner, Smith and Maker. See How to Play.

28 SeptemberThe Spine Council

The capital has a council. Each four-week season, clans earn standing for what their members do for the Spine: deliveries to its Contracts Board and Armoury, trading at its market, its jobs and courier crates, and fuelling Ward Pylons anywhere. When the season turns, the five clans with the most take the Council's seats. The Speaker sets the Spine market's tax, a fifth of which goes to the seated clans, and every week the seats vote a decree: Salvage Rights, Open Season, Frontier Bounty, Harvest Festival, Warden's Levy or Free Hands. Their banners hang by the Council Chamber, beside the Pilgrims' Memorial. See How to Play.

28 SeptemberMore fish, trophies and bigger meals

Seven more kinds in the water: rustgill perch, bilge crab, vent catfish, bloom crayfish, hullfin ray, ghostshrimp and the ember minnow, the best bait there is. Each zone's waters favour their own fish. Now and then a rare fish comes up a trophy: mount it at your home, sell it, or cook it into a Fine dish. The week's heaviest catches stand on every Notice Board, and the top three anglers are paid each Monday.

Eight new dishes and two drinks mix fish with meat, plants and prep, and many take any fish you have: Deckhand's Chowder, Crab Cakes, Frontier Fish Pie, Catfish Gumbo, the Wastes Platter and more. And lakes and pools are now a night blue you can actually see in the dark.

28 SeptemberFishing, and deeper cooking

A new skill, Fishing. Make a rod at the Outfitter, hold it and click water: when the float ducks under, hit REEL! (or Space) before the fish gets away. Ashfin and mud eel in the Core, sulphur carp and lamprey in the Frontier, lumen eel and glasspike in the Wastes, and shoals that move about the water with rarer, finer fish, where the Drowned Choirfish sometimes rises. Bait, lures and better rods help.

Cooking goes deeper: dishes now come out Plain, Hearty or Fine depending on the cook and the grade of what goes in, smoked dishes need a Smoke Rack by the fire (or a Smokehouse at home), there are eight new fish dishes and drinks, and a master cook can lay a Banquet Table so the whole group eats together. See How to Play.

28 SeptemberThe Slag Steppes and excavation sites

A fifth zone opens east of Cinder Rise: the Slag Steppes, all Frontier, flat and rocky, with the outpost Sulphurhold. Watch for Slag Wurms that drag you to them from under the slag, Vent Stalkers that set you burning, Cinder Moths whose dust blinds shooters, and Sulphur Golems that burst when they fall. Under a fallen chimney lies the Flue, a burnt-out smelting works for one to three, where the Slag King stokes his fires.

In the Wastes, three relic excavation sites now wait for clans: Keelbreak, Choirfall and Lanternmoor Dig. Each has a weekly claim hour (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 19:00 UTC); the clan that keeps the most members at the beacon holds the site for a week, digs free with a bonus, and takes 20 scrip a cycle from everyone else who digs there. See How to Play.

28 SeptemberCrawlers

Every settlement now has a Crawler Bay. A crawler is an end-game project: a Crawler Kit assembled at a Forge from a drive train, a hull, tracks and a boiler, each made by a different trade. Register it at a bay, call it out and drive at half again walking pace with 80 slots of cargo and up to four of your group aboard; parked, it stands as a crafting station of your choice. Guard it: anyone who may fight you may break its hull, spilling half its cargo and sending it limping home for repairs.

28 SeptemberHomes and player shops

Plots are staked just outside Skirts Market and Cinderworks and round the Frontier outposts. Claim one with the Home plot button and raise a cottage, then a storage chest, a workbench of your choice, a hearth, a bed (sleep in it and you wake rested) and a vendor stall that sells your goods to anyone while you are away. Set crafted rugs, lamps, banners and trophies about the place. Keep scrip in the till for the upkeep. Town homes are safe; in the Frontier, a clan at feud with yours may break your door.

28 SeptemberGravemaw Downs

A new Frontier zone lies east of the Skirts and north of Cinder Rise, with the hunters' outpost Houndgate. Watch for thornback boar herds that charge together, carrion kites that dive on whoever hangs back, and the dead Barrow Keepers at the old cairns, who raise bone hounds. Under a stony mound, the Whelping Warrens hold the Pack Sire, whose howl calls every hound in the dens: bring a friend or two.

27 SeptemberPack beasts

Make a Harness at the Outfitter and put it on a calm Ashgrazer in the Core: it becomes your Pack Grazer, following you with 20 slots of goods. At Handling 40, harness a Hullback Brute beaten under a third of its health for a Burden Brute with 36 slots. Click your beast to load it; stable it at any Vault and call it again there. Guard it: those who may fight you may kill it, and its load drops where it falls.

27 SeptemberCourier contracts

Every Market Terminal has a Couriers tab. Seal goods into a Courier Crate for another settlement, with a fee for the hauler and a collateral they must put up. Haulers carry the crate like anything else, so it drops if they die. Delivered, the goods wait in your stash at the destination and the hauler is paid. Anyone holding a crate may break its seal and keep what is inside; then you keep the collateral and your fee comes back.

27 SeptemberThe Pilgrim's Vow

A memorial now stands in the Spine. Swear the Pilgrim's Vow there and you walk under the name Pilgrim, every hour you live counted. Any real death breaks it (the arena and friendly duels do not count): you live on as before, and your run is carved on the memorial for all to read, with what you slew, how deep you went and what ended it. Swear it again whenever you like.

27 SeptemberResearch

At any making station you can now Study a piece of gear instead of making it: a set of its materials goes into your notes. Each notes level lifts the quality you roll. Notes 3 opens a variant (Keen or Heavy weapons, Reinforced or Fitted armour, Swift or Deep tools), notes 5 a second. From notes 3 you can Write a copy to sell at the market, and reading one teaches another crafter. How to Play now has a picture on every page and a new page on zones and dungeons.

27 SeptemberThe Deep Hull

The Mercy's buried decks are open. Out in the Wastes north of Skirts Market stands the Deep Hull Shaft: go down alone or with up to two friends. Every level is made fresh when you reach it; clear it to open the hatch down, where it gets harder, stranger (dark, flooded, lumen-choked, drones awake, the dead crew walking) and richer, with the Rat King waiting at level 5 and the Old Foreman at 10. What you find is your haul: climb out at the lift and it is yours, if you can get it home from the Wastes. Fall, and the haul stays below; your gear is never at stake. The deepest parties each week are paid and named on the board at the shaft.

27 SeptemberCinder Rise and the Old Seam

A new zone is open east of the Long Mercy: follow the road out of the bow to Cinder Rise, broken ridges where the Ground's own ferrite breaks the surface, and the mining town of Cinderworks. Mind the Cinder Beetles on the slopes. In the rock on the east of the Rise stands a headframe over the Old Seam, the first mine ever cut into the Ground: its drones still keep the shift, and the Old Foreman still works the face. Bring a friend or two. Also: townsfolk now greet you by where you were born, walking away (or the new Stop button, or Esc) ends an attack on a training dummy, Lumen Blooms sometimes give bloom resin so Camp Kits are easy to make, and tooltips no longer break words at some screen sizes.

27 SeptemberChapter 1, The Tide Rises

The Mercy's story begins. Open the new Codex (toolbar, or O) to read the ship's logs you find in wrecks, the Mercy's great rooms and on the beasts that guard them, and decode the captain's sealed record from Relic Fragments at a Tinker's Bench. The world now moves in chapters of two weeks with one goal for everyone: this first one asks us to feed the Ward Pylons. How it ends changes the world. Say where you were born, ship-born or ground-born, in the Codex: it sets your standing with the Manifest and the Skirts, and standing lowers station fees on that side.

27 SeptemberThe Lumen Tide

The lumen eats metal, and now it spreads. From the Wastes it creeps across the Frontier day by day, staining the ground violet on your maps and underfoot. On its ground stations work slower and charge more, and on overgrown ground bare metal rots twice as fast (brew a Rot Seal at the Still). Guarded Tideblooms grow there, and their pollen is prized. Push it back with Ward Pylons: make a frame at the Forge, raise it outside a town, click it and feed it refined goods. Whoever feeds the pylons most is named each Monday as the Wardens. The Tide moves at the pace of everyone playing, so a quiet world is never swallowed. See How to Play, The Lumen Tide.

27 SeptemberAn intro, a gauntlet, and second thoughts

The game now opens with a short intro film: how the Long Mercy came down, who rules what is left of it, and what waits out past the walls, told by an old chaplain. It plays once; watch it again any time from the Intro button on the main screen.

Elementalists now wear their projector: an iron gauntlet with a canister on the wrist and a hot nozzle over the knuckles.

Theory can now be unlearned, slowly. In Skills (K), the - on a skill's row lowers its Theory a level every 4.8 hours, down to 20, freeing room for other skills. Stop it any time.

Behind the scenes: busy towns cost the server a third of what they did.

27 SeptemberThe Elementalist, and How to Play

A new way to fight: the Projector, a gauntlet that throws fire, cryo or arc about four tiles. Each shot burns a canister of the element you have loaded. Fire sets things burning. Cryo chills them, and five stacks freeze them solid. Arc sometimes jumps to another target. Swap canisters with the new button beside Q, E, R and G.

Thirteen Elementalism abilities: Scorch, Frost Bolt, Arc Lance, Flamethrower, Frost Nova, Overload, Immolate, Deep Freeze, Storm Field, Wildfire, Shatter, Thermal Shock and Canister Dump. Each loads its own element as it fires.

Projectors are made by gunsmiths at the Forge. Incendiary canisters come from the Still, Cryo from the Glassworks and Arc from the Tinker's Bench, so Elementalists need all three trades. Pick the Elementalist path at any Weapons Master to get the makings of your first projector and canisters.

Fire and Cryo are new damage types, and every creature resists or fears them differently: bloom burns, machines freeze, the dead shrug off the cold. The Firebomb now deals real fire.

New How to Play button on the toolbar: a short page on every system, most with a picture from the game.

27 SeptemberThings to try

The task tracker now suggests things the story never shows you: abilities, vaults, markets, the Contracts Board, jobs, talents, groups, surveying, cooking, the Frontier, clans and the arena. Each one ticks itself off once you have done it, or dismiss it with x.

The Contracts Board lets you choose how many to sell, and finer grades start at one, since they often fetch more on the market.

Busy towns run smoother: name plates cost less, only the nearest lanterns cast light, and the server sends everyone's steps in one message a tick.

27 SeptemberEasier to read, quicker to run

New: a Guide button on the toolbar, with a short page on every system (Practice and Theory, grade and tier, crafting, markets, danger and death, and more).

Health and stamina are now bars, and a frame shows whatever you are fighting or pointing at: its health, how tough it is for you and what ails it.

Toolbar buttons explain themselves when you hover them, and the toolbar fits small screens. The pack starts closed, and it and the task tracker open under the minimap instead of over it.

Tooltips say what grade, tier and quality mean, which items you can use, and where each material is used. Refusals now say what to do next.

Rethinking talents or techniques, handing over a clan, removing members and declaring feuds now ask you to click twice. Group leaders can remove members from the group panel or the player menu. Click the chat channel to change it.

Under the hood: the server does much less work for creatures nobody is near and spreads its saves out, and the client does less work each frame (action bars, effects, the world map, characters).

27 SeptemberClan holdings

Staked plots now wait beside each Frontier outpost (look for the claim posts, or the brass dots on the world map). A clan of level 3 can claim one: the leader stands on it and pays 2,000 scrip from the treasury, then 300 a week in upkeep.

Raise the Hall first, then a Vault Annex (it can hold the clan vault), two Workshops (tier III stations of your choosing), a Market Stall with its own order book, and a Hearth that never goes out. Officers choose what comes next; every member can deliver the materials, standing on the plot.

Holdings are open to attack only in a feud: the other clan can break your Ward, which shuts the holding for 12 hours and scores in the feud. Nothing is ever destroyed.

Stand on a plot and use the Holding button by your status, or open it from the Clan window.

27 SeptemberArena seasons and Summoner talents

The Undercroft Pits now have twelve pits, so many more matches run at once.
While queued you see your place and a rough wait in the Arena window.
Matchmaking pairs teams of similar rating first, widening the range the longer you wait.
Season prizes: the top 20 of each mode get scrip when a season ends (1st 1500 scrip and 3 relic fragments, 2nd 1000 and 2, 3rd 600 and 1, down to 100 for 20th). Paid at once if you are online, or when you next log in.
Summoners get their own talent branch, Commander: Overseer, Reinforced Frames, Rapid Assembly, Salvaged Cores and Legion (a third minion out at once).

27 SeptemberPath fixes

Guardians now also get the makings of a Scav Coat: armour trains as you wear it in, and Taunt comes by itself at Armour 5.
The fighting path line in your task list has a Not now button if you already know how you fight (the rack still works any time).
Training dummies no longer look hostile, and the Mercy's crew now point new arrivals to Drillmaster Harrow.

27 SeptemberPick your fighting path

A Weapons Master now stands by a weapon rack in every town (Drillmaster Harrow on the Spine, Sergeant Voss in Skirts Market). Click the rack and choose one of nine paths: Blade, Maul, Pistol, Rifle, Brawler, Resonant, Summoner, Medic or Guardian.
He gives you the materials for that path's first weapon and its supplies; your task list tells you which station to make it at (no skill needed). Everyone, new or old, gets one pick.
Training dummies beside him teach any weapon up to Practice 10 in a few minutes, so you can try every style. They never hit back.
The first ability of any weapon is now learned for you as soon as you can use it.
Item tooltips now say where things are made.

27 SeptemberThe cooking tree

New plants to gather: Greyleaf and Ashroot in the Core, Deckcaps in the Mercy's holds and quarters, Firepeppers in the Frontier, Glowcaps in the Wastes, and Salt Crust for miners. They have outlines like other nodes, and the Survey window lists them under Food.
New meats: rat meat, hound meat, stalker loin, brute haunch and elder marrow, from creatures and snares.
Prep at the campfire: flour, dough, spice blend, stock, pickled deckcaps and glowcap oil go into better dishes.
15 meals and 8 drinks. Eat one meal and drink one drink at a time; both count. Buffs include damage, armour, wards, health, crit, attack speed, cooldowns, move speed, stamina, healing, threat, gathering speed and yield, craft quality and faster Practice. They only run down while you play, and show under your name.
Action bars are smaller and slimmer by default (Settings, Bar size: Small, Medium or Large).
The Abilities window scrolls, two to a line (the Command tab was cramped).

27 SeptemberCooking, Trapping and heavier grenades

Two new skills. Cooking: light a Camp Kit, click the fire and cook meals (Grilled Meat, Hunter's Stew, Forager's Pie, Plated Roast, Lumen Feast). Each keeps you well fed for 30 to 45 minutes with a bonus of its own: damage, armour, wards or extra gathering.
Trapping: set Snare Traps (Outfitter) anywhere outside a settlement, up to three. They work while you're away and leave a catch of meat and hide, fangs in the Frontier, lumen cores in the Wastes. Carry Trap Bait (cooked at the fire) for bigger catches.
Ashgrazers and Mawhounds now drop Raw Meat.
Grenades now come in tiers I to VIII: frag, arc, firebomb, shock and gas, each tier 40% stronger, made with that tier's metal. The G button throws the best you carry.
Fixed: kits and meals can be used by double-clicking them in the pack.

27 SeptemberAction bars, deployables and area attacks

Action bars like other MMOs: up to five rows of twelve (Settings, Action bars). Every ability now has its own button and its own cooldown. Drag abilities from the Abilities window (N) and supplies, grenades or kits from your pack onto any slot; drag between slots to swap, off the bar to clear.
Bar 1 follows your weapon and fills itself with that weapon's abilities. Keys: 1 to 0, - and = for bar 1, Shift for bar 2, Ctrl for bar 3.
Unlock the bars in Settings to move them (drag the grip on the left end; right-click it to stand a bar on end). Lock them again so nothing gets dragged off by accident.
Deployables: Sentry Turrets (Tinker's Bench, tiers I to VIII) shoot what you fight for five minutes; a Camp Kit (Outfitter) lights a campfire that heals and restores stamina for everyone round it; a Field Extractor (Forge) set beside a common or uncommon node digs on its own for 30 minutes, even while you're away, and leaves you a hopper.
New area attacks: Thunderclap (Unarmed), Lumen Nova (Resonators), Shield Slam (shields, pulls the whole pack), Sentry Barrage and Arc Mines (Summoners).

27 SeptemberGrenades for everyone

Five new throwables anyone can use, made from basic grade I goods: Frag Grenade (Forge), Firebomb (Glassworks, keeps burning), Shock Grenade (Tinker's Bench, locks them up), Gas Canister (Still, poisons and slows) and Smoke Bomb (Outfitter, creatures lose you and wander off).
New grenade button beside your supplies (G): left-click throws, right-click picks the next kind you carry.
Grenades now hit players too, but only where PvP allows it (flags, the Wastes, duels, the arena, feuds).
New sounds for every blast.

27 SeptemberThe Summoner

A new way to fight: Command Rods and robot minions, trained with the new Command skill. Make a rod and Drone Cores at the Tinker's Bench; each deployment uses a core.
Four robots: the Sentry shoots what you fight, the Brawler punches it and takes blows meant for you, the Medic Drone patches up you and your group, the Aegis takes a share of all harm aimed at you. Two at a time.
Command abilities drive them: Focus Fire, Overclock, Recall, Self-Destruct, Swarm and Fortify. Minions fight players too, wherever you may.

26 SeptemberCraftsmanship

Gear now sells on the market: open the Gear tab at any Market Terminal. Each piece shows its grade, quality, wear and maker. Prices come from what players pay.
Commissions: post the piece you want and the fee is set aside. A crafter takes it, makes it and delivers it at that terminal. You can ask for a maker by name.
Mastery: every recipe you make again and again gets better and quicker, up to Master at 200 made.
Additives: work Focus Glass, Resin Sealant, a Lumen or Elder Core, or a Relic Fragment into gear for a better roll or more durability.
The Makers tab lists the most renowned maker in each trade, and their rank shows on their listings.
Also since the last update: faction choice after the Long Mercy with a chain for each side, weapon coatings, field repair kits, and more creatures.

26 SepStories, storms and a hound.

The Long Mercy: after the first tasks, nine story tasks take you out through the Frontier and the Wastes to the Breached Hold.
New world events: ash storms (creatures see less, shots carry only a few tiles, ore laid bare) and buried Mercy caches guarded by borers.
The Gravemaw, mother of the Mawhound packs, hunts the Frontier. Bring five: she pounces on whoever hangs back.
Craft carefully: Careful, Precise and Masterstroke work (in the crafting window) trade time for better quality gear.
New things to make: gathering boosters and trail rations, arc grenades, flares and snare nets (double-click to throw), and coat and trim dyes.

25 SepA big one.

Armour now shows on your character, coloured by tier. Hide any piece in the Character window (C), or everyone's helmets in Settings.
Augments and charms: two implant slots and a charm slot (Tinker's Bench and Glassworks). Augments stay with you when you die.
More abilities: a fifth pair for every weapon, unlocks much sooner (5, 10, 15, 20...), and you can learn both of a pair: right-click the hotbar slot to swap.
Gear lasts far longer. The map remembers where you have been.
PvP: raise your flag to fight in the Frontier; the Wastes are open to all. Attack from a player's menu.
World events: wrecks fall and the lumen surges out in the Frontier and Wastes.
Sell from your vault, sort it, repair with alloy stored there, make a chosen number, rebind keys, delete characters.
Music: Settings, Music, Playlist for eight soft rock tracks back to back.

25 SepMelee grit

With a blade, maul or bare hands you have a fifth more health and creature blows land 15% lighter. Heavy plate now slows guns, injectors and resonators (5% a piece, the body twice): it is armour for the front line.

25 SepKiting. With a gun, injector or resonator, click the ground while fighting and you keep shooting as you walk (a little weaker, and each shot slows your step). Blades and mauls still stop to go. Mawhounds and Lumen Stalkers now run as fast as you, so hobble them first.

25 SepA balance pass, from thousands of simulated fights

Creatures are much tougher, to match what tiered weapons now deal: a Wastes stalker is a real fight again. Resonators hit harder. Elites need a full group of five with a tank and a healer, and when they enrage the fight is nearly over.

25 SepBring friends

Two elites now roam the deep Wastes: the Hull Colossus, whose Crushing Blow kills anyone but a braced tank, and the Bloom Matron, whose Lumen Tide washes over everyone near and who calls her brood. Past them lies the Breached Hold, a lost deck of the Mercy, where the Bloomheart has taken root. Elites enrage if a fight drags on; stasis and suppression break their wind-ups. Relic fragments and elder parts for the brave.

25 SepClans grow

Every kill, craft, gathering trip and job by a member earns clan XP, up to level 10: more members, a bigger clan vault, faster learning for everyone, map markers from level 3 and no station fees in your hall from level 5. Clans also get a treasury, a hall with a shared vault (the Clan bank tab at its Vault) and a notice board. Press L.

25 Septemberthe big one

A talent tree (T) with nine branches. The Resonant, a new control class with crystal Resonators. Polearms, scatterguns and a light and heavy weapon in every line, ability choice pairs with grenades and area attacks, light and heavy armour. Five new creatures (swarming skitters, fleeing pickers, spitters, charging brutes and buried borers), twelve kinds of townsfolk, a minimap and world map (M), a tool belt, separate modules for every tool, and maximum health that grows as you do. New sounds and music throughout.

25 Septembermedics. Injectors (eight tiers, made at the Tinker's Bench) fire darts and carry four Medic abilities: Mend, Purge, Adrenal Dart and Triage. Click a player or their name in the group panel to pick who you heal.

25 Septembera tool belt

Drills, cutters and shears now hang on your belt (three new slots in the Character window), so your weapon stays in your hand while you gather. Tools you were holding have moved onto the belt.

25 Septemberhold the line

Creatures now go for whoever hurts them most. Shields (tiers I to VIII, made at the Forge) go in your off hand and open Taunt and Shield Wall on keys 5 and 6. Watch for the warnings: mawhounds howl for their pack and wind up a rending bite you can step away from, and lumen stalkers gather light before a burst that hits everyone close.

25 Septemberpatch yourself up

Dressings, stims and ward salves in eight tiers, brewed by the new Apothecary skill at the Still and used with the new Medic skill (better ones need more Medic, and Medic makes them all work better). Quick-use buttons sit beside your hotbar on Q, E and R, or double-click one in your pack.

25 Septemberdeeper in the Wastes

Six new gathering spots: sulphur vents, infirmary wrecks and ashmoss in the Frontier; deepcore lodes, reactor wrecks and elder blooms deep in the Wastes (they need a tier V tool). Packs, lanterns, slugs and tool modules now come in eight tiers, and the best packs carry 24 more slots. Better slugs hit harder. Arc and lumen weapons have their own hit sounds.