We've now released v7.26.1 onto the main branches, and the consolidated patch notes can be found below.
Balance Changes:
ARES Strength increased to 100 (up from 50), matching the MARS - this makes burst fire weapons slightly more accurate.
The explosions caused by dying aliens (Servitors, Cyberdrones) no longer destroy items on the ground, as a lot of players ended up being confused about why their items had vanished and it was usually because they were caught in an explosion when on the ground after the soldier carrying them had been killed.
Damage synchronisation has been added to the ENDGAME first stage 1-tile thick alien building walls. If you blast a hole in these from the outside, the inner wall is now destroyed. If you destroy the thin interior walls, the outer wall is not destroyed (because they're tougher) but a corresponding amount of damage is also applied to them.
Gameplay Changes:
We've fixed one of the most annoying UI issues in the tactical combat - the entire selection box always drawing above the shroud. It now behaves like it did during most of Early Access, and it will be much easier to see which level the camera / selection box is on when interacting with tiles on the edge of the shroud (or inside UFOs, or the upper levels of alien bases, etc).
We've also fixed an issue where projectiles and thrown grenades would be hidden by the shroud, which would cause them to disappear when passing over unrevealed tilles. The rule is now that projectiles / grenades will always be drawn above the shroud if the shooter is visible.
The alien spawners on certain missions (UOO Bridge Assault, Endgame) are now no longer hidden by the fog of war once revealed, unlike standard enemy units.
Fixed some performance issues with the pre-mission deployment phase on certain missions.
We've introduced a JSON patching system to the game, which allows mods / DLCs to edit a specific part of a JSON file in the game without having to edit the whole file. This is important because it means multiple mods will be able to edit the same JSON file without problems (as long as each mod is changing different parts of the file).
Bugfixes:
We've improved the save system so the game no longer creates corrupted saves due to the save process being interrupted - now if the creation of the save fails (say due to a game crash or PC shutdown happening halfway through the save process), no save file gets created at all. This should improve stability because those corrupted files can themselves sometimes cause problems for the game, as well as causing crashes if the players try to load them.
Fixed a save game problem where you could save the game on particular missions after the main objective had been completed - e.g. on the UOO Bridge Assault mission, it was possible to save while the game was doing the post-completion cutscene where the station explodes and your troops teleport away. Trying to load that save would cause a crash.
Fixed the player being able to use the strategy screen hotkeys (F1-F9) to move to another screen during the pre-mission soldier equip screen on Base Defence missions, which allowed them to skip the base defence.
In the air combat, the UFO charge bar now stops filling when all Xenonaut interceptors have retreated, as it takes a few seconds for air combat to fade out after the battle ends. Previously the UFO could sometimes "jump" to a new location on the Geoscape if the charge bar filled up during this period.
Fixed various air combat issues related to the Afterburner / Retreat modes. Unless Throttle Lock is set, Afterburner and Retreat mode will now override any existing speeds manually set by the player and make the aircraft travel at max speed (unless you're using Afterburners and tailing a UFO; then the Afterburners will automatically reduce speed if it would cause you to overshoot the UFO).
Fixed Xenonaut interceptors not retreating instantly once they reached the edge of the air combat battlefield.
Fixed a situation where Xenonaut interceptors could get stuck at 0 speed when attempting to retreat and reaching the edge of the map while a UFO was chasing them.
Fixed mechanical units like the MARS being unable to use teleporters with right-click like normal soldiers can.
Fixed an issue where destroying upper level floors on Endgame stage 1 would not always reveal the floor tiles on the level below that should have become visible.
Another attempt to fix the black interior walls on the Western Town restaurant buildings (this bug only affects players using AMD cards, or on Linux). Let us know if it works!