Kardaviik Playtest · build 23844163 · published
[ INCOMING: PATCH_0.4.0 ]
[ STATUS: NEW_BELT_DETECTED ]
Hello Everyone!
We have a very exciting patch to share with you, and it’s coming from a new-ish person on the team - Riley!
We have been working on these updates since August 2025, and the team is eager to get this over to you and hear your feedback. You might think you’ve booted up an entirely different game!
But enough about what we think, let’s get to the stuff you really want…
Factory automation expansion: the factory layer has grown substantially through reworked inserters, transporters, pipes, splitters, fluid tanks, logistics bots, construction bots, module inventories, and more reliable item/fluid movement.
New production and resource systems: the update adds and expands interdimensional mining, electric and fuel miners, gas extractors, thermal power, fabricators, recyclers, cosmetic manufacturing, infinite source blocks, and resource scaling by asteroid distance.
Research and progression overhaul: recipes, research timings, unlocks, task icons, speed chips, module support, survival starter items, and progression balance have all been reworked into a broader progression path.
Performance and reliability foundation: large-factory behavior, chunk rendering, inventory, fluids, electricity, multiplayer, save/load, and asteroid generation have all received performance and stability work to support the larger feature set.
Presentation upgrade: new music/audio work, player thruster VFX, remote player animation, asteroid skybox, production-building animations, pipe/fluid visuals, block status effects, material polish, and updated item/block art give the game a much more finished feel.
Steam multiplayer: 0.4.0 adds the foundation for playing Kardashev online through Steam, including lobby joins, reconnect recovery, remote player avatars, player colors, version compatibility checks, and more reliable host/client synchronization.
Save/load and Steam Cloud: saves are much more robust, with Steam Cloud support, better autosaves, safer load menus, incompatible-save handling, persisted block orientation, and broader save support for factory machines, bots, pipe networks, electricity, inventories, and player state.
Reworked hand-mining so that you destroy a block and receive a small amount of total block resources.
Added interdimensional mining support, including nodal mining behavior, resource selection, output handling, and save/load support.
Added recycler gameplay.
Added cosmetic block placement and the cosmetic manufacturer.
Added infinite source blocks, infinite chest visuals, and infinite fluid tank/power support in Sandbox.
Added speed chips to increase crafting speed.
Added survival-oriented changes, including player health and fuel HUD, cold severity scaling by distance, survival starter base items, and adjusted starter homebase content.
Added map camera mode and local asteroid scan waypoints.
Reworked resource scaling by asteroid distance.
Reworked item recipes, research tree content, research durations, unlocks, and design balance.
Reworked inserter behavior, animation, item pickup, base rotation, item compatibility, and removal behavior.
Added inserter speed research gating and insertion-limit tooltip support.
Reworked transporters with improved item movement, visual presentation, endcaps, corners, and snapping.
Reworked pipes with improved endpoint rebuilding, network handling, mesh refreshes, colors, materials, undo behavior, and crash fixes.
Added and iterated on fluid tanks, including 1-in/1-out behavior, rotation fixes, liquid visuals, fluid-specific gas effects, UV fixes, and updated tank art.
Reworked splitters with updated geometry, textures, animation, and shader support.
Added logistics and construction bot workflows, including task allocation, requester/provider behavior, save/load support, and more reliable movement.
Improved module and inventory handling, stack caps, mass move behavior, mouse interactions, and overflow protection.
Improved how fluid systems distribute fuel and supply consumers.
Added collision checking, render bounds, unconfirmed-block mesh refresh, force placement, and undo flows.
Reworked save/load behavior with more reliable autosaves, save menu sorting, load menu versioning, backups, and safer handling for incompatible saves.
Added Steam Cloud save support.
Persisted inserter carried items, pipe networks, electricity connectors, bots, environment blocks, player gas inventory, player defaults, and new-game world details.
Improved world item save/load consistency.
Rejected incompatible demo saves on load and hardened payload loading.
Added Steam multiplayer support.
Improved join handling, lobby connection recovery, reconnect behavior, pause handling, and host/client synchronization.
Added multiplayer player colors, remote player waypoints, remote player avatars, third-person pose/animation sync, collision checks against all players, and paused multiplayer movement blocking.
Added a network overlay for multiplayer connection information.
Added research tree icons, improvement task icons, speed chip icons, block/placeable icons, gas icons, ore/ingot icons, logistics icons, and world-space asset icons.
Improved tooltips, block info cube visuals, UI scaling, render-quality refresh, input binding cleanup, and undo behavior while panels are open.
Added new music and audio setup, plus transporter slow-speed audio updates.
Reworked the sound engine and audio manager, including pause fade-in/out and removing sound from phantom/unconfirmed blocks.
Added and tuned player thruster VFX, anti-thruster states, gas extraction arm visuals, shared thruster colors, emotes, remote player animations, and third-person player presentation.
Improved asteroid shaders, asteroid generation visuals, asteroid material fading, platform rendering issues, and asteroid facing behavior.
Added the new asteroid skybox.
Added animated production building art and shader work for thermal turbines, fuel fabricators, electric fabricators, infinite chests, cosmetic fabricators, and base block-state animations.
Added and revised pipe gas shader materials, fluid tank liquid/gas visuals, pipe fresnel, tank foil maps, solar panel maps, electricity array art, and fluid tank alignment.
Added screen-freeze vignette effect.
Added block info cube VFX, block status icons, block error toggles, sparkle VFX timing, placement VFX, laser VFX, gas extraction effects, scaffold visuals, and material palette polish.
Updated starter homebase layout, promo art, glass lower floor, cosmetic block materials, pipe colors, waypoint defaults, and a large set of item/block textures.
Improved performance across VFX, save/load, inventory, pipe fluids, dropped items, electricity, thermal power, gas extractors, asteroid bombs, grid runtime, mining setup, inserter animation, and asteroid generation.
Improved large-factory reliability through better logistics behavior, chunk rendering, and simulation stability.
Improved build reliability on macOS and Windows.
Improved quality checks around saves, multiplayer, inventory, production, and research, resulting in fewer regressions across major gameplay systems.
With how much we have changed, this list would be HUGE if we added fixes too! We’ll add fixes going forward but aren’t including them in these patch notes. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and requests!
Blueprints: This is something we know the game needs, and the current version we have is primitive to what we want to bring to the game.
UI & HUD: We’re currently working on redesigning this across all aspects of the game. Our focus is on legibility, design, and player experience.
Music & SFX: We can’t wait to show you what we’re working on. Check out a sample of the music on our new Youtube video:
(And don't forget to subscribe!)
We’re genuinely so excited to hear your feedback about this update, and we hope to see you in our discord: https://discord.gg/aZHp47Sk. All engagement is appreciated and we're already grateful you're here reading this.
Share your builds, submit your bugs, request what you need, and help us build the best factory game ever!
[ STATUS: END_TRANSMISSION ]