Welcome!

We've just released a patch to re-enable harvester crushing for the original 8-Bit Armies title, something many of you remember from our launch and have asked for. Harvester crushing now works in the following way...

• Multiplayer Quickmatch / Ranked games preserve the no-crushing rule for Guardian and Renegades Harvesters
  
• Skirmish and Custom Multiplayer Games now provide a checkbox option for turning harvester crushing on/off.
  
• Single & Multiplayer Co-Op campaigns have Harvester Crushing Turned on by default.

Please let us know your thoughts!

-8Bit

We’ve just hit the second anniversary of the 8-Bit Armies launch and it’s time to celebrate!

Beginning today we’re starting weekly contests with prize packages consisting of Steam gift cards and free games for players at the top of our leaderboards! Each week, the leaderboards will be reset at 5pm PST (00:00 UDT) giving everyone a fresh chance to make it into the top spots. We’ll also be drawing names randomly and giving away prizes just for participating in the weekly tournaments.

And if PvP isn’t your thing – we’ll have a some Co-Op events to participate in for those of you trying to finish up the Co-Op campaign and earn those last few stars. Specific times will be arranged to get online with other players (and us!) to finally beat those missions on hard mode and get those last few Steam Achievements.

A full calendar of events is below for the month of May. Tournaments begin immediately after the previous one ends and all winners are subject to Petroglyph review before prizes are awarded. All times are listed as PST. We will create posts and announcements specific to these events to explain further and announce winners. All winners are excluded from winning multiple prizes and cannot use more than one account in the tournament.

To participate, make sure you play a RANKED, QUICK-MATCH game. These are the only games accounted for in the tournament standings.

The calendar of events is...


May 2..................Now.......................Tournament Begins!
May 3..................5pm – 7pm............8-Bit Armies Co-Op Mission night.
May 6..................5pm.......................Week 1 Tournament Ends

May 10................5pm – 7pm............8-Bit Armies Co-Op Mission night.
May 13................5pm.......................Week 2 Tournament Ends

May 17................5pm – 7pm............8-Bit Armies Co-Op Mission night.
May 20................5pm.......................Week 3 Tournament Ends

May 24................5pm.......................Screenshot contest submission deadline -- Top 3
May 25................5pm.......................Map Creator Submission Deadline – Top 3 (updated!)
May 27................5pm.......................Week 4 Tournament Ends


Prizes are as follows for all categories and contests…

First Place - $25 Steam Gift Card, 8-Bit Series Bundle (all games, all DLC)
Second Place - $15 Steam Gift Card, 8-Bit Series Bundle (all games, all DLC)
Third Place – 8 Bit Series Bundle (all games, all DLC)

Random Prize Draws for Participation:

A free game from the Petroglyph Steam library of launched titles.

-8Bit

Hey gamers!

We’ve been storing up a bunch of minor fixes and performance improvements to the 8-Bit Series of games over the last few months based on your feedback and some things we've found ourselves. In general, the game should be more stable, run even faster, use a little less ram, and make multiplayer gaming a little more solid. We hope you enjoy the new update and please let us know if you run into anything we should know about.

As always, we appreciate your support. ːsteamhappyː

-8Bit

• Fix for jump jet infantry being order-locked when a save then load is performed while they are mid-flight.
  
• Added a map validation check that looks for too many stacked structures and warns the user of such on save.
  
• Fix for crashing when pressing shift while the instance tab is active (in the terrain editor).
  
• Adding a warning message on save that displays if resource nodes are found near any start markers (can potentially break the AI by placing resource nodes around the starting points).
  
• Limiting playable bounds setting to 11 and above when creating a new map with the public terrain editor.
  
• Fixed a case of the camera constraint function oscillating between two values when the playable bounds is small in the map editor.
  
• Fix for replanning failing when the target area is covered by too much stuff (movement failed to reach clicked destination despite there being a path to get there).
  
• Optimization attempt #2 at reducing CPU load when pruning producing objects (server could run slow when a lot of units are queued up and buildings are being destroyed).
  
• General Save/Load fixes to handle rare cases where continuing a battle would not work properly.
  
• Timeout a lobby join after 10 seconds so that players don’t hang forever waiting to join.
  
• General bug fixes to AI to optimize performance and handle a few strategic situations better.
  
• Correction to allow for correct country code to be set when quickmatching.
  
• Various back-end improvements for performance and frame-rate.
  
• Improved data transmission between server and client
  
• Fix for soft-lock when someone disconnects before joining a multiplayer game.
  
• Fix for showing weapon FX under unexplored fog of war which would reveal other player’s weaponry and location of battle.
  
• Player names in lobby should update a little more frequently.
  
• Steam “Played with Users” should be updated now.
  
• Handled an issue where some custom maps could fail to launch in Multiplayer.
  
• Fix for getting disconnected when connecting to an instance if the instance takes a long time to load. For example, when downloading a custom map for the first time.
  
• Fix for not being able to launch a multiplayer game with everyone is assigned to a random team.
  
• Prevent players having blank multiplayer game names.
  
• Fixed three separate issues which would have manifested itself to players as a “random crash”.
  
• Battlecam tweaks to improve angles and identify the highest priority events.
  
• Fix for flickering load screen on some systems.
  
• Re-enabled Anti-Aliasing on ATI cards. Also, removed AA slider if AA isn’t available.
  
• Improved memory usage. Game optimized to use less.

Greetings once again!

We're making a balance tweak today to fix a problem found in our last update. Thanks for all the feedback and help in identifying this issue!

-8Bit

• GUARDIANS - HEAVY DRONE: Fixed issue with Machine Gun weapon timing that was causing the DPS to be double the intended value.
  
• LIGHTBRINGERS - AIR ELEMENTAL: Build cost reduced to 130 (was 150), Build time reduced to 13 (was 15)
  
• LIGHTBRINGERS - TREANT: Health reduced to 175 (was 190)
  
• MARINES - OGRE: Health reduced to 230 (was 250); shield health remains the same

It's time for another balance update based on our awesome players and a little bit of internal research! Have fun and enjoy the player-sponsored tournament!

-8Bit

• MARINES BARRACKS: Build cost reduced to 300 (was 400), Build time reduced to 15 (was 20)
  
• MARINES HEAVY FACTORY: Build cost reduced to 575 (was 700), Build time reduced to 25 (was 30)
  
• MARINES DRONE WORKS: Build cost reduced to 575 (was 700), Build time reduced to 25 (was 30)
  
• MARINES SHRIKE: Build cost reduced to 150 (was 180), Build time reduced to 12 (was 15)
  
• MARINES HARPY: Adjusted spacing of attack to make it more accurate. DPS did not change.
  
• GUARDIANS HEAVY DRONE: Weapons targeting has been adjusted; rockets are now only fired at air, machine gun only fires at ground. The MG weapon has been changed to NEUTRAL damage. It is now a continuous fire weapon (not volleys). This sets the DPS to a consistent 6.0 vs. all ground target types. Rocket damage and timing has not changed.
  
• DEATHSWORN SHAMAN: Air attack damage changed to neutral (this is mostly for data clarity since the anti-air damage was already 1-1).
  
• CYCLOPS: Increased AoE radius of club hit to 75 (was 50)
  
• RENEGADES HEAVY TANK: Anti-Air rocket base damage increased to 5 (was 4)

Hey everyone! Happy Fall Update!

With the seasonal change today we though it was a good time to do a balance patch, which we have been experimenting with for some time now. In addition, we also fixed (hopefully) a rare crash on startup that a few users were having.

Have fun!

BALANCE CHANGES:

• SUPERWEAPON STRUCTURES (ALL FACTIONS): Build cost reduced to 1500 (was 2000)
  
• DRAGON: Health reduced to 180 (was 200), The damage over time effect on the anti-air shot has been removed; base damage remains the same.
  
• FLOATING BRAIN: Attack range increased to 600 (was 500)
  
• BLAST BUG: Base damage reduced to 16 (was 18)
  
• OGRE: Movement speed increased to 190 (was 180)
  
• GREMLIN: Build cost reduced to 120 (was 160), Build time reduced to 10 (was 15)
  
• RESOURCE ENHANCER (MARINES): Power drain reduced to 80 (was 100)
  
• TECH LAB (MARINES): Power drain reduced to 130 (was 150)
  
• CLOAKING GENERATOR (MARINES): Power drain reduced to 130 (was 150)
  
• POWER PLANT (MARINES): Build cost reduced to 300 (was 350), Build time reduced to 15 (was 20)
  
• HEAVY DRONE: Build time increased to 20 seconds (was 18)

Hi everyone!

We continue to monitor our multiplayer statics and read through the forums to determine if there are any corrections that need to be made to balance or the game in general. Thanks to you, we've identified a number of small tweaks that needed to be made - especially to Regent mode in multiplayer.

Have fun!

-8Bit

GENERAL:

• Added new armor type "Neutral" to game. This will not show up in the GUI listing since it is only used for the Regents in Assassination mode. Neutral armor removes all damage modifiers from weapons - the target will take the weapon's base damage from attacks.
  
• The Regent unit for all factions (used in Assassination Mode) have been updated to use Neutral Armor.
  
• Shortened a variety of non-english texts to fit properly within the UI

UNIT/STRUCTURE BALANCE:

• Cannon Turret (Guardians): Damage type changed to Neutral, Base damage increased to 20 (was 15), Shot speed slowed to 1.5 (was 1.0), Can now target aircraft
  
• Wraith (Deathsworn): The heal effect was not stacking to 3 as intended (like all other healers) - this has been fixed, Heal aura increased to 300 radius (was 250) to match skeleton conversion effect radius, Build cost reduced to 140 (was 160).
  
• Ballista (Lightbringers): Line of attack widened slightly; damage remains the same, but it should be easier to hit with it.
  
• Phoenix (Lightbringers): Base damage reduced to 14 (was 16), AoE radius of shots reduced to 30 (was 50).

Hey gang!

We patched the game this afternoon to handle a weird text issue on a few of the translated languages. Nothing serious.

Have fun and enjoy the holiday Americans! For the rest of ya, have fun anyway! ːsteamhappyː

-8Bit

Greetings once again!

As always. we review the forums and emails that come in to our support team on a regular basis. Today, we're releasing a patch to fix some smaller but still potentially annoying issues that you've reported to us.

We think you'll be happy with some of these updates and just wanted to say thank you for letting us know what needed to get fixed. Once again we're very appreciative for all your help in continuing to make the game better.

Let us know how you feel about the update and please send us an email if there's still something that needs to be looked at.

-8-Bit


PATCH NOTES:

• Added server functionality to clean up old replays after 4 months if they have not been downloaded
  
  
• Updated Master Text Mod file to match all latest new features
  
  
• Superweapon countdown timers will sometimes get stuck in a ready state, or not appear at all
  
  
• The skull and crossbones icon for defeated players doesn't always appear when a player disconnects
  
  
• Occasionally a player may untick ready just as the host has hit start which caused the game to go into an unresponsive state.
  
  
• Fixed a variety of Turkish text length problems