Patch notes

• A factory you can see. Every light fitting now lights the floor and walls around it, not only the ones near you, so halls read across the whole view. Walkways, passages and streets are lit along their length, and side rooms are lit corner to corner. Warm pools with dark between them keep the night-shift feel. What's out of sight darkens less: machines and loot still hide, but you can read the building. Cut-away wall tops are dark steel instead of pale outlines.
• Lights with character. Tubes ping a few times before they catch, high-bay lamps flash and slowly warm up, and work lamps snap on. Some fittings buzz, double-blink or are dying, steady ones blip now and then, and lights go out in their own ways too. With reduced motion turned on, lights stay steady.
• Straight walkways. Corridors run straight with right-angle turns instead of zigzagging, and rooms meet the factory's angled walls cleanly.
• Room to move. Streets between buildings are now 8–12 m aisles that open into paved yards where they cross, and showcase machines sit in a corner so the rest is one broad hall. Tight, winding places are fewer and gathered on purpose.
• Halls built like factories. Steel column grids, roof trusses and crane runways. Walls have concrete plinths, corrugated cladding and high glazing. Side rooms are framed partitions with windows, and doors into halls get steel portal frames. The steel is weathered with rust and dust. Columns and door frames block movement and shots.
• Know where to go. Painted, hazard-edged lanes lead from every big hall and arrival gatehouse to the freight lifts, hanging signs name each hall and point the way, every hall has a landmark, and a light column marks the freight lift in its status colour.
• Outdoor yards. Most raids now have one or two yards outside the factory wall, under the night sky: a loading yard with trailers, tractor cabs and containers, a tank farm with a fenced transformer compound, or a scrap yard. They're behind chain-link and barbed wire, lit by sodium floodlights and slanting moonlight over wet concrete, with crickets, wind and a distant owl. Yards are quick to cross but exposed: containers and barriers give cover, every yard has a stash worth the detour, and guard dogs patrol them.
• New props indoors too. Dumpsters, skips, jersey barriers and guard booths turn up in halls, and floodlight poles light the tallest halls. Indoors you'll meet more robots and fewer dogs.
• Dock doors. Roller doors join yards to buildings. Some start open; shut ones can be raised or dropped from either side. They're loud, and machines hear them.
• Delivery traffic. Delivery carriers run lanes between departments with working lamps and sound, carrying varied loads, and you can jump on their decks for a ride. Rivet mites are easier to find along ground-floor corridors.
• Loading shifts. Unarmed Line Units can drive forktrucks in a few Stores, Gantry and Dispatch loading bays. Wheels turn, forks lift, work lamps light the lane and reversing trucks beep. Drivers stop for crew and machines; disabling one leaves a parked truck with a little salvage.
• Machines that sound like machines. Enemy gunfire, charge-ups, lock-ons and near misses use real recordings instead of sci-fi effects, and walking machines have a drive-motor sound instead of rotors.
• Raiders look more real. Real strand hair, better skin shading and kit surfaces. Everyone is issued the Plant cap, outfits carry embroidered logos, and your flashlight clips to your chest strap. For now the Locker offers bald or the new undercut; body, face, beard and hair-colour choices are hidden while they're reworked.
• New music. Clock In opens the menu, Red Line plays while the plant is on red alert, and two calm beds play when a district is quiet.
• Fixes to the welcome flow and raid departure.

Known issues: frame rate on the bigger street level, hall frames and yards hasn't been measured on every graphics setting yet. Painted lanes lead to the nearest freight lift, which isn't always the one that's live this raid; the compass pin shows the live one.

• New factory detail. Steel bays, connected ventilation runs, maintenance covers, abandoned repair parts and packing groups now appear in generated factories. Placements keep entrances and walking lanes clear. Break Room furniture no longer fills raid halls, and distant locker rows draw more efficiently.
• Pack for your companions. On Loadout, pick a recruited companion and pack its own kit from your stash, choose its pack family, take Temp Issue or copy a saved loadout. Its kit stays packed between raids; an extracted companion brings its gear and finds back into its pack. If it falls and its pack is left behind, the contents are lost; the companion stays on your crew. Old Gear Bench lists can be packed from your stash once. Pack-specific abilities come later.
• One Grade ladder. Grade I–X replaces the separate raider levels and operator ranks. Existing progress keeps its earned unlocks. The Progress board now shows the Foreman's five trades, and your chosen build follows your account across devices. Trade effects in raids come later. Health is now called Grit.
• Dress your raider. Pick your skin tone in the Locker or when first clocking in, with matching face and hands. Choose a buzz cut, skin fade or receding buzz, stubble and a hair colour. Jacket shoulders sit more naturally.
• A clearer Deploy screen. Your raider, squad headshots, companion, shift and laid-out kit share one screen.
• Fittings that react. Powder extinguishers discharge, retained air cylinders and connected steam unions hiss, coolant containers drip, hanging signs sway and inspection panes crack and break. Releases can draw nearby machines. Broken panes let shots through while their sill and movement barrier stay; plumes don't change enemy sight, and coolant doesn't change your footing.
• Local line controls. Connected start/stop stations, isolators and emergency stops operate their particular conveyor drive. Restoring isolation or resetting an emergency stop leaves the line stopped until you start it. Shooting a control damages it without operating it. Cleanup bin lids, cabinet doors and folding warning signs also move when used.
• Human raiders no longer speak in their former robot operator's voice, including when searching containers. Robot companions, the dispatcher and the factory PA keep their voices; human voices will come later.
• A quieter factory at night. Raid music sits lower, searching machines no longer bring in percussion, and combat music builds more gently. Faint room tone and a few nearby machines leave quiet pockets between areas. Distant metal contacts, settling hinges and occasional water drips leave generous gaps, and pause during nearby trouble or speech. Random PA feedback squeals are gone; warnings, shots and movement cues keep their own levels.

• You're a raider now. You play as your own human raider instead of a robot operator, in raids, on the lift and in the Break Room. Everyone starts in the issued kit: a harness work jacket, strapped work trousers, safety boots, a tool belt and a Standard Temp Issue pack.
• The Locker. A new top-menu tab shows your raider full screen. Pick from seven pack looks (Standard Temp Issue, Haulframe, Breaker, Lifeline, Service Survey, Service Toolhand and the reclaimed Breaker); packs are looks only for now and don't change what you carry. Your look is saved to your account and goes with you everywhere.
• The operators are your companions. BRAZE, BOLLARD, CALIPER and the rest come with you as AI companions you recruit through the story; you no longer play as one. Your last operator is your first companion, and nothing in your stash or progress changes.
• A new start. New players type their handle, see their issued raider and head straight into their first shift.
• Movement made from motion capture. Your raider walks, jogs, sprints, crouches and strafes in every direction with real mocap. They start and stop with weight, turn on the spot with their feet planted, look where you aim, carry one-handed and two-handed weapons differently, and roll, slide, vault, mantle and climb ladders with their own animations. Melee, throws, hits and falls have their own moves too.
• A little quicker on your feet. Your raider walks, jogs and sprints a bit faster than the old robot bodies, builds speed and brakes over a step or two, and climbs ladders hand over hand at a steadier pace.
• Boots you can hear. Footsteps now sound like work boots, different on concrete, steel plate, grates and stairs, sheet metal, rubber, wood and damp floors, quieter when you crouch, with their own sounds for landings, rolls, slides, vaults and ladder rungs. Robot companions still sound mechanical.
• See your squad. Squadmates show in their own looks and hold their guns. Companions follow where you're going instead of circling your aim, and your own raider has an arrow instead of a name tag.
• Factories built round grand halls. Each department is now one or two big production halls with side rooms off their edges (offices, stores, control and pump rooms) instead of rooms strung along winding corridors. Halls rise with mezzanine walkways and stairs over the side rooms.
• See into your room. The walls on the camera's side of your room drop to low stumps instead of fading, and so does anything standing between the camera and a squadmate. Beams and pipes high overhead go softly out of focus.
• Every department looks like itself. Its own props, clutter, wall gear and floor markings, working production lines in every department, and main assembly built from running lines.
• Machines fill the space. Machine counts follow each hall's size and patrols loop through the big halls. Flying drones are gone for now: patrols, lift-call reinforcements and hunter squads walk as Line Units.
• Shoot the scenery. Wall screens and the arrival hall's TV flicker to static and break, light fittings go dark (and stop lighting you up for machines), electrical boxes spark, and desks carry monitors counting down the raid, with cans that crumple and bottles that smash.
• Weapons feel heavier. The Clicker is now the Foreman revolver, the Deadblow hits like a sniper rifle, the mag launcher blasts rivets, nails thunk instead of ringing, and shots carry long echoes. Try the Foreman's suppressor on the Quality Control range (its button, or V), under moodier range lighting.
• A cleaner look. No more bits floating over dropped walls or glowing cyan strips on walls and floors. Floors are damp rather than pooled, the flashlight's hot spot no longer glares, model textures are sharper, and the arrival hall's TV sits whole under the floor board.
• Smoother running. Far fewer hitches walking into new areas, and a steadier frame rate in raids.