8.1.0 - BETA

TL;DR: A full wipe of the old PBEM server will happen on January 1st, 2026. All data will be erased. You have until then to finish your ongoing games. I strongly recommend moving over to 8.1.0 — your experience will be much, much better!

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Hello everyone!

Today’s update is a bit special — version 8.1.0 is now live on the beta branch! (Right-click the game → Properties → Betas → choose ‘8.1.0’)

Why beta? Because this update is huge, and I need your help to test it before full release. I’ve tested everything I could — now I need YOU to push it further. :)

Where am I going with this? What could possibly require this much effort? Hehe...

A BRAND NEW PLAY-BY-EMAIL SERVER!

Yes, you read that right — I’ve taken two weeks off to learn a new programming language, a new OS, and I’ve rewritten the entire PBEM system from scratch.

Why the rewrite? The old PBEM server was the only part of the game I didn’t fully control — it was commissioned years ago and had reached its limits in both flexibility and performance.

Now it’s fully mine, fully modernized, and ready for the future!

I also took the opportunity to completely overhaul the multiplayer menu UI — it’s cleaner, faster, and offers more possibilities.

Highlights:

• New public user profiles (custom avatar, bio, stats, and more)

• PBEM games now support 2 to any number of players

• Massively improved security (roughly 300% more secure)

• Enhanced performance

• HTTPS protocol— no more data corruption issues

• Password protection for both realtime and PBEM games (optional)

• Moved away from AWS — servers are now directly reachable from Russia without proxies

• Full developer control over everything (that’s me!)

ADDED

• Brand new PBEM server.

• Several new sections in the Manual.

• 7.5 cm le.IG 18 and 7.5 cm Gebirgsgeschutz 36 light artillery to Germany.

CHANGED

• All base game units end use year has been changed from 1946 to 1949.

• Updated all of the realtime multiplayer libraries (we were quite a few versions behind).

• Many sections of the manual have been cleaned up and reorganized.

• Red color on damage breakdown is now brighter for increased readability on dark backgrounds.

• End of turn menu will no longer appear when playing a singleplayer game (when going from one human player to another).

• Foreign equipment is now available in the upgrade menu.

• When upgrading/downgrading a unit to a modified version of itself, it will no longer be sent to the reserve.

• Saving during multiplayer games is now allowed (all).

• Rebalanced Low Countries campaign scenario (Axis side).

• Finnish F2 Buffalo has been renamed into B-239.

FIXED

• Achievement 'Losing a hero' could not be unlocked.

• Naval units were affected by land units' ZoC.

• Game was loading Custom Heroes data from one folder and saving it into another, leading to data mismatch. Proper location is: GAME/MODS/YOUR_MOD/Custom Heroes/Custom heroes.txt

• When opening the 'Statistics' menu before the game's end, if you changed the sorting mode, that could re order the whole list of players.

• Move or attack not properly greyed out on units that have the 'move or attack' property.

• Typo in the Farragut and Allan M Sumner destroyer classes (USA).

• Buildings (units) were showing a non zero upkeep value, even though they had no upkeep value.

• 'Better Scientists' policy was not excluded from the menu when playing without the 'Research' setting.

• 'Flexible Strategy' policy was not giving any refunds on policies you cancelled after loading a save.

• Music player resuming automatically when tabbing out/back in even though you manually paused it.

• Europe '45 had a missing airfield VP in Poland and 2 wrong road tiles in Iraq.

• AA units could attack enemy planes during bad weather if the tile had an enemy land unit in range.

• In some specific cases, air units could become invisible when an enemy land/naval mine was on the same tile.

• Upgrading a ship to a carrier was not allowing that ship to launch airplanes.

• Fighter planes had their attack SFX overwritten in some cases.

• Landing bonus on damage breakdown was showed as red instead of green for Marines.

• Some units could remain invisible in some specific cases due to the recent 'cleared FOW saving' feature.

• Several upgrade/downgrade cost issues.

• Minor localization issues.

• Drawings were not refreshed for your allies in real time multiplayer.

• Using supply ships/planes in real time multiplayer was not synced.

• Germany in the scenario North Africa 1942 had negative manpower on turn 1.

• Joining a faction through the diplomacy menu was opening the 'faction creation' popup window.

• Sometimes, in very specific cases, some unit in the Order of Battle could display a hero name even though they had none.

• FOW on the map was not refreshed in real time multiplayer after a player accepted an alliance proposition.

• Weather was not synced properly in real time multiplayer.

• Upgrades, downgrades, or update actions were not synced properly in real time multiplayer.

• Efficient Modernization policy was applied even when downgrading (money getting in) meaning you'd lose some money (25%).

• Code freeze due to units no longer existing in the game being used by events (they will now be skipped/removed).

• Localization issue with policy picking confirmation window.

REMOVED

• Access to previous multiplayer server. (You can still use the old version until January 1st, 2026)

FOR HARMONY MODDERS:

Player.Nickname (string) has been removed and replaced by Player.UserId (Guid). If your mods use this variable, please update them accordingly.

Reminder:

The current PBEM server will be wiped on January 1st, 2026. Make sure to finish your ongoing games before that date!

That’s it for now — I can’t wait to see what you think of the new PBEM system! As always, your feedback is invaluable.

Thank you for helping make Hex of Steel better every update :)