Changelog

Version: 1.9.0
Date: 2026-05-26
  Major Features:
    - Foundation Graphics / First-Hour Release.
    - Rebuilt the first-hour swarm foundation around readable living resources, extractors, organs, items, and research flow.
    - Added a full icon cleanup for foundation materials, brood items, pheromones, logistics organs, extractor organs, technologies, and Recipe Book visibility.
    - Added new visual identity for core hive organs including Larval Nest, Gastric Chamber, Mutation Chamber, Acid Gland, Brood Chamber, Worker Grub, Storage Sac, Creep Tumor, and Pheromone Marker.
    - Added animated organic idle sheets for the major first-hour organs while preserving their existing gameplay prototypes and footprints.
  Graphics:
    - Tightened Biomass Patch and Chitin Deposit visuals so resource fields read as connected organic masses instead of scattered separated specks.
    - Removed obsolete pre-K2 creep decorative/resource/tile graphics so only the active K2Assets creep tile atlases, creep sounds, Creep Tumor art, and live UI/technology icons remain.
    - Integrated selected Krastorio2Assets creep terrain atlases and tile sounds into Biter Born-owned paths with license notices.
    - Improved entity sprites, matched entity icons, shadows, remnants, and animation frame contracts for the first-hour organ set.
    - Restored the cleaner Biomass Patch and Chitin Deposit resource art after the rejected resource repaint, then polished extractor readability without repainting those resources again.
    - Reworked Acid Siphon Gland visuals and inherited vapour-duct tinting so the acid loop reads biological rather than vanilla-industrial.
    - Replaced black-background, duplicate, and mixed-quality icon leftovers with transparent Biter Born-style icons.
  Gameplay:
    - Tuned Biomass Patch and Chitin Deposit autoplace to fewer, richer, tighter fields for more cohesive nearby harvesting zones.
    - Tuned creep to a very slow crawl: lower field budget, smaller first-hour radii, slower scheduler, and no maintenance-driven growth bursts.
    - Changed creep field growth from square-ring scanning to circular radial distance bands so creep visibly creeps outward from the Creep Tumor without a square block phase.
    - Slowed creep spread substantially so the K2Assets creep carpet crawls outward from tumors over time instead of filling the full field almost immediately.
    - Corrected creep field processing to expand in outward rings from the Creep Tumor / hive organ instead of appearing as random cells across the whole radius.
    - Enabled native bb-creep tile writes for dense and pulsing creep stages so the living carpet uses proper creep terrain under the Biter Born decal edge/detail layer.
    - Fixed native extractor placement feedback and removed invalid runtime access to mining-drill resource radius fields.
    - Preserved native mining-drill and pumpjack behaviour for Biomass Feeder Root, Chitin Rasp Node, and Acid Siphon Gland.
    - Clarified the opening flow from Creep Tumor to Biomass Feeder Root, Chitin Rasp Node, Larval Nest, Gastric Chamber, Mutation Chamber, Queen Awakening, Brood Growth, Brood Strain, Acid Morphology, and Basic Pheromone Direction.
    - Improved /bb-first-hour guidance, Acid Morphology completion text, and red-warning explanations for missing fuel, missing inputs or fluids, blocked outputs, and missing recipe selection.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a data-final-fixes load error caused by an incomplete Creep Tumor prototype cleanup after removing old creep decorative graphics.
    - Fixed startup crash from missing Vapour Vein tint helper.
    - Fixed Mutation Chamber inherited-name pollution by hard-pinning entity, item, and recipe labels.
    - Fixed sprite frame-contract and icon-size issues discovered during the 1.8.x graphics pass.
  Internal:
    - Preserved the public historical changelog entries below 1.9.0 during the resource-field cohesion pass.
    - Preserved the public historical changelog entries below 1.9.0 during the creep speed tuning pass.
    - Restored the public historical changelog entries below 1.9.0 and locked the public changelog to release entries only.
    - Changelog cleaned for Mod Portal release.
    - No migration required for 1.9.0; prototype names were preserved.

Version: 1.8.0
Date: 2026-05-23
  Changes:
    - Added the Swarm Command Layer as the first post-foundation content release.
    - Added Swarm Command Expansion technology after Basic Pheromone Direction.
    - Added Command Pheromone, Focus Pheromone, and Frenzy Pheromone recipes/items.
    - Added Worker Brood Sac, Spitter Brood Sac, and Guard Brood Sac recipes/items.
    - Added Focus Brood and Frenzy Brood controls and runtime behavior for active broodlings.
    - Reworked Worker Grubs into 4-slot carrier dispensers: only loaded Worker Grub Carrier items provide active logistics capacity.
    - Rebuilt Worker Grub Carrier logistics as script-owned rendered couriers to avoid unreliable live-unit pathfinding.
    - Worker Grub Carriers now pick up one item from a source, deliver it to a valid destination, then chain into another covered job where possible.
    - Idle Worker Grub Carriers now return to their Worker Grub dispenser before despawning and freeing their active slot.
    - Removing a Worker Grub dispenser now despawns active carriers launched by it, returning payloads where possible.
    - Removing carrier items from a Worker Grub dispenser now despawns excess active carriers and reconciles active capacity to the dispenser inventory.
    - Fixed Worker Grub Carrier runtime rendering to use explicit ERM Zerg HD broodling run-sheet sprites instead of the entity/icon sprite path.
    - Worker Grub Carrier broodling renders now use 16-direction movement-based facing, 6-frame run animation, and 0.50 visual scale.
    - Preserved the accepted Acid Siphon 40-frame no-static-base animation setup and Genetic Catalyst Acid Gland recipe requirement.

Version: 1.7.0
Date: 2026-05-23
  Changes:
    - Released the Living Foundation baseline for the first-hour hive loop.
    - Focused the opening progression around Queen survival, biomass and chitin harvesting, creep seeding, Larval Nest growth, digestion, mutation, acid morphology, brood command, and early pheromone logistics.
    - Made Storage Sac available from the start.
    - Preserved the accepted Acid Siphon full 40-frame no-static-base animation at readable speed.
    - Cleaned the release package by removing source-art folders, failed logistics test content, and the runtime FX pipeline.
    - Deferred assimilation, apex systems, planetary strains, and late-hive infrastructure until later releases.

Version: 1.6.0
Date: 2026-05-17
  Major Features:
    - Released the Foundation Rebuild and Bio-Engine Framework reset.
    - Rebuilt the start around Queen survival, biomass harvesting, creep seeding, larval nesting, digestion, mutation, acid biology, brood strain, and basic pheromone direction.
    - Added the first Bio-Engine runtime scaffold for creep support, necrosis, colony vitality, nutrient reserve/BMR status, and metabolic byproduct identity.
  Changes:
    - Removed feature-crept 1.3-1.5 content from the starting unlock set.
    - Deferred assimilation, advanced hive infrastructure, hive districts, planetary adaptations, apex content, and complex logistics until after the foundation rebuild.
    - Reworked the first-hour recipe and technology path so core biological growth is exposed in a clean order.

Version: 1.5.0
Date: 2026-05-15
  Features:
    - Added the Engineer Prey and Assimilation Foundation as the next midgame progression layer.
    - Added Assimilation Vat, Corrupted Workshop Organ, and prey conversion recipes.
    - Expanded engineer-prey rewards into digested machinery, assimilated circuits, data, and hybrid substrate.
  Graphics:
    - Replaced the Mod Portal thumbnail with the final Swarm Ascendant portal art.

Version: 1.4.0
Date: 2026-05-15
  Features:
    - Added Hive Infrastructure technology.
    - Added Thick Vein Ducts, Long Tendril Inserters, Brood Storage Sacs, and Pheromone Relay Nodes.
    - Added runtime creep-support tracking for territory-aware organs and logistics.
  Graphics:
    - Added dedicated icons for the four infrastructure upgrades and Hive Infrastructure technology.

Version: 1.3.0
Date: 2026-05-15
  Features:
    - Added Command Pheromone, Frenzy Pheromone, and Focus Pheromone.
    - Added recall, focus-target, and brood-frenzy hotkeys.
    - Added persistent focus and frenzy runtime state for active brood command.
  Balance:
    - Reworked brood roles so workers, spitters, and guards have clearer combat identities.

Version: 1.2.0
Date: 2026-05-15
  Graphics:
    - Rebuilt active technology icons as isolated 256x256 transparent PNGs.
    - Added and audited distinct first-hour item, entity, and recipe icons.
  Balance:
    - Normalized biomass patch mining and first-hour organ crafting speeds.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed active technologies to use proper 256px technology art.

Version: 1.1.0
Date: 2026-05-06
  Features:
    - Added the Swarm Empire foundation: brood command, creep districts, engineer assimilation rewards, and planetary adaptation hooks.
    - Added mutation science tool items and biological research categories.
    - Added engineer camps and early prey/salvage loop support.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed early prototype, locale, and asset-gate issues discovered during public-alpha packaging.

Version: 1.0.0
Date: 2026-05-05
  Features:
    - Initial public alpha foundation.
    - Added Queen/biter-body start, creep tumor, biomass and chitin resource loops, starter organs, brood sacs, and mutation progression scaffolding.
    - Added the initial hard dependency contract for Space Age, ERM Libs, ERM Zerg HD Assets, and ERM Terran HD Assets.