Changelog

Version: 0.42.0
Date: 2026-10-03
  Features:
    - Tank Squads has its own icons for the command tool, the ring centre tool, the patrol, scout and escort shortcuts, the rally flag, the technology and the map buttons of the engineers window, instead of base game icons.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a crash when a surface that held a ring was deleted. Its rings are removed, and a ring centre picked there is forgotten. Saves where such a surface is already gone are repaired when they load.
    - A driving headquarters clears only trees, rocks and cliffs in its way. Ruins and other neutral objects are left standing.
    - Wall hits stop reaching the mod's script once the last garrison has left its ring, which saves time during attacks on walls.
    - Soldiers and headquarters removed by another mod leave their division, patrol, cover and engineer jobs at once, and soldiers lent to a task force end their loan.

Version: 0.41.4
Date: 2026-10-03
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the mod failing to load with "File tank-squads/graphics/command-icons/map.png not found". The 0.41.3 package named icons it did not contain.

Version: 0.41.3
Date: 2026-10-02
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed offshore pumps turning into "Water well pumps" that could not be placed on water. Rail supports and rail ramps could not stand on water either. Constructors now drive through these three instead of around them.

Version: 0.41.2
Date: 2026-10-02
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a crash when a soldier stopped to shoot and then went back to an order to join a unit group that no longer existed. Such a soldier now waits for its next order instead.
  Locale:
    - The command tool, patrol mode and README name Shift-drag, the game's alternate selection, as the way to move, attack and place waypoints, instead of "alt-drag".

Version: 0.41.1
Date: 2026-10-02
  Bugfixes:
    - Patrolling soldiers and shredders no longer drive across the map to a far gatehouse and back. A ring still going up for the first time is crossed through its gaps; only a finished ring is crossed through its gatehouses. A unit that cannot reach the nearest gatehouse tries another only when it is not far out of the way. Units already on such a trip take their orders up again when the save loads.
    - A shredder that finds no way to its post is moved there, instead of stopping where it was, which could block a gatehouse.
    - Shredders make way for constructors as soldiers do: parked shredders, and shredders on the way to their post, leave the walls a constructor is about to build. Shredder posts are kept off ring walls.
    - A constructor stuck on its way pushes the units around it aside; still stuck after 20 seconds, it is moved to where it was going.

Version: 0.41.0
Date: 2026-10-01
  Features:
    - Constructors show on the map as their icon, at the same size at every zoom, so they are easy to find from the map view. Constructors in existing saves get the icon when the save loads.

Version: 0.40.2
Date: 2026-10-01
  Optimizations:
    - The download is less than half its former size, about 26 MB instead of 62 MB. Gun, launcher, crane, radar dish and shredder charge sprites, icons and division and rank badges are stored at the resolution they are drawn at; they look and sit as before.

Version: 0.40.1
Date: 2026-10-01
  Bugfixes:
    - Patrol soldiers holding a single point stay on it, instead of wandering off while the patrol counts them as in place.
    - A patrol soldier whose path failed is sent to its post again after the division's posts are dealt again, instead of sitting idle for good.
    - A unit that cannot reach a gatehouse tries the next nearest one, up to three, instead of driving at the closed wall.

Version: 0.40.0
Date: 2026-10-01
  Changes:
    - Shredders park 60 tiles behind their division, and follow a player in danger 60 tiles behind, instead of 80.
    - A division sees a swarm of 15 or more attacking enemies within 80 tiles instead of 40, so its shredder goes out earlier. Idle enemies near nests no longer hide a swarm marching past them.
  Bugfixes:
    - Soldiers crossing a ring built before ring crossings existed use the nearest gatehouse, instead of driving to one of the few segments rebuilt since, often on the far side of the ring. On update every built segment's gatehouse is found again.

Version: 0.39.0
Date: 2026-10-01
  Features:
    - Constructors send soldiers standing on their wall ghosts out of the way, and soldiers on a ring's wall line off it to the constructor's side, so walls no longer wait on a tank or shut one in.
    - A soldier walled in on a ring's wall line gets out when its next order fails: it is moved off the wall line, to the side of the ring it was on.

Version: 0.38.1
Date: 2026-10-01
  Bugfixes:
    - A charging shredder flies straight over ring walls instead of driving to a gatehouse, waiting for its gates and holding them open.
    - A soldier lent to a nest task force stays in the fight when a promotion rebuilds it as an electric or nuclear tank, instead of going back to its division's job.

Version: 0.38.0
Date: 2026-09-30
  Features:
    - Shredders show on the map and reveal the map around them. A shredder locked onto an enemy draws a bright red line to its target and rings it on the map.
    - Every division, not only patrols, sends a shredder at a swarm of 15 or more attacking enemies it sees.
    - A division that passes within 40 tiles of a nest of three or more spawners and worms now and then throws one shredder at it, spawner first, at most one a minute.
  Changes:
    - A constructor's task force borrows soldiers in no division first. It borrows from a division only when the division has at least six soldiers within 150 tiles of the nest and none of them is fighting, and the division keeps at least half its soldiers and at least four. A patrol also keeps one soldier per 32 tiles of its route and lends nothing for two minutes after it met enemies. Ring garrisons never lend.
    - The divisions that escort constructors no longer keep shredders.
  Bugfixes:
    - Far-away divisions are no longer pulled off their posts to clear a nest for a constructor.
    - A borrowed soldier that falls below the retreat health goes back at once to heal instead of waiting at the nest.
    - A constructor no longer gets stuck in front of a wall it cannot place, for example because a tank stands on it. The wall waits a minute while it builds elsewhere, and each further failure doubles the wait, up to 30 minutes.
    - Constructors clear cliffs under wall ghosts.
    - A constructor paused by enemies that stay for over a minute leaves that work for later and drives home.
    - A hurt soldier whose trip to heal failed tries again after one minute instead of three.

Version: 0.37.1
Date: 2026-09-30
  Bugfixes:
    - Ring gates now face along the wall, so neighbouring gates join into one gate. Gatehouses and rail crossings are three rows deep again. On update, gates already on the map are turned, and one-row gates get ghosts for the inner and outer rows, which the constructors build.
    - A deleted ring's name leaves the map at once, not only after its walls are taken down.

Version: 0.37.0
Date: 2026-09-30
  Features:
    - Shredders charge straight over water and cliffs. A charge that ends over water lands on the nearest shore.
    - Shredders park 80 tiles behind their division instead of 120.
    - A shredder's crash deals 2,000 damage instead of 1,500.
  Bugfixes:
    - Veterans no longer chase enemies off their patrol route or formation and get drawn into nests, and patrol and escort alarms no longer send them to the front. A veteran now stops to shoot any enemy within its weapon range, then goes on, and breaks off once the enemy leaves that range.
    - A veteran that calls for help no longer falls back toward the enemies without firing. It falls back away from them and shoots at enemies in range on the way.

Version: 0.36.0
Date: 2026-09-30
  Features:
    - A barracks can keep a set number of shredders alive. Set the shredder limit in the barracks' Automatic reinforcements panel. The barracks pauses when that many of the shredders it trained are alive, and replaces each one that is destroyed or crashes. 0, the default, trains shredders without a limit.

Version: 0.35.0
Date: 2026-09-30
  Features:
    - Constructors on auto clear the inside of the rings first: they search the area inside the outermost ring for spawners and worms and send a task force at each nest, nearest first, before they build on. A nest too strong for the soldiers in reach waits five minutes while the ring goes on. The inside is searched again every five minutes.
    - A constructor with fewer than eight escorts takes soldiers in no division within 100 tiles into its escort. They leave it when they join a division or you order them.
  Graphics:
    - Constructors are drawn larger. They still fit through the same gaps and gates.

Version: 0.34.3
Date: 2026-09-30
  Locale:
    - The shredder description says shredders park 120 tiles behind their division, as they do, not 60.
    - The ring spacing tooltip says each ring lies at least 80 tiles beyond the ring before it.

Version: 0.34.2
Date: 2026-09-30
  Bugfixes:
    - Engineer escorts are shared out per surface, so constructors on two planets no longer wait forever for soldiers that are on the other one.
    - Merging a force with rings no longer crashes the game. Its walls and ghosts stay as ordinary entities of the new force, and its garrisons stop.
    - A scout team pulling back to heal no longer waits forever for a hurt tank that is stuck far away: the retreat ends after three minutes without progress, as a convoy's does.
  Optimisations:
    - Large armies run faster: dealing shredders to divisions, surrounding a nest with a big division, and veterans picking their covers each cost far less time in large divisions.
    - Constructors find the nearest wall ghost without ranking every ghost chunk on the map, which speeds up ring building on large maps.

Version: 0.34.1
Date: 2026-09-30
  Changes:
    - Constructors drive straight through forests and rock fields: trees and rocks fall under their tracks, leaving stumps. Walls, buildings and water still stop them.
    - Constructors reveal the map around them, like soldiers.
    - Ring gatehouses have one row of 16 gates that join into a single gate, instead of three parallel rows. A rail crossing gets one row of rail gates. Rings already built keep their gates.
    - Constructors on rings share the work: each finishes its own stretch of wall from one end to the other, takes up nearby stretches nobody works on, and starts the nearest new stretch rather than crossing the map to help another constructor.
    - The "Ring n" map labels are half as large.
    - The divisions panel is titled "Tank Squads".
  Bugfixes:
    - A constructor building a ring stands clear of the wall, so it no longer walls itself in. One already stuck there is moved out.

Version: 0.34.0
Date: 2026-09-30
  Features:
    - Rings: tick "auto" for a constructor in the Engineers window and it builds fortress rings round your base, ring after ring outward, together with the other constructors on auto. A ring has three wall rows, a gap, two rows of dragon teeth and bastions, with 16-gate gatehouses that come closer together on larger rings. Choose square or circle, the spacing between rings, how many to build and the centre.
    - Rings bulge round your buildings, blueprints and cliffs and end at water. A straight rail through a ring gets rail gates; a belt or pipe leaves an open crossing marked on the map, walled up once you replace it with an underground belt or pipe.
    - A ring wall destroyed by the enemy is rebuilt. A ring wall you mine stays open.
    - Delete a ring and the constructors take its walls down.
    - Ring garrison: put divisions on a ring. A quarter of its soldiers spread evenly round it, the rest gather where spawners, worms and biters are thickest, and the nearest rush to any wall under attack.
    - Soldiers, shredders and constructors pass through ring gatehouses, which open for them.
  Changes:
    - A constructor that finds a nest too strong for a task force now leaves every wall ghost by that nest for five minutes at once, instead of trying them nine at a time.

Version: 0.33.0
Date: 2026-09-30
  Features:
    - A patrolling division that sees a swarm of 15 or more enemies of an attack group within 40 tiles sends one shredder at the middle of the swarm, at most one every five seconds. The division can still call its other shredders in when it takes losses.
  Changes:
    - Shredders drive calmly at a soldier's pace and park 120 tiles behind their division instead of 60. Shredders following a player keep 80 tiles back instead of 40.
  Bugfixes:
    - A charging shredder stuck on its way, for example against another nest, rams the enemy blocking it instead of standing still.

Version: 0.32.0
Date: 2026-09-29
  Features:
    - New unit: the Constructor, an unmanned wall-laying vehicle built at the barracks from steel plate, engine units and stone bricks. It never joins a division and takes no orders.
    - Constructors build the stone wall and gate ghosts your construction robots cannot reach, nearest first, from an endless supply of walls. Each crane cycle sets down up to nine walls and clears trees and rocks in their way.
    - Mark divisions as engineer escort in the new Engineers window. Their soldiers are shared out between your constructors, up to eight each, and ring them as they work. A constructor with fewer than two escorts waits at the nearest barracks or headquarters.
    - Enemies within 80 tiles pause the work until five seconds after the fight.
    - When a nest lies next to the walls, the constructor borrows soldiers from nearby idle divisions, the spare soldiers of patrols and soldiers in no division, enough for the nest's worms and spawners. They clear the nest with the usual nest assault, call their divisions' shredders if they take heavy losses, and return to their jobs afterwards. A nest too strong for the soldiers nearby is tried again after five minutes.

Version: 0.31.0
Date: 2026-09-29
  Features:
    - Veterans, Elites and Legends take cover: two to five lower-ranked soldiers of their division within 32 tiles walk at their sides. The division's soldiers are shared out between its veterans, highest rank first. A small or spread-out division gives no cover.
    - A veteran without cover that sees ten or more enemies within 40 tiles calls the nearest soldiers of its division and the division's shredders to attack them. It falls back behind them, or to the shredders' backline when nobody can come, and returns to its job once the fight is over.
    - The highest-ranking soldier carries the division's insignia. On a tie the current holder keeps it.
  Bugfixes:
    - Shredders only strike on the surface of the division in trouble, follow a player's character rather than the map view, and give up on enemies they cannot reach.
    - A shredder that fails to swap back after a charge no longer stays invisible. Shredders of a merged force join the divisions of the force they were merged into.

Version: 0.30.0
Date: 2026-09-29
  Features:
    - New unit: the Shredder, an unmanned rammer built at the barracks from steel plate, engine units and grenades. It never joins a division and takes no orders.
    - Shredders split evenly between all your team's divisions and park 60 tiles behind them, on the side of the nearest barracks or headquarters.
    - When a division loses half its soldiers within 30 seconds, or its last soldier, its shredders lock onto the strongest enemies nearby, charge at 60 tiles a second and ram them for 1,500 damage. Each crash bursts into shrapnel that hits every enemy within 8 tiles and never hurts friends.
    - A shredder whose target dies first picks the next enemy nearby. With none left it returns and rejoins the divisions.
    - A shredder attacked while parked rams its attacker.
    - When a player walks near a large pack of enemies or a nest, up to three shredders follow 40 tiles behind and strike as soon as the player is hurt. They return to the divisions after ten quiet seconds.

Version: 0.29.2
Date: 2026-09-29
  Changes:
    - The Electric Tank now plays the laser turret's sound when it fires.

Version: 0.29.1
Date: 2026-09-29
  Bugfixes:
    - The Nuclear Tank's plain rocket now gets the tank's rank damage bonus.
    - A carrier rebuilt as an Electric or Nuclear Tank outside a division keeps its order, such as walking to a rally flag.
  Changes:
    - Removed embedded editor metadata from the artwork files.

Version: 0.29.0
Date: 2026-09-29
  Features:
    - Two new ranks after Veteran. Elite (4,000 XP) gives +130% speed, +700% damage, takes 90% less damage and regenerates 1% of its health each second. Legend (15,000 XP) gives +160% speed, +1,100% damage, takes 93% less damage and regenerates 2% each second.
    - Piercing and uranium carriers have their own red and green hulls and rotary guns, with a muzzle flash on every shot.
    - Each carrier promotion has a small chance, from 1% at Trained to 8% at Legend, to rebuild the carrier as a rare Electric Tank or Nuclear Tank. It keeps its name, experience, rank, division and orders.
    - The Electric Tank fires plasma balls that burst on the target and shock every enemy within 6 tiles, with arcs to up to six of them.
    - The Nuclear Tank launches tactical nukes at targets up to 52 tiles away. Before each launch it checks the blast radius and fires a plain rocket instead while friends are near the target. The blast never hurts friends. Higher ranks reload faster.
    - The soldier list shows each unit's icon, and marks and counts electric and nuclear tanks.
  Changes:
    - A large rank bonus is now dealt in at most four hits per shot.

Version: 0.28.0
Date: 2026-09-28
  Features:
    - A division ordered onto a biter nest now surrounds it before it attacks. Its tanks spread evenly round the nest from out of worm range, each kind spread round it too, and walk round the nest to reach the far side. Siege tanks then shell the worms, each with its own screen of carriers, flame tanks push in and carriers follow. Once the nest falls, the division carries on with the order.

Version: 0.27.1
Date: 2026-09-26
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a crash ("Invalid name 'select': LuaGuiElement contains a property or method with the same name.") when a player opened the list of every soldier from the Divisions window.

Version: 0.27.0
Date: 2026-09-26
  Changes:
    - Veteran ranks give much larger bonuses. Trained soldiers get +30% speed, +100% damage and take 65% less damage. Seasoned soldiers get +60% speed, +200% damage and take 75% less damage. Veterans get +100% speed, +400% damage and take 85% less damage.

Version: 0.26.0
Date: 2026-09-26
  Features:
    - A patrol under attack no longer leaves its whole route. Only the nearest tanks within 128 tiles come to help, one for every two attackers and at least three, while the rest hold their posts. If the fight goes on, more of the nearest tanks join.

Version: 0.25.0
Date: 2026-09-26
  Features:
    - Scout teams now help each other. A team that is losing a fight, by losing a large part of its health quickly or losing a tank, falls back one hop and holds. The nearest healthy team of the same division within 192 tiles comes to help, while the other teams keep exploring. Once the fight has been quiet for 15 seconds, the team goes around that spot instead of heading back into it.

Version: 0.24.0
Date: 2026-09-26
  Features:
    - A new button on the Divisions window lists every soldier of each division from strongest to weakest, with rank, XP and kills. Tick soldiers from any divisions to select them or to form a new division from them, such as a veteran division.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed short rows in the Divisions window growing wide for an escorting division. The row now reads "Escort"; the ward's name and formation are in its tooltip.

Version: 0.23.0
Date: 2026-09-26
  Features:
    - Each scouting team now shows on the map with the division's number, a team letter (such as 3A and 3B) and its insignia. The labels follow merges and turn back into the division label when scouting ends.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed scouting teams crawling forward because they waited up to a minute on every hop for one tank that was stuck or far behind, such as a tank from a merged team. Far tanks now drive after their team, and once the front or half the team has arrived the rest get 10 seconds.
    - Fixed scouting teams giving up at lakes and coasts. Teams no longer drive into water: they head for the far bank and let the pathfinder lead them around, or follow the shore. Open-sea chunks are skipped by every team.
    - Fixed scouting teams wandering without charting anything while chasing fog they could not reach. A target is given up after 20 hops, and a team that charts nothing for 48 hops joins another team.

Version: 0.22.0
Date: 2026-09-25
  Features:
    - Soldiers stuck in spitter or worm acid now step out of it and then carry on with their orders. Attacking soldiers keep their distance to the target, so they stay in range. Soldiers that are already walking through acid are left alone.

Version: 0.21.2
Date: 2026-09-25
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a crash ("Oriented explosion (or beam) needs a target to be created") when a player watched a promoted soldier kill an enemy with its rank damage bonus.

Version: 0.21.1
Date: 2026-09-25
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed soldiers far from an injured soldier being sent as its guard, sometimes arriving at the barracks or headquarters on their own. Guards now come only from soldiers close to the injured one.
    - Fixed large divisions sending new guards with every soldier hurt in a long fight, which could take many unhurt soldiers out of the formation. Soldiers heading for the same barracks or headquarters now share one convoy and its guards.
    - Injured soldiers that are already within healing range no longer get a guard.

Version: 0.21.0
Date: 2026-09-25
  Changes:
    - Ctrl + Shift + 1–9 adds the selected soldiers to a division. The division keeps its other soldiers, their orders and its patrol, scouting or escort. The new soldiers join the way barracks recruits do. The division window's tooltips show the new keys.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed soldiers that joined a patrol while fighting off an attack standing still instead of taking up a post.

Version: 0.20.1
Date: 2026-09-25
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed patrol soldiers staying next to the barracks after healing instead of returning to their posts. This happened to soldiers that had answered an alarm shortly before they were hurt, or that were fighting at the barracks when they finished healing.

Version: 0.20.0
Date: 2026-09-25
  Changes:
    - Badly damaged patrol soldiers now drive to the nearest barracks or headquarters to heal, and return to the patrol once healed. Patrols of more than 10 soldiers send one guard with them, more than 20 send two. The rest of the patrol shares out the empty posts while they are away.
    - The retreat health, rejoin health and healing search range settings now apply to patrols as well as escorts and scouts.

Version: 0.19.2
Date: 2026-09-25
  Changes:
    - Division insignias on the map keep their size on screen, so they stay visible when the map is zoomed far out.
    - The division window narrows to fit its short rows instead of leaving empty space on the right. The title is hidden while short rows are shown.

Version: 0.19.1
Date: 2026-09-25
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a crash when loading a save from an older version that had an empty division.

Version: 0.19.0
Date: 2026-09-25
  Changes:
    - Drag-selecting soldiers no longer takes them out of their division. Selecting part or all of a division keeps its patrol route, escort, scouting and barracks quota, so a barracks no longer trains replacements for soldiers you only selected.
    - A move or attack order to a drag selection takes its soldiers out of a patrolling, scouting or escorting division, whose next leg would undo the order. Soldiers of a manual division stay in it.
    - Starting a patrol or scouting on a drag selection turns it into the lowest free division and tells you which. With all nine divisions in use the order is refused.
    - A drag selection no longer picks up soldiers in a teammate's divisions.
    - A selected soldier keeps its division ring, and the selection ring is drawn just outside it.
    - Saves whose drag selection was patrolling or scouting move that job to the lowest free division.
  Optimizations:
    - Offensive escorts pick their next target without scanning every entity in their band. Each new leg cost 11 ms in biter country and 23 ms over a dense base; it now costs under 0.4 ms.
  Graphics:
    - The mod now has a thumbnail on the mod portal and in the in-game mod list.

Version: 0.18.0
Date: 2026-09-25
  Features:
    - Each barracks now has its own reinforcement quota. A linked barracks keeps its own number of the soldiers it trained in its division, replaces only its own losses and pauses when its quota is full. Barracks with different recipes can feed one division, and changing one barracks no longer changes the others.
  Changes:
    - Soldiers you assign to a division yourself no longer count towards a barracks' quota. The division window shows the soldiers its barracks trained against their summed quotas.
    - Saves with a shared division target split it between the linked barracks and hand out the current members, so no barracks trains extra soldiers.
  Bugfixes:
    - Flame tanks now get their full rank damage bonus, and armour no longer takes a larger share of it than of the native damage.

Version: 0.17.0
Date: 2026-09-25
  Features:
    - Divisions 1-9 each carry their own insignia. It flies over the division, shows on the map and heads its row in the division window, and your whole team can see it. Division colours now match their insignias.
    - Every unit has its own name. Point at a unit to see its name, rank, experience and kills.
    - Soldiers earn experience from their kills and rise through four ranks: Recruit, Trained, Seasoned and Veteran. Each rank makes a soldier faster, hit harder and take less damage, up to +30% speed, +75% damage and half damage taken.

Version: 0.16.4
Date: 2026-09-25
  Changes:
    - The division panel is now a window you can drag anywhere by its title bar. Its title bar buttons fold it down to the title bar and switch between full rows and short ones without key hints. Each player's choice is kept in the save.
  Bugfixes:
    - A selected mobile headquarters now keeps its division ring in view. The ring was a tank's size and stayed hidden under the headquarters' body.

Version: 0.16.3
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - When a patrolling tank or headquarters comes under attack, the rest of its division comes to help, then returns to its posts.
  Bugfixes:
    - Patrolling divisions no longer bunch up on one side of their route. Each tank takes its own stretch of the route and walks it on its own, so the whole perimeter stays covered. A large division also fills the inside of the route on inner rings, and tanks on a crowded route hold evenly spaced points.

Version: 0.16.2
Date: 2026-09-24
  Bugfixes:
    - Placing a mobile headquarters no longer lags the game or charts a huge area around it. Its roboport charted out to its full 1,375-tile construction reach, thousands of chunks, which also hid your other divisions in fog of war. It now charts only as far as a base roboport.

Version: 0.16.1
Date: 2026-09-24
  Bugfixes:
    - The mobile headquarters no longer has a radar. Its radar still charted far too much of the map, hiding your other divisions in fog of war. It now keeps the map live around itself like any tank, and no longer costs radars to build.

Version: 0.16.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Changes:
    - Offensive divisions of a single tank kind, such as carriers alone, now gather on the staging arc outside a nest before they attack, instead of driving straight at it. Carriers attack together once gathered.
    - The mobile headquarters flattens trees, rocks and cliffs in its way instead of getting stuck in forests. It never destroys buildings.
    - The mobile headquarters takes 60 seconds to build instead of 10 minutes and costs a fifth as much: 400 steel, 100 gears, 40 electric engines, 40 processing units, 40 solar panels, 40 accumulators, 4 roboports and 4 radars.
  Bugfixes:
    - The three chaingun carrier training recipes show their names instead of an unknown key.
    - The mobile headquarters' radar no longer freezes the game and hides your other divisions in fog of war. It now keeps 4 chunks around it live and scans out to 16, a little more than a base radar, instead of 8 and 32.

Version: 0.15.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Injured escort and scout soldiers now retreat to a mobile headquarters when it is nearer than any barracks. They stop within its 24-tile healing reach and follow it when it drives on.
  Changes:
    - A patrolling headquarters no longer sets the pace for its division. It drives the innermost lane, near the middle of the route, and leads only a division of headquarters.
    - Starting an escort no longer stops the headquarters; it keeps its last order, as in scouting. A division with only a headquarters cannot escort.
    - A headquarters no longer counts towards a barracks' reinforcement target, which counts carriers. A barracks that trains headquarters still counts them, so it stops at its target.

Version: 0.14.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Mobile headquarters: a huge, very slow and unarmed command vehicle, built at a barracks after its own research. It has 400 HP and heals soldiers within 24 tiles, also on the move.
    - Wherever the headquarters parks it sets up camp: a roboport with 25 times the normal reach, a radar with a large scan range, 12 MW of solar decks and a 1 GJ battery. Open the headquarters to load robots and repair packs.
    - A camp within 12 tiles of a friendly electric pole wires itself to it and powers that grid.
    - The headquarters takes move and patrol orders from the command tool. It never attacks, scouts or joins escort formations.

Version: 0.13.1
Date: 2026-09-24
  Bugfixes:
    - Soldiers attacking an area no longer stop for good when they are hit again just after defending themselves while their target died. They now move on to the next target in the area, which also keeps nest assaults and offensive escorts moving.
  Optimizations:
    - Each slice of the one-second sweep checks only its own soldiers' guns instead of walking every soldier on the map (1000 idle carriers: about 15% less script time).

Version: 0.13.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Scouting divisions split into up to four teams, one per three soldiers, that each explore their own direction. Bigger divisions make bigger teams, and every team keeps a flame tank or carrier in front of its siege tanks.
    - Scout teams move in formation: flame tanks lead, carriers follow in a V, and siege tanks trail 30 tiles back, still in range of the front. Teams advance in 32-tile hops and wait for every tank before the next hop.
    - Badly damaged scouts drive back to a barracks to heal in guarded convoys, and a team below half its health or down to half its tanks pulls back together.
    - Scout teams keep pushing outward past charted land. A team blocked by water or cliffs, or left with only siege tanks, joins the nearest team, and scouting stops only when every direction is blocked.
  Changes:
    - The retreat health, rejoin health and barracks search range settings now apply to scouts as well as escorts.

Version: 0.12.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Patrolling divisions spread out over the area their route encloses instead of walking it in single file. Each soldier walks its own lane, a copy of the route shrunk towards its centre, and the slowest tank walks the route as drawn and sets the pace.
  Bugfixes:
    - Defensive escorts now fight enemies inside their ring even while the protected player walks away, is dead, or is out of reach. Previously only enemies near the player were answered.
  Optimizations:
    - Patrol lanes are assigned only when the division's members change; every other leg reuses them without reading positions or sorting (200 soldiers: about 0.4 ms more per leg, once every few tens of seconds).
    - A defensive escort still makes one enemy search per second while its player is near the ring, and two only when the player is far from it.

Version: 0.11.1
Date: 2026-09-24
  Bugfixes:
    - Mining a barracks no longer turns its finished soldiers into unusable items in your inventory. They walk out first: a linked barracks fills its division up to the target, and the rest head for the rally point.
  Optimizations:
    - Offensive escorts read each candidate target's position once when picking their next target, and check blocked targets only for the nearest candidates.
    - The escort ward panel list is built once per second instead of in every sweep slice.
    - Gun aim and recoil checks are spread over the sweep slices instead of running for every soldier on one tick.
    - Attack orders check for a single enemy in the dragged area instead of fetching every enemy in it.

Version: 0.11.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Offensive escorts with at least two tank kinds attack biter nests in stages: the division gathers outside worm range, siege tanks shell the worms first, flame tanks push in, then carriers follow. A carrier screen protects the siege line.
    - Slow tanks are waited for, but a stuck tank cannot stall the attack. Recruits and healed soldiers join in their role, and the division roams on once the nest falls.
  Balancing:
    - Siege tank range increased from 40 to 52 tiles, outranging behemoth worms.
  Optimizations:
    - One nest search per offensive target of a mixed division. A running assault adds no entity searches and no per-tick work (10 running assaults: about 0.55 ms of script time per second, against 0.27 ms for plain offensive legs).

Version: 0.10.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Every soldier keeps the map live around itself, like a radar's nearby coverage, so you can watch fights, patrols and escorts from the map without a radar nearby. Each force only sees around its own soldiers.
    - New map setting "Soldiers reveal the map" turns this off.
  Optimizations:
    - Each soldier's position is read once every four seconds, spread over the sweep slices, and each covered chunk is charted once per second however many soldiers see it (about 2,000 soldiers: about 0.03 ms per tick of script time).

Version: 0.9.0
Date: 2026-09-24
  Features:
    - Train siege tanks and heavy flame tanks at the existing barracks. Both support mixed divisions, patrols, scouting, escorts, reinforcements and healing retreat.
    - Siege tanks have 900 HP, a 40-tile cannon range and a massive cannon with recoil animation.
    - Flame tanks have 2,400 HP, heavy armor, fire resistance and a short-range native flame stream that does not leave ground fires or hurt friendly units.
    - Added custom directional hulls, animated treads, aiming weapons and inventory icons for both tanks.
  Compatibility:
    - Existing researched saves unlock both new recipes on upgrade. Existing carrier identifiers, recipes and combat balance are unchanged.
    - Weapons and animations remain engine-driven; there is no per-tick Lua handler.

Version: 0.8.1
Date: 2026-09-24
  Changes:
    - About every other shot draws a tracer, and impact flashes appear only near a connected player.
  Optimizations:
    - Build, death, clone and destroy events only reach the mod for its own barracks and soldiers; enemy spawns are no longer handled at all.
    - A burst of recruits no longer re-checks the whole division once per recruit (20 recruits into 900 soldiers: about 86 ms to 8-19 ms per sweep).
    - Division rosters are checked with fewer engine reads per soldier (900 soldiers with 20 linked barracks: 3.8 ms to 2.8 ms per sweep).
    - The once-per-second sweep is spread over ten slices of 6 ticks, one per division, so large armies no longer cause a stutter every second.
    - 1,000 firing soldiers: 2.10 ms to 1.88 ms per tick in total.

Version: 0.8.0
Date: 2026-09-23
  Features:
    - Healing retreat: escorting soldiers below 35 % health walk to the nearest barracks within 1000 tiles, heal, and return at 95 %. Divisions of more than 10 soldiers send one guard with them, more than 20 send two.
    - Escort distances and retreat thresholds are map settings that can be changed during a game.
  Changes:
    - Wider escort formations: defensive ring 160 tiles (was 96), threat radius 224 (was 128), offensive band 256-448 (was 192-384). Escorts follow only after the player settles more than 64 tiles away (was 32). Running escorts re-space onto the new distances after the upgrade.

Version: 0.7.2
Date: 2026-09-23
  Bugfixes:
    - Fights on the way no longer count as reaching a destination: patrols stop skipping waypoints, offensive escort legs and scout targets are no longer abandoned early, and assaults keep their current target.
  Optimizations:
    - Sustained fire at one target only refreshes the aim, and throttled building shots skip entity reads (1,000 firing soldiers: script time per tick about 40-50% lower).
    - Repeated damage during an active defense no longer reads the soldier's command back.
    - Defensive escorts read each threat position once per sweep when choosing and retargeting responders.

Version: 0.7.1
Date: 2026-09-23
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a crash when a soldier defended itself after the building it was attacking had been destroyed.
    - Defensive escorts replace fallen responders without restarting surviving attackers.
    - Casualties, transfers and reinforcements re-space defensive formations once on the next sweep; dead or transferred offensive leaders cannot stall the next leg.
    - Patrols no longer request an unreachable path every tick: a failed leg waits for the next sweep, and a route whose every waypoint failed retries after 10 seconds.
    - Starting an escort cancels the division's previous order instead of letting it run on while the ward is unavailable.
  Optimizations:
    - A burst of reinforcements joining a defensive escort repositions survivors once instead of once per recruit (20 recruits into 980 soldiers: 641 ms to 162 ms median).
    - Linked barracks share a validated roster within each sweep, while still detecting casualties and enforcing the shared strength cap.
    - Scout, escort and patrol completions use a saved soldier-to-division index instead of searching all rosters. Existing saves rebuild ownership on upgrade.

Version: 0.7.0
Date: 2026-09-23
  Features:
    - Escort: dedicate a numbered division to any player on your team from the new escort shortcut.
    - Defensive formation holds a 96-tile ring around the player and sends the nearest half to intercept enemy units within 128 tiles, then returns.
    - Offensive formation roams 192-384 tiles from the player, assaults the nearest enemy there, and charts the map.
    - Escorts wait while their player is away, on another surface, or beyond 1000 tiles, and re-attach once the player settles nearby.
    - Escorted players can dismiss escorts from their own panel; owner and escorted player see escort markers on the map.
  Changes:
    - Escort logic runs in the existing once-per-second sweep. Orders are only reissued when the player settles in a new spot, membership changes, or a response or roaming leg starts or ends.

Version: 0.6.0
Date: 2026-09-23
  Features:
    - Open a barracks to bind it to your division and set a desired strength from 1 to 1000.
    - Linked barracks share the division target, pause training when full, and replace casualties automatically.
    - Recruits join current patrol, scout, or manual orders without interrupting existing carriers or changing selection.
    - Reinforced divisions retain their orders after total losses; the division panel shows current/desired strength.
  Bugfixes:
    - Removed the native distraction cooldown to reduce pauses between enemy encounters.
    - Carriers interrupt building attacks to fight nearby hostile units and retaliate against attacking biters, then resume their original orders.
    - Area assaults use individual ranged attacks instead of driving to point-blank range before firing; surviving targets are handled on command completion.
    - Reinforcement bindings are released immediately when their player changes force or is removed.
  Changes:
    - Combat still uses native unit AI and native bullet damage. Threat checks run on building-shot events at most twice per second per firing carrier, plus damage events; no per-tick combat loop.
    - Reinforcement controls use the existing once-per-second production sweep. Completed recruits remain buffered when a division is full.

Version: 0.5.1
Date: 2026-09-23
  Bugfixes:
    - Reassigning units immediately reconciles patrol leaders while preserving the current route leg.
    - Unit ownership is exclusive across players; selecting units transfers control from their previous divisions.
    - Existing duplicate ownership is repaired deterministically when upgrading.
    - Scouts temporarily skip failed destinations instead of repeatedly requesting the same unreachable path.
  Optimizations:
    - Ownership transfers scan existing membership once per selection, not once per selected unit.
    - Failed scout destinations expire after 60 seconds and are capped at 64 entries per division.

Version: 0.5.0
Date: 2026-09-23
  Features:
    - Replaced vanilla tank bodies with custom weathered tracked chaingun carriers and matching icons.
    - Mounted chainguns face attack targets and follow them using the engine renderer.
    - Added pronounced glowing bullet tracers, impact flashes, and native gun-turret firing sounds.
    - Enlarged carrier hulls by 50% and mounted guns by 64% from the initial artwork scale.
  Bugfixes:
    - Reduced native enemy reacquisition cooldown from five seconds to one second, fixing pauses between encounters.
  Changes:
    - Existing soldiers upgrade in place, preserving their identities, health, divisions, and commands.
    - Health, range, cooldown, bullet damage, research bonuses, recipes, and movement speed are unchanged.
    - Gun overlays are maintained on spawn, shot events, and the existing one-second cleanup sweep.

Version: 0.4.1
Date: 2026-09-22
  Bugfixes:
    - Enlarged division map labels and kept their screen size constant when zooming out.
    - Existing saved division labels update in place without reassignment.

Version: 0.4.0
Date: 2026-09-22
  Features:
    - A division panel shows soldier counts, current keybindings, modes, and selected division.
    - Click a division in the panel to select it; hover for its assignment keybinding.
    - Coloured division numbers follow a representative soldier on each surface's map.
    - Patrol routes appear on the map with division and waypoint numbers, visible only to their owner.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the scout crash caused by reading a nonexistent LuaEntity property.
    - Manual move and attack orders now cancel scouting.
    - Scouting no longer mixes coordinates or commands across surfaces.
    - Scout completion events defer charting and orders to the bounded once-per-second sweep.
    - Empty divisions remove abandoned routes and map labels.
    - The scout shortcut reflects the currently selected division.
  Changes:
    - Requires Factorio 2.0.56 or newer for map rendering.

Version: 0.3.0
Date: 2026-09-22
  Features:
    - The barracks is a crafting machine: pick a soldier recipe and watch the progress bar.
    - Divisions 1-9. CONTROL + number assigns the current selection, ALT + number selects it back.
    - Each division carries its own patrol route, drawn on the ground when the division is selected.
    - Scout mode sends a division out to explore uncharted map on its own.
  Changes:
    - A barracks no longer picks the ammunition tier by itself. Set its recipe once, like any assembler.
    - Blocked deployment now leaves the finished soldier in the machine's output instead of waiting.
    - A soldier belongs to at most one division.
    - Upgrading from 0.2.0 keeps your barracks in place, but empties them: set each one's recipe
      and restock it. Anything left in a 0.2.0 barracks when you upgrade is lost.
  Bugfixes:
    - The barracks footprint is declared as 3x3 rather than inferred from its collision box.

Version: 0.2.0
Date: 2026-09-22
  Features:
    - Industrial bunker barracks with training lights and a deployment door animation.
    - Persistent selection rings visible only to the selecting player.
  Changes:
    - Barracks now occupy 3x3 tiles; cramped layouts from 0.1.0 may need rebuilding.
  Bugfixes:
    - Explicit move and attack orders replace old patrol routes.
    - Patrol routes cannot mix surfaces or command soldiers on another surface.
    - Players can only select and command soldiers belonging to their own force.
    - Blocked deployment preserves completed training without spending materials.
    - Barracks healing respects its circular radius and maximum soldier health.
    - Cloned and script-revived barracks participate in production and healing.
    - Duplicate registration no longer doubles barracks production.

Version: 0.1.0
Date: 2026-09-21
  Features:
    - Tank soldiers built at a barracks, automatically loaded with the best magazine available.
    - Squad selection, move and attack orders through a command tool.
    - Patrol routes.
    - Barracks heal nearby soldiers.