Hard Chip News

[p]Unrelated to anything in this post, I just found this Gauntlet solution genuinely cool and satisfying.


Greetings, Hard Chip players![/p][p]Big toolbox update time! 🎉 This one might look a little more "under the hood" at first glance, but it sets up a bunch of future goodies. I shipped a brand‑new complete community-made localization (Italian 🇮🇹, thanks to ir_trevi 🙏), spun up the external wiki (once more with help from the community), rewired the online validation stack into shiny headless containers, shaved build times, gave the UI a sprinkle of quality, and tightened a few challenge cheeses. Let's tour the highlights of versions 0.1.7.104 - 0.1.7.111.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]1. NEW Online Wiki (hardchip.wiki.gg)[/h2][p]The old static Reference finally burst out of its window and moved into the open world: hardchip.wiki.gg is live. Faster updates, community eyes, and less waiting for a patch just to fix a wording nit. The in‑game modals you already opened still work (the one used during the tutorial), but the beating heart of knowledge now lives on the web.
[/p][p]   The new external wiki hub replacing the old in‑game static Reference[/p][p][/p][p]Feel free to contribute to anything you find that is missing and you think would help![/p][p][/p][p]📚 Changelog (wiki related):[/p]

• [p]NEW Reference replaced by a new online wiki (legacy help modals still accessible)[/p]
• [p]MI Wiki update texts[/p]
• [p]MI Wiki update texts (website links)[/p]
• [p]TSL Update wiki texts and typos[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]2. NEW Italian Localization & Translation Passes[/h2][p]Benvenuti! Italian is fully in. Not a half‑pass, the whole thing—menus, gameplay strings, UI bits. While doing that, I vacuumed lingering duplicate keys, normalized resource files, and improved the sync script so future language tweaks are painless. Now the localization repo is the source of truth for localization. Small fixes landed for FR/DE/RU as collateral polish. Thanks again to our community member ir_trevi for his massive contribution to make this happen!
[/p][p]   Fully localized UI with Italian[/p][p][/p][p]🌍 Changelog:[/p]

• [p]NEW Italian localization[/p]
• [p]NEW Verified Italian translation[/p]
• [p]MI Italian settings[/p]
• [p]MI Import new language from localization repo[/p]
• [p]MI Update Italian in the updates section[/p]
• [p]TSL Italian finalized[/p]
• [p]TSL Italian, French, German corrections and missing strings[/p]
• [p]TSL Duplicated keys removed[/p]
• [p]MI All resx files formatted and from the localization repo[/p]
• [p]MI Sync English out fix/Script to synchronize English back[/p]
• [p]DEV Localization synchronisation script[/p]
• [p]FIX Italian unselectable after the welcome screen[/p]
• [p]FIX Custom language charset bundling crash[/p]
• [p]TSL Loss float keys and Photomode uses them[/p]
• [p]TSL HC/Steam name translations[/p]
• [p]MI Typos / TSL Typos cleanup[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]3. UX & Interface[/h2][p]Lots of paper cuts gone. Helper tooltips no longer wrestle the camera. Terminals finally scroll (big multi‑line dumps are readable). You can fast‑skip the intro with a click too now. Photomode shows float/loss stats. New tips introduce IO placement. It's the kind of quiet UX sweep that just makes building feel smoother.
[/p][p]   Graphs without "holes"[/p][p][/p][p]🧩 Changelog:[/p]

• [p]NEW Tips for input/output placement and interleaving options[/p]
• [p]UI Add float/loss in photomode[/p]
• [p]UX Helper floating tooltip always on top & disables camera inputs when shown[/p]
• [p]UX Scrollable terminals[/p]
• [p]UX Intro can be skipped by mouse click[/p]
• [p]UX Disabling photomode & export in report window when showing last checked with no prior validation[/p]
• [p]UX Connection status icons are green or red in the report window[/p]
• [p]FIX Always showing the outdated tooltip[/p]
• [p]FIX Bucket holes when calculating graphs[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]4. Challenge Balancing, Anti‑Cheese[/h2][p]Cheese patrol out again. A few sneaky tristate/stepping oddities got sealed, grading nudged to make early brute‑force less rewarding and clever minimization more satisfying. Added consistency checks so edge timing races don't silently skew a score. Cleaner, fairer leaderboard data going forward.[/p][p][/p][p]🧪 Changelog:[/p]

• [p]GRD NAND harder[/p]
• [p]GRD OR revised[/p]
• [p]GRD NOR revised harder[/p]
• [p]GRD for 3bit majority function[/p]
• [p]FIX Cheese tristate[/p]
• [p]FIX Cheese stepping[/p]
• [p]FIX Short consistency cache issue (race condition) + test case[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]5. Online Validation & Scoring Infrastructure[/h2][p][/p][p]The validation brain is mid‑migration to a headless container stack: Score ingest pieces, cache sync layers, and health/resiliency guards coming online in slices. It already runs in a safe read‑only mode while I finish this. Goal: faster turnaround, fewer mysterious hangs, and a solid foundation for future competitive cycles. Note: Now some parts of Hard Chip's code run in Linux.

  New headless validation server[/p][p][/p][p]🖥️ Changelog (core infra & services):[/p]

• [p]SRV Score ingest endpoint[/p]
• [p]SRV Phasing out old scores API part 1[/p]
• [p]SRV Online validation headless validator[/p]
• [p]SRV Online validation Score cache sync[/p]
• [p]SRV Online validation Submissions cache sync[/p]
• [p]SRV Validation run report[/p]
• [p]SRV Handling file failure[/p]
• [p]SRV Test connections / active connections commands[/p]
• [p]SRV Resiliency logic & error handling runtime[/p]
• [p]SRV Permission issues addressed[/p]
• [p]SRV Removing magic numbers & using build configuration for dev experience[/p]
• [p]SRV Necessary splashscreen (service boot splashscreen)[/p]
• [p]SRV Score ingest & cache sync items reinforcing integrity[/p]
• [p]MI HeadlessValidationRunnerOrchestrator tests[/p]
• [p]MI Running tests on release[/p]
• [p]MI Headless orchestrator & tests (consistency)[/p]
• [p]MI Validation tools / Challenges Runner helper[/p]
• [p]MI Tools admin rewrite clients[/p]
• [p]MI Admin tools restoring reviewer & score stats tabs[/p]
• [p]MI Path helper for admin[/p]
• [p]MI Challenges Runner helper class / Validation tools[/p]
• [p]MI HCData Functions[/p]
• [p]MI Helper (support tooling)[/p]
• [p]SRV Skip first submissions if already validated[/p]
• [p]SRV Online validation part run headless validator (duplicate log alignment)[/p]
• [p]MI Dockerization + full Linux containerization for the server[/p]
• [p]MI Splitting Admin and Admin.Core to avoid linking to the content project[/p]
• [p]MI HardChip.Core framework retargetable[/p]
• [p]MI Dependencies are not built with the solution now (selective build)[/p]
• [p]MI Tests expansion & running on release[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]6. Build, Performance & Pipeline Optimizations[/h2][p]Ship faster, test sooner. Asset/data splits, shrink rebuilds, packaging is less brittle, and selective dependency builds keep the IDE from melting. Not flashy on screen, but it means more feature time instead of coffee‑watching compile bars.[/p][p]   Improved build & validation pipeline for faster iteration[/p][p][/p][p]⚙️ Changelog:[/p]

• [p]MI Splitting assets/data build for faster build times[/p]
• [p]MI Build process copy fix & release packaging build process restored[/p]
• [p]MI Script for dev setup[/p]
• [p]MI Script to synchronize English back (localization pipeline tie‑in)[/p]
• [p]MI Running tests on release (continuous validation)[/p]
• [p]MI Tests targets frameworks adjustments/test files setup[/p]
• [p]MI HardChip.Core retargetable (also under infra but performance-adjacent)[/p]
• [p]MI Code Cleanup[/p]
• [p]MI Dependencies isolated from solution build[/p]
• [p]MI Looping command for validation (docker ready)[/p]
• [p]MI Splitting Admin / Admin.Core (faster partial rebuilds)[/p]
• [p]MI GZiper and tests[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]7. Quality of Life Improvements & Bug Fixes[/h2][p]Smaller but important stability and correctness improvements are landing alongside the headline features:[/p]

• [p]PERF ILoopRunner: new Task‑based implementation (avoids busy shutdown issues)[/p]
• [p]FIX Crash: tentative select segment while copying[/p]
• [p]FIX Crash on twice status on the material bank1 at first[/p]
• [p]FIX always showing the outdated tooltip (UX noise)[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p]This update was a foundation pour: scalable validation, a living wiki, a new language, smoother UX, less Cheese. Not the flashiest fireworks yet—but it unlocks faster iteration for the next.[/p][p][/p][p]If you spot a stray mistranslation, a wiki link that 404s, or a validation hiccup, ping me on Discord! It helps tighten the loop.[/p][p][/p][p]Your feedback continues to drive Hard Chip's development. Join our Discord server to share your thoughts, report any issues with the new features, or suggest ideas![/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for playing Hard Chip 🙏. Stay tuned for more exciting updates and features in the coming weeks![/p]