Hard Chip News

[p]The cool silver rank on FGR1 Week 0!

Greetings, Hard Chip players![/p][p]Round two of competitive circuit crafting is here! 🎉 The Foundry Gauntlet returns with Revision 1, bringing fresh challenges and refined mechanics. I've also added an experimental Mosaic Mode for large-scale building, improved the Community Stage Editor with schematic support, made all campaign chip maps accessible from the Bonus screen, and polished another batch of UX details. Let's explore what's new from 0.1.7.122 to 0.1.7.127.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]1. NEW Foundry Gauntlet Revision 1 (FGR1)[/h2][p]The experimental competitive arena reopened! Foundry Gauntlet Revision 1 launched with new weekly challenges designed to push your optimization skills even further. Building on the feedback and experience from FGR0, this event features a revisited scoring system and a now more automated system. It uses the Community Stage Editor (CSE) (which was greatly improved to bring that experimental feature closer to a release state) heavily. Also, this gauntlet explores some experimental gameplay and features. This will influence how HC presents big-sized stages and challenges.[/p][p][/p][p] The gauntlet leaderboard website, updated every 5 minutes, will show all the rankings and leaderboards.
[/p][p]The Foundry Gauntlet already started, but you can still join in Week 1 as Week 0 was "just" a warm-up week, which doesn't count toward the event total points![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Also, 2 video tutorials are available to build simple, naïve implementations for the first 2 weeks. If you are looking for head-scratchers, making the fastest solution ever, or maybe you just want to play with memory cells? Join us on this gauntlet, open now till 28 November![/p][p][/p][p]🏆 **Changelog:**[/p][p]- NEW Foundry Gauntlet Rev1 access in game with Week0[/p][p]- NEW FRG1-Week1 level[/p][p]- MI Finalizing Foundry Gauntlet Revision 1 (FGR1) event launch[/p][p]- FIX FGR1 Week1 can't submit + deactivate image edit for CSE temporary[/p][p]- FIX Missing schematics in built-in levels[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]2. NEW Experimental Mosaic Mode - Large Scale Building Made Easy[/h2][p]Mosaic Mode is well advanced to make tiling pattern designs a new, fun challenge. Perfect the base template and then copy its blocks onto a larger grid with X/Y/radial mirroring, rotate mirrored sections, and use overlap settings to fine-tune placement. Perfect for creating balanced circuits without tedious manual duplication. This feature is experimental, and it's now ready for broader public testing![/p][p][/p][p] Mosaic Mode in action[/p][p]
And you can go crazy large if you start pattern-patterning your stuff![/p][p][/p][p]🪞 **Changelog:**[/p][p]- NEW-EXP Mosaic mode final pass for draft now with rotate and improved UI[/p][p]- NEW-EXP Mosaic mode flip[/p][p]- NEW-EXP Mosaic mode (copy/mirrorX/Y/radial)[/p][p]- NEW-EXP Overlap settings for the Mosaic mode[/p][p]- NEW-EXP MosaicMode, PreventDieOperations, and DistinctPoweringUpPhase are activable in the CSE[/p][p]- SX Mosaic mode UI ++[/p][p]- UX-EXP Community Stage Editor UI improvement[/p][p]
[/p][h2]3. Community Stage Editor Enhancements[/h2][p]The CSE keeps getting closer and closer to a release (thanks to the gauntlet)! Schematic editing now supports multiple image pages, validation handles disconnected multi-bit inputs/outputs, activatable/deactivatable modes (including some experimental ones), and precision indicators show when values exceed bit limits. These improvements make creating complex custom challenges much more flexible and robust.[/p][p]
Community Stage Editor importing a schematic image into a challenge.
[/p][p]🔧 **Changelog:**[/p][p]- NEW-EXP Schematics editable from CSE, multipages supported[/p][p]- NEW-EXP CSE handles now disconnected multibit input/outputs[/p][p]- UI-EXP CSE shows an '!' on values too big for a given precision[/p][p]- MI-EXP CSE has Unsigned vs Signed values for validations[/p][p]- FIX-EXP Validation support expected not connected outputs[/p][p]- FIX-EXP CSE not disposing old truthtables[/p][p]- FIX-EXP settings in double in the CSE[/p][p]- SRV Endpoints for CSE boiler plating[/p][p]- INF Script for CSEAPI[/p][p]- INF Api router[/p][p]
[/p][h2]4. NEW Chip Maps Access from Bonus Screen[/h2][p]No more hunting through campaign levels to find your unlocked chip maps! All previously unlocked chip maps from the campaign are now accessible directly from the Bonus screen. This makes it much easier to revisit and optimize your favorite challenges without loading the campaign to get in front of the workstation.[/p][p]  Bonus screen showing all unlocked chip maps in one convenient location[/p][p][/p][p]🗺️ **Changelog:**[/p][p]- NEW Chip maps from the Bonus screen to see all previously unlocked campaign chip maps[/p][p]- UX Deeplink for coming from and back chip maps[/p][p]- FIX Chipmap doesn't always show all unlocked chip maps for older players[/p][p]
[/p][h2]5. Quality of Life & Polish[/h2][p]Dark mode issues resolved, tutorial levels can be reset, concurrent horizontal scrolling is limited for better control, and external links can now open in your default browser with Ctrl+Click. Plus server-side improvements for better validation handling and performance.[/p][p][/p][p]✨ **Changelog:**[/p][p]- NEW Reset tutorial levels option[/p][p]- UX Camera animation[/p][p]- UX Color fade zooming into a level respects the dark mode setting[/p][p]- UX Ctrl+Click to open links outside Steam web overlay (default browser)[/p][p]- UX Limiting concurrent horizontal scrolling when moving the camera around withthe middle mouse button[/p][p]- UX Validation steps were showing an arrow after an input's value was changed[/p][p]- UX keeps the ticks step count in manual step mode[/p][p]- FIX Dark mode not working[/p][p]- FIX demo build[/p][p]- TLS Localization keys for tutorial powerplanes[/p][p]- TLS \\n in labels[/p][p]- TLS wrong label for FreeCam[/p][p]- SRV Concurrent validation and failed retry saved[/p][p]- SRV Deploy worldscore to a bigger machine[/p][p]- MI typo[/p][p]
[/p][p]---[/p][p]
[/p][p]The Foundry Gauntlet is back, and with Mosaic Mode landing, building complex circuits just got more accessible! Continuing on the road to make HC the best version it can be.[/p][p][/p][p]Ready to test your skills in FGR1? The competition is heating up, and the community is already sharing some brilliant solutions on Discord! Try your DLatch designs now! See you on the leaderboard![/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for playing Hard Chip 🙏 May your pattern building be symmetrical and your transistor count minimal![/p]

[p]Greetings, Hard Chip players!

Foundry Gauntlet Rev1 starts now, November 1st at 18:00 UTC! Whether you’re a circuit-wrangler or a transistor-tinkerer, this is your chance to test your skills in a weekly gauntlet of logic puzzles!

[/p][h2]⚙️How It Works[/h2]

• [p]🗓️ 3-Weekly Stages with a warm-up week! Every Saturday at 18:00 UTC, a brand-new challenge drops. You’ll have exactly one week to build, optimize, and submit your solution before the next stage unlocks.[/p]
• [p]🔍 Progress Tracking: Visit the gauntlets section on hardchip.io to track your real-time rankings and scores against other players![/p]
• [p]🎁 Exclusive Reward: At the end of the event, the top five players on the overall leaderboard will receive a special editor background to display in the editor. And the top 3 will each receive a Steam key to give to a friend! [/p]
• [p]⚗️ Experimental: I'm doing my best to make this event as great as possible, but keep in mind this is an experimental event, even using experimental features at times! If something looks off, please reach out to me and the community on Discord🙏![/p]

[p][/p][h2]➡️ How to Join?[/h2][p]Starting November 1st at 18:00 UTC, Main menu -> Gauntlet Foundry Rev1. Upon finishing the Inverter stage, you can access the event from the main menu!

[/p][h2]🎮 Quick Tips[/h2]

• [p]🏆 Focus on speed first - Ticks are weighted at 40%.[/p]
• [p]⚖️ Balance matters - Don't ignore the other 60%![/p]
• [p]🤖 Process Prime is the official reference design made by a special system player. Beating it is a significant milestone.[/p]
• [p]📅 Participate every week - A full week means up to 100 points to your general event ranking![/p]
• [p]⏰ Submit early - It's your tie-breaker if scores match.[/p]
• [p]🔬 Experiment - Different designs can excel at different metrics![/p]
• [p]📏 Check the ranges - See what's possible and where you can improve.[/p]
• [p]🎯 One score per week - Only your best submission counts. Submit as much as you want![/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][h2]📊 Leaderboards everywhere![/h2][p]Is the special system player, Process Prime, too strong? Maybe you can beat it on a specific metric? Here's a summary of each Leaderboard:[/p]

• [p]Gauntlet Leaderboard (0-300 points): Your overall gauntlet ranking is the sum of all your weekly scores (excluding the warm-up week).[/p]
• [p]Weekly Leaderboard (0-100 points): For each week's stage, you'll have a dedicated leaderboard for that specific stage. The system will select your best overall design to date and compare it to other designs in this leaderboard.[/p]
• [p]4x Weekly Metric Leaderboard: For each week's stage, the system will select your metric-specific best design to date and compare it against other designs, for each of the four metrics. So one for Ticks, Blocks count, Volume and one for Transistors count![/p]

[p][/p][p] [/p][h2]📖 Rules and scoring system of the event[/h2][p]All the rules, quick tips, and scoring system, schematics for some of the stages, everything is available at the events page Foundry Gauntlet Event Rev 1. If you have any doubt there most likely be the answer there![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]🗣️ Share with the community[/h2][p]As always, the community is the most active on HC Discord server! If you want to test ideas or ask for a little bit of help, look for the #foundry-gauntlet channel![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]🦾 GLHF![/h2][p]There is a leaderboard and all, but mostly this is just friendly people playing together! Good luck to everyone, and have fun![/p]