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10 Year Anniversary Update

Hello Everyone!

This year is Besiege’s 10th anniversary since its launch into early access in 2015! Ten years of development has absolutely transformed the game from its humble origins- combining hundreds of new features, blocks and levels to make Besiege the machine building & destruction extravaganza it is today.

We are incredibly proud of the community that has grown around Besiege during its first decade, overflowing with creativity, ingenuity and people willing to help others learn new ways of building their ultimate machines. You’ve never ceased to amaze and inspire us at Spiderling!


This is going to be an exciting year for Spiderling, we can’t wait to show you our future plans for Besiege and more... We’ll be celebrating Besiege’s 10th birthday throughout this year, with community events & future updates. We’re even working on a small video featuring some of our team talking about Besiege’s journey; from inception to where the game is now.

Before we get into the details of the 10 year anniversary update, we just want to take the opportunity once again to thank all of you; Besiege’s fans & players, for your wonderful support and your contribution to Besiege’s awesome community. Thank you.

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10th Anniversary Update


For this update we wanted to focus on additions centering around Besiege’s community & core playerbase. Adding some extra replayability to the campaign, bringing back some nostalgia and improving the quality of the game.


Achievements

As part of this update we decided to spend some time going through Besiege’s achievements, improving some of the less interesting ones, adding in new challenges and removing some the most disliked ones (multiplayer focused).



In total we’ve added 25 new achievements, some of which are for the Splintered Sea expansion.
Many of the new achievements require you to collect a “Strange Fragment” in order to complete them. These strange fragments appear to be related in some way to the source cube and are often revealed after accomplishing the main achievement task.


Stat Tracking & Ranking

Besiege’s scoreboards have received a major upgrade, with your time, damage taken and “block score” displayed upon completion of a campaign level. Your scores are also added to a global leaderboard so you can compare your performance with other Besiege players.


Time & Damage Taken are quite obvious, but Block total is a more complicated metric. Each block in Besiege is assigned a point value (with more powerful blocks having a higher point value). The total value of all the blocks you use in simulation is added together, to give you your “Block Total” score. The lower your score is, the better you’ve done and the further up the leaderboards you’ll be placed. Using a machine downloaded from the workshop means you won’t be able to get your score added to the scoreboards.


Steam Trading Cards

(Steam Profile Badges)

Besiege now has Steam Trading Cards, which you unlock by playing the game over time. These cards are tradeable and can be used to unlock special Besiege badges, emojis (for use in Steam’s chat system) and backgrounds for your Steam profile.

(Steam Trading Cards)

The art in Besiege’s trading cards was produced by daichi, a prominent member of the Japanese Besiege community! Thank you daichi for your hard work on these!

(Steam Emoticons)


(Steam Profile Backgrounds)


Tolbrynd Level

We’ve long been unhappy with the final level of the Tolbrynd island, so for this update we decided to rework it into something cooler and more exciting! The new version looks awesome, is challenging to complete and a lot of fun!



Automatic Timescale

A new feature we’ve added to Besiege for this update automatically adjusts the game’s Timescale slider when your computer is under heavy load and your FPS drops. This means that when lots of physics interactions are occurring at the same time, the game slows down time to ensure a smooth gameplay experience.
An added bonus of this effect is that large explosions and crashes will automatically occur in slow motion, as they’re often the most intense moments of physics simulation.


Legacy Sandbox

The original Sandbox is now back in the game after receiving a dramatic makeover with all new models and textures. The environment has also been rescaled to better fit the larger machines more commonly used by players today, and it’s been extended to create more of a circuit to traverse.




Rulers of Campaign Islands

The rulers of each campaign island have always been conspicuously absent from the game’s levels, but this is no longer the case! The final level of each campaign island now has that island’s ruler fighting alongside their army against you.



Alpha Version of Besiege

The original version of Besiege, which first launched the game into early access in 2015, is now available to play through Steam’s “Betas” selection tab. We thought this would be a fun way for everyone to see just how much Besiege has changed over these past 10 years!



To access this version of Besiege, right click on Besiege in your Steam Library, select “Properties” and then navigate to the “Betas” tab, then select “Alpha Besiege” from the dropdown box.

That concludes the 10 year anniversary update but there will be plenty more to come for Besiege over the course of 2025!

Thank you, once again for your epic support over these past 10 years. We hope you enjoy this update and are excited to see what comes next!

Cheers everyone!
Von

Hotfix - 22666

- ARAS' REFUGE achievement is now possible to get
- Leaderboard tooltips and secondary objective tooltips now wont be affected by the tooltip setting
- Fixed a few localisation issues

Changelog V1.70 - 22661

- Added an updated version of the original sandbox
- Added Leaderboards to track and compete in 3 different categories
- Added new achievements
- Added new challenge to a bunch of levels
- Changed some levels (more major changes can be found below)
- Frozen relic now freezes machines to the ground instead of applying zero gravity
- Ambush got a sand dune and made boulders blocking your way breakable
- Aras' Refuge now takes place in the air with a stone bridge leading to the castle
- The last levels of Ipsilon, Tolbrynd and Krolmar now has some new ai.
- Midland Patrol has been changed in ways that add more ai over time
- Strange Artefact's keys was made a bit easier, each key is now attached to its lock.


- Fixed minor problem with skatewheels reparenting
- Changed how the Drag Tool works
- CTRL + A now selects all objects even if AB mode is not enabled
- Added Block Points to the block tooltips
- Updated Sail-block
- Fixed some issues in the water sandbox
- fixed some ai's not being affected properly by water, wind and Vacuum
- Made armour more effective at blocking area attacks from older ai
- Added automatic time slider that will adjust the time
- Added new banners for each island
- Water surface tension has been changed
- paddles are now more effective as propellers in water
- propellers are now slight less effective as propellers in water
- fixed an issue with grounding your machine while over water
- Added sounds to flying block
- Drag Block's physics has been updated
- In the config file you can now define the maximum number of block that can be loaded each frame. Higher means you might get a bit of lagg but it will be faster. Lower means that you will avoid causing lag but it will lock everyone up for longer

10 Year Anniversary Preview & Playstation Out Now!

Hey everyone!

Today we’re excited to announce that Besiege Console is now available on Playstation 4 & 5! Physical copies for the Japanese region are also available for purchase and they look awesome! It’s always been a dream of ours to see Besiege in physical form and now it’s finally happened. :)

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We also wanted to take this opportunity to briefly talk about some of the things coming up in Besiege’s 10 year Anniversary update!

The main focus of the anniversary update for us, is on revitalizing parts of the original game, adding new challenges and implementing content we feel the Besiege’s longstanding community will enjoy.

Return of the Original Sandbox

Many of you old school Besiege players will remember the game’s original sandbox level, which was very popular among builders for testing their machines. When the new sandbox map was added, the original was retired due to it’s dated appearance and (we felt) wasn’t at all fit for purpose. We were surprised, however, to see so many fans of the game disappointed by this decision.


So, with that in mind, for Besiege’s 10th year anniversary, we’re bringing the old girl out of retirement! With completely new visuals, the sandbox has been rebuilt in a way that captures the level’s original feel but is better scaled to handle the kinds of machines players build these days, with an improved layout and a bit of an expansion as well.

We hope this remaster lives up to your nostalgia of the original!



Scoreboard System

Besiege has always had a basic readout that tells you how long it took you to complete a level, but we’ve gone way beyond that now and implemented a new Scoreboarding system that shows you how well you’ve performed relative to other players!

There are now 3 stats that your level completion is measured on:
- Damage Taken
- Time Taken
- Block Total

Damage & Time taken should be self-explanatory, the less damage or time you take in simulation, the better your scores are!
Block total is a more complicated metric, where each block in Besiege is assigned a point value (with more powerful blocks having a higher point value). The total value of all the blocks you use in simulation is added together, to give you your “Block Total” score. The lower your score is, the better you’ve done and the further up the leaderboards you’ll be placed.


Hovering over your score shows you how your best scores compare to other players and where you sit in the rankings. Next to each of your scores you’ll see a little visualization called a histogram, which displays where your scores have fallen compared with what all other players have achieved.

To add a little extra spice to the competition, we have submitted our own scores to the leaderboards as Spiderling Devs, can you beat us?

More to come..


We’re also cooking up some other surprises for this update, but we don’t want to give it all away just yet, so stay tuned! ;)

The Anniversary Update will release late January or early February.

That’s all for now, we hope you’re excited about what’s coming and we’re looking forward to seeing you get stuck into it!

Cheers,
Von

Community Highlights #5 + Vanilla Contest Winners

Hey everyone,

Welcome to the fifth edition of our Community Highlights, where we proudly celebrate the amazing talent and boundless creativity of our community. This month, vanilla has truly taken flight as the Besiege community has embraced the challenge to craft incredible machines using only the base game. With that said, we're excited to announce the winners of our Vanilla Plane Contest!

🥇 1st Place: Messerschmitt Me464 Adler by Wessel



🥈 2nd Place: VAB-2 Scattersparrow by Blitsplatapus



🥉 3rd Place: by B2 Spirit Bomber by Wiesław69



Honorable Mention - Mackerel-T Torpedo Bomber by Crislim



Honorable Mention - Vanilla Plane - Fnom3



Big cheers to the winners and a huge shoutout to everyone else that entered. The hype doesn’t end here, our epic monthly contests are monthly. Keep it locked on our Discord to stay updated and enter.

Now, time to get into this month's highlights!

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[h2]Stunning Artistry[/h2]

Giant Doll MK2 by Blitsplatapus



The Splintered Sea by Real Civil Engineer



Destroy the World by Ninjaxx



[hr][/hr]
[h2]Marvelous Spectacles[/h2]

Defiance by Pukku131



Broken Reality by Krautregen



Godzilla by Tamaryu



Desert Mayhem by Keoun_u



[hr][/hr]
[h2]Crafty Contrivances[/h2]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3374723392
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3371709763
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3370435554
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3366395154
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3364729193
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3369394777

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Moving Tapestries[/h2]

XF-85 Goblin by James_Bond

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How to get an Engineering Degree by CoffeeJunkee

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The Sprint Marauder and Hoplite by Blitsplatapus

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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[h2]HAPPY HOLIDAYS[/h2]



Happy Holidays! As the year winds down, our studio will be taking a break from the week of Christmas until after New Year's to recharge and celebrate with loved ones. This means there will be no contest or community developer stream in December, but don’t worry, we’ll be back in January to kick off another exciting year of Besiege with all of you. Thank you for an incredible year, and we can’t wait to see what you build in 2025!

Cheers everyone,
Sam

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If you'd like to be featured in our next Community Highlights, make sure to use our special hashtag #BuiltWithBesiege on Twitter or use the Submissions channel over on our Discord. Alternatively, you can reach out to Sam (Discord) who will be vetting submissions.

10 years of Besiege Development - Nominate us for Labor Of Love


Hey everyone!

As you're probably aware, the Steam Awards are currently underway and we'd be grateful for your support in nominating us for the Labor of Love Award.

After nearly 10 years of Besiege development, we still have plans for new content and improvements going into the future that we're excited to bring you!

For us, developing Besiege is truly a labor of love.
Please consider nominating us. :)

Block Update - New Blocks & Tools - V1.65

Hello everyone!

Today we’ve released V1.65 of Besiege, bringing 4 new blocks, 2 new tools to help you perfect your machine building and some block related changes and fixes!
Drag Block
The drag block applies a large amount of drag when moving in a specific direction, but is aerodynamic (applies low drag) when moving in the opposite direction.



Fly Wheel
The Fly Wheel is a block that resists rotational change, storing angular momentum and then releasing it at a steady rate (like charging up a battery and then outputting power at a steady rate). Put simply, a Fly Wheel will rotate at a steady rate regardless of how much the rotational speed of the input changes.
The Fly Wheel’s inertia & power can be customized with the parameter tool, as can the key used for engaging its clutch.



Bounce Pad
The Bounce Pad works like a pogostick, when force is applied to it, it creates a substantial repelling force in the opposite direction, causing it to bounce.



Roller Wheel
The Roller Wheel is actually a set of wheels that are perfectly smooth, allowing them to rotate freely, without a motor. Unlike a caster wheel, the Roller Wheels are locked on a specific axis and have great grip, making them useful for steering.
Stiffness of the wheels can be customized allowing them to bend on a horizontal axis or remain completely rigid.



In addition to the new blocks, we’ve also added 2 new visualization modes to Besiege that will help you better understand your machine’s performance and identify areas that could be improved.

The first one is a “Drag Visualizer” which, when activated in simulation, will show you which parts of your machine are creating/experiencing the most drag. This tool works for drag through the air and water alike.



The other tool is a “Joint Stress Visualizer”. During simulation, while activated, this tool shows you how much strain the joints of your machine are under. It’s an excellent way to check which parts of your machine are likely to break and could do with additional strengthening.



Something else we wanted to mention in this post is that, by popular request, we have made Besiege’s soundtrack purchasable on its own, no longer requiring you to purchase the “Supporter Edition” to receive it.

That’s all for today but we’ll be releasing the 10th year anniversary update for Besiege early next year so stay tuned for details!

Cheers everyone!
Von

PS: The Steam awards are coming up and we'd really appreciate your support as we approach 10 years of Besiege's development! :)



Changelog V1.65 - 22360

- Added 4 new blocks
- Added 2 new visualizer modes
- Nerfed Harpoon gatling guns
- Fixed Multiplayer sounds not syncing for client
- Fixed various issues with blocks in Multiplayer
- Added modding option to stop the fixed camera from responding to terrain
- Fixed lag issue with thumbnail generation
- Fixed Small Barrel not showing that it broke
- Cluster mode now has textures and looks similar to the new modes
- Steering block now has optional limits similar to the steering hinge
- Added no new easter eggs
- Fixed errors caused by collisions with harpoon launcher
- Fixed a thing or two
- Fixed various localization issues
- Fixed issue where wind could impact machine while loading into simulation
- Fixed issue with beacon object not setting things on fire
- Fixed issue with Big Barrel texture when burned
- Fixed issue where Zero-G zone would disable freezing zones
- Fixed issue where water shader blocked grid of build surface
- Fixed issue preventing clients from joining hosts who have broken surface fragments
- Invincibility mode can now be toggled in simulation
- Fixed issues with various level editor objects
- Fixed issue where focusing on a camera and stopping sim would cause an error
- Fixed issue preventing various destroyed blocks from being cleaned up properly in multiplayer
- Fixed issue where balloons couldn't be popped