Forts News

G'day Forts fans!

Happy 2024! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. And to kick off the new year we're announcing our next official tournament. XXVII will be held on the High Seas January 20th at 7pm UTC. This event will be 3v3 Team Death Match with up to 8 teams competing on a variety of maps. Each round will be a best of 3 matchup with the winner advancing and the vanquished sinking to the depths. There will also be a bronze match to decide 3rd place.



Registration will open at 8pm UTC today. In order to register, team captains should message 42scientist on the Forts Official Discord server with their team name (16 characters max), team logo (128x128 pixels), team tag (3 characters), and team roster including the Steam ID of each team member.

Hosts:
Project Incursus Salzwerk

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On to the details.


When will Registration open?

January 6th at

• 12pm PT (West Coast USA)
  
• 3pm ET (East Coast USA)
  
• 8pm GMT (London)
  
• 9 CET (France, Germany)
  
• 8am January 7th QLD (Brisbane Australia)
  

Entries submitted before this time will not be accepted. Once registration has opened the first 8 teams to submit a valid entry will be admitted. Valid entries must fulfill the requirements listed below under How do I join?


How will teams be seeded?

Seedings will be based on past results in official events and ranked seasons.


Prizes?

The prize pool is as follows:

• 1st place $150
  
• 2nd place $75
  
• 3rd place $30
  
  

Prizes will be awarded in the form of Steam digital gift cards, divided amongst teammates.

If you have any additional questions please contact us on Discord.
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[h2]How do I join?[/h2]

In order to participate, you must do the following...

• Join the Official FORTS Discord
  
• Your names on Discord and Steam must match and include your team tag (see below)
  
• Inappropriate competitor or team names and logos will not be accepted
  
• Send a message on Discord to 42scientist with your team name, tag, roster, and logo
  
• Team names should be 16 characters or less
  
• Team tags should be 3 characters
  
• Team rosters should include links to each player's Steam profile
  
• Team logos should be 128x128 pixels
  
• Registration will not open until January 6th at 3pm ET (8pm UTC)
  
• Maximum of 8 teams
  

Team Capacitor
[CAP] Fred
(Link to Fred's Steam profile)
[CAP] Max
(Link to Max's Steam profile)
[CAP] Sal
(Link to Sal's Steam profile)

Sample entry with Team and Logo

• Tournament XXVI starts January 20th, 2024 at...
  
• 11am PT (West Coast USA)
  
• 2pm ET (East Coast USA)
  
• 7pm GMT (London)
  
• 8pm CET (France, Germany)
  
• 6am January 7th QLD (Brisbane Australia)
  

• The FORTS Tournament lobby
  
• The Official FORTS Discord
  
• Challengermode Bracket

• 3v3 Team Death match
  
• Single elimination via best of 3 rounds
  
• 20 minute time limit
  
• High Seas enabled
  
• Moonshot enabled
  
• Tons of Guns enabled
  
• Portals enabled
  
• Commanders enabled
  
• No Commander bans! All commanders reporting for duty!
  
• Draws decided by core damage inflicted (total damage if core health is equal)
  
• Maximum of 8 teams
  
• Check-in on Discord starts 1 hour before tournament
  
• Late or absent players forfeit their matches
  
• Use of exploits or bugs for self-charging or any other purpose is strictly forbidden.
  
• Earthwork Games reserves the right to make changes to this event as needed
  

Project Incursus Salzwerk


Including but not limited to:
Chasm
Dark Shoals
Fracked
Hillboat 4v4
Stormy Waters
The Leviathan
Three Frigates 3v3


Cheers,
EWG

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Forts festive cheer is here!

The holidays theme is now live! Along with features from previous years such as the themed front end, holiday jingle and baubles, decorations for tech buildings and snowball ammunition; we've also dressed the reactor. Land a critical hit on that over-sized bauble and enjoy the snowflake cloud and enchanting sounds effects!

Holiday themed reactor and effects.
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Snowball ammunition.
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And why not spread some seasonal cheer among your friends and family by taking advantage of the Steam Winter Sale discounts and gifting them some festive Forts goodness from across the entire catalogue?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/410900/Forts/

Happy holidays from the whole EWG crew, and we will see you in the new year!

Cheers,
EWG

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Congratulations to Dranistian! A fixture of the competitive scene since joining Forts, FPL competitor, runner up in Tournament XXVI and half of Team Green Leaf with partner Vykro. Fearlessly innovative play propelled him to the top and he can now add Season 26 champion to his list of accomplishments. In second place Poolboy, who lives and breathes Forts, playing enough for any 4 normal people. And in 3rd, EtaN, whose immense trophy collection grew so large it required a game update to properly display.

While the top 3 places receive Gold, Silver, and Bronze, every player finishing within the top 20 will receive a Season 26 Medal. Congratulations to all medalists as well!

Some Season 26 trivia:

• This season included a Free Weekend which briefly overwhelmed us
  
• Over 35,000 matches played this season, not including those lost (see above)
  
• Shotguns + Rockets vs Howitzer + Cannon was the defining matchup separating the top 20
  
• Amongst the top players, Armourdillo has suddenly emerged as the new commander of choice
  

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[h2]1v1 Leaderboard[/h2]

1. Dranistian
   
2. Poolboy
   
3. EtaN
   
4. 籽岷妙妙屋
   
5. mcc72k
   
6. Alesio
   
7. Schuka
   
8. KURTaxe
   
9. Maybe Poolboy
   
10. 打帅币
    
11. Geiger
    
12. Malme
    
13. [BOG]#Der Benzinpreisvergleicher
    
14. [WTF] Domy
    
15. kulipa0627
    
16. Armordillo
    
17. iTen
    
18. JoKURT
    
19. neoboletus.erythropus
    
20. I am myself
    

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[h2]Season 27[/h2]
Season 27 is already underway and will run through January 31st. This season's map pool consists of the following battlefields:

• Abyss
  
• Hillfort
  
• Moorings
  
• Pillars
  
• Desert Ruins
  
• Battlegrounds 1v1
  

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[h2]Make Sure To Join Our Discord[/h2]

If you haven't already, join our Forts Official Discord server to connect with other players, share strategies, create maps/mods, and receive advance notice of upcoming events.


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Cheers,
EWG

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We hope you've been pummelling the forts of your friends.

Although we don't talk much about what's coming, be sure that we are working hard to improve the experience. Some of this work is not glamorous, but we strive to provide a solid experience and smooth rough edges. In that spirit, this update addresses a range of small, medium and large issues that have been reported by you, or found in our own testing.

Headline items include a new option to avoid reported players, population level and cap displays, and the ability to turn off special themes (i.e. Halloween and Christmas).

Our team will continue to deliver improvements to Forts, and we welcome your suggestions and feedback. Happy holidays!

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[h2]Change List dlc2 30 r15445[/h2]

Add: "Add to player avoidance list" checkbox to reporting dialog
Add: 'Enable Special Themes' game option
Add: Firebeam overheat sound
Add: Population level and cap readout to device tool tips and context menu upgrade preview
Add: Projectiles that are alive post collision are now hidden from scripts
Add: 'Target Allies' combat mod for missile aiming in free-for-all mods (TargetAllies in db/rules.lua)

Fix: (AddTextControl, AddTextButtonControl, AddButtonControl, AddSpriteControl) memory leak when parent isn't found
Fix: (Hurricane active) machine guns overheat after two bursts
Fix: (Moorings) gap exists between top foundation and ground
Fix: (Moorings) ToGA1 fort fails to build a mine, blocking remaining script
Fix: (ranked) host can update opponents before client receives the leaderboard, prematurely reaching match limit
Fix: (ranked) in rare cases players can be unable to match with each other
Fix: (Seep) armoured EMP rockets will trigger an EMP when hit once
Fix: 20mm cannon can fire through a device placed in front of it after it has begun firing
Fix: After ejecting when joining a full lobby you are given a rejoin highlight for it
Fix: Beam end time now works to stop FMOD events at (BeamDuration - BeamEndEffectTime)
Fix: BLOCKFLAG_PassProjectiles, *PassBeams, and *Hazard incorrectly set *NoSplash
Fix: BLOCKFLAG_WaterLevel, *EdgeWithFill, *CanBuildOver, and *NoDrawEdges are missing from shapes.lua and not handled in SetBlockFlags
Fix: Converting a connected material before a structure breaks can convert it back
Fix: EtaN's absurd medal count doesn't fit in trophy cabinet
Fix: Joining observers in end screen display in a team, or cause crash
Fix: Local connections time out when game is in progress
Fix: Mortar kills count towards Second Amendment sniper objective
Fix: Non-consumable ammo appears available on the context menu when it can't be used due to missing ammo
Fix: Players can be banned from lobbies they were not in
Fix: Projectile vs projectile collisions can cause infinite loops
Fix: Recordings can capture a frame from previous recording
Fix: Repair station allows shield to skip warmup state
Fix: Replay desync (terrain) when player re-joins HS match
Fix: Screen flickers the desktop when entering a loading screen or entering of leaving the multiplayer lobby
Fix: Projectile trails can lag the game when used in an accelerator
Fix: Some characters have incorrect width
Fix: some non-default weapon ammo firing effects are not shown to enemy
Fix: Struts can overlap devices on the edge of their platform
Fix: Struts exceeding max length become segmented (aka wooden ropes)
Fix: Team details incorrect in ranked loading screen
Fix: Thread shutdown issue by allowing threads to exit
Fix: Uploading new items before accepting steam workshop agreement can create a broken workshop item

Improve: (tutorial 2) Increased height while still keeping top of player fort visible at bottom of screen
Improve: (tutorial 2) Spacebar zooms camera in and out of reactor at start
Improve: (tutorial 2) When selecting MG spacebar zooms in and out. Removed automated zoom out.
Improve: (tutorial 2) When selecting mortar spacebar zooms in and out. Removed automated zoom out.
Improve: Changed orbital laser fire sounds to react to being stopped and play their wind down sound
Improve: Duplicate sprites cause a warning rather than an error
Improve: Kicked players are kept out of new lobbies for the set duration
Improve: Max zoom for the context menu adjusted

Optimise: Effects rendering in Vulkan

Remove: Instantaneous spend/refund costs from HUD and Observer Tools resource rate readouts

[h2]Change List dlc2 30b r15478[/h2]

Add: "\clear_kicks" console command to clear kicked player avoidance list. Accepts an optional "1" parameter to also clear all avoidance lists
Add: missing 'Allow Target Self' (target-self) mod, previously referred to as 'Target Allies'

Fix: Crash when AI deletes a single link node and player's cursor is over the structure
Fix: Game freezes when using windows key + shift + arrow with Vulkan on NVidia cards.
Fix: Battlegrounds 1v1 preview features the Halloween theme

Optimise: SnapToNodeUnsafe skips structures with incompatible ownership

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[h2]Make Sure To Join Our Discord[/h2]

If you haven't already, join our Forts Official Discord server to connect with other players, share strategies, create maps/mods, and receive advance notice of upcoming events.

Cheers,
EWG

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[h3]Blistered and tormented,
A scorched, fiery doom.
Twisted and demented,
The reactor our tomb!

Shrieking through the night,
A shot breaches the core.
Released, we take flight,
To haunt forevermore![/h3]
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[h2]Demented Reactor[/h2]
Souls burn for eternity in the demented reactor, unless unleashed if their tomb is destroyed!
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[h2]Blood & Studs[/h2]
It's raining blood in the Cursed Landscape. Which team are you on? Team Gargoyle or Team Skull?
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[h2]Haunted Main Menu[/h2]
Halloween themed front end image!
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[h2]Cursed Landscape* & Corrupted Console**[/h2]
*Cursed landscape replaces 'Canyon' environment set.
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**Haunted HUD replaces 'Default' HUD skin.
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Wishing you a happy Hallowe'en,
EWG