Gunsmith News

[h3]Hello Gunsmiths! We hope you're well! We have been working on a pretty major change to Gunsmith over the last few months. But we are excited to get this latest update out in time for the new year! Today we're putting the MINMAX update onto a testing branch!
[/h3][p]We've been doing a lot of research into factory functionality across the board and we needed to change how our factory system worked to make everything a better experience for players. We've changed how the back end system runs for the game and we're excited to announce the latest changes below.

We'd really love to get feedback on this system, we're going to leave the min max update on a testing branch over the next few days to iron out any unexpected bugs but anyone can play it on the "gunsmithopentest" branch.

This has taken slightly longer than we'd hoped but it's a large change to how the game runs and we think it's pretty important for the future of the game so we decided to go back and re-work out how the game runs. Which due to it's size has taken quite a while.
[/p][p]MAJOR Improvements to the Belt movement in Spline Belt mode:

Belts are now way more accurate no matter what FPS the game is running at.
[/p][p]Belts now have a proper flow rate they respect which is displayed in their tooltips, regular belts are 60/min and fast belts are 120/min.
[/p][p]Machine output and crafting is now much more accurate with the timings.

[/p][p]In Spline Belt mode machines now work with flowrate instead of seconds per item, everything is displayed in ItemsPerMinute (X/Min).
[/p][p]Added a feature where passthrough machines (Sewing machine, heater, etc) will adapt to the speed of the next belt to not cause bottlenecks.
[/p][p]If you output items from a Heater with a Fast Belt then items inside it will move with the fast belt's speed.

Enabled Physics Sub stepping for Physics Belts mode to allow for more accurate item movement at low FPS.

Overall we think this will be a great change to the game as we're hoping it will allow players to actually split/workout their factory setups way better and it's something we want to improve on in the future.

Thank you for your continued support whilst we continue to work on the game. It's slower than we had liked this year but we are still progressing and we hope we can do more in 2026!
[/p][p]Some smaller issues we've been working on
[/p][p]Fixed an issue with the item splitter.[/p][p]Fixed a bug with machine names not displaying properly.[/p][p]Fixed a few tooltip visuals.[/p][p]Fix to the top bar sizing when the money and research numbers are too high, they would overlap the buttons.[/p][p]Fixed the games Icon not displaying properly on windows.[/p]

Pushed a small fix for the game fixing an issue where some players were forced to do tutorial.

[h2]Factory Management Overhaul & More![/h2]

Gunsmiths! Thank you for your patience as we continue to shape and improve Gunsmith. Your support means the world to us, and we're working hard to deliver the experience you deserve. More updates are on the way!

We’ve made several key changes to how your factory is powered and managed—giving you more control, flexibility, and potential for beautiful and efficient factory setups.

[h2]Power System Rework[/h2]
The way your factory consumes power has been completely reworked:

Line Control is no longer required to power machines. It’s now an optional feature for segmenting your factory into manageable sections.

Factory Power, along with utilities like Gas, Water, and Electricity, is now governed by Machine Capacity.

Every machine that is powered on consumes 1 unit of Machine Capacity.

To increase your Machine Capacity, you must recruit Factory Technicians and assign them to Technician Stations.



Technicians also increase your Server Capacity, which allows you to place Servers that further boost Machine Capacity. As you research bigger and better servers, a single Technician can support larger, more complex factories—both functionally and visually.

We have also added 6 new utilities models for gas and water



[h2]Power Controls & UX Improvements[/h2]

You can now power the entire factory on or off with a single button—no need to rely on Line Control groups for global power management.

Multiselect → Duplicate and Prefab (Blueprint) systems have been improved:

These systems now support Technician Stations, Line Control, and Server placement.



When using these tools, the game will prompt you to hire the correct number of staff required for the placed stations.

Servers placed via Blueprint or Duplicate require sufficient Server Capacity in advance—they can’t "predict" unplaced Technicians or Stations that are part of the same Blueprint.

[h2]Line Control Enhancements[/h2]

Line Control Stations placed via Blueprint or Duplicate will now automatically create groups and assign machines to them, along with generating staff hire requests.

We’re working toward full compatibility with Blueprint and Duplication, where machines will eventually retain their Line Control group setups after duplication or blueprint placement. For now, this update is a strong first step toward that goal.

[h2]Tutorial and UI Polish[/h2]
The tutorial has been updated to reflect all the changes to machine and factory power.

Some UI performance optimizations have been implemented, along with new icons to keep things feeling fresh.



[h2]Potential Future Features (QoL & Content Wishlist)[/h2]
Here’s a sneak peek at features we’re considering for future updates. These are not listed in order of priority—just ideas we’re actively exploring:

Localisation will be getting another pass very soon likely this week!

New Items: We have a backlog of exciting features like missiles, drones, and other advanced items. These will come with unique machines and gameplay mechanics to keep things fresh.

Floor Painting: A highly requested feature! We’re working on a performance-friendly system that will allow larger floor painting areas without causing frame drops. Ideally, this would be handled asynchronously for smooth customization.

Full Blueprint & Duplication Support for Line Control Groups: Machines will eventually retain their Line Control group assignments when copied or blueprinted.

Improved Ghost Previews: We plan to enhance the ghost effect when placing objects, making it easier to see machine details, input/output indicators, and overall orientation.

Vertical Item Lifts: Transport items straight up with minimal space—perfect for compact, layered factory designs.

Further Optimization: Expect more performance improvements and better staff pathfinding.

Recipe Profiles & Presets: Create, tweak, and share custom recipe profiles (input/output timings and quantities) via Steam Workshop. Great for players who love ultra-precise factory setups or want to share creative challenges.

Deeper Systems Integration: We’re exploring better integration of Clients, Reputation, Notoriety, and IDC to give your global choices more weight and long-term consequences.

Thank you all for the continued feedback and support—we’re building this together, and we can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.

Hello everyone Rich here, today i'm happy to announce that we are finishing up on the games next update which will be centred around factory management. We will likely be finishing this update for next week and testing it. We're aiming to push this update in the next 10 days or so.

Firstly I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for your patience whilst we've been making this update. It's taken us a bit longer than we anticipated to continue on the game but we have managed to get back into it.

[h2]Why are we here?[/h2]

I also just wanted to take some time to explain to everyone why we got into this position with our studio. As everyone knows running a game studio is super tough, we've all seen how incredibly brutal it's been over 2024 and still continuing into 2025 for development studios. Tens of thousands of layoffs and tonnes of studio closures big and small. No one is safe and it's an incredibly risky business to be in.

Ultimately the first thing I will say is this is down to my management of how we run the studio and how we stay in the game. This has been a learning process since I started the studio all the way back in 2014. Some things we have got really right, some things we have not. This is part of the process of running a company and we faced our toughest challenges yet back in 2024. This essentially was a few things.

Declining income from all our titles as more games and hit the Steam Store and competing for growth.

Increasing costs in all areas of running a business, and in quick succession with rapidly increasing inflation.

Increasingly hard to get coverage on social media, which is one of the main drivers of external growth of games.

Large updates to our games not having the desired effect we wanted to improve the game for users and this ultimately not reflecting in reviews and feedback.

Paralysis of not knowing what to do next. Essentially we kept pushing updates to Gunsmith and the game wasn't growing or improving in game score.

There's a lot more to it but ultimately these were some of the major factors. All we can do is learn from what happened, why it happened and ultimately come out better on the other side of it. That is all part of the process of running a studio long term. I am happy to also take questions about this in the Gunsmith discord if anyone wants to speak to me about it. I have always been straight and open with people and the community about the life that is game development and I want to continue to do that which is why i felt i should communicate this with you all.

[h2]The Next Update[/h2]

In better news! We've been reading over the feedback on the store and the discord and this is one of the largest features requested to change. Therefore we've put it to the top of the list of changes we want to make going forward. It's quite a massive change to the back end of the game so it's taken some time but we think it will be worth it.

[h2]Line Control Overhaul[/h2]

We are going to be changing the line control system quite drastically, we have read many times that the line control system can become tedious when factories get large and people having been asking for a change here for a long time. We have decided going forward that we're going to put in a re-work of this system. From now on, all factories will have a machine capacity that requires server power for the factory.

This simplifies the factory management process completely. How does this work? Pretty simple, if you add more server capacity to your factory, you will increase your factories machine limit and all machines will run from this limit. This means you'll no longer have to tie machines to line control every time you want to set up a manufacturing line.

For example, one server rack might allow you to place 5 machines, they will all function from this and wont need any micromanagement. However servers will consume some power so you'll have to balance power generation for the factory.

You're also going to require a factory tech to run the servers as well. After that you'll be able to place machines and run them. Job Done.

[h2] New Server Rooms [/h2]





This also means you'll be able to set up cool server rooms in the factory! We will be allowing these servers to also be upgraded in the research tree.

[h2]Line control is still in the game. [/h2]

This doesn't mean that line control is gone. Line control will still be in the game and that will be optional so you can if you wish, manage specific lines of manufacture in the game.

We think this will be a positive change for everyone new and still with us. This means if you want more detail in your line control you can still have that option available but you can just place down servers if you wish and be done with it!

[h2] Updated Water and Gas Pumps [/h2]

In addition to these changes we're going to be swapping out the old water and gas models that were really blocky and some of the first machines we ever modelled so they were pretty rough.

So Level 1 Water and Gas are being swapped out.



We are also adding another 4 new machines.

Level 2 and level 3 Water

Level 2 and level 3 Gas



There were no level 2 and 3 water or gas units in the game so on top of the line control rework we are adding these to the game to allow players to increase this capacity without having to make tonnes of level 1 water and gas systems.


[h2]The Future[/h2]

We are aiming to continue Gunsmith updates and increase the rate of update drops in the coming months again. We are going to be reducing the update sizes to try and roll updates out faster rather than massive update chunks that will take ages.

So the ideal situation is going to be smaller, more manageable and more frequent updates to the game going forward.

Thank you to everyone who's still with us on the journey.

We will see you when we drop the factory management update!

Rich

Hello everyone. Rich here. It's been a tough year for the studio. I have made a video explaining whats gone on. Why updates slowed down and what we are doing in the future. I have tried to cover all the topics that have caused issues this year and moving on into 2025 we hope to rectify these.

2024 as you all know has been one of the toughest years in the games industry that I can personally remember. Thousands of jobs have gone and hundreds of studios have closed.

We have also been badly effected by the changing games market/industry and we've had to do everything we could over the last year to survive. Thankfully we have done so and we're still here to continue doing what we love.

We don't expect everyone to understand but we wanted to offer an explanation as to why we've been AWOL for the last 6 months.

Thank you for your patience and continued support. We will be back with you in the new year with some more developer updates!

We are going to be releasing more information about game updates coming in Jan 2025.

Until then i wish everyone a happy new year and all the best for 2025!

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All the best to everyone.

Rich and SCT