chore(release): v2026.8.3 changelog + What's new feed

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -13,6 +13,102 @@ the richer, screenshot-laden versions live there. `(#123)` references the pull r
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+## [2026.8.3] — 2026-08-04
+
+The wonders release: planets stopped playing it safe. Terrain generation learned a whole
+catalogue of spectacular landforms — a canyon that girdles the globe, crater chains with ejecta
+rays, stone arches and sea stacks, tiered sky islands with endless waterfalls, cenotes, lava
+tubes and caves that finally open to the surface — and about half of all new worlds now form
+true continents with real oceans between them. Combat grew up alongside: enemies show health
+bars, the crosshair does real aiming (with auto-aim as a world rule you can switch off), and
+ship weapons finally respect their own cooldown and energy budget. Rounding it off: multi-biome
+worlds draw from their whole biome pool instead of always the same entries, and NPCs stand on
+the ground, step into the light and stopped being clones.
+
+### 🏜️ Terrain wonders — the surface gets spectacular (#698–#703)
+
+- **A world-girdling mega-rift**: a rare planet carries one canyon system that wraps the entire
+  globe — a genuine "Valles Marineris" you can follow around the world.
+- **Craters became events**: complex craters with central peaks and terraced walls, crater
+  chains, and bright ejecta rays streaking away from young impacts.
+- **Per-world terrain grain**: dune seas and mountain ranges now run in a consistent per-world
+  direction instead of isotropic noise — deserts read as wind-swept, ranges as ranges.
+- **Geological set pieces**: hexagonal basalt-column fields, travertine terrace pools,
+  penitente ice-blade fields, salt polygons, ring-mountain calderas and whole-planet
+  escarpments.
+- **Hybrid worlds**: landform styles and archetypes can mix on one planet now, so a world can
+  be canyon country on one face and dune sea on another.
+- This is a **one-time reshape**: terrain you have not yet explored regenerates with the new
+  formulas — already-built and explored chunks keep their exact shape.
+
+### 🌊 Continents and true oceans — new worlds only (#704)
+
+- Large planets (roughly half of them, the start world included) now split into **continental
+  platforms and ocean basins**: domain-warped coastlines, a shelf falling away into deep sea,
+  and the sea level flooding the basins — so beaches, rivers and landmarks react for free
+  (a massif offshore becomes a volcanic island, a rift becomes an ocean trench).
+- Lava-ocean worlds roll **basalt continents** in their magma seas.
+- **Existing worlds are untouched** — continents apply only to newly created worlds (server
+  flag `continents=off` opts a new world out).
+
+### 🪨 Real overhangs: arches, sky islands, cenotes (#705–#707)
+
+- The engine's strict one-surface heightfield learned **multi-band columns** — and the first
+  tenants are **natural arches**, **sea stacks** off rocky coasts and **hoodoo** rock spires.
+- **Multi-tier sky islands** stack floating layers with stalactite undersides and **endless rim
+  waterfalls** pouring into the landscape below.
+- **Cenotes** — sinkholes with overhanging lips and a pool at the bottom — and vast
+  **underground mega-caverns** with their own lakes.
+
+### 🕳️ The tunnel carver: caves finally reach the surface (#708, #709)
+
+- A new deterministic **tunnel carver** threads worm-like passages through the rock — until now
+  every cave was a sealed bubble; **cave mouths and skylight shafts** now genuinely open to the
+  sky, so you can walk (or fall) into the underground.
+- **Lava tubes** wind under volcanic terrain, waterfalls carve **plunge pools** where they
+  land, and glacier worlds crack into **crevasse fields**.
+
+### ⚡ …and generation stayed fast (#712)
+
+- All of the above initially made every chunk pay for every wonder — a per-world wonder
+  profile, per-cell tunnel caching and distance-first feature probes brought generation back
+  near its old speed, with **bit-identical terrain** (verified by a hash sweep over every
+  planet type).
+
+### ⚔️ Enemy health bars, real aiming, honest ship weapons (#692–#694)
+
+- **Every damageable enemy shows a health bar** — bandits, creatures, space hostiles, planet
+  machines — green fading through amber to red (companions cyan), visible while in combat or
+  under your crosshair, with distance fades matching the nameplates. A **hit marker** flashes
+  when your shot lands. Client toggle in Settings.
+- **The crosshair aims now**: whatever is genuinely under your crosshair is the target; the old
+  magnetic lock — which could kill an enemy *behind your back* — only assists within a forward
+  cone. **AutoAim is a world rule** (default on, so nothing changes unless you want it to):
+  switch it off and only real crosshair hits (on foot) or boresight shots (in space) land,
+  misses visibly striking the terrain.
+- **Ship weapons play by their stats**: the server now enforces weapon cooldown and a
+  reactor-fed energy pool — no more fire-rate cheating — and weapon range/cadence come from
+  the fitted module (the tier-2 laser finally gets its longer range).
+
+### 🌿 Multi-biome worlds use their whole biome pool (#696)
+
+- Worlds rolled how *many* biomes they get but always took the *first* entries of their type's
+  pool — so the pool's tail biomes never appeared anywhere, and the first one appeared
+  everywhere. A seeded per-world shuffle now also decides *which* biomes make the cut
+  (newly generated chunks only).
+
+### 🧑‍🚀 NPCs: feet on the ground, faces in the light (#711)
+
+- **No more hovering**: settlement folk, camp NPCs, bandits and enemies stand on the actual
+  blocks (a leftover +0.5 offset from the worldgen overhaul), and settlement NPCs re-ground
+  as they stroll — dig the floor out from under one and it drops.
+- **Brighter**: avatar tint textures rendered at ~40 % of their authored brightness — they are
+  normalised at load now, outfit palettes widened and lifted, and bandit/Guardian materials
+  get the standard lighting lift.
+- **No more clones**: per-NPC size variation, independent trouser colours, varied android
+  chassis tones (only ~60 % of researchers are robotic now), and each NPC rolls a stable
+  face and hair of their own.
+
 ## [2026.8.2] — 2026-08-03
 
 The prospector release: space became worth mining. Asteroids gather in real belts you can see
@@ -1535,7 +1631,8 @@ A graphics-quality pass and a licensing/foundation cleanup.
 
 - Initial public release.
 
-[Unreleased]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.2...HEAD
+[Unreleased]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.3...HEAD
+[2026.8.3]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.2...v2026.8.3
 [2026.8.2]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.8.1...v2026.8.2
 [2026.8.1]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.7.24...v2026.8.1
 [2026.7.24]: https://github.com/marceld23/BlocksBeyondTheStars/compare/v2026.7.23...v2026.7.24

data/whatsnew.json

@@ -1,5 +1,13 @@
 {
   "entries": [
+    {
+      "version": "2026.8.3",
+      "date": "",
+      "title_de": "Schluchten, Kontinente und schwebende Inseln 🏔️",
+      "title_en": "Canyons, continents and floating islands 🏔️",
+      "body_de": "Dieses Update gehört den Planeten. Die Terrain-Generierung hat einen ganzen Katalog spektakulärer Landformen gelernt — von der Schlucht, die einmal um den Globus läuft, bis zur Höhle, die endlich einen Eingang hat — und ungefähr jede zweite neue Welt formt jetzt echte Kontinente mit richtigen Ozeanen dazwischen. Und weil man all das auch verteidigen will: Gegner zeigen Lebensbalken, und euer Fadenkreuz zielt jetzt wirklich. 🌍\n\n**Die Oberfläche traut sich was.** Ein seltener Planet trägt jetzt einen **Mega-Riss** — ein Schluchtensystem, das sich einmal komplett um die Welt zieht, ein echtes Valles Marineris zum Abfliegen. Krater sind Ereignisse geworden: Zentralberge, terrassierte Wände, Kraterketten und helle Strahlenkränze junger Einschläge. Dünenmeere und Gebirgszüge laufen pro Welt in eine Richtung, statt richtungslos zu rauschen — Wüsten sehen windgekämmt aus. Dazu kommen sechseckige Basaltsäulenfelder, Sinterterrassen mit Wasserbecken, Büßereis-Felder, Salzpolygone, Ringgebirgs-Calderen und planetenweite Steilstufen. Das alles ist eine **einmalige Umformung**: Nur Terrain, das ihr noch nicht erkundet habt, entsteht neu — alles Gebaute und Erkundete behält exakt seine Form. 🏜️\n\n**Der Himmel hängt voller Inseln — und der Fels macht Bögen.** Die Engine kann jetzt echte Überhänge: **natürliche Felsbögen**, Brandungspfeiler vor felsigen Küsten, Hoodoo-Felsnadeln. **Mehrstöckige Himmelsinseln** stapeln schwebende Ebenen mit Stalaktiten an der Unterseite und **endlosen Wasserfällen**, die von der Kante in die Landschaft stürzen. Und wer nach unten schaut: **Cenoten** — Einsturzlöcher mit überhängender Lippe und einem Pool am Grund — und riesige unterirdische **Kavernen** mit eigenen Seen. 🏝️\n\n**Höhlen haben endlich einen Eingang.** Bisher war jede Höhle eine versiegelte Blase im Fels. Ein neuer Tunnelgräber zieht jetzt wurmartige Gänge durchs Gestein — mit **Höhlenmündern und Lichtschächten, die wirklich an die Oberfläche führen**. Ihr könnt in den Untergrund hineinlaufen (oder hineinfallen 😅). Unter Vulkanlandschaften winden sich **Lavaröhren**, Wasserfälle graben Sturzbecken, und Gletscherwelten reißen in Spaltenfelder auf. 🕳️\n\n**Und neue Welten bekommen Kontinente.** Ungefähr die Hälfte aller neuen großen Planeten — Startwelt inklusive — teilt sich jetzt in **Kontinentalplatten und Ozeanbecken**: geschwungene Küstenlinien, ein Schelf, das in die Tiefsee abfällt, und Meere, die die Becken fluten. Strände, Flüsse und Landmarken reagieren von selbst — ein Massiv vor der Küste wird zur Vulkaninsel, ein Riss zum Tiefseegraben. Lava-Ozeanwelten rollen Basaltkontinente im Magmameer. **Bestehende Welten bleiben unberührt** — Kontinente gibt es nur auf neu erstellten. Und keine Sorge um die Ladezeiten: Ein Performance-Pass sorgt dafür, dass die Weltgenerierung trotz des ganzen Katalogs praktisch so schnell ist wie vorher. 🌊\n\n**Im Kampf seht ihr jetzt, wen ihr trefft.** Jeder angreifbare Gegner — Banditen, Kreaturen, Weltraum-Feinde — zeigt einen **Lebensbalken** von Grün über Bernstein nach Rot (Begleiter in Cyan), sichtbar im Kampf oder unter dem Fadenkreuz, dazu blitzt ein Treffermarker, wenn euer Schuss sitzt. Und das Fadenkreuz **zielt jetzt wirklich**: Was ihr anvisiert, wird getroffen — die alte Zielhilfe, die notfalls auch den Gegner *hinter* euch erledigte, hilft nur noch in einem Kegel nach vorn. Wer es sportlich mag: **AutoAim ist eine Weltregel** (standardmäßig an, es ändert sich also nichts, wenn ihr nichts wollt) — ausgeschaltet zählen nur echte Fadenkreuz-Treffer, und Fehlschüsse schlagen sichtbar im Gelände ein. Schiffswaffen halten sich jetzt außerdem an ihre eigenen Werte: Der Server erzwingt Abklingzeit und Reaktor-Energie, und die Tier-2-Laserkanone bekommt endlich ihre größere Reichweite. ⚔️\n\n**Die NPCs stehen jetzt auf dem Boden.** Wortwörtlich: Siedler, Lagerbewohner und Banditen schwebten seit dem Weltgenerierungs-Umbau einen halben Block über dem Boden — jetzt stehen sie auf echten Blöcken, und wer einem Siedler den Boden unter den Füßen weggräbt, sieht ihn fallen. Sie sind auch **deutlich heller** (die Avatar-Texturen liefen auf 40 % ihrer Helligkeit) und endlich keine Klone mehr: eigene Größe, eigene Hosenfarbe, eigenes Gesicht und Haar — und nur noch gut die Hälfte der Forscher sind Androiden. 🧑‍🚀\n\n**Nebenbei:** Mehr-Biom-Welten schöpfen jetzt aus ihrem ganzen Biom-Pool — bisher fehlten die hinteren Einträge auf jeder Welt, während der erste überall auftauchte. Ab sofort entscheidet ein Würfelwurf pro Welt auch, *welche* Biome mitspielen (in neu generierten Chunks). 🌿\n\nViel Spaß beim Erkunden — und wer die erste Himmelsinsel mit Wasserfall findet oder von seiner Kontinentalküste aus in See sticht: Screenshots her! ✨",
+      "body_en": "This update belongs to the planets. Terrain generation learned a whole catalogue of spectacular landforms — from a canyon that runs all the way around the globe to caves that finally have an entrance — and about every second new world now forms true continents with real oceans in between. And since you'll want to defend all that: enemies show health bars, and your crosshair actually aims now. 🌍\n\n**The surface got bold.** A rare planet now carries a **mega-rift** — one canyon system wrapping the entire world, a genuine Valles Marineris you can follow around the globe. Craters became events: central peaks, terraced walls, crater chains and bright ejecta rays around young impacts. Dune seas and mountain ranges run in one consistent direction per world instead of directionless noise — deserts finally look wind-swept. On top: hexagonal basalt-column fields, travertine terrace pools, penitente ice-blade fields, salt polygons, ring-mountain calderas and whole-planet escarpments. All of this is a **one-time reshape**: only terrain you haven't explored yet regenerates — everything built and explored keeps its exact shape. 🏜️\n\n**The sky is full of islands — and the rock makes arches.** The engine can do real overhangs now: **natural arches**, sea stacks off rocky coasts, hoodoo rock spires. **Multi-tier sky islands** stack floating layers with stalactite undersides and **endless rim waterfalls** pouring off the edge into the landscape below. And looking down: **cenotes** — sinkholes with overhanging lips and a pool at the bottom — plus vast underground **caverns** with lakes of their own. 🏝️\n\n**Caves finally have an entrance.** Until now every cave was a sealed bubble in the rock. A new tunnel carver threads worm-like passages through the stone — with **cave mouths and skylight shafts that genuinely open to the surface**. You can walk into the underground now (or fall into it 😅). **Lava tubes** wind beneath volcanic terrain, waterfalls carve plunge pools where they land, and glacier worlds crack into crevasse fields. 🕳️\n\n**And new worlds get continents.** Roughly half of all new large planets — start world included — now split into **continental platforms and ocean basins**: sweeping coastlines, a shelf falling away into deep sea, and oceans flooding the basins. Beaches, rivers and landmarks react on their own — a massif offshore becomes a volcanic island, a rift becomes an ocean trench. Lava-ocean worlds roll basalt continents in their magma seas. **Existing worlds are untouched** — continents only appear on newly created ones. And don't worry about loading times: a performance pass keeps world generation practically as fast as before, despite the whole catalogue. 🌊\n\n**In combat you can now see who you're hitting.** Every attackable enemy — bandits, creatures, space hostiles — shows a **health bar** fading from green through amber to red (companions in cyan), visible in combat or under your crosshair, plus a hit marker flashes when your shot lands. And the crosshair **actually aims**: whatever you point at is what gets hit — the old aim assist, which would happily kill the enemy *behind* you, now only helps within a forward cone. If you like it sporty: **AutoAim is a world rule** (on by default, so nothing changes unless you want it to) — switch it off and only genuine crosshair hits count, with misses visibly striking the terrain. Ship weapons also play by their own stats now: the server enforces cooldown and reactor energy, and the tier-2 laser cannon finally gets its longer range. ⚔️\n\n**NPCs stand on the ground now.** Literally: settlers, camp folk and bandits had been hovering half a block above the ground since the worldgen overhaul — now they stand on real blocks, and if you dig the floor out from under a settler, they drop. They're also **noticeably brighter** (the avatar textures ran at 40 % of their authored brightness) and finally no longer clones: individual size, trouser colour, face and hair — and only about half of the researchers are androids now. 🧑‍🚀\n\n**Also in this one:** multi-biome worlds now draw from their whole biome pool — the tail entries never appeared on any world before, while the first one appeared everywhere. From now on a per-world roll also decides *which* biomes make the cut (in newly generated chunks). 🌿\n\nHave fun exploring — and if you find the first sky island with a waterfall, or set sail from your own continental coast: we want screenshots! ✨"
+    },
     {
       "version": "2026.8.2",
       "date": "2026-08-03",