v2026.10.24

🐳 Docker (dedicated server)

Run the dedicated server (game server + admin/portal/download UI, optional AI backend) on any OS with Docker:

docker pull ghcr.io/marceld23/blocks-beyond-the-stars-server:2026.10.24
# or the rolling tag:
docker pull ghcr.io/marceld23/blocks-beyond-the-stars-server:latest

Setup & configuration: SELF_HOSTING.md §10.

The woodland release. New worlds grow real forests: ten new tree shapes from birch and oak to the tree fern
and the glowing lantern tree, every kind of tree on a planet actually grows, woods mix several kinds, and
crowns come in three looks per world. Glowing plants are special again — most worlds glow a little or not at
all. The animals get eyes, horns, glow patterns and 16 new coat patterns, and every planet dresses its fauna in its
own theme. Lyxette's reports bring fire that leaves the tree trunks standing, crates and beds that don't burn, and
data cubes that go quiet once you have their fragment. In the browser the HUD stands the right way up again.

ℹ️ Compatibility: the save version rises to 6 (six new blocks: two more kinds of leaves, blossom leaves, a pale
wood log, the saguaro and the lantern fruit), the terrain generation to 29 and the network protocol stays at
version 11. Existing saves are converted when they are first opened and keep their landscape; the new trees, the
mixed woods, the glow level and the rarer Fifi plant come on worlds created with 2026.10.24. The new crown and bark
looks, the animal looks, the softer glow by day, the fire rules, the data cubes and the browser fixes come to every
world, old saves included. Game and server must both be on 2026.10.24 — a server with another block set turns an older
game away at the door. An older game cannot open a save once 2026.10.24 has opened it.

🌳 Real forests on new worlds (#2848–#2856)

• Ten new tree shapes (#2853): birch, oak, column, umbrella, blossom tree, tree fern,
  bottle tree, spiral, ball tree and the lantern tree — it grows only on luminous worlds and carries a
  glowing Lantern fruit that is always edible and grows back after two minutes. The classic kinds come in shape
  variants of their own (#2854).
• Every kind of tree really grows (#2848): the first and last trees of a planet's list almost never grew — jungle
  trees made up 0.2 % of the jungle planet's trees, and deserts were 82–100 % dead snags. Now a jungle world grows about
  nine kinds of tree instead of four, and on a desert the dead snags fell from 84 to 16 %.
• Mushroom and crystal trees (#2849) finally grow — on alien grass, mycelium and crystal.
• The saguaro (#2850), the tall desert cactus, is its own block now.
• Mixed woods (#2852): three in ten trees of a grove are of another kind.
• Three crowns per world (#2851): two more kinds of Leaves, Blossom leaves and a Pale wood log. Each kind
  has its own look, colour and scanner name — and a tree's fruit, leaves and trunk are always equally toxic (or not).
• New textures (#2855): 28 new ones — 14 leaf crowns, 4 blossom crowns, 5 barks, 3 pale barks, the saguaro and the
  lantern fruit. The new crowns and barks show up in every world, and the three leaf kinds of a world always look
  different. Neighbouring groves drift gently in colour (#2856).

✨ Glowing plants are special again (#2857–#2859)

• A glow level per world (#2857): glowing plants grew on almost every world. Now four in ten worlds have none, three
  a few, two the usual amount and one in ten is a luminous world. Crystal and ashen worlds always glow at least a little,
  and caves keep their Glow Moss, Glow Threads and Prism Bloom.
• The Fifi plant (#2859) with its glowing blossoms grows on about every third world instead of nearly all of them.
• Softer by day (#2858): plant glow fades in daylight, the Frost Flower no longer glows, and glowing plants cast
  light in their world's colour.

🦓 Animals with eyes, horns and patterns of their own (#2860–#2868)

• Hides you can see (#2860): almost half the hides looked like a flat colour in the game. Now every hide shows its
  pattern, coarse hides are drawn bigger, and fine hides no longer shimmer in the distance.
• Fair choice (#2861): glowing hides went to three in ten of all species. Now no hide is worn by more than about one
  species in sixteen, and winged animals choose from twelve hides instead of six.
• Every planet has its fauna theme (#2868): desert animals no longer wear coral and lichen. Each planet's theme comes
  from its plants, temperature and water, and each world has a favourite hide family and pattern group. A pet, a clone
  or a cross keeps the look of its home world.
• Glow patterns (#2862): glowing species shine in one of seven patterns — spot rows, freckles, veins, rings, side
  lines, blotches or glowing tips, each in a luminous colour.
• 16 new coat patterns (#2863): giraffe, dalmatian, pinto, cheetah, jaguar, tabby, brindle, okapi, ladybird, poison
  frog, salamander, eye spots, tortoise, diamondback, chevrons and lengthwise stripes — 33 patterns in all. Small
  animals get a darker back.
• Bold colours (#2864): about one patterned species in five wears black, white or cream marks or warning colours.
• Herds (#2865): in a herd every animal has its spots in a different place.
• Eyes (#2866): ten eye looks — round, button, slit, goat, compound, ringed, double, star, oval and gleaming.
  Glowing species have a shining iris, and on small square heads the eyes sit in front of the face instead of inside it.
• Horns (#2867): five horn textures and a horn colour per species; fangs, tusks and teeth get a tone of their own.

🔥 Fire, crates and data cubes — thanks to Lyxette (#2872–#2874)

• Trunks survive a brush fire (#2872): Lyxette burnt off the bushes so they would not grow back — and the giant
  tree burned with them. Now the Wood Log, the Pale wood log and the Giant tree trunk no longer burn.
  Leaves, needles, fronds and plants still do, so a forest fire strips the crowns and leaves the trunks standing — a
  log house is safe too. The Tainted Log keeps burning.
• Crates and beds don't burn (#2873): the Wood Box, the Bed and the Stretcher no longer catch fire.
  A burnt crate left its contents behind under the ash, and a burnt bed left its foot end. The Rug still burns.
• A recovered data cube goes quiet (#2874): once its fragment is in your collection, a cube rests on the ground,
  its light is off, it stops humming and glows a faint steady green. Other players still see it live. It says
  "✓ Fragment already in your collection" now.

🖥️ The browser and the reports (#2843–#2846)

• The HUD the right way up (#2843): in the browser on some graphics cards the HUD stood upside down. It now checks
  which way its picture lies and turns it upright.
• Screenshots are pictures again (#2845): a screenshot from the browser came out as three squeezed copies of the
  frame. Reports now carry a clean picture.
• Reports say how the frame was drawn (#2844): a report now lists the graphics settings, so a display fault can be
  traced faster.
• No animal over dug-away ground (#2846, Lyxette): a sleeping animal floated over Lyxette's moat — animals stood at
  the height the ground had before it was dug away. Now they fall, the edge of the hole is a cliff for them, and a bird
  whose perch is gone flies off.

🫁 Air

• A holed room notices at once (#2870): on a busy server a room that had just sprung a leak could refill its air
  once more before it noticed. The check now finishes an ordinary room's refill in one go.

🌍 Texts

• The "What's new?" notes of 2026.10.23 are now available in the twelve community languages too (#2842).
• The new tree and block names and the data-cube texts are translated into all 14 languages.

🛠️ For tinkerers

• Generation 29: the grove pick flattens the grove value through a measured CDF table and weighs each palette entry;
  GlowLevel per world (None/Low/Normal/Luminous) drives the surface rosters, coverage and pick weights;
  older generations are bit-for-bit unchanged (WorldGenerationGoldenTests). Save version 6.
• New blocks: tree_leaves_b, tree_leaves_c, blossom_leaves, wood_log_b, saguaro, flora_lantern_fruit.
  Every tree kind is built from its leaf slot; toxicity is shared per tree. docs/developer/WORLD_GENERATION.md §46.
• Creature looks: FaunaThemes (override with faunaTheme in data/planets.json); NetCreature.LookPlanet and
  LookSeed are additive, name-keyed fields (no protocol bump) stamped into companions, clones and crosses;
  LitColor._Glow (default 0) in every UnityPerMaterial cbuffer. New tools tools/ai-assets/heal_seams.py and
  gen_coat_tiles.py.
• Fire: TreeWood.Keys, wood_crate, bed and stretcher lost flammable; the guard test
  NothingThatCarriesState_Burns keeps container and machine blocks out of the fire.
• Browser: Visor.shader pass 4 reads a HUD-orientation marker into a 1×1 probe; reportJson.graphics;
  ReadbackPixels (Client.Core) always reads RGBA32. The WebGPU dead ends are in docs/developer/URP_MIGRATION.md.
• For hosters: the WorldHost image was rebuilt with this release (Shared changed); the report host and the AI
  backend are unchanged.

Full Changelog: v2026.10.23...v2026.10.24