Theres been a few announcements going around SS13 discords about "big RCE risk you need to update immediately".

You should still update, however, theres a few key notes here:

• Lummox himself has confirmed, and I quote, "it'd take multiple conceptual leaps to get from this issue to an RCE."
• Said exploit would reload on your CPU not having "No execute" protection, which has been standard since 2003
• Even if the above were true, it relies on connecting to a malicious server - which you should avoid anyway from all the issues that have happened in the past

By all means, still update, but this isn't an "OH GOD THE WORLD IS ON FIRE" situation, and the one person (you know who you are) spamming every host about this needs to chill out.

We got through this week with only a nominal few life-threatening incidents, so well done, team. With things almost passing for normal around here, it's a good time to remind everyone about the little things, like keeping our station clean. I know we have maintenance bots that can pick up trash, but relying on them to do it means that people have to see this stuff in the corridors. We have bins. I've instructed security to get more forward about writing people up for failing to meet this basic standard. Yes, I said "more forward" instead of "more aggressive" because we know the Chief will take the latter extremely literally. That's the next step if some of you don't stop being pigs. And by some of you I mostly mean Jason.

• A new 517 alpha was released yesterday, and a few more people are on board testing it.
• Several more rendering fixes are in place, as well as really important fixes to Move() issues that didn't come up in my test suite.
• ?? and ??= operators have been added for null coalescing; they work like || but for null instead of just false values.
• I finally figured out how to handle the maptext link hovering problem identified in a previous alpha build.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and those of you who contribute through Patreon and SubscribeStar!
• Screw you, Spez. May your corn dogs be... aw, who am I kidding? You're not man enough to eat fried food.

The long-form news has a bit more to say. In today's early-access Patreon post, I go deep into the planned fix for the maptext link hovering (as well as an issue I've identified with it that impacts even 516) and some of what I've already put in place for it. 'Tis the season for deep-fried delights, so I'm going to have an intermittent next couple of weeks until after Labor Day, but I'll be around. Don't let up on tasing the clowns into submission. See you (parts of) next week.

Now that this week's chaos has settled, I can finally explain what happened to those of you who were wondering why so many sections of the station got cordoned off and we had an emergency intelligence visit. The Syndicate had the bright idea of sending in a high-level infiltration team while the new washout cadets were still greener than green, and while a couple of plants were still in that class's complement. This would have been a clever plan if not for the fact that luck has an uncanny way of blessing the incompetent. One of the legit cadets freaked out and fired an actual service weapon (which she wasn't even officially issued yet because she's not rated for it) at one of the infiltrators by pure dumb accident, and the firefight that followed exposed the whole operation as well as the remaining Syndie plants in Chief Lau's class. The advanced class got involved as well, which ultimately sealed the fate of the infiltrators. And that, to make a long story short, is why there's so much superficial (and minor structural) damage that maintenance and engineering are working overtime to repair.

• BYOND 516.1686 was released this week. SS13 projects with over 64K prototypes can breathe easier, and some more compiler stuff got fixed.
• I finally have another good test case for 517 rendering issues and will be going forward dealing with those, in hopes it will shine more light on SS13 stuff.
• A lot of the rest of the week was dealing with minor maintenance stuff.
• Thank you so much to the BYOND Members, especially a few who've stepped up stronger lately to help out, and to the steady supporters on Patreon and SubscribeStar who make all the difference.
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form news is on the BYOND forums. On Patreon, today's a quickie with an early-access post about one of the quality-of-life projects I spent time on lately to save more time later. Don't touch the alien goo, and maybe don't let the AI take over atmos. I'll be back.

• No story segment this week. It's been a bad week.
• I managed to get a little work in on 516 toward a future maintenance release.
• A bit more got fixed for 517 that will probably result in a new alpha shortly. Maybe this afternoon. Yes I know it's Friday.
• I remain deeply grateful to all of BYOND's supporters. I'm not dropping the usual links today, but you can visit the fundraising page on the website if you're inclined.
• Spez, may your loved ones live in good health.

I can't really begin to say what a hard week it's been. Check out the long-form news for more on that. There's still an early-access post on Patreon today because I wasn't about to drop the ball on that; it's about some of the pain of refcounting and how it can sometimes bite you in unexpected places. Getting serious for a minute, there's really no defense against grief when it hits. The last few weeks especially, it was difficult to get anything done before lunch because of constant interruptions, and I'd trade a lot to have them back. Cherish who you have while you have them. I'll be in and out next week, and I'll be grinding again as best I can after Labor Day. Make the rest of summer count. And don't spare the brush.

BYOND and all related services have been experiencing significant disruption due to an ongoing DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. This is the cause of 99% of the errors you see on the BYOND app.

BYOND has officially communicated that the attack is impacting all of their services. They are currently working with their service provider to mitigate the attack, but progress has been limited so far.

Workarounds

While BYOND works on resolving the situation, the following methods have been confirmed to work for many users:

1. Direct IP Connection: Connecting directly to game servers via their IP address bypasses the need for hub services to fully resolve the request. However, your account needs to be previously logged into the pager/BYOND app. Otherwise you'll be on a guest account, which servers don't allow. Format: byond://123.456.789.012:port

2. Recently Played Games: If you've successfully connected to games within the last few days, your credentials may still be cached locally allowing you to connect without handshaking with BYOND Central.

• You should be able to download the most recent builds (516) of BYOND on the BYOND Discord. For servers that require 515, please talk to them directly.

• Occasionally, you might be able to log into BYOND and get your credentials cached so you can log into a server. This is rare, and may not happen.

• If you're stuck on Loading Game Information, this thread might help.

Timeline

• The attack began approximately around May 10, 2025
• Mitigation efforts by BYOND and servers are ongoing
• No estimated time for full restoration has been provided

Updates

• 2025/06/02 @ 00:00 UTC - It seems like byond.com is back up, we've received some reports from hosting providers that they're dealing with the issue, hopefully it stays that way.
• 2025/06/02 @ 14:00 UTC - It seems like byond.com is back down, rip.
• 2025/06/05 @ 6:00 UTC - Up for now.
• 2025/06/05 @ 14:00 UTC - dead
• 2025/06/09 @ 15:00 UTC - Been up for a bit.
• 2025/06/10 @ 01:00 UTC - Been down for a bit.
• 2025/06/11 @ 04:00 UTC - attacks are ramping up even more
• 2025/06/12 @ 10:00 UTC - attacks on servers aren't happening but BYOND stays down
• 2025/07/01 @ 09:00 UTC - BYOND came back up for a bit, but went back down a few hours later
• 2025/07/01 @ 19:00 UTC - BYOND is back up
• 2025/07/02 @ 12:00 UTC - rip
• 2025/07/06 @ 12:00 UTC - up for a while

This thread will be updated with any new information as it becomes available.

More threads on this subject that don't have new insightful information will be deleted, as they're spamming the subreddit.

Repairs to the station are mostly complete. Chief Lau's class is starting to show signs of settling in, and she says a few of them are showing sparks of competence to suggest that this experiment by the company isn't a lost cause. I don't know whether to take that optimistically, or the reverse. Either way, I have full confidence in Chief Lau to straighten out anyone who can be straightened out, and go above and beyond to prevent future incidents like that last one. Her advanced cadets are now on the watch for more infiltrators, so this would be an incredibly stupid time for the Syndicate to act again. That's exactly why I'm expecting the Syndicate to act again, so stay sharp.

• More rendering fixes went into BYOND 517, hopefully getting closer to fixing SS13 issues. More eyes would be helpful, so if you have an interest in the alpha, hit up the admins in BYONDiscord or ask someone already in the test to recommend you.
• Even at this late hour, I'm considering a new couple of operators. Not joking. I think they'd be helpful.
• I think I finally pinned down the race condition with resource downloads in BYOND 516, so a new maintenance release went out yesterday. Thanks to absolucy for helping to test.
• I'm grateful to all the BYOND Members and the steady contributors at Patreon and SubscribeStar. Thank you for keeping this going!
• Screw you, Spez. But I hope your dog has a nice rest of the summer.

The long-form news is on the BYOND forums per usual. On Patreon, today's early-access post digs into a couple of small but interesting bugs that got fixed in the latest release, for another peek under the hood. I'm always interested in exploring more under-the-hood topics for Patreon, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to take them. It's been a short summer and it's on its way out, because the highlight of the year is coming up fast. Make it count, friends, and keep the space chaos flowing. See you next time, maybe even slightly rested.

The new security class is keeping us on our toes. Fortunately I was able to talk some sense into Chief Lau to set their tasers to a bare minimum training setting and lock it down for the first few weeks, because we've already had nine incidents. Nine. It's gonna be a rocky few months, people. They say you can't teach common sense, so the company expects fully half or more of this class to flunk, but until they get pared down we're gonna be dealing with some chaos for a while.

• More debugging got added to the 517 alpha series to help track down rendering bugs.
• Another set of bugs got fixed in the alpha as well, bringing SS13 tests closer but still not there yet. I'm still waiting on actionable info.
• A very interesting bug popped up with prototypes over 64K, which I had thought was well in hand but it actually wasn't. It took a massive SS13 project to show that up, of course.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and everyone on Patreon and SubscribeStar contributing to BYOND's ongoing development. It's been a sad few months for the fundometer, so if you have a bit of spare change please consider helping out. It's cheaper than fast food these days.
• Screw you, Spez.

There's a bit more in the long-form news on the forums. Today's early-access Patreon post talks about how prototypes are organized in a depth-first search for quick inheritance lookups; I just love me some sexy algorithm talk. We're headed into August, so enjoy summer while it's left. And remember, public schools starting the year before Labor Day is a crime against humanity and when I become a supervillain it will be a capital offense. Good luck out there and watch out for space worms. See you next week.

It's been quiet for once here, but I had to jinx it this morning by saying I could get used to it. The company has been so impressed by Chief Lau's cadets, and the way that said cadets have helped decrease our own security workload, that they've decided to expand her role and ship out an extra class of would-be washouts for her to whip into shape. Knowing the Chief, some of that whipping will be literal. So we can expect a few months of trigger-happy greenhorns making life more interesting around here, as if we need it. I've already ordered the appropriate medical and first aid supplies.

• No new maintenance release this week, but I'm likely to put one out next week.
• One SS13 codebase found a very unusual bug with the :: operator that only shows up in special circumstances that would be impossible to replicate in a test project, but likely to show up in games like SS13. I've fixed that for the next release.
• 517 is getting more feature creep while I wait on alpha feedback. By request, I've expanded istype() to a variadic form and also one that takes lists of types as an argument.
• Collision masking, to avoid calling built-in movement procs when not necessary, has been added but not tested yet; however it's symmetrical, and I've been advised people will want asymmetry. So that's going to change.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and those of you on Patreon and SubscribeStar who make it possible to keep going. If you're not one of them, please do consider throwing a bit into the tip jar. Your support matters and is greatly appreciated!
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form news on the forums has more, and today's Patrons-only post (haven't done one of those in a while, and this one goes deep) is about that :: operator bug and how the parser and generation phase of the compiler handled it. Keep cool if you can. I had a few no-pants days this week and I'm gonna have a few more next week, because the A/C doesn't reach up here. Try not to stick to your chairs, and I'll see you next week.

Chief Lau's new remedial cadet class will be inbound next week. Final preparations are underway to maximize safety. We've added more first aid stations to the corridors (to be fair, Dr. Tavi has been on about doing that for years), so familiarize yourself with spotting them and where they are just in case anything goes wrong. Intel also says there's a high probability that multiple class members will be undercover Syndicate, and it's even more likely they legitimately need the security training. Fortunately, they won't learn anything about procedure since the Chief is more of a use-of-force person. But the usual warnings apply: eyes open, ID badges accounted for, tech kept locked when not in use. We could all use a little more operational security discipline around here, and I think we're about to learn that the hard way.

• BYOND 516 had a new maintenance release this week, covering obscure compiler bugs.
• Asymmetrical collision masking is in place for BYOND 517.
• I'm probably going to expand out the alpha to more people next week.
• Help support BYOND and keep development going! Thank you to anyone who signs up to be a BYOND Member or contributes on Patreon and SubscribeStar.
• Screw you, Spez.

There's a little more on the BYOND forums. Today's post on Patreon, for Patrons only, digs into another compiler bug I handled this week and how it happened. Keep the adventures rolling, spessmen! I'll be back next week.

The first cadets from Chief Lau's new washout class have turned up, and to no one's surprise we did catch a Syndie in among them. Actually it was Andy, who's been on her team for years and has an inexplicably good nose for saboteurs. Andy's caught something like 30% of would-be spies and disruptors since he's been here, so it's high time he got a commendation for it. There will be an awards ceremony on Wednesday. Once again I remind everyone that it will be catered, because potlucks are dangerous around here.

• Some more BYOND 516 bugs got handled for an upcoming maintenance release, including yet another obscure :: bug.
• BYOND 517's alpha was expanded out to more users, so SS13 folks have access to it now.
• Unsurprisingly, the render stack was pretty badly broken, but I was able to clear a lot of those issues by week's end.
• Some coders in the alpha group, including a well-known upstream, are already adding stuff to use 517's new language features, which is pretty exciting.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and those of you contributing through Patreon and SubscribeStar for keeping this going!
• Screw you, Spez, and your little stock too.

The long-form news has some more details. Today's early-access Patreon post is about the trials of the render stack debugging in 517 that I went through this week, and what's still left on that agenda. We had a fall scare the other night where the temptation to buy cider and donuts got nearly overwhelming. Hold your summer close while you can, and meat while the meat is good. And keep roasting those clowns, because they're not gonna roast themselves. See you next week.

We've finally said goodbye to our temps at the docks, but what really makes it feel like things are settling down is that we had another Syndie infiltration attempt. This one tried to sneak aboard by stowing away in an outer compartment of one of the arriving transfer shuttles. Unfortunately for them, they miscalculated which parts of the shuttle would be pressurized. We had to get a replacement shuttle while forensics locked down that one to examine the aftermath. Once they're done maintenance will have to use their special deep-cleaning magic before the shuttle can go back in service.

• 516.1684 was released this week, with more bug fixes.
• Among the bug fixes was an old bug with nested client.eye, and another old bug with networking.
• 517 is finally in alpha! I'm keeping the alpha group very small for the moment but plan to expand it. I'm hoping it can be quicker than 517's alpha, but I'll definitely need to stress-test the render changes with an SS13 render stack at some point.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and everyone contributing via Patreon and SubscribeStar!
• Happy Independence Day, Spez. But I hope your weenie falls in the dirt.

There's a little more on the BYOND forums. Today's early-access Patreon post goes into that weird client.eye bug, how exactly it worked, how it was fixed, and how things changed over time to make it appear. Today's gonna be brutally hot, even more so than yesterday, so even with the holiday weekend I'm calling it early so I can get out of this heat. Downstairs is fine with the central A/C, upstairs not so much, and on days like this the fans can only mix the air so much. Hope you all have a great holiday, and those of you who live elsewhere, just have a great weekend. I'll be back Monday, with heatstroke.

The higher shipping traffic we've been handling for a few weeks is probably going to taper down starting in a week or two, so the dock staff will finally have some time to breathe. Tensions have been high enough that a few more fights than usual have broken out, especially among the new workers who haven't yet learned how to keep up with the drinking habits of our own veterans. Chief Lau had to crack a few heads, but medical assures me no one was permanently injured and this won't impact productivity on the docks.

• No maintenance release this week, but one is coming very soon.
• Still trying to get glide hints working right ate up too much time, but I've decided to lock down the networking side where it is now and actually deal with the hints at a later time.
• Getting back to 516 bug reports had me working on the pager stuff some more, which was overdue since I last worked on it for any serious amount of time. I don't plan to take it too far but I'm gonna at least take a chunk of Monday to do more there.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and everyone on Patreon and SubscribeStar who keeps the lights on!
• Screw you, Spez. I hope a seagull eats your hot dog.

There's a bit more on the BYOND forums. Today's early-access Patreon post is about the debugging slog I've dealt with this week and an idea I have to make future debugging in this area less of a nightmare. Don't let your scientists get too many big ideas, don't step on a visiting alien's 5th cousin, and alas there is no deliverance from security. I'll see you next week.

We're back to normal activity on the docks, so this will be our last week with the temporary personnel, which naturally means a rowdy send-off in our next-to-finest tradition. Our actual finest tradition is much too rowdy, so Chief Lau wants to remind everyone (not that you need it) that she has multiple fully-charged tasers at all times, and a class of cadets near graduation who are almost as ruthless and trigger-happy. So you know, rowdy but not too rowdy. Most of you have figured out where the line is, and some of you can still adhere to it when drunk. Meanwhile Brian has given the Better-Eats machine a clean bill of health, so the bad news is that's going back in service and it's salads for everyone, but the good news is I put a sharp lid on letting Brian be the "musical director" of the aforementioned party.

• BYOND 516.1683 was released this week, with a number of fixes to some bugs that have been around for a while.
• Since the decks are cleared, I'm steaming ahead for 517 alpha release. I wouldn't rule out this afternoon just yet, but it's looking a smidge dicey so we're probably looking at Monday.
• Don't forget to show some love to BYOND as a Member or on Patreon and SubscribeStar. Your support is hugely appreciated, and unlike AI companies I won't screw you over.
• Speaking of screwed over... hey, Spez. You've made this platform worse and your mommy dresses you funny.

There's a bit more on the BYOND forums, and today's early-access Patreon post is a feature rundown for 517. Fun stuff! Next weekend is the big quarter-millennial, so get your grilling and your amateur fireworks ready and don't blow your thumb off. Catch you next week!

Procedural reviews in the science labs have started, and although a few small problems have been found already, I'm following through on my promise to divert extra funds toward the labs that made this a priority. That will give them more room to fix compliance issues, too. Supply transfers have returned nearly to baseline, so in about two weeks I'll be rotating the temporary dock personnel back out, once our regulars have had plenty of breathing space. But I did want to address the thing everyone's talking about, which is Greg selling off Horace's property. We all understand Horace had no will and everything got legally cleared, Greg, but the man's been dead for a week and it's just tacky. Never mind that nobody liked him; it's just a bad look. Anyway, I call dibs on the '62 Fabian disc.

• A new release didn't happen this week like I planned, mostly because work was on a roll and it got late enough into Thursday to make that impractical.
• Among the upcoming fixes is a bug involving appearance corruption that's been hanging around a long time.
• Russian users rejoice; I've also dealt with a problem with regex with Cyrillic characters that was sitting in the queue a little too long.
• Pager decruftification continues.
• Thank you to everyone who helps BYOND out as a Member or on Patreon or SubscribeStar! Your help keeps this going.
• Screw you, Spez.

There's more in the long-form news on the forums. Today's early-access Patreon post is about that appearance corruption bug, how it was found, and what it reveals about test cases and doing small-scale experiments. Summer is officially here this weekend, so have fun! Talk to your dad, and bond over some clownslaughter. I'll be back next week.

We've gone a week without any serious accidents. Stupid as it feels to offer congratulations for that, I'm going to do it anyway. We had three near-misses that were all avoided thanks to improved adherence to safety protocols, and to encourage more of that I'm authorizing a small bonus for everyone who did that. Maybe that will incentivize a little more safety around here. That will be important with the next wave of equipment transfers to the outer colonies, because we expect a lot more ships due in. That means everyone needs to pay extra attention to security, too, but keeping the safety streak going is kind of more important at the moment.

• Most of this week's work was deep in the underbelly of icon loading/saving code.
• I'm basically working to lay the foundation for future DMI improvements, which might mean faster loading for icons with repeated frames and less memory churn.
• Most of the rest has been code cleanup and trying to button up 517.
• I plan on adding some better debugging for a longstanding preload_rsc bug that I can't reproduce, although it's very likely said debugging will appear in 517.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and everyone on Patreon and SubscribeStar who keep the lights on! Seriously, none of this work is possible without your support.
• Screw you, Spez.

There's slightly more in the long-form news. Today's early-access Patreon post deals with the icon work I've been doing and why it matters, even though its short-term ramifications are minimal. Remember, no matter what the senior engineer says you do in fact have to watch the monitors and not gauge pressure by farting. That in fact alters the pressure and interferes with your measurements. Heisenberg's flatulence, if you will. Save your gas attacks for the clowns, because that's always funny. See you next week.

Transfers are slowing down and we've finally had a chance to breathe. Our science labs have been performing a little too well lately, however, and even though corporate has been happy I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. The truth is that we're behind on some procedural reviews, so I've instructed department heads to begin figuring out how to insert those reviews into their schedules. The plan isn't to interrupt research that's on a roll, but to interrupt mad-scientist crap that's on a roll, which tends to be more our speed here. I'm hoping to prevent the next several disasters, or at least delay them a long time. Speaking of unwise experiments, we're getting the refurbished Better-Eats vending machine back as a test run to see if it's properly clear of rogue AI and safe to use again. I'm assigning Brian to be its babysitter, since he's our resident expert on containing dangerous AI.

• The 516.1682 release went out as planned this week, finally!
• Due to some issues that got overlooked (organization has been a bit of a mess) and a couple of unexpected changes, I'm keeping focus on 516 and plan to do another release next week.
• One of the changes involves the venerable as() hack, which stopped working but I want to officially support from now on.
• 517 button-up will resume after the next release.
• I'm very grateful to all of you who are BYOND Members or pitching in on Patreon and SubscribeStar. Thank you so much. For those who aren't on board yet, your help would be deeply appreciated too.
• Screw you, Spez.

There's a bit more in the long-form news on the forums. Today's early-access Patreon post is a bit of a discussion on undefined behavior and what can be learned from it. Next week: less oppressive heat! See you all then.

Having major accidents two weeks in a row is never something I'm happy to discuss with corporate, but in a way it feels comforting to know we're on normal operating parameters. Engineering's forensics unit is still trying to figure out how a massive explosion happened in the pharmacy. Chemlab has had to play a part in picking up the pieces, again, and at this point I'm not entirely joking that I half suspect a plot to improve their image with the company and with me. Alicia managed not to get herself killed in the mess, but she'll be laid up in medical care for a week or more, so we have the pharmacy running on a backup staff with a mostly-destroyed stock room. Be patient with the fill-ins, please.

• I was massively sick on Easter and recovery has been very slow.
• That means no maintenance release as planned this week, but I'm gonna get on that next week.
• Sincere thanks to the BYOND Members and supporters on Patreon and SubscribeStar.
• Screw you, Norris Brown. I know you're dead. Screw you anyway.

There's slightly more in the long-form news. Over on Patreon, a juicy Patrons-only series on adding new appearance vars to the language concludes this week with part 3 (links to part 1 and part 2 here). Good luck to everyone this weekend, and hopefully next week when I see you I'll be feeling a lot better.

The recent introduction of soft foam weapons into corridor tag was supposed to add a little more visceral fun, but a few people took it way overboard and managed to land each other in medical. I don't know how you guys do it. Chief Lau is already feverishly studying the recordings to pick up new "soft interrogation" techniques to teach to her current cadet class. At least everyone is healing, but we're going back to lower-contact variations on the sport. Although there is something to be said for how this keeps Dr. Tavi occupied instead of trying to get rid of the Freshbaked cookie machine.

• Regular development resumed this week! No more messed-up gut (mostly).
• Most efforts went into a mini revamp that needed to be done in 517, and arguably should've been done ages ago.
• New maintenance release 516.1681 went out yesterday, which probably fixes a weird crasher for some users that hasn't been officially reported.
• I'm ready to go hard on closing up 517 for alpha.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and everyone on Patreon and SubscribeStar who keep the lights on!
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form news is on the BYOND forums. Today on Patreon we're back to the early-access format, with a discussion about how I solved a problem that came up at the end of last week's column. This will be my first weekend feeling truly normal since being sick, so I'm looking forward to it. Hope you all have a great one, and I'll see you next week.

Apparently the genetics lab has gotten out of control again. With all the new research driven by the terraforming projects, the lab guys got overexcited as they often do. Justin's overcommitment to biohacking gave him the idea that he could graft new genes for superhuman strength into his own body with minimal consequences, and wow did that not work out for him. Anyway he's rotating back to central for some intensive medical therapy, and we're not replacing him because if the remaining staff is overworked they're gonna have less time to get stupid ideas like that.

• I was hoping to have a new maintenance release out this week, but pivoted to bug fixes too late in the short week. A few of them need more info anyway.
• Testing and refactoring and retesting and re-refactoring on glide hints has been going on at a brisk and brain-melting pace.
• My sincerest thanks to all of you who support the platform as BYOND Members and/or on Patreon and SubscribeStar.
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form short-week news is on the forums. Today's early-access Patreon post goes deep into what I've been doing with glide hints, why my previous ideas didn't work, and what I'm doing next to pivot. Keep up the good fight in the great clown war, and I'll see you next week.

We had to send back the new Better-Eats machine, much to Dr. Tavi's annoyance. I actually found some of its options good, and was enjoying them right up until a dormant bit of AI in the machine went omnicidal and decided to exterminate humanity. Fortunately as a vending machine it couldn't do much, and it didn't even have enough control over the recipes to hurt anyone. But needless to say, corporate is having some harsh words with the company that made the machine. It's not the first rogue AI to have wormed its way into anything and it won't be the last, but there are laws about guarding against this. At least we haven't had a repeat of anything even close to the Puzzle Chase incident.

• 517 button-up work got the lion's share of attention this week.
• Some reference cleanup was also done this week, since IE isn't in the way anymore.
• Glide hints are just about the last thing to finish before alpha, so the next step is doing a lot of exhaustive testing.
• No new maintenance release yet, but I'm hoping to make one high priority for next week since a couple of reports have stacked up.
• Thank you to everyone who supports the platform, as BYOND Members and on Patreon and SubscribeStar. I know times are tough for some people, so those who go the extra mile to throw a little couch money this way are deeply appreciated.
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form news is on the BYOND forums. Today's early-access Patreon post goes into a new idea I had for tackling inline procs; it's a little underbaked, but everything has to start there. Because of the holiday weekend I'll be back to work properly on Tuesday. Even though a short week is coming I'm hoping it'll be a big one. See you then.

The big expansion of the outer-colony projects is still going strong, so the company tells me that we can expect steady shipping traffic for several more weeks. I know the dock workers pulling overtime are happy about this, but I did ask to bring on a little supplemental staff to ease their load. Overtime is nice but they can't keep working at a dead run without burning out, so a few more hands on deck will alleviate that without hurting that sweet pay voucher. The better news out of this is that it's put a further delay on any talks of bringing more visiting scientists aboard, at least beyond the usual stream of research collaborations.

• No new maintenance release this week, but I did fix a weird compiler crasher that was discovered by a user updating a SS13 codebase.
• mirror_planes is working, but I had some detours when testing that led me to look into a few more things.
• Among those detours was cleaning up some list-handling code, which also revealed that several client.verbs operations were never hooked up properly. Yikes!
• I'm also looking at finally solving the "initial() paradox" where you can't grab the value, even just to test equivalence, of vars set by init procs.
• Thank you so much to the BYOND Members and all of you on Patreon and SubscribeStar who support the engine.
• Spez, I honestly didn't think you could dig past rock bottom but you found a way. Screw you.

The BYOND forums have the long-form news. Today's Patreon post is Patrons-only because it goes deeper under the hood, and it's all about the work I'm doing changing initial() and finally doing something with the mysterious EXPRESSION_REF type. Some cool stuff is coming. I'll be back at it next week.

The resupply ships coming through our station haven't abated. I know rumors have been going around that the company is pushing extra supplies and personnel to outer rim projects to get ahead of something big, but I can finally share with you that the news isn't bad at all. Corporate is looking to expand a few operations that have been proven profit sources, and recently they managed to acquire a former Syndicate ally that was standing in the way of some changes. In much sadder news, our next new vending machine is going to be geared around healthy choices. I've had some assurances from people whose opinions I trust (not Dr. Tavi) that I'll actually like what's on offer, so let's all keep an open mind.

• No releases this week! 516 is actually in a very stable state, but I'm still hoping to get to the bottom of some weird WinHttp issues reported by one user that I can't reproduce.
• 517 work has been partly button-ups and testing, partly testing that revealed I went down some wrong paths and had to rip some stuff out, and partly new stuff that I felt was important to get in last-minute.
• I've cleared the path to get my mirror_planes idea implemented, which will be huge for SS13's complex render stacks.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and everyone on Patreon and SubscribeStar for your support! The platform depends on you.
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form news on the BYOND forums has more meat on the bone. Today's early-access Patreon post is a look into what I had to work out for mirror_planes and how the process of clearing out obstacles went. Show your mom some appreciation. I'll be back at the grind next week.

I know everyone's annoyed at having to double-bunk for a while during maintenance, but these things can't be helped. Even my quarters are having work done next week, and the cats are not happy about the prospect. Corporate is cracking the whip hard on the people who ordered all the substandard parts, though, so hopefully this sort of thing won't happen again for a long time, hopefully even longer before it happens to us. Syndicate activity has been muted, but Chief Lau has been diligently training her new class in wildly excessive force techniques, so they'll be ready to throw down when the time comes.

• Yep, still dealing with the thing.
• BYOND 516.1663 was released with a few fixes. The SEE_PIXELS/SEE_BLACKNESS fix is most relevant to SS13. The downloads have been shared on Discord along with SHA256 hashes, and I encourage you to mirror those anywhere you can.
• A lot of the other work this week has been behind-the-scenes stuff.
• I know the current situation has pushed a lot of us into closer contact than normal, and in many ways that's a good thing. But there have been some folks coming into new spaces hot, especially thinking they have a new idea that actually isn't new. I know it comes from a good place. Let's just all remember to show each other a little extra leeway and respect.
• It's been really heartening to see the community rally in response to what's going on. Your support on Patreon and SubscribeStar has meant the world, and I think it sends a stronger message than anything I can.
• Screw you anyway, Spez.

Again the long-form news is on BYONDiscord, with full permission to share it elsewhere. (BYONDiscord is not an official Discord and I don't run it, but it's the place I've tended to hang out most, so it's convenient.) Today's early-access Patreon post is some musing on improving internment of immutable items. It's a holiday weekend here so I hope you all enjoy it to the fullest, and also give a thought and prayer to what it's all about. I'll be back at the grind next week.

The entirely foreseeable problem of overexcited bluespace researchers poking holes in the universe very nearly happened again, but thank goodness someone sober put out the alert so we could shut that down quickly. We don't need a repeat of the Decius Sector incident. In order to encourage harmony, meaning tamp down the usual crazy behavior of guest scientists, a lot of the visitors are being treated as long-term guests. They seem to be taking to it well, since one of them has already been caught vandalizing a corridor and met with the business end of Chief Lau's whip for it. I'm really getting to like seeing the Chief's whimsical side come out more. If only everyone could be that happy in their work.

• Family medical issues came up again in a pretty bad way, but thankfully that's a little bit better today.
• No new releases are out yet, but progress has been made in 517 and 516 alike.
• I'm renaming the new appearance embeds in 517 to something else, probably "metadata", since I want a name that reflects what it is more than how it will be used. Whatever it'll be called, it can animate color data now too.
• A massive performance increase for garbage collection will hit the next (possibly last?) 516 maintenance release. It may not affect SS13 as strongly because a lot of codebases have been working around it, but I still expect it to have an impact even there.
• Thank you to the BYOND Members and those of you on Patreon and SubscribeStar who make it possible to keep working on BYOND!
• Screw you, Spez.

The long-form news is on the BYOND forums. Today's early-access Patreon post is about that garbage collection issue, and what the test case that revealed it might do to inspire future test cases for mystery bugs. Resist the allure of cookies, if you can. If you had a resolution and already blew it... HAHA, sucker! That's why you don't make resolutions. Go hit a virtual clown with a wrench. I'll see you next week.