The Iron Claim

0.2.1
3 September 2026
28 changes in this update

Added

12 changes
  • The factory island: from level 10, the Ferryman takes you to a plot of your own, first free of sixteen each session

  • Machines: the Earth Scraper digs river silt, the Sieve turns it into the ores of that zone, the Crate stores them

  • Conveyors, straight and cornered: every machine has one entrance and one exit, and a belt snaps in front of a mouth

  • Construction sites: a machine takes real time to build, keeps building while you are away, and the hammer cancels it

  • Plans and research: anything beyond the base machines is locked until you buy its plan and research it

  • The Foundry, first researched machine: 80,000 gold, ten minutes, on or offline

  • A workshop on every plot, with a foreman who buys the parts you machine

  • Crate filters: refuse an ore so it never takes a slot, with a warning before anything is destroyed

  • Machine sounds: each one has its voice, fading in when it starts and out when it stops

  • A guided start on the island: golden ghosts show where your first scraper and its two belts go

  • A return stone on every plot, and the island in the waystone network

  • An opening cinematic with narration and subtitles, played once

Improved

7 changes
  • Upstream machines take the richest silt, downstream ones get what is left, so where you build matters

  • Machine sheets say why a machine is idle, instead of just saying something is wrong

  • Quests, the forge and crates now explain a refusal instead of staying silent

  • Auto mode navigates to water that can actually be reached, without zigzagging

  • Quest rewards are worth 2.5 times what you hand in, everywhere

  • Plots load only when you are close enough to see them

  • Construction labels show on your own plot only, so a busy island stays readable

Fixed

6 changes
  • Smelting lost two thirds of what you put in

  • Twenty-one of twenty-two items had no icon

  • The teleport out of a cave left the screen dark

  • A player returning to the menu on purpose was still offered a reconnection

  • Research started before a disconnect was lost on reconnect

  • A full crate pushed a waiting nugget on to the next belt without its ore

Removed

1 change
  • Unused key bindings: flashlight, drop item, chat and slots 6 to 10

Known Issues

2 changes
  • The tutorial stops after two belts: add a Sieve and a Crate yourself, nothing comes out of a line without them

  • One player saw a bright white flash after a teleport; not reproduced yet