Greetings, commanders!

Update 1.7.0 is finally here. This update will be carried out at 08:30 AM on August 28, 2025, UTC time. At that time, the server will undergo update maintenance for approximately 4 hours.

Now let me introduce the main content of this update to you:

Building Layouts

The building layout consists of a series of buildings on the map. In version 1.7.0, there are 8 different building layouts, and currently, all building layouts are composed of the following 3 types of buildings:

• Defense Wall: Defensive walls that block enemy fire. They retract into the ground when friendly units approach, allowing them to pass through.

• Anti-Armor Cannon: A slow-firing cannon that's effective against heavy units. It takes 10 seconds to reload after every 6 shots.

• Rapid-Fire Cannon: A fast-firing cannon that's effective against light units. It takes 2.5 seconds to reload after every 6 shots.

What is unique about buildings compared to units and devices?

• Currently, the building layout only appears in 1v1 and 2v2 battles.

• At the start of each game, the system selects 1 from 8 building layouts.

• Buildings appear on the battlefield in round 1.

• The building layouts of the two opponents are always mirroring or flipping each other.

• All destroyed buildings will be rebuilt at the start of a new round.

• Buildings cannot be upgraded or moved.

Why is the building layout designed this way, and what are the design goals of the building layout?

At the design phase of the building layouts, we had three different levels of goals:

Main Goal

• Add more information to the round 1 board, reduce the randomness of round 1, and make round 1 gameplay more strategic.

(Note: In the past, the positions of all units of a player were completely hidden from the opponent in round 1, which led to insufficient information available for strategic decisions to be made. As a result, the deployment phase of round 1 is more or less like a game of rock-paper-scissors, with too much randomness and too little strategy. The main objective of introducing building layouts is to add more information to the battlefield in the first round, enabling players to determine their unit selection and position based on the building layout, thereby reducing the rock-paper-scissors nature of the first round.)

Secondary Goal

• Encourage less formulaic and more emergent strategies by having a different building layout for every game.

Optional Goals

• Reduce the snowball effect in the early rounds of a game.

• After adding more info to the round 1 board, we may now take the opportunity to remove some special rules introduced to counter the random nature of round 1.

(Note: In the past, to battle the random nature of round 1, we reduced the deployable area of round 1 by 20m. After introducing the building layout, we can now remove this special rule.)

• Utilize the building layout as a new balance tool for starting units.

• Reduce the impact of buildings on later rounds to ensure that the final outcome of a match is still determined by units.

As you can see, the building layouts are mainly designed to address issues from earlier rounds, and we try not to change the game too much while doing so.

Why not design more powerful buildings, and why can't buildings be upgraded?

Mechabellum's battle is automated, where powerful defensive structures will encourage both players to build a large number of static defenses in their own half of the battlefield, thus easily leading to the awkward situation where both players wait for the other to attack.

Will there be more building types in the future?

In the future, we will gradually add more building types through updates. These future new buildings will not be overly powerful, but each will have its own unique and interesting aspect.

How does the addition of building layouts affect the balance of offensive and defensive strategies?

With the introduction of building layouts, some of the more formulaic strategies will be forced to adapt. According to the test server matches, if properly utilized, these buildings can provide some interesting new opportunities for both offensive and defensive tactics. Both offensive and defensive strategies are pretty viable on the test server.

Balance Adjustments

The following balance adjustments mainly target units that are significantly affected by Building Layouts.

Titan Units

• Upkeeps 150 → 0

• Unlock cost 200 → 350

• Removed \[Efficient Maintenance]

• The cost of all Techs increased by 200

• HP reduced by 10%

Developer's Note: While the initial purpose of introducing the upkeep concept was to make the Titan one-round kill strategy more viable, we now believe that the Titan one-round kill strategy is too strong at higher MMR ranges, which leads to increased randomness in later rounds. Therefore, we've decided to remove the upkeep concept. This change will significantly weaken the Titan one-round kill strategy, while other Titan strategies will be largely unaffected. In addition, the removal of \[Efficient Maintenance] will provide an additional tech slot for most Titan strategies.

Abyss

• HP 74395 → 66955 (-10%)

• Upkeep 150 → 0

• Unlock cost 200 → 350

• Removed \[Efficient Maintenance]

• \[Range Enhancement] Price 300 → 500

• \[Dark Companion] Price 100 → 300

• \[Photon Coating] Price 100 → 300

• \[Disintegration] Price 200 → 400

• \[Swarm Missiles] Price 250 → 450, Missile Damage 550 → 400

• \[Wreckage Recycling] Price 100 → 300

• \[Vertical Sweep] Price 150 → 350

War Factory

• HP 126214 → 113593 (-10%)

• Upkeep 150 → 0

• Unlock cost 200 → 350

• Removed \[Efficient Maintenance]

• \[Range Enhancement] Price 300 → 500

• \[Phoenix Production] Price 300 → 500

• \[Steel Ball Production] Price 250 → 450

• \[Sledgehammer Production] Price 200 → 400

• \[Missile Interceptors] Price 250 → 400

• \[Launcher Overload] Price 200 → 400

• \[Armor Enhancement] Price 200 → 400

• \[High-Explosive Ammo] Price 150 → 350

• \[Photon Coating] Price 200 → 400

Mountain

• HP 151841 → 136657 (- 10%)

• Upkeep 150 → 0

• Unlock cost 200 → 350

• Removed \[Efficient Maintenance]

• \[Gun-launched Rocket] Price 200 → 400

• \[Mountain Plating] Price 200 → 400

• \[Saturation Bombardment] Price 200 → 400

• \[Extended Range Ammo] Price 200 → 400

• \[Smoke Bomb] Price 150 → 350

• \[Photon Loop] Price 200 → 400

• \[Anti-Aircraft Ammunition] Price 100 → 300

• \[Range Enhancement] Price 300 → 500

Death Knell

• HP 139457 → 125512 (- 10%)

• Upkeep 150 → 0

• Unlock cost 200 → 350

• \[Energy Diffraction] Price 300 → 500

• \[Range Enhancement] Price 300 → 500

• \[Steel Ball Production] Price 250 → 450

• \[Barrier] Price 500 → 700

• \[Energy Absorption] price 200 → 400

• \[Electromagnetic Bomb] Price 300 → 500

Fortress

• ATK 5807 → 6213 (+7%)

Fang

• ATK 61 → 63 (+3%)

Stormcaller

• ATK 796 → 772 (-3%)

Sandworm

• ATK 8324 → 8906 (+7%)

• \[Sandstorm] Price 250 → 200

• \[Underground Maintenance] Price 200 → 150, Health Point Recovery per Second 15% → 20%

Crawler

• \[Loose Formation] Unit spacing 4.0m → 3.7m

Farseer

• \[Burst Mode] Price 150 → 200

Vulcan

• \[Scorching Fire] Price 200 → 300

Specialist

• \[Giant Specialist] adjusted to: Decreases the unlock cost of Giant and Titan units by 200

• \[Aerial Specialist] adjusted to: Decreases unlock cost of Aerial units by 200, increases their ATK by 13% and HP by 13%

• \[Rhino Specialist]'s Player HP bonus -200 → -300

• \[Typhoon Specialist]'s Player HP bonus -100 → -300

Battlefield Power

• The area of the Sticky Oil Bombs has been reduced by 20%.

Developer's Note: Due to the introduction of building layout, the importance of Sticky Oil Bombs in offensive vs defensive match-ups has decreased, so we have decided to reduce the area of Sticky Oil. In the future, we are likely to make even more adjustments to Sticky Oil Bombs and other battlefield powers based on statistical data.

Both Season 5 and Season 6 will arrive one week earlier

To avoid the season update time coinciding with holidays in the second half of the year, we have advanced the launch time of Seasons 5 and 6 by one week. Season 5 will arrive on September 25th.

Assitant Grid

Now, when players move a unit, a grid that covers the entire map will appear. Players can use the shortcut Ctrl+G to toggle the grid, and players can also change the grid's color in the settings.

Deployment Area

The deployment area of the first round has been expanded forward by 20m, and now it is consistent with subsequent rounds.

Developer's Note: In the past, to battle the random nature of round 1, we reduced the deployable area of round 1 by 20m. After introducing the building layout, we can now remove this special rule.

Lobby Rooms

Hosts can now remove players from lobby rooms.

Optimization

We have significantly reduced the performance pressure caused by the Abyss's \[Swarm Missiles].

Steel Crawler Skin

The Steel Team defeated the Mobile Force Team in the community event in April. According to the event rules, we have added a new skin to the Steel Skin Pack: Steel Crawler.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the issue where the game could not be played offline

• Fixed the issue where community challenge replays will not play

• Fixed the issue where takeover 2v2 replays cause the game to freeze

• Fixed the issue where the Experimental Overlord's Barrier could not be broken by Melting Point and Death Knell

• Fixed the issue where flying Void Eye sometimes ignores EMP.

• Fixed the issue where the Longbow and Fortress could not clearly determine the forward direction in some cases

• Fixed a Mountain targeting issue

• Fixed a Melting Point visual effect issue

• Fixed a \[Damage Sharing] visual effect issue

• Fixed a Phantom Ray visual effect issue

• Fixed a visual effect issue with various Production Line Equipment

• Fixed multiple display issues of various maps

• Fix the volume issues of multiple sound effects

• Fixed some localization issues

• Fixed many other issues