Sandbox Simulator
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Release 4.1

Maps with levels. Stack floors, join them with stairs, ramps, ladders and drops, and watch matches play out across them. Plus a rebuilt map editor with a proper start flow, real editing tools and a 3D view, and a fix for seasons that got stuck when a community world was updated mid-season.

26 notes across 5 sections

Multi-level maps

  • NEWMaps can now have levels. Draw a floor on a raised level and it is somewhere to stand; add stairs, a ramp, a ladder or a drop and players climb between levels. Drops are one way, down.
  • NEWThe live Hardpoint engine plays levels for real: bots path up the stairs to a hill on the mezzanine, a hill only counts the players standing on its own floor, and a floor above you hides you from anyone higher up.
  • NEWLive viewers draw raised floors as platforms with stairs on them, and a player above ground wears a small elevation chip on their marker.
  • CHANGEFlat maps are unchanged and keep their old file format. Only a map that uses levels saves in the new one, so older builds refuse it instead of playing it flat.

Map editor

  • CHANGEThe editor starts with a start screen: pick the game and mode first, name the map, choose a canvas size or trace over an image, or open a recent, library or community map. The mode is a badge in the header and can be changed from the Map panel.
  • NEWA tool rail with single-key shortcuts that expands to show names, an inspector with Levels, Objects, Selection and Map tabs, and a status bar with cursor position, counts and validation.
  • NEWThe Objects tab lists everything on the map by level and kind, with a filter. Hover a row to see it on the canvas, click to select it; the editor switches to that level for you.
  • NEWEditing tools people expect: marquee and shift-click multi-select, drag to move, vertex handles, double-click an edge to add a vertex, alt-click to remove one, snapping to grid and to vertices, shift for 45 degree angles, a measure tool, and arrow-key nudging.
  • NEWDuplicate, mirror copies, flip, rotate and a symmetry mode that mirrors every shape you draw across the map centre, so a competitive map can be drawn as one half.
  • NEWLevels panel: add, rename, reorder and remove levels; draw on one while the others show ghosted underneath; move any wall, spawn or objective between levels.
  • NEWOpening tool (O): hover a wall and see a doorway previewed with a player drawn to scale inside it, then click to cut it. Presets from a tight 1.5 u to a 4 u gate, and an option to leave a door that blocks sight but not movement. No more nudging vertices and hoping a player fits.
  • NEWBuildings in one go: the Building tool (N) traces a footprint, then a small dialog asks for storeys, doorways and wall thickness and generates the whole thing: hollow walls, player-sized doorways facing the map, a floor slab and outer walls per storey, and a staircase inside each. Select any solid block already on a map and Hollow out gives the same result on its footprint.
  • NEWBuildings stay together: clicking any piece selects the whole building, Alt-click picks one piece, and the Objects list files the pieces under Building 1, Building 2. Build up and Copy to remain for hand-made rooms.
  • CHANGEPhones get a bottom tool strip and a slide-up panel; nothing is desktop-only.

Map styles

  • CHANGEMap styles are made of materials now. Walls, buildings, cover, fences, windows and floors each have a texture per style, and every standing shape casts a shadow, in the editor, in live matches and in 3D.
  • NEWFive new settings: Dust (sand and sandstone, wooden crates), Factory (corrugated steel, shipping containers, grated fences), Tundra (snow over stone and brick), Neon (tiled floor, panelled walls, steel cover with a cyan edge) and Wasteland (packed dirt, rusted steel, sandbag cover). Ten styles in all.
  • CHANGEBlueprint is retired. Maps saved with it open in Concrete.
  • NEWAny wall, building, cover or floor can have its own texture and colour from the Selection panel, and the Map panel changes every shape of a kind at once, behind an "are you sure" that says how many it touches.
  • FIXIn 3D, faces turned away from the camera are no longer drawn, which removes the seams along long walls and the stray vertical line a doubled vertex used to leave. Ground textures carry large-scale wear so floors read as floors at any zoom.
  • CHANGEStairs, ramps, ladders and drops are built geometry in 3D now: stepped treads with stringers, a solid ramp wedge, a ladder with rails and rungs, a kerb along a drop, all in the style material with shadows.
  • NEWCutaway in 3D: levels above the one you are editing draw faint and cast no shadow, so the rooms under a floor slab stay readable while you work on them.

3D view

  • NEWA 2D / 3D switch in the header. The 3D view stacks levels by height, extrudes walls and cover, slopes the stairs, and floats objectives and spawns on their floor with the same colours and labels as the top-down view. Everything still edits in 3D: you draw and move on the level shown in the header. The in-editor test run has the same switch, with bots standing at their level.
  • NEWRotate the 3D view with the rotate buttons, Q and E, or Alt-drag. Every wall, building and cover has a Height field in the Selection panel, so a low crate and a two-storey block read as what they are.

Careers on community worlds

  • FIXSome careers on community worlds got stuck near the end of the season: a tournament showed up twice, could never be finished, and Advance Week refused to move no matter how many times you simmed it. This happened when the world's creator updated the world while your season was still running. Fixed, and saves that are already stuck sort themselves out the next time you open them. No new save needed.
  • CHANGEA season now keeps the calendar it started with. When a world creator changes their season, you get the new version when your next season begins, not halfway through the one you are playing.
  • CHANGEThe same protection covers MyPlayer careers on community worlds.