• Disabling station with train waiting in it doesn't force the train to departure anymore so it works as it worked in 0.16. It looked like a useful change for 0.17, but we can control train conditions by circuit network and there are some nice and simple use cases were ruined by trains being forced to departure when the stop is disabled. more
  
• Changed expensive version of assembling machine 2 recipe to match the normal version better. more
  

• Added map editor support to delete items.
  

• Fixed pipette making error sound in latency state even though you have enough items. more
  
• Fixed that technologies would sometimes disappear from the technology list when added to the research queue. more
  
• Fixed problems related to circuit network connection inconsistency related to undo. more
  
• Fixed NPE issue where Compilatron could destroy essential buildings. more
  
• Fixed NPE crash when Compilatron tells you to pick up scrap. more
  
• Fixed that he bonus GUI wouldn't show personal equipment. more
  
• Fixed using special-item tags would cause desyncs. more
  
• Fixed NPE crash when Compilatron tries to point at an object that doesn't exist any more. more
  
• Fixed Local errors in scenarios would crash the game when viewing scenarios in the GUI. more
  
• Fixed that reviving and underground belt could sometimes change it's direction. more
  
• Fixed a crash when using modded recipes in furnaces with fluids. more
  
• Fixed that the active-version selector in the mods GUI didn't work. more
  
• Fixed that randomizing map seed didn't have any effect after an exchange string was loaded. more
  
• Fixed that resources wouldn't be rendered correctly in the map preview. more
  
• Fixed miscalculation of peak influence in autoplace specifications with more than 2 peaks. more
  
• Layouting fix related to technology gui. more
  
• Fixed crash when running out of space in physical texture used for streaming. High detail textures will be evicted instead. more
  
• Fixed that mod settings could get scrambled/reset when adding removing or changing mods. more
  
• Fixed that you could open blueprint books/armor multiple times. more
  
• Fixed that the train inactivity wait condition time was limited to 120 seconds. more
  
• Fixed a crash when exiting the game through the "X" button from a tutorial. more
  
• Fixed the shadows of some GUIs when circuit network window is shown. more
  
• Fixed menu background image would be scaled with poor quality. more
  
• Fixed crash related to beam creation when the source or target is removed in the process. more
  
• Fixed a hand logic related to loading a save with different mod settings which results in to the cursor being item removed.
  
• Fixed being unable to clear "X"(missing blueprint) icon from the quickbar. more
  
• Fixed that train two stations of the same name in the train schedule could crash the game. more
  
• Fixed consistency check for signal state of train on the way. more
  
• Fixed issues with pipes disconnected w/o reason. Added stricter checks for new occurrences. more
  

• Added LuaSurface::min_brightness read/write.
  
• Added LuaEntity::get_connected_rails(), get_rail_segment_entity(), get_rail_segment_end(), get_rail_segment_length(), and get_rail_segment_overlaps().
  

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

Hello,
This past weekend we beat our previous record of most simultaneous players with a peak player count on Steam of 22,457 players, and no doubt another couple thousand playing the non-Steam version.

We have a proportionate number of bug reports coming in for macOS systems, and we don't have a dedicated developer responsible for the problems. The Job listing is still up on our website, and we have the desk already set up for someone willing to join our team.

If you might know anybody who might be interested, please point them in our direction.

We are slowly getting to a phase, where we are fixing bugs faster than they are reported. Interestingly enough, the worst bugs were not happening right after the release, but as a reaction to non-trivial fixes later on. Overall there have been over 12,000 crash reports automatically sent in for 0.17, and we are slowly stemming the tide as you can see in the graph.



The second indicator of progress is the amount of active reports on our bug forum reports, the current count is 372. Lets see how long it will take to get it to the magical 0. :)

With the entire rewrite of the graphics engine being put to the test, there have been some very interesting and some very cool looking glitches occurring.


This is almost like a 'cell shaded' effect.




The tiles are slowly being soaked in blood.



This one is just glitchy.

Even though some may look cool, these 'effects' have been fixed.

Other than bugfixing, not much is going on in the office, so we don't have any interesting news to share with you. That said, if you have some thoughts, let us know on our forum.

• Fixed modded multiplayer games would incorrectly show a mod-mismatch error (again). more
  
• Fixed queued GUIs didn't work correctly. more
  
• Fixed that terrain selectors other than 'elevation' messed with the water/island controls more
  
• Fixed PvP running on_init when it was already initialised. more
  
• Fixed that replacing an underground pipe by a pipe could cause fluid mixing in a special situation. more
  
• Fixed that upgrading entities with the upgrade planner would erase the last-user. more
  
• Fixed a crash in the update mods GUI.
  
• Fixed incorrect styling in the update mods GUI in some cases.
  
• Fixed crash when loading a save during a cutscene when following a unit. more
  

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

• Fixed game.players[#] would be treated as game.players[tostring(#)].
  
• Fixed inserter/mining drill interaction indications would still render for mined-in-latency-state entities.
  
• Fixed inserter/mining drill interaction indications wouldn't render in some cases and would ignore ghosts in some but not all cases.
  
• Fixed that the game would incorrectly think some mods wouldn't be required when joining multiplayer games even though they are.
  
• Fixed some key bindings not working correctly until game restart. more
  
• Fixed a crash when changing entity ghosts with wire connections through the upgrade planner. more
  
• Fixed that the prevent-robots-from-working-because-i-am-driving-too-fast logic still wouldn't work in some cases. more
  
• Fixed that highly nested recipes would freeze the game. more
  
• Fixed a crash when loading saves that contain connected cliffs that will be removed due to mod migrations/removals. more
  
• Fixed statistics graphs crashing when releasing shift with a tooltip active. more
  
• Fixed rendering of tile transitions on Sandy Bridge iGPUs for real this time. more
  
• Fixed that it was possible to add a blueprint to other player's shared blueprints. more
  
• Fixed that undo was not preserving ghost entity module requests. more
  
• Fixed that undo was not preserving circuit connections. more
  
• Fixed that un-researching technology wouldn't update GUIs correctly. more
  
• Fixed PvP scenarios created in 0.16 and loaded in 0.17. more
  
• Fixed PvP script error from bad migration data checking. more
  
• Fixed that blueprint that was meant to disappear on Q did not after selecting and cancelling selection. more
  
• Fixed persisting tooltips in the technology gui. more
  
• Fixed set_quick_bar_slot not refreshing item counts in the quickbar. more
  
• Fixed layouting in train configure gui with very long station names. more
  
• Fixed layouting in train configure gui with too long condition translations. more
  
• Squashed labels get a tooltip with the full text in a similar fashion as buttons.
  
• Fixed that research queue setting wouldn't export to map exchange string properly. more
  
• Fixed incorrect primary screen index in graphics options GUI.
  
• Fixed some cases of fluid mixing related to underground pipes.
  
• Fixed crash related to productivity bonus and a catalyst. (When the catalyst count covers all the ingredient count). more
  
• Fixed that the reset button wouldn't update after importing a map exchange string. more
  
• Fixed messed up research in the NPE more

• Added LuaControl::ghost_cursor read/write.

You can get experimental releases by selecting the '0.17.x' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

• Updated map-gen-settings.example.json to use numeric multipliers, include cliff richness, and demonstrate expression overrides. more
  
• It is not possible to fast-replace pipe to ground by another that is in an orthogonal direction.
  
• Changed mining productivity cost to 2500 increase per level to fix that the last change was actually making it 5 times less expensive towards infinity. Lower levels are cheaper on the other hand.

• Fixed of loading of saves before 0.17.
  
• Fixed crash related to conflicting undo in multiplayer. more
  
• Fixed crash related to temporary stops and destroyed rails on the path that were already passed by the train. more
  
• Fixed yet another train pathing crash. more
  
• Fixed the hand logic for god-mode controller. more
  
• Fixed, that the hand logic could force an item to filtered slot that doesn't match it. more
  
• Fixed, that filtered inventory could ignore the hand when sorting or transferring in some cases. more
  
• Fixed overly generous migration of mining productivity research. more
  
• Right panel sizing fixes.
  
• starting_area (size multiplier) in map gen settings JSON can be represented by a number.
  
• Fixed crash related to removing technology from the research queue. more
  
• Fixed that driving backwards in vehicles wouldn't trigger the prevent-robots-from-working-because-i-am-driving-too-fast logic. more
  
• Fixed crash during startup on macOS 10.12 or older with GeForce GPU. more
  
• Attempt to fix tile transition rendering on Sandy Bridge iGPUs. more
  
• Fixed a performance problem related to undo in multiplayer. more
  
• Fixed upgrading ghost splitters wouldn't copy the splitter settings. more
  
• Fixed a couple of situations where fast replacing underground pipe could cause fluid mixing. more
  
• Fixed align in the blueprint library. more
  
• Fixed a crash when loading modded saves related to fluidbox removal in assembling machines.
  
• Fixed blueprint preview would be drawn out of its bounds. more
  
• Fixed the featured technology cost for upgrade technologies when the research queue is not enabled. more
  
• Fixed that search in the technology GUI would be cancelled by selecting a new research. more
  
• Fixed a crash on destroying an entity with fluid energy source. more
  
• Fixed a crash when deconstructing trains with inserters trying to put into them. more
  
• Fixed layout of circuit and logistic control windows. more
  
• Fixed that trying to join a multiplayer game too quickly would lead to a mods-mismatch error. more
  
• Fixed that behemoth biters didn't have resistance to acid (as all other biters have).
  
• Fixed NPE saves technologies were messed up by a migration in 0.17.5. more
  
• Fixed NPE issue where compi smashing a building would lead to a crash in migrated saves. more
  
• Fixed that it wasn't possible to access the game menu when the game was paused in multiplayer with the technology screen open. more

• Added LuaItemPrototype::mapper_count read.

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

• Fixed crash related to train waypoints and very short train paths. more
  
• Fixed wrong entity info positioning when all other things in the right container are disabled. more
  
• Fixed Wave defense victory not being triggered in some cases.
  
• Fixed Wave defense victory message being printed on every rocket launch.
  
• Fixed restarting the game after sync-mods-with-save would fail to auto-load some saves on Windows. more
  
• Fixed PvP error when loading 0.16 versions of the scenario. more
  
• Fixed selection in blueprint preview would have an offset if UI scale was not 100%. more
  
• Fixed pie slice used as progress indicator in crafting queue wasn't rendering for small angles. more
  
• Fixed that the /time command would give back the wrong time played.
  
• Fixed rendered terrain would increasingly get corrupted during movement when using 16bit rendering mode on some OpenGL drivers. more
  
• Fixed player.get_quick_bar_slot causing a crash for some values. more
  
• Fixed controls were lagging when application window was receiving lot of events it didn't recognize on macOS or Linux. more
  
• Fixed "Wait for V-Sync" graphics option was not working on macOS 10.14 Mojave.
  
• Fixed crash logs were missing stack traces on macOS.
  
• Adjusted the Supply Challenge requirements to make sense. more
  
• Fixed a crash when reviving entities through the Lua API.
  
• Fixed NPE crash on biter commands during rebuild quest. more
  
• Fixed NPE crash during cutscene if player left entity ghosts in the starting area. more
  
• Fixed NPE crash on sending biters if you plaster half the map with furnaces (yes, seriously). more
  
• Fixed NPE bug where Compilatron would sometimes not continue after players put the required items in his chest. more
  
• Fixed that technology slot tooltip didn't reflect the cost of the selected technology in the queue.
  
• Fixed NPE confusing flying text at startup. more
  
• Fixed that the train passed wait condition time was limited to 120 seconds. more
  
• Fixed hand not disappearing from the quickbar in some situations. more
  
• Fixed a crash related to the research queue. more
  
• Fixed that the research queue could show incorrect research levels. more
  
• Horizontal layouting fix of the mods gui. more
  
• Fixed that the island related changes in the terrain settings in map generator gui weren't updated if the island preset was preselected. more
  
• Fixed that custom Lua-defined shortcuts would desync the game. more
  
• Fixed a crash when player is not given when using surface.deconstruct_area(). more
  
• Fixed loading of blueprints containing rail temporary stations.
  

• Added SelectionToolPrototype flag "nothing".
  
• Made resource autoplace helper functions usable from mods. more
  
• Added LogisticContainerPrototype::landing_location_offset.
  

• Changed mining productivity technology to add 10% in one level instead of 2%, increased the formula from 100 * level to 500 * level and removed some of the low level intermediate levels.
  

• Blueprinting tools are no longer shown in the quickbar filter selection. more
  

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

• Fixed crashes related to Lua errors. more
  
• Fixed a crash when opening the fluid wagon GUI in the map editor. more
  
• Fixed that pressing "back" on the login prompt in the other settings GUI would exit the other settings GUI. more
  
• Fixed that robots could get stuck when trying to upgrade in some cases. more
  
• Fixed that the tooltips for tooltip times where backwards. more
  
• Fixed Lua commands wouldn't work show help correctly. more
  
• Fixed portable fusion reactor and rocketry tech pre-requisites - added military science pack. more
  
• Fixed uranium processing tech pre-requisites - added sulfur processing. more
  
• Removed ghost buildability consistency check until we properly integrate building of ghosts into the fluid mixing prevention logic.
  
• Fixed crash related to train pathfinding. more
  
• Fixed layouting of Map Generator gui when the preview is shown. more
  
• Fixed issues with rich text tags referencing entities that have no icon.
  
• Fixed crash related to moving blueprints from game blueprints to player blueprints. more
  
• Fixed crash related listing all players while while processing event of player being removed.
  
• Fixed a crash related to research that would continue even though the research queue is empty. more
  
• Fixed Compilatron placing a chest on top of things. more
  
• Fixed crash during quest to reactivate assembler in NPE. more
  
• Fixed that script render text would scale with GUI scale. more
  

• Made MiningDrillPrototype::radius_visualisation_picture tintable.
  

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

Read the post on our website.


https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-284-rocket-launch.mp4

So we finally released the 0.17 experimental this week. (patch notes) Hooray :)

Fun fact: The release script failed to post the release announcement on Steam and Reddit and we were wondering why. The reason is that the patch notes were so big, that it exceeded the maximum post size (40k characters). If this isn't the indication that we should split our releases into smaller chunks, than nothing is :).

Code wise, it is clearly the biggest release, and the amount of bugs we have to go through correlates with it. In other words, there are tons of bugs of all variety. We want to fix everything eventually, but it will take time, so we had to prioritize this week to aim for the most generally playable version before the first weekend after release. That means mainly unloadable saves, unavoidable crashes, game failing on startup, and the most frequently occurring problems. Our automatic bug reporting system is helping us a lot with the last one.

It is uncommon, but sometimes the automatically uploaded crash report doesn't have enough information for us to be able to fix the bug right away, but the number of times we see a crash happening is still extremely useful for prioritizing. When we see a crash on the forum, we can cross reference it to our automatic reports, and if is one of our 'top-hits', we know to investigate it right away. The most prominent crash related to loading specific kind of save happened with pipe ghosts happened more than 200 times. It was fixed (obviously), but lets wait and see what our top hit of 0.17.4 will be after the weekend.

Overall this means, that bugs that are not critical, require design discussions or are not that simple to fix are not being dealt with right now.

Also, we got quite a surprising cake gift today. It is extremely delicious and we are extremely thankful for it :).



0.17 is out and with it our new Introduction scenario. This FFF will be spoiler heavy, so if you want to play it without insider knowledge then go do that and come back.

One thing that you might have noticed is that the Introduction is not complete. The systems, quests, and graphical elements are all still under development and not up to the usual standard of our experimental releases. It is at the point where in house focus testing starts to be less useful than large scale community testing. That said, I think it is already an enjoyable experience.

During experimental, when you complete the scenario you will receive a message asking you to send us some automatically generated screenshots of your playthrough. The response has been enormous and my inbox has roughly 10gb of replies already. Most of the feedback has been very positive, but we are certainly not done tweaking, as you will see below.

Perhaps the biggest failing during the development of this Introduction was right at the start when deciding the design constraints. If I were a sane human, I would have settled for just making a new tutorial. Instead what we decided upon was:

• The scenario will be used as the free demo.
• It should be the first thing a new player sees.
• It must demonstrate the art style.
• It must demonstrate the open design gameplay of Freeplay.
• It should still be fun for seasoned players.
• First half should have tutorial elements.
• Second half gives the player a chance to test themselves in a 'real' environment.
• No jumping through hoops and simply obeying orders.
• Encourage the player to be creative.
• The player must learn the game, not how to finish the scenario.
• Include as much organic learning as possible.
• It must limit the environment enough that the player cannot become confused with choice.
• Players should not receive help until they need it.
• No quests without purpose.
• Nothing that I add should affect the Freeplay experience.

As you might expect I try not to mention the word tutorial anywhere.

If you have been on reddit or our forums in the last few days you will probably notice that many players feel the scenario is too difficult for new players, or that they played 'like a new player' and found it too hard themselves.

Two reasons were frequently given for this:

• The lack of splitters and underground belts make solving the design puzzles more difficult.
• Combat heavy gameplay is not what Factorio is about especially at the difficulty presented in the scenario.

We will come back to my thoughts on this, but for now just think about your own idea of 'how a new player interacts with the game'.

A normal video game tutorial is a terrible thing. Mechanics are broken down into smaller chunks and sorted by which order they must be done in the the main game. Sometimes when a game is complex the smallest chunk is still impossibly large, leading to walls of text that must be read before playing (see the Civilization mobile title). Sometimes the chunks are made very small but then the designers want to speed players through, so they force a series of narrow interactions (see Factorio’s old tutorial).

Neither of these solutions are bad, if your goal is to have the player finish the tutorial. If your goal is to teach them to play, then... well... we as educators can do better.

The deepest, broadest and most important concept we need to teach in Factorio is that of Production. That is the end goal, but where does it begin?

The blueprint for production is the humble recipe tooltip. This is where the player first sees how to make an item in the game. Our job is to teach them how to take the recipe and translate it into a production chain. This is the single most important lesson on the road to automation, so I set out to remove all obstacles. Let’s break our discussion down into the mechanical parts: Assembling Machines, Belts, and Inserters.





Assembling Machines are the core of automation but in Freeplay they have a dependency: Electricity. If this was a regular video game tutorial, we would first need to teach the player the following steps (in reverse order): Build power poles, Setup steam engine, set up coal mining.

What if we could just do away with all of this? Oh, we can? Wonderful! During the Introduction there are two assembling machines which require no electricity, one for Science packs and one for Iron gear wheels.

Now the main puzzle pieces are there, the player just needs to connect them. During focus testing, it was noted that the interaction between belts and inserters was not very intuitive to begin with. So again we need to break the concept of Logistics down into two concepts: traversal of items and change of inventory.

If this were a normal video game tutorial, we would probably just ask the player to obey, placing a belt in one place and then the Inserter next. Here in the Introduction, I want the player to see both concepts working separately, and to interact successfully with each one.



Compilatron builds a mining setup for the player and then the Objective window directs the player to feed the produced plates into the 'feeder'. Once that is complete, the 'feeder' is removed and the player needs to load and unload the assembling machine with inserters.

In the next step, the player needs to apply what they have learnt by building a copper smelting setup and then feed two different items (iron gears and copper plates) into a single 'feeder'. Once this objective is complete, the player has, without knowing it, set up Science pack automation.



There was a lot of feedback about the player not being given access to Splitters and Undergrounds. Some even considered this akin to 'handicapping the new player'. I would argue that there is a difference between complexity and difficulty. Having those tools makes the puzzle easier yes, but also more complex.

Many of the long time players mentioned that they enjoyed solving 'simple, long ago optimized' problems with a reduced toolset. Using an inserter to split a belt does work, and also makes the player realise the importance of Splitters when they are unlocked. #NoWrongWayToPlayFactorio

The factory must grow. This is Factorio. Progress never ending. How do we teach a new player the concept of never having enough?

I mentioned above that we wanted to remove quests which ask you to produce items for no reason. Several times in the old campaign the player was asked to produce 100’s or even 1000’s of items "because you will need them", only to move to the next level and take them all away. So, how do we give production a purpose?

Consumption. Consumption is the intent of Production. You produce with the intent to consume.

In Factorio there are only three ways that the player consumes items:

• Converting items into research progress.
• Constructing the factory.
• Killing Biters (either for defense or for land acquisition).

The first item, research, is a constant pressure in Freeplay Factorio, and not a large one at the beginning. In the Introduction we have created an entirely separate technology tree with much higher costs to support teaching production. However, it fails at showing the player they need to increase production (as opposed to just having some) because the costs are static. We see many players set up basic science pack automation and then go AFK while it finishes.

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-284-NPE-slideshow.mp4

As for construction, in the second part of the Introduction we allow the player to build their factory any way they want, and to consume all of their resources to do so. Only after they are settled do we apply the third consumption pressure... combat.

I received a lot of feedback in the form of "Factorio is not about killing Biters" or "Factorio is not a tower defense". My response would be "killing Biters is not about combat, it is a production challenge". We all know that trees are the real enemy.

Not only is it a production challenge, it is one that requires no explanation. Also, unlike the other two consumption pressures, this one is reactive. The player must meet the demands or be overrun.

To understand production you need to experience the state of not having enough. This is accomplished best when you have two conflicting choices, but can only take one. I've heard it described at "A slave to two masters" and I think that sums it up nicely.

Many successful games use this to good effect. In Dragon Age you are forced to choose between your love interests and "doing what is right". In Factorio it is one step more complex than love because the decisions are not Boolean... we have ratios!

So I would argue that the most 'representative' way to make the player think about this is to ask them to research something while slowly increasing the consumption of ammunition.



Actually no, it isn’t so hard for new players. It is hard for veteran players. The attack system emulates Freeplays pollution system. If you pollute hard, you are attacked hard. The only difference is that the 'price' of a biter is lowered inversely to how far you are through the final research.

Dynamic difficulty is a big topic in the office, but even its staunchest opponent, kovarex, admits he had fun with the final wave. He also holds the high score for kills during the Introduction; Over 9000 :D.

We already use dynamic difficulty in the Freeplay, so I would consider it representative. The difficulty will of course get a bunch of balance passes and something will be added to warn players better of the dangers ahead.

The introduction is far from done, or even ready for all new players. My task for the next weeks is go over the massive amount of high quality feedback and start testing some tweaks. The scenario will not receive updates every time we update 0.17, instead I will bundle the changes once every few patches. If you would like to share any feedback about the new Campaign, we have set up a dedicated forum here, and if you find any bugs, we also have a place for them here.

As always, let us know what your think on our forum.

• Disabled target leading for flamethrower turrets until it can be made better. more
  
• Changed train pathfinding in a way, that it can find path that ends in the same segment where it started. This worked only for the trivial case of all path of one segment before.
  

• Fixed possible crash related to browsing in the mods gui.
  
• Fixed that turning off exoskeletons didn't work correctly in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed shaking of blueprint preview in blueprint book tooltip. more
  
• Fixed the wrong detection of changed autosave interval in other settings. more
  
• Fixed /help *command* would print a number instead of the help message. more
  
• Fixed a crash when dying with the locomotive GUI open. more
  
• Fixed a crash when using sprite variation sheets with mismatched frame counts. more
  
• Fixed that the admin-only portions of the whitelist command where not localised correctly. more
  
• Fixed building underground pipe between pipes with different fluids. more
  
• Fixed visual direction of fluid flow. more
  
• Fixed dead-dry-hairy-tree and dry-hairy sprite shifting in normal resolution. more
  
• Fixed PvP error when changing enabled mods. more
  
• Fixed number pad Enter key-bindings would be converted to normal Enter when restarting the game. more
  
• Fixed small worms having fluid consumption. more
  
• Fixed that copy-paste of fluid recipes would sometimes not reset fluid box contents. more
  
• Fixed that double-clicking a technology in the tree view wouldn't start research. more
  
• Fixed pipes that would sometimes be too noisy. more
  
• Fixed that you could build multiple underground belts on top of each-other. more
  
• Fixed tightspot level 5 was unbeatable. more
  
• Added workaround for GPU accelerated texture compression producing corrupted textures. more
  
• Fixed that the technology window scroll position would keep getting reset. more
  
• Fixed that the current research panel would not update in multiplayer if some other player changed the research. more
  
• Fixed terrain not being rendered when using OpenGL and any game overlay was enabled. more
  

• Added LoaderPrototype::structure_render_layer with default value "lower-object". more
  

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.

• Reverted default renderer on Windows to Direct3D on all configurations.
  
• All infinite technologies have Space science pack as a pre-requisite.
  
• Added textual error message when player tries to clean cursor but it isn't possible as inventory is full.
  
• Added /unlock-shortcut-bar console command to unlock all shortcuts at once. This command does not disable achievements.
  
• Keyboard shortcut for in-game undo feature will default to Ctrl+W on AZERTY keyboard layouts. more
  
• Control settings will revert to defaults when starting the game with pre-0.17.2 config with AZERTY keyboard layout.
  

• Fixed Join Game through Steam Friend would fail to connect to a game with an error saying Steam Networking is disabled.
  
• Fixed LuaGameScript::take_technology_screenshot() would crash the game.
  
• Fixed a crash when trying to use async-saving when hosting multiplayer games on Windows. more
  
• Fixed electric mining drill coverage area visualization was not drawn correctly. more
  
• Fixed missing sprites on DirectX on GPUs supporting only feature level 10.0. more
  
• Fixed that the GUI would be hidden if the game was saved and loaded while the technology GUI was open. more
  
• Fixed a crash related to non gun/weapon items getting into the gun/weapon inventories. more
  
• Fixed a crash when bringing up the escape menu in multiplayer while in the middle of using blueprints/deconstruction. more
  
• Fixed a crash when mining ghosts built in the latency state. more
  
• Fixed every incremental change of sound volume would save the full config file. more
  
• Fixed that the category dropdown in the install mods GUI would only work the first time it was used. more
  
• Fixed that mod thumbnails in zipped mods wouldn't show in the mods GUI. more
  
• Fixed pre-requisites for the first tier of all upgrade technologies so that the required science packs are unlocked first. more
  
• Fixed electric inserter technology description in the tutorial. more
  
• Fixed that the undo shortcut tooltip didn't reflect latency hiding values and invalid entries filtering.
  
• Fixed a desync when deconstructing item request proxies in the latency state. more
  
• Fixed crash related to the hand logic and switching controllers. more
  
• Fixed a crash when lamp with non-electrical energy source (modded) is viewed in the blueprint preview/tooltip.
  
• Fixed that read-only multi-line text boxes wouldn't wrap text. more
  
• Fixed that the fast and express loader entity icons had the wrong colors. more
  
• Fixed that the autosave interval setting was off by one. more
  
• Fixed map preview would not be cleared to black before preview is generated on some PCs. more
  
• Fixed that active blueprint in a book was not preserved when using the book directly from the blueprint library. more
  
• Fixed that the tutorial specific assembler was shown in the "made in in" row in the crafting queue tooltip. more
  
• Fixed that the map type selection changed done by reset or changing the preset didn't update the sliders properly. more
  
• Fixed a rare issue with migration of fluid mixing in a modded save. more
  
• Fixed that the provided map-gen-settings.example.json contained invalid settings. more
  
• Fixed that checking for updates could crash the game. more
  
• Solved, that blueprint library link from quickbar appeared as an empty slot when the target blueprint wasn't available anymore and it wasn't possible to assign a new item to it.
  
• Fixed PvP scenario error when updating space race frame with no silos present. more
  
• Fixed drawing of some wires and wire shadows more
  
• Fixed a possibility to mix fluid through fast replacing / upgrading a pipe with underground pipe. more
  
• Fixed drawing of some wires and wire shadows. more
  
• Fixed crash when opening the map generator preview for the first time with invalid settings. more
  

• Renamed EntityPrototypeFlag "hide-from-bonus-gui" to "hidden" and made it also hide entities from the made in property of recipe tooltips.
  

You can get experimental releases by selecting the 'experimental' beta branch under Factorio's properties in Steam.