The preview branch and 1.18 preview 1

Now that the Discord server is gone, preview releases will be announced here instead. Preview builds are previews of the next version of the game. These versions are unfinished, probably dysfunctional, probably slow, and may mess up your saves. However, if you're willing to risk all of this to get new features as soon as possible, you are free to opt-in to the preview branch.

WIth that out of the way, 1.18 preview 1 is currently live on the preview branch.

A note to mod developers to have their mods working in 1.18:

[1.18] - ?? 2021

Added

- Most explosives heat up affected objects
- Utility workshop tag
- An alert that tells you which mods are significantly affecting load times
- Small button to export game debug info

Changed

- Rewrote most Steam integration, mod loading, and contraption loading to be done in the background. This should fix the phenomenal startup times if you have hundreds of mods. Do note, however, that I can't control what modders make their mods do upon loading. Some mods may still freeze the game and there's nothing I can do to prevent that.
- This update will forcibly recompile all your installed mods. If you have lots of them, this will take a while. This will only happen once, though.
- Also switched to Facepunch's C# implementation of Steamworks which you won't really notice.
- Minor changes to some particle effects
- Completely changed the settings menu. It is no longer a weird game of tetris
- Disallowed mods to use shady code
- Tank shells are explosive
- Made humans less resilient to extreme ambient temperatures
- Lightbulbs are less hot

Fixed

- Useless text in mod error description
- Red barrels being unreasonably hard to set off
- Minor bugs
- Phenomenal startup times if you have hundreds of Workshop subscriptions