HMG Overdrive — 2026-09-20

New Features

• Added a new optional technology progression system for HMG weapons.

  • Guns can now be assigned a historical year or technology tier.
  • Server owners can enable progression independently for HMG.
  • Half-step tiers are supported for more gradual progression.
  • Unclassified custom weapons remain unrestricted for compatibility.

• Added server-controlled progression commands.

  • Operators can change the active HMG technology level without restarting the server.
  • Progression is saved per world and synchronized to connected players.
  • Optional Creative and operator bypasses can be configured.

• Added technology information to weapon tooltips.

  • Classified weapons now display their assigned year/tier when inspected.

• Classified all bundled HMG firearms and weapons for progression.

  • This includes legacy HMG content, GVC weapons, WWII weapons, vehicle weapons, migrated TaCZ weapons, Blockbench weapons, and ClassicRCCRP content.
  • Later variants of the same weapon family use their appropriate historical year rather than inheriting the earliest model's date.

Progression Restrictions

• Weapons above the currently unlocked technology level can now be prevented from:

  • Firing
  • Being crafted
  • Being created through the Gun Smithing Table

• Existing restricted weapons are not deleted from inventories.

• Melee weapons, attachments, kits, recipes, templates, and other non-firearm definitions remain outside the technology system where appropriate.

Fixes

• Improved reliability of HMG's bundled content extraction on Windows.

  • HMG no longer unnecessarily rewrites bundled files that are already identical.
  • Reduced the chance of startup failures caused by temporary Windows file locks.
  • Changed bundled files are now replaced more safely instead of being overwritten while still in use.

• Fixed several HMG file streams that could remain open longer than intended.

  • This reduces the chance of bundled pack files becoming locked during startup or content generation.

• Improved startup error reporting for bundled HMG content.

  • Pack extraction failures are now reported separately instead of appearing as misleading recipe-loading errors.
  • Errors now identify the affected bundled pack and file, making startup issues significantly easier to diagnose.

Backend

• Added persistent per-world HMG progression state and client synchronization.
• Added server-authoritative progression checks for firing, crafting, trigger handling, and Gun Smithing Table transactions.
• Added safer bundled-pack cache materialization with unchanged-file reuse, temporary-file replacement, and Windows-specific retry handling.
• Improved cleanup of magazine, gun definition, settings, sound, resource, and script file streams.