WARNING: Do NOT open levels you care about in this version. You will no longer be able to open them in the latest stable version (because the save format has changed), and they may be corrupted due to this version being unstable. If you wish to open levels you've already made, you should back them up first. You can do this by opening up the game, going to the "My levels" or "Crusades" section, hitting the folder icon (a new button added in this pre-release), and making a copy of everything inside to somewhere safe.

It's time for a new beta with some of the biggest and most awaited features from Tanks v1.6: Custom player tank configurations (player builds) and the Steam Workshop! This beta also adds the ability to add fake players to parties for lonely people like me, along with a new player rankings screen for versus levels.

To play the beta, select the "Pre-release" beta from [Gear icon] -> Properties -> Betas.

What's new in Tanks v1.6.c:

• Added configurable player tank builds
  
• Added Steam Workshop support
  
• Added public Steam parties
  
• New crusade editor
  
• Added option to add bot players to parties
  
• Added best run display option for speedrunning
  
• Added new versus mode rankings screen
  
• Bug fixes and other minor improvements

Player builds are accessible from the level editor's object menu (the second icon on the top right of the editor), inside the player tab. From there, you can edit the weapons and behaviors of the player tank just like with a custom tank. You can also add more builds to let players decide between different options for what they want to use.

To support the new builds, the crusade editor has been redesigned to be a single list with everything (levels, builds, and items), instead of separate lists. I think that this new layout makes it a bit easier to understand what unlocks when, and to move things around, but if you have any feedback on it, feel free to let me know.

New social features are also available now! Parties can be made public with the click of a button:

And you can browse all the current public parties from the "Join a party" screen:

You can also now share your creations with others from the new Steam Workshop section:

Here, you can browse, download, play, and vote on creations others have made or upload your own.

Note: at the moment, the workshop is set to "unlisted," meaning that you'll only be able to access workshop creations from the game itself until 1.6's full release - not from the Steam community hub webpage. This means that the "View in Steam" button on creation pages in Tanks will give an error currently - but the content is still there for others to enjoy.

The player bots setting is accessible in party host options. You must make a party first, and then you can add up to 999 fake players to it. It's a lot of fun to watch hundreds of bot players shoot each other down, but you might want to be careful if you're using headphones :).

The names of these bots so far are randomly selected from submissions by members of the Tanks Discord community. I am still going to be adding new names to the list in future pre-releases, so if you'd like to suggest some of your own names for bots to potentially use, feel free to submit them in the following form.[docs.google.com] Your name could be immortalized as a bot in Tanks!

The new versus results screen shows the order in which player tanks were destroyed:

Please report any bugs you may find, as well as ideas or suggestions you may have, either as comments here or in the Tanks Discord.[discord.gg]

Enjoy, and see you in the next pre-release build!