The Conveyor Belt: Jagex's Roadmap Is a Ballot

The Conveyor

RuneFest 2026 took the weekend of October 3, and Jagex used it to lay out the next year for every RuneScape it makes. Two Old School dates are fixed. The Fractured Archive, a new endgame raid in a vault beneath Gielinor, opens on October 20. Hardcore Worlds open on November 4: a fresh character on separate worlds with a separate economy and a single life. Die and you either start over or get banished to the main game, keeping your progress minus whatever you lost on death. There are no XP or drop-rate boosts, and Hardcore Group Ironman rules decide which deaths count, so the Fight Caves, the Inferno and Nightmare Zone are not safe.

Then there is Menaphos. Jagex's press release says the golden gates open in 2027, with a Master quest called Fool's Gold, a Soul Altar where Soul runes take 90 Runecraft, and Old School's first Skilling Dungeon, the Vault of the Soul Altar, built on Thieving, Agility and Runecraft. The Summit post that went up on October 3 tells you the rest. Menaphos is Question 5 on the Summit poll, and the quest, the Vault and the altar are Questions 6 to 8, each one conditional on Menaphos passing. A Mining and Smithing rework is Question 9, and it only asks whether to explore one.

Read the press release and you would think 2027 is booked. Read the poll and you know it is a proposal with a date attached. That is not spin. It is how Old School has worked for over a decade, and it is the best thing about the game: the roadmap is a ballot, and the players are the ones who decide. So if you have strong feelings about a skilling dungeon, the Summit poll is where they count.

Dragonwilds answered the question I left hanging in the last Conveyor Belt, about whether its monthly drops would survive four console certification queues. The plan for after 1.0 is quarterly updates that add skills (Hunter and Slayer are named), with smaller monthly ones for side quests, weapons and fixes in between. Prayer and the Elves arrive in December's Luminance update, and official modding comes in 2027 through CurseForge, on console as well as PC. The week behind the plan was less fun. Patch 1.0.0.8 on October 8 stopped world saves from disappearing, but worlds that already vanished stay hidden until 1.0.1. Jagex says that lands next week, should restore them, and lets corrupted characters rejoin their worlds with items and skill levels as compensation for the lost progress.

Jagex also confirmed a fourth RuneScape MMO, built in Unreal and "still early in development". That is all it said, and I would read it as no more than that.

Summit overview and poll | Jagex's RuneFest release | Dragonwilds 1.0.0.8

Patch Notes Roundup

• Factorio, 2.1.21 experimental (October 6) and Friday Facts #448 (today): space platform drag is now based on weight, not width. Under the old formula a platform one tile wider anywhere lost almost as much top speed as a whole extra column of tiles, so the fastest design was a "pencil ship", many times taller than it was wide. Now every tile counts the same and wider ships can carry more thrusters, so building wide pays again, with diminishing returns. The section is written by CodeGreen, a modder of six years, who was told that if he could come up with something better it would be considered, and then tested his formula against blueprints that people on Reddit sent in. 2.1.21 also retunes asteroid damage, so a medium asteroid now deals 100 damage to a parked platform instead of 3,200 in early 2.1, and it adds an index mode to the selector combinator that picks the N highest or lowest signals. Stable is still 2.0.77. FFF #448 | 2.1.21
• Factorio, Friday Facts #447 (September 25): Wube released 65 printable models in 15 sets, from belts and inserters to biters and the engineer, as 247 free STL files on Printables. Each machine comes in two versions, one that push-fits and one with extra clearance for gluing. The best detail: a lot of Factorio's art only looks like a machine from the isometric angle, so the artists had to model things the way they look rather than the way they are. FFF #447 | the models
• Foundry, DevBlog #113 (October 2): the next update gathers what has been shown in recent months: blueprints, new loaders, conveyor lifts and train improvements, including tracks that carry power. Small assembly lines are a maybe, and ship only if they improve the game. No date yet. On last month's commerce feedback, a space station you can visit is the top request, and mrmcd says it will not be added unless it gives you real reasons to go there. DevBlog #113
• Captain of Industry, v0.8.7d (September 23): the determinism work continues. Cargo depots and shipyards no longer lose their blocked ocean area in ship path-finding on every load, and trains stop braking early after track edits because of stale reservation data. A full drive now reports the free space instead of a generic save error. v0.8.7d
• puzzlez, devlog (October 2): tobspr's standalone Shapez puzzle game showed its designer tools. Puzzle makers can switch off up to two of the three build layers, weld buildings in place and forbid buildings outright. There are new ramps and belt portals, all marked as work in progress. devlog

The Idle Corner

Two issues ago I wrote about OSRS's September Gathering Efficiencies batch and the five months it waited for room in the schedule, with stackable net traps still in the queue. They shipped on October 7. Combine rope with a small fishing net at level 29 Hunter and the trap stacks in your inventory instead of filling it. A failed net trap now waits in a failed state you can Reset, so you no longer pick the pieces up off the floor and set it from scratch. Bird snares, rabbit snares and magic boxes get the same right-click Reset. That is one more interruption deleted. It came in the same update as a PvP tutor at Ferox Enclave, which tells you how the weekly slot gets shared.

The week before, the Grand Exchange went past max cash. Offers above 2.147 billion now settle in a mix of coins and platinum tokens, and guide prices refresh every three hours instead of every 24, moving up to 20% at a time instead of 5%.

One date for the calendar: Melvor Idle 2's free demo goes up for Steam Next Fest on October 19, ten days from today. OSRS, October 7 | Melvor Idle 2 on Steam

Fresh Off the Line

Satisfactory has its first paid DLC. Coffee Stain Studios revealed Core Values at its Big Break Showcase on September 29: a major expansion that takes you underground, with new resources, flora, fauna and buildings, and a story that gets clearer the deeper you dig. There is no date or price yet. The Steam page lists Windows, and console versions are marked coming soon. Separately, Mood Publishing's Satisfactory board game opens its Gamefound campaign on October 13. Core Values on Steam

A reader sent in Holon, a factory game where you build machinery inside a "Nest", then reuse that whole Nest as a single building and fit smaller Nests inside bigger ones. Factories inside factories. The free demo got its fourth version on September 29, and Early Access is listed for 2027 on Windows. Holon on Steam

At the arcade, a player called Paul went through the boards in the week to October 2. Fifteen boards took a signed score that week and his name is on all fifteen, ten of which had never carried a score before: FreeCell in 10:25, Tithe at 1,247 pennies, Reckon with a chain of 26. The one to stop on is Gridlock, where Bowen's 0:22 had stood since mid-September. Paul did it in 0:21. Randall still holds Molten and ley still holds Pyramid, with Paul second on both. The whole hall is at the scores page, with fresh deals every day at the daily page.

The Tideward Dev Log

Two builds since the last Conveyor Belt. 1.0.8, True Bearings, went to testers on October 3. The fix I care most about: passive cooking had been running at the active speed after time away, about five times faster than intended. Gloaming, Binding's second pet, finally has a way to join, the first time any familiar reaches Bond level 6, so the Pets page of the Completion Log can be finished. On the watch, Tideward now rises in the Smart Stack when a task finishes or a patch ripens, not only when the bank fills. kotori.piyo caught Pawnbreak repeating one gem for a whole run when it should roll a new one every cast.

1.0.9, Squared Away, was cut on October 8, and its notes are on the changelog. Ship Fittings now come in bronze, iron and steel. Bronze is forged at Shipwrighting 15 and builds the first two Hold Expansions, so early bank slots no longer wait on Beachcombing. Time away now pays what play pays: a Quarry task finished away stays finished, and an away death keeps the task and banks the marks earned before it. And one line I wanted in plain words: four scrolls had been paying more than their descriptions said, so this build lowers what they give. The description is the promise, and the number now keeps it.

Tideward is up for pre-order on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Vision Pro. Free to download, one $9.99 unlock, launching February 11, 2027. Pre-order it now.

The Assembly Line is a free twice-weekly newsletter on factory builders and idle games. Read on the web at blog.manugames.com. Brought to you by Manu Games, makers of Tideward, a premium idle RPG for iPhone, iPad & Mac.