Build 4.1: unit control, AI and visual fixes, faster far views, native Linux

Update 1.2.0 - Build 4.1

Minor update: Unit control and AI fixes from your reviews, faster zoomed-out views, visual fixes and native Linux

Build 4.1 is a minor update: more speed, the unit control and AI fixes you asked for in your reviews, the promised visual fixes, and the first native Linux version of ORDNIX.

Performance: Build 4 -> Build 4.1

• Measured on our RTX 3080 test PC at 1080p with Ultra settings, comparing both builds on the same PC. Your results will depend on your PC, settings and battle. The AI changes in this update mean a test battle plays out a little differently from Build 4, so these are comparisons of the same battle setup, not of identical battles.
• 100 vs 100, start, close-up camera: 115 -> 129 FPS
• 100 vs 100, start, zoomed out: 47 -> 56 FPS
• 100 vs 100, as the battle grows, zoomed out: 42 -> 50 FPS
• 100 vs 100, late in the battle, zoomed out: 34 -> 41 FPS
• 100 vs 100, end of the match, zoomed out: 32 -> 45 FPS
• 1 vs 1, maximum zoom-out: 17 -> 37 FPS
• 1 vs 1, zoomed out to about 2 km: 17 -> 21 FPS
• 1 vs 1, brief hitches while zoomed far out (frames that take about twice as long): about 20 -> 0 in each zoomed-out view we measured

Storage and loading

• Build 4.1 is about 151 MB installed on Windows and about 167 MB on Linux.
• Loading into a battle takes about as long as in Build 4 in our tests.
• As before, every RTX 3080 result in these notes was measured with the game installed on a regular 7200 rpm hard drive. We recommend an SSD for the fastest loading.

Smoother play

• At the same settings, the game looks the same as before, apart from the visual fixes listed below.
• Zoomed-out views in smaller battles like 1 vs 1 are faster, especially at maximum zoom-out. This was the main known issue in Build 4.
• The brief hitches when zoomed far out in a 1 vs 1 (frames that took about twice as long) are gone in our tests at the far and maximum zoom levels.
• Fewer stutters overall when zooming out and when panning the camera far out.
• Graphics cards with 6 GB of video memory now get the zoomed-out speed-up too, for the camera view. We measured it on our Linux test PC with such a card; on Windows cards with 6 GB it is expected but not yet measured. Close-up views, the in-between zoom levels and the picture are unchanged.
• Late in big battles, zoomed out, the game runs faster.
• On graphics cards with 8 GB or more, the game now uses a little more graphics memory (under 1 GB more in our tests) to draw zoomed-out views faster.
• New option: Options > ZOOMED-OUT PERFORMANCE. When on, far-away forests cast fewer shadows when you are zoomed far out, which can raise frame rates when zoomed far out on some PCs. It is off unless you turn it on.

Unit control and AI fixes from your reviews

• We read every review. Here is exactly what made it into Build 4.1, and what didn't.

Orders and unit control

• A real Hold order: DEFEND now means "stop here and hold". Ground units and ships stop where they are, fire at anything in range and never chase. Aircraft keep circling where they are, as before.
• Units stay put without orders: idle units no longer drift off, creep toward the enemy after being nudged, or grind endlessly against a wreck on their spot. A unit pushed off its spot walks back instead of charging.
• Badly damaged vehicles keep obeying you: your vehicles no longer drive back to base on their own when badly damaged; pulling them back is your call. Enemy AI vehicles still retreat.
• Recovery vehicles and medics no longer drive into enemy fire on their own.
• Watching is not being away: moving the camera, scrolling, clicking or pressing keys now counts as being present, so the AI no longer takes over your army just because you were watching instead of giving orders. A battle with only one human never hands your army to the AI for idling. The warning, when it does appear, now explains what will happen and how to keep command.
• Coming back after being away: when you return, your army stops where it is and staff orders still on their way are dropped, so nothing the stand-in commander started keeps running. Your own fire missions, boarding and mine-laying carry on. Drones and minefields the stand-in commander bought come back to you with the rest of your army.

Firing and reacting

• Units open fire on enemies they can reach instead of staring at a target they cannot hit. Ordered units no longer chase a far target while a near one is in range.
• Artillery, rocket launchers and air defence set up and fire when they stop on an attack-move, instead of sitting there silent.
• A target that ducks behind cover no longer pulls your gun forward. When a target slips behind trees, rocks, a wreck or a crest, the gun now holds instead of lurching toward it.
• Return fire: a tank that is being hit turns its gun on the enemy that is shooting it.
• Pulling back: a tank hit by an enemy it cannot reach backs off in short drives until it is out of that enemy's range.
• Leaving the impact area: tanks under artillery, rockets, bombs or drone strikes move out of the line of fire instead of sitting on the aim point, including under your own side's barrage.
• A tank with an enemy in range keeps fighting; it only moves when it has nothing it can shoot. Set-up artillery, rocket launchers and air defence stay put. Any order you give overrides these reactions at once. A unit on Hold still backs off or moves when it is hit by something it cannot answer.

Paths and vehicles

• Your own trenches: units now drive round the ends of trench lines, bunkers and tank pits instead of getting stuck on the parapet. A unit whose route gets blocked after you gave the order finds a new way within a couple of seconds.
• Wrecks: vehicles re-plan round fresh wrecks in their path and keep the waypoints you queued; a vehicle that only grazes a wreck or the end of a wall steps round it; nobody stands inside a wreck any more.
• Infantry no longer get stuck inside vehicles. Troops step out clear of the vehicle, use the next free side or the rear door if a spot is blocked, and no longer freeze half-way up a truck's ladder.
• New behaviour you may notice: a squad told to board a vehicle that then drives away stops once the vehicle is too far to catch on foot, and the message line tells you so. If the way to the door is blocked on every side, the squad stops and says so instead of standing against the vehicle.
• Aircraft go back to work: a jet that flew home to refuel and rearm now returns to the spot you sent it to, instead of circling over the base until you give it a new order.

A fairer enemy AI

• Same income as you on Regular: on Regular difficulty, the enemy AI now gets the same steady income as you over the first ten minutes (in Build 4 it was about four times yours). Money from held zones and kills comes on top, for both sides alike. Recruit gets a little less than you; Veteran and Elite still get more, in order. Your allied AI commanders are unchanged, and so is Ranked, which has no AI side.
• It no longer knows things it shouldn't. Five enemy AI decisions used to look through the fog of war. Now each uses only what its side has actually seen:
• It only sends squads into its trenches when it has actually spotted you nearby.
• When it decides to go for the kill, it only counts the part of your army it has seen, so a hidden reserve can surprise it.
• It no longer drives straight to a forward base you hid; it heads for your known HQ area until it finds the base.
• Its artillery and air strikes no longer favour a group because of unseen units standing next to a seen one.
• Its submarines no longer hunt ships nobody on its side has detected.
• Mixed attacks, not armour spam: heavy armour is capped at about 45 % of the AI's army on Regular (more on Elite), it no longer sends empty troop carriers, and once it sees your tanks, aircraft or dug-in infantry it brings weapons to answer them (not on Recruit).
• It scouts before it attacks: before attacking a place it cannot see, the AI sends a recon vehicle ahead (on Veteran and Elite it tries a recon drone first), so you will often spot the scout before the attack arrives. Its attacks gather first and go in when it thinks it has enough force, instead of driving straight at you every wave. At the start, below Elite, it takes the capture zone nearest its home first.
• A different battle every time: each offline skirmish and practice duel now starts differently. The AI's choices, and random weather, time of day and clouds, vary from match to match. Online matches are unchanged.
• AI trenches are manned by soldiers who walk there. Trenches dug by AI commanders (the enemy, your allied AIs, and the AI standing in for a player who dropped out) used to be full the moment they appeared. Now the squads walk there from the map edge, so a fresh AI trench starts empty and fills only as they arrive. In heavy fighting many of them never get there, so AI trench lines are weaker than in Build 4; we are looking at this for a later update.

Clearer information

• The unit card now says what a unit is actually doing (for example "IDLE - fires inside 1100 m", "ADVANCING - fights on the way", "DRY - seeking resupply") instead of "HOLDING POSITION" when that isn't true.
• A short line under the orders explains why a unit is not firing or not moving: an order still on its way, no radio link, no enemy in range (with the distance), or being shot by something it cannot see.
• An empty weapon shows "DRY - no ammunition". Strike jets and fighters say they have no recon sensor, so nobody expects them to scout.
• Hovering an order in the order menu explains what it does.
• Enemy labels name the enemy, not your spotter: an enemy jet's label now starts with "AIRCRAFT" (this fixes the "aircraft shown as a tank" known issue).
• New option ENEMY LABELS: OFF, HOVER (the new default) or ALL (the Build 4 look). On HOVER, enemy text appears when you hover an enemy or a selected unit is hunting it, so there is far less floating text.
• The red see-through enemy silhouettes are fainter, and the INTEL SILHOUETTES choice is now remembered.

A trade-off you should know about

• An idle tank you parked nose-to-tail directly behind a friendly tank now waits for a clear line of fire instead of driving out of the column to find one. Park tanks side by side, or give them an order, and they fire.

Not in Build 4.1

• Vehicles keeping their distance instead of driving bumper to bumper into the enemy is built but switched off until we have checked its effect on balance. Some of the fixes above already reduce the problem (units firing at what they can reach, a real Hold order, no drifting).
• Aircraft attacking visible enemies near their station on their own, and keeping clear of enemy air defence you have spotted, are built but switched off until we have checked their effect on balance.
• Changes to weapon ranges, a separate "hold fire" stance, and changes to how delayed staff orders are delivered need more design and balance work and are not in this update.
• Weapons can still poke through a truck when infantry board (see Known issues).

Online play

• Fixed rare cases where a short freeze on the hosting PC could split an online battle in two, or leave the host unable to rejoin the battle it was hosting.
• Fixed a case where a player connecting through a port-forward or tunnel could have their army handed to the AI after a brief connection drop.
• If a commander can't be reached after the host's connection hiccups, the battle no longer freezes for everyone: it continues with an AI commander in their place and won't count unless they return. In one-on-one direct-connect battles this replaces an immediate win.
• A brief stutter on the hosting PC no longer hands a team battle to another player's PC.

Native Linux version

• Build 4.1 includes the first native Linux version of ORDNIX.
• No extra purchase: if you own ORDNIX on Steam, the Linux version is included.
• Cross-play: Windows and Linux players on Build 4.1 play in the same battles.
• Ranked is Windows-only for now. On Linux you can play Solo, Quick matches and custom battles. Ranked on Linux is planned for a later update.
• We tested it on our Linux test PC with an NVIDIA RTX 2060 graphics card: the game starts and runs, the 1 vs 1 scene on the Auto preset, and Windows-Linux online battles. We did not finish our performance comparison on that PC before this release; big battles there were not measured.
• Native Linux now gets the zoomed-out speed-up too; we measured it on a 6 GB card.
• Steam Deck has not been tested yet, so we are not promising Steam Deck support until we have.
• Linux system requirements: a 64-bit Linux PC with Steam, 16 GB of memory and a graphics card with 6 GB of memory. We tested on Ubuntu with an NVIDIA RTX 2060; see the store page for details.

Playing the Windows version through Proton

• Fixed: the Windows version of ORDNIX did not start at all through Proton on Linux. It now starts and runs. We tested this on an earlier 4.1 test build, not again on the final build.
• We tested this on our Linux test PC with one community version of Proton. Valve's own Proton and Steam Deck have not been tested yet, so we are not promising support for them.
• Ranked uses Windows-only checks, so players using Proton have Solo, Quick matches and custom battles for now.
• Online play through Proton has not been tested against Windows players yet.
• If you play on Linux, we recommend the native Linux version.

Mac (Apple silicon)

• A Mac version for Apple silicon (M-series) Macs is in early development. It is not part of Build 4.1. Cross-play with Windows and Linux is the plan for Mac too.

Visual fixes

• Shoreline flicker is fixed.
• Far-away clouds and cloud shadows no longer show a repeating pattern.
• Water looks right at a distance instead of flat.
• Distant forests no longer look pale, pinkish or speckled: trees far from the camera keep their leaves and needles, so forests at mid and far zoom show green treetops. This problem was in earlier versions too.
• Minimap markers that overlap now stack the same way in every battle.

Ranked Season 0

• Unchanged. Ranked Season 0 opens on October 23, 2026 at 21:00 UTC (17:00 Ottawa time) and ends on December 18, 2026 at 21:00 UTC. Your earned ratings and results are kept. Ranked is Windows-only for now (see the Linux section).

Other fixes

• Infantry boarding, wreck and trench fixes apply to the enemy AI too, so it gets stuck less often as well.
• Updated the open-source license notices, including those for the Linux version.

What's next

• Build 4.5 is next, and it is all about performance. We are focusing extremely hard on optimization: zoomed-out views on every PC, Windows and Linux alike, and loading times. We are also adding a sensible limit to how far the camera can zoom out, because the very widest views are the slowest.
• A gameplay video is coming to YouTube soon. We are actively working on it: it explains how the whole game is played, the thinking behind its systems, and some background on ORDNIX.
• More unit control work, including vehicles keeping their distance. Ranked on Linux and the Mac version are being worked on. We are not giving dates yet.
• Thanks for playing, and for the honest reviews. They shaped this update.

Compatibility

• Steam updates ORDNIX automatically. Everyone in a multiplayer battle, players and host, needs Build 4.1. Restart ORDNIX after updating. Build 4 and Build 4.1 players cannot join the same lobby. Windows and Linux players on Build 4.1 can play together. Finish any battle in progress before updating: battles started on an older version cannot be resumed. Replays recorded in Build 4 or earlier stay in the list but cannot be played back in Build 4.1. Local battle results from earlier builds are kept but are not counted in Build 4.1.

Verified

• We measured the performance comparisons above on our RTX 3080 test PC at Ultra. Before release we also ran the 1 vs 1 scene on the Auto preset on an older 6 GB graphics card on the native Linux build, and the AI behaviour films on a high-end PC. We did not run every preset on every PC for this release.

Known issues

• Zoomed out to about 2 km in smaller battles, frame rates on mid-range graphics cards are still lower than we want (about 21 FPS at Ultra on our RTX 3080 test PC). We are continuing to work on it.
• On 6 GB cards the Windows result is not yet measured; if a card runs short of video memory the game falls back to the Build 4 drawing path on its own.
• Large battles and dense forests can still slow down, especially on lower-end PCs.
• In 100 vs 100 battles on some PCs, the first nuclear strike can cause a hitch of about a second and roughly ten seconds of low frame rate. A fix is planned for a later update.
• Where unit icons overlap at far zoom, which one shows on top can change between battles.
• Some transport animations still clip, including weapons poking through the truck when infantry board.
• Vehicles can still drive very close to the enemy before stopping.
• AI trench lines are weaker than in Build 4: AI squads now walk to their trenches, and in heavy fighting many of them never arrive.
• Auto graphics quality picks its setting from how your PC runs the start of a battle. It does not yet lower the setting when you zoom far out, so zoomed-out views can still be slow on mid-range and weaker graphics cards. If that bothers you, pick a lower preset in Options. On weaker cards Auto can also choose a lower-resolution picture than the High preset would give you; we are working on it for a later update. If you choose a quality preset yourself, the game now keeps it at full resolution; AUTO QUALITY no longer lowers it on a slow PC. Auto no longer turns on Supersampling by itself, which it sometimes did in Build 3.5 on fast PCs with high refresh rate monitors; you can still choose Supersampling 2x in Options.
• Steam Deck has not been tested. Valve's own Proton has not been tested, and online play through Proton has not been tested against Windows players.
• On Linux, your first battle after installing can take a long time to load, and your desktop may say that ORDNIX is not responding while it loads: choose to wait rather than force it to quit. On our Linux test PC with a 6 GB card, zooming far out in that first battle froze the game for a moment and then ran very slowly, and the clouds could still look repetitive at far zoom. We are working on all of this for Build 4.5.
• The native Linux version has only been tested with an NVIDIA graphics card on Ubuntu. AMD and Intel graphics, older X11 desktops, Steam Deck and lower-spec PCs have not been tested yet, so we are not promising support for them until we have.
• We have not yet played an online battle on Linux through Steam itself; battles between Windows and Linux PCs were tested over a direct connection.
• Ranked is Windows-only for now.
• Replays recorded in Build 4 or earlier cannot be played back in Build 4.1.
• Online play was tested on test builds of the same code in Windows-Linux battles with a Linux PC hosting. Full public matches, saving and loading, and the Steam overlay have not been tested live on this update.
• Rejoin Battle can stay visible after the last human commander leaves a private battle, even though that battle cannot be resumed.
• Carrier launches work, but a full return, refuel and rearm cycle has not been seen live yet. Arrested landings are not included.
• Steam accounts sharing one computer user account also share local career and achievement data. Some special characters in names and chat do not show in the game font.
• Some replay problems are still being looked into.
• At large interface scales, the menu's career and version details may need scrolling, and some combat notifications can overlap other banners.
• NVIDIA DLSS and AMD upscaling support are not finished and are not part of this update.
• On some PCs with NVIDIA graphics cards - we have seen it with NVIDIA driver 610.60, the version Windows Update installed on our test PC - Windows records that ORDNIX stopped working at the moment the game closes, after you quit. The game has already closed by then. A fix is planned for a later update.