ALPHA
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I just can’t wait to share this awesome news with y’all! With Spring just around the corner, we’ve decided to ride the natural rhythm of our home planet and roll out our very own Seasonal Update! And oh boy, oh boy, do we have some exciting things in store for you!
From a major T1 rebalance patch to rating algorithm adjustments, new maps, and a ton of milestones we’ve smashed along the way, there’s no doubt that 2025 is going to be a HUGE year for Beyond All Reason. And guess what? This is just the beginning!
So, my dear Commanders, it’s time to return to your bases, patch up your forces, eco up, and prepare for the incoming briefing. The next mission awaits! Oh, and by the way, read to the end of the post for details of this year’s BAR 1v1 Alpha Cup revealed!
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One of the most significant changes introduced in Season 1 was the coefficient controlling the uncertainty floor (tau)—designed to ensure that even highly active players could continue progressing without their rating stagnating.
After gathering feedback from experienced players, it became clear that tau was set too high. Although our initial estimate was based on simulations using Season 0 data, real-world results provide far better insights. Now, with concrete data from Season 1, we’ve fine-tuned this value for a more balanced and accurate rating system.
As with every new season, rating uncertainty will be bumped to accelerate progression. The rating you achieved last season will not be reset, but its volatility will increase, so it will take bigger swings for a while. Here are the key details for Season 2:
Start Time: Sunday, March 23rd 12:00 CET
Tau Adjustment: 0.33 → 0.21
Uncertainty bump: → 5 (if lower)
Expected uncertainty after 500 Games: 8v8: 2.49 ◆ 5v5: 2.26 ◆ 2v2: 2.17 ◆ 1v1: 2.20
For reference, as a rough estimate, this means that once your uncertainty reaches the floor, after winning an evenly matched 8v8 game, your OpenSkill rating will increase by 0.27—compared to 0.41 in Season 1. if You wish to dive deeper into these calculations, you can crank those numbers in the OpenSkill Calculator.
Due to how OpenSkill works, it is expected the current high ranking players will lose 1-2 points due to increasing their uncertainity. Read more about our implementation of OpenSkill here.
We believe this adjustment will lead to a fairer and more rewarding competitive experience.
As the season officially comes to a close, we’re excited to celebrate the top finishers! These players have demonstrated outstanding skill and perseverance throughout the competition and deserve full recognition.
A huge congratulations to the Top 3 of Season One! They will be rewarded with exclusive gold, silver, and bronze cosmetic medals based on their placement.
See full final standings (TOP 100)
All hail the champions of Beyond All Reason!
Balancing BAR’s vast roster of units has always been a challenge, especially with the diverse player archetypes we try to cater to and the game modes we aim to support. In this patch, we’ve tackled key issues raised by various sub-communities—from high-ranking 1v1 veterans and mono-map enthusiasts to rotation players, not forgetting about single and PvE players.
This update introduces meaningful changes that we believe will enhance both balance and strategic depth. Some adjustments are true game-changers, so dust off your Commander’s notebook and dive into the patch notes below! For the full technical version check GitHub.
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What better way to test these new balance adjustments than with the most prestigious 1v1 official BAR tournament of the year?
We're excited to announce that this year's Alpha Cup will kick off on April 12th at 17:00 CET! In this annual double-elimination showdown, the best Commanders will battle for the title of King of BAR and the exclusive Golden Crown cosmetic.
There can only be one Alpha—who will rise to claim it?
Archsimkats Valley, Heartbreak Hill, Crystalised Plains, Onyx Cauldron, Feast of Hades, Cirolata. Eye of Horus, Desolation and Tundra.
Register here (no player limit)
More details coming soon, if you have any questions or want to donate to the prize pool - contact BARCastTV (barcasttv on Discord).
Winter is finally giving way to spring! To celebrate the new season, the legendary Nikuksis has created a fresh, spring-themed version of the fan-favorite Supreme Isthmus map. Along with a visual glow-up, this update includes long-requested layout tweaks—most notably, moving the geo spot further from the shore. This change makes it harder to contest after securing naval supremacy, opening up more counterattack opportunities and creating a more dynamic back-and-forth gameplay experience.
In what is perhaps even more exciting news, we want to take a moment to celebrate some major milestones in both BAR’s development and community growth. The recent response from the wider RTS community has left us absolutely speechless. Seeing so many new players try BAR—and stay—has been beyond rewarding.
Throughout 2024, our player base remained stable, with no significant growth or decline. This was a conscious decision, as we dialed back promotional efforts to focus on enhancing the new-player experience. There are still legacy elements of the game that need refinement, and we wanted to ensure BAR was fully polished before pushing for mass adoption. Rather than risk burning out interest too soon, we focused on laying a rock-solid foundation—and now, those efforts are paying off.
With that in mind, let’s talk about some of the biggest breakthroughs:
One of our top priorities has been a full rework of BAR’s in-game HUD. While the current UI is functional and sleek, it lacks character. Historically, UI development has been a challenge—like many open-source projects, different developers worked on separate elements over time, leading to a fragmented design. The player list, build menu, and other components were built independently, and to make things even more difficult, they were all written in LUA, which is notoriously cumbersome for UI design.
Thanks to a massive effort by ChrisFloofyKitsune and Lov, the BAR Recoil engine has now been equipped with a modern HTML/CSS-based UI framework (RmlUI). This transition allows us to integrate all UI elements seamlessly while leveraging more accessible web development expertise. Our team is hard at work designing the next evolution of BAR’s UI, and trust us—it’s going to look absolutely epic. While we can’t reveal much just yet, keep an eye on our social media… you never know when a wild dev sneak peek might appear!
New Lobby Client & Infrastructure Upgrades
We’ve also made huge strides in developing a brand-new lobby client. If you’ve used the current client, you probably know that while it gets the job done, it’s far from cutting-edge.
On top of that, BAR’s server infrastructure was never designed to handle thousands of players, leading to scaling issues. This was one of the main reasons we slowed down marketing—we were nearing capacity. However, thanks to recent optimizations, we’ve doubled our player cap to around 3,000–4,000 concurrent users.
But we’re aiming much higher. We’re actively preparing our infrastructure to support orders of magnitude more players. Over the past year, we’ve made significant progress, including:
✔ A brand-new autohost system
✔ Major improvements to the server protocol
✔ A brand-new lobby client, now nearing feature parity with the legacy one
✔ Approaching the addition of highly anticipated matchmaking!
These upgrades are essential for BAR’s long-term future. Now that these critical milestones have been achieved, we’re ready to ramp up promotional efforts and bring more players—and contributors—into the fold.
With the foundation set, growth has skyrocketed. After resuming social media campaigns and organizing major events like the 40K Discord Members Celebration, we’ve caught a new wave of momentum.
🚀 Since the start of 2025, BAR’s player base has grown by over 30%—and it’s still accelerating!
🚀 We’ve officially surpassed 10,000 daily active users (now at 11,361) and 2,000 concurrent players (now at 2,204)! And that's only the ones logged in multiplayer, we estimate there is just as many single player users.
🚀 Our community is thriving with 42,000 Discord members and 10,000 Reddit followers!
We can’t express how much this means to us. This is what we, as developers, live for. Seeing so many players and contributors rally behind BAR is truly inspiring.
This massive wave of interest has also brought in fantastic new contributors, significantly boosting our development output. It truly feels like the stars are aligning for BAR. We are currently at the unbelievable number of 104 contributors (only those on discord).
Since the start of 2025, eight amazing developers have joined our ranks. We’d like to take a moment to recognize their hard work:
🛠 Chirick2051 – Pioneering the new UI framework and figuring out its capabilities.
🛠 mupersega – Assisting in reconstructing UI elements and exploring the framework’s potential.
🛠 AidanNaut & Ambulatory Cortex – Creating new maps and working on the single-player campaign.
🛠 chesiren – Developing the BOS VSCode syntax coloring extension and working on the BOS compiler.
🛠 BONELESS DRAGON HAM – Making great contributions to Legion development and widgets.
🛠 duke_of_gloat – Laying the groundwork for auto-generated repository documentation.
🛠 BrassCode – Implementing map search functionality and working on build setup for the new lobby client.
A huge thank you to all of you—you’re helping shape the future of BAR!
With this momentum, we’re more excited than ever for what’s ahead. 2025 is shaping up to be a defining year, and we can’t wait to bring even more game-changing improvements to BAR.
To everyone playing, contributing, and supporting us—thank you. This project exists because of you, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
I just can’t wait to share this awesome news with y’all! With Spring just around the corner, we’ve decided to ride the natural rhythm of our home planet and roll out our very own Seasonal Update! And oh boy, oh boy, do we have some exciting things in store for you!
From a major T1 rebalance patch to rating algorithm adjustments, new maps, and a ton of milestones we’ve smashed along the way, there’s no doubt that 2025 is going to be a HUGE year for Beyond All Reason. And guess what? This is just the beginning!
So, my dear Commanders, it’s time to return to your bases, patch up your forces, eco up, and prepare for the incoming briefing. The next mission awaits! Oh, and by the way, read to the end of the post for details of this year’s BAR 1v1 Alpha Cup revealed!
One of the most significant changes introduced in Season 1 was the coefficient controlling the uncertainty floor (tau)—designed to ensure that even highly active players could continue progressing without their rating stagnating.
After gathering feedback from experienced players, it became clear that tau was set too high. Although our initial estimate was based on simulations using Season 0 data, real-world results provide far better insights. Now, with concrete data from Season 1, we’ve fine-tuned this value for a more balanced and accurate rating system.
As with every new season, rating uncertainty will be bumped to accelerate progression. The rating you achieved last season will not be reset, but its volatility will increase, so it will take bigger swings for a while. Here are the key details for Season 2:
Start Time: Sunday, March 23rd 12:00 CET
Tau Adjustment: 0.33 → 0.21
Uncertainty bump: → 5 (if lower)
Expected uncertainty after 500 Games: 8v8: 2.49 ◆ 5v5: 2.26 ◆ 2v2: 2.17 ◆ 1v1: 2.20
For reference, as a rough estimate, this means that once your uncertainty reaches the floor, after winning an evenly matched 8v8 game, your OpenSkill rating will increase by 0.27—compared to 0.41 in Season 1. if You wish to dive deeper into these calculations, you can crank those numbers in the OpenSkill Calculator.
Due to how OpenSkill works, it is expected the current high ranking players will lose 1-2 points due to increasing their uncertainity. Read more about our implementation of OpenSkill here.
We believe this adjustment will lead to a fairer and more rewarding competitive experience.
As the season officially comes to a close, we’re excited to celebrate the top finishers! These players have demonstrated outstanding skill and perseverance throughout the competition and deserve full recognition.
A huge congratulations to the Top 3 of Season One! They will be rewarded with exclusive gold, silver, and bronze cosmetic medals based on their placement.
See full final standings (TOP 100)
All hail the champions of Beyond All Reason!
Balancing BAR’s vast roster of units has always been a challenge, especially with the diverse player archetypes we try to cater to and the game modes we aim to support. In this patch, we’ve tackled key issues raised by various sub-communities—from high-ranking 1v1 veterans and mono-map enthusiasts to rotation players, not forgetting about single and PvE players.
This update introduces meaningful changes that we believe will enhance both balance and strategic depth. Some adjustments are true game-changers, so dust off your Commander’s notebook and dive into the patch notes below! For the full technical version check GitHub.
What better way to test these new balance adjustments than with the most prestigious 1v1 official BAR tournament of the year?
We're excited to announce that this year's Alpha Cup will kick off on April 12th at 17:00 CET! In this annual double-elimination showdown, the best Commanders will battle for the title of King of BAR and the exclusive Golden Crown cosmetic.
There can only be one Alpha—who will rise to claim it?
Archsimkats Valley, Heartbreak Hill, Crystalised Plains, Onyx Cauldron, Feast of Hades, Cirolata. Eye of Horus, Desolation and Tundra.
Register here (no player limit)
More details coming soon, if you have any questions or want to donate to the prize pool - contact BARCastTV (barcasttv on Discord).
Winter is finally giving way to spring! To celebrate the new season, the legendary Nikuksis has created a fresh, spring-themed version of the fan-favorite Supreme Isthmus map. Along with a visual glow-up, this update includes long-requested layout tweaks—most notably, moving the geo spot further from the shore. This change makes it harder to contest after securing naval supremacy, opening up more counterattack opportunities and creating a more dynamic back-and-forth gameplay experience.
In what is perhaps even more exciting news, we want to take a moment to celebrate some major milestones in both BAR’s development and community growth. The recent response from the wider RTS community has left us absolutely speechless. Seeing so many new players try BAR—and stay—has been beyond rewarding.
Throughout 2024, our player base remained stable, with no significant growth or decline. This was a conscious decision, as we dialed back promotional efforts to focus on enhancing the new-player experience. There are still legacy elements of the game that need refinement, and we wanted to ensure BAR was fully polished before pushing for mass adoption. Rather than risk burning out interest too soon, we focused on laying a rock-solid foundation—and now, those efforts are paying off.
With that in mind, let’s talk about some of the biggest breakthroughs:
One of our top priorities has been a full rework of BAR’s in-game HUD. While the current UI is functional and sleek, it lacks character. Historically, UI development has been a challenge—like many open-source projects, different developers worked on separate elements over time, leading to a fragmented design. The player list, build menu, and other components were built independently, and to make things even more difficult, they were all written in LUA, which is notoriously cumbersome for UI design.
Thanks to a massive effort by ChrisFloofyKitsune and Lov, the BAR Recoil engine has now been equipped with a modern HTML/CSS-based UI framework (RmlUI). This transition allows us to integrate all UI elements seamlessly while leveraging more accessible web development expertise. Our team is hard at work designing the next evolution of BAR’s UI, and trust us—it’s going to look absolutely epic. While we can’t reveal much just yet, keep an eye on our social media… you never know when a wild dev sneak peek might appear!
New Lobby Client & Infrastructure Upgrades
We’ve also made huge strides in developing a brand-new lobby client. If you’ve used the current client, you probably know that while it gets the job done, it’s far from cutting-edge.
On top of that, BAR’s server infrastructure was never designed to handle thousands of players, leading to scaling issues. This was one of the main reasons we slowed down marketing—we were nearing capacity. However, thanks to recent optimizations, we’ve doubled our player cap to around 3,000–4,000 concurrent users.
But we’re aiming much higher. We’re actively preparing our infrastructure to support orders of magnitude more players. Over the past year, we’ve made significant progress, including:
✔ A brand-new autohost system
✔ Major improvements to the server protocol
✔ A brand-new lobby client, now nearing feature parity with the legacy one
✔ Approaching the addition of highly anticipated matchmaking!
These upgrades are essential for BAR’s long-term future. Now that these critical milestones have been achieved, we’re ready to ramp up promotional efforts and bring more players—and contributors—into the fold.
With the foundation set, growth has skyrocketed. After resuming social media campaigns and organizing major events like the 40K Discord Members Celebration, we’ve caught a new wave of momentum.
🚀 Since the start of 2025, BAR’s player base has grown by over 30%—and it’s still accelerating!
🚀 We’ve officially surpassed 10,000 daily active users (now at 11,361) and 2,000 concurrent players (now at 2,204)! And that's only the ones logged in multiplayer, we estimate there is just as many single player users.
🚀 Our community is thriving with 42,000 Discord members and 10,000 Reddit followers!
We can’t express how much this means to us. This is what we, as developers, live for. Seeing so many players and contributors rally behind BAR is truly inspiring.
This massive wave of interest has also brought in fantastic new contributors, significantly boosting our development output. It truly feels like the stars are aligning for BAR. We are currently at the unbelievable number of 104 contributors (only those on discord).
Since the start of 2025, eight amazing developers have joined our ranks. We’d like to take a moment to recognize their hard work:
🛠 Chirick2051 – Pioneering the new UI framework and figuring out its capabilities.
🛠 mupersega – Assisting in reconstructing UI elements and exploring the framework’s potential.
🛠 AidanNaut & Ambulatory Cortex – Creating new maps and working on the single-player campaign.
🛠 chesiren – Developing the BOS VSCode syntax coloring extension and working on the BOS compiler.
🛠 BONELESS DRAGON HAM – Making great contributions to Legion development and widgets.
🛠 duke_of_gloat – Laying the groundwork for auto-generated repository documentation.
🛠 BrassCode – Implementing map search functionality and working on build setup for the new lobby client.
A huge thank you to all of you—you’re helping shape the future of BAR!
With this momentum, we’re more excited than ever for what’s ahead. 2025 is shaping up to be a defining year, and we can’t wait to bring even more game-changing improvements to BAR.
To everyone playing, contributing, and supporting us—thank you. This project exists because of you, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
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