Alenir Idle v0.4.0 to v0.4.0.1 Devlog: The Grand Exchange, Unions and the Fair Play Hotfix

Welcome to the v0.4.0 update and the v0.4.0.1 hotfix that followed it on launch day.

v0.4.0 is the biggest change to Alenir Idle so far: heroes can now trade with each other and band together in Unions. Opening an economy to every player also means every edited save becomes everyone's problem, so most of launch day went into protecting honest players. This devlog covers both.

1. The Grand Exchange (v0.4.0)

Three ways to trade, all handled by the server so an item can never be in two places at once:

Direct Trades: send an item to another hero by Vault ID. It waits in escrow for 24 hours and comes back to you if it is declined, canceled or expires.
Player Marketplace: list up to 5 items for 7 days, priced in gold or Aetherium. Browse with filters for category, currency and price.
Auction House: six system lots every 6 hours. Your bid is held in escrow and refunded in full if someone outbids you.
Fair tax: a 10 percent buyer tax (lower for high-rank Unions and trades between Union members). The seller always receives the full price.

Trading opens in stages, and each part can be switched on or off without an app update. Anything already in escrow always comes back, even when a part is switched off.

2. Sovereign Unions (v0.4.0)

Found or join a Union from hero level 25.
Shared treasury: members contribute gold, Aetherium and materials to raise the Union from Outpost to Sovereign Bastion.
Union auras: passive EXP, gold and drop bonuses for every member, growing with the Union's rank.
Private Union chat, a pinned announcement, applications, invitations, officers, and automatic leader succession if a leader goes quiet.

3. Launch Day: Protecting Honest Players (v0.4.0 hotfixes)

Within hours of launch we found heroes with edited saves: gold, levels and Aetherium that no amount of play could produce. Trading stays paused while we close these gaps, and here is what changed the same day:

Save guard: every cloud save is checked on the server. A save with impossible values is paused from trading, Unions and the Hall of Fame until it is reviewed. Honest players are never affected.
Rollbacks: the team can return an edited hero to a fair state. The correction applies the next time that hero opens the game.
Bans: vaults that keep cheating can be banned from cloud saves, chat, the Tavern, trading and Unions.
One hero per name: a hero name is now claimed by the vault that uses it, and the rename dialog opens properly when a name has to change.

4. v0.4.0.1: The Fair Play Hotfix

Save files and save strings removed: you can no longer download, load, copy or paste save data in Settings or on the restore screen. These tools made editing a save far too easy, and a shared economy needs saves that are not edited from a menu. To back up your hero or move it to another device, use the Astral Vault cloud save in Settings.
Faster detection: the server now keeps a short history of each cloud save for 60 days, so an edited save stands out right away instead of days later.
Aetherium check fixed: the save guard now compares the Aetherium a hero holds with the Aetherium it has earned, closing a gap where edited crystals went unnoticed.

5. Bug Fixes

Dimensional Vault Expansion and Verdant Greenhouse now work: these Aetherium upgrades never applied because of a mismatched identifier. Vault Expansion now adds 10 bag slots per rank and Verdant Greenhouse adds 1 farm plot per rank. If you already bought ranks, the slots and plots are added the next time you open the game.
Restore and storage messages now point to the Astral Vault instead of save files.

Known issue: a bag holding thousands of items can grow past the cloud save size limit and stop syncing. Selling or salvaging duplicates restores syncing right away. A clear in-game message for this is planned.

6. A Word on Fair Play

A player who found the save editing hole reported it to us through the official bug report form, explaining exactly how it worked. That report led directly to the v0.4.0.1 changes. If you find an exploit, please report it the same way instead of using it. Reports that help us close a hole are rewarded.

Thank you for playing, trading and building Unions with us. Trading will reopen step by step once we are confident the economy is safe for everyone.