Updates

How updating works

Every installed copy of Specter ships with a small companion, specter-updater.exe. On launch the app quietly checks this channel for a newer build; when one exists it offers it in the title bar.

1. You see a green "Update to vX.Y.Z" button in the top bar (hover it for the release notes).
2. Click it. Specter closes, the updater downloads the new build, verifies it, swaps it in, and relaunches you on the new version — settings and licence untouched.
3. Manual check: double-click specter-updater.exe in your Specter folder to check and apply updates at any time.

What an update touches

If the update button never appears

Changelog

Every published build, newest first. Installed copies pick these up automatically.

1. v1.1.0

   9 August 2026

   The updater now maintains the whole installation, not just the executable — and downloads only the parts that actually changed.

   Added

   • Component-wise updates. A release is now a set of signed parts — the app, the updater, the model library, the demo recordings, the DCS export script, the documents, and each theatre's terrain. The updater hashes what you have, compares it against the release, and fetches only what differs. A documentation fix is kilobytes; it no longer means re-downloading half a gigabyte.
   • Repair. Because it compares contents rather than trusting a version number, the updater can also put right an installation that has been damaged — a deleted model, a half-extracted zip, a file an antivirus quarantined. --repair reinstalls everything regardless.
   • The updater updates itself. It cannot overwrite its own running image, so it parks the new copy alongside and Specter installs it on the next launch.
   • Pick what you want. --check lists every component and its state; --component <name> fetches one; --all includes optional parts. Terrain is optional and left alone unless you already have a theatre installed or ask for it.
   Changed

   • The component list carries its own signature, separate from the manifest's. A list of download URLs and install paths is a way to write files onto your machine, so it is refused outright if unsigned or altered — and every install path is checked to be inside your Specter folder before anything is written.
   • Everything is downloaded and verified before anything is installed, so a failure partway through leaves the previous version intact rather than a half-replaced installation that reports no error.
   • Updaters from v1.0.3 and earlier keep working against the new releases. The manifest's original fields are unchanged and signed exactly as before.

2. v1.0.3

   9 August 2026

   Fixes the standalone updater failing to reach the update channel at all when its own settings file was sitting beside it.

   Fixed

   • "Could not reach the update server" when the updater was copied in with its settings file. The optional update-channel.txt that ships beside the standalone updater is entirely commented out, so it should do nothing. It was written with a byte-order mark, which meant its first line no longer began with # — so the file's own heading was read as the update address and every check failed. The mark is now stripped, only real https:// addresses are accepted, and anything else falls back to the built-in channel with a note in the log. A file whose purpose is to rescue a broken update channel should never be able to create one.

3. v1.0.2

   9 August 2026

   Fixes the standalone updater closing the instant you opened it.

   Fixed

   • The updater vanished the moment you double-clicked it. It is a console program, and Windows destroys the console it creates for one the instant the process exits — so everything it printed, including the reason it could not do anything, appeared and disappeared inside a single frame. It now waits for you to press Enter, but only when it owns a window you can actually see: run from a terminal, or launched by Specter itself, it still exits straight away.
   • Running the standalone updater on its own said almost nothing. With no specter.exe beside it there is nothing to update, and it reported that as a bare "not found". It now explains the two ways to fix it — move it next to Specter, or pass --exe — and stays on screen while you read.

4. v1.0.1

   9 August 2026

   A rebuilt C2 Live. Live sessions are now recorded to disk continuously from the first packet, so what you save is the whole sortie rather than whatever was still in memory.

   Fixed

   • A live session saved only its last few seconds. The replay was being built from the in-memory window instead of the session, so a long flight came back as a fragment. Every frame is now written to an ACMI file as it arrives.
   • A mission restart corrupted the capture. DCS restarts its mission clock at zero on a rotation, rejoin or slot change. Two timelines ended up interleaved in one buffer and the saved file jumped backwards mid-recording. Specter now closes the capture and starts a clean one.
   • Every loaded recording contained a phantom object. The ACMI parser read the FileVersion header line as an object declaration, adding a contact with no track to every file ever opened.
   • Stale tracks were kept forever. Objects that had left the live window were trimmed of their frames but never dropped, so a busy server slowly accumulated thousands of empty entries.
   • A telemetry port already in use failed silently. A second Specter, or another tool on 34380, meant no live feed and no explanation. It now says so and tells you what to do.
   Added

   • Continuous capture. Sessions stream to Documents\SPECTER\Recordings\, flushed about once a second and valid without being closed — if DCS exits or the server drops you, the file is already playable.
   • Link health you can actually read. Feed rate, packet loss from the exporter's own sequence counter, and a warning when the exporter hits its per-packet entity cap. UDP has no delivery guarantee, so a lossy feed used to look identical to a perfect one.
   • A sortable object list. Filter by name, side or domain; sort by altitude or speed; click to select and follow. Your own aircraft is marked.
   • An inferred event log — launches attributed to the nearest shooter, losses attributed to a nearby detonation, spawns and departures. It reports what was observed and does not claim kills it cannot see.
   • Theatre detection from the reported coordinates, and mission time-of-day carried into the capture so a dawn sortie replays at dawn.
   • Scale bar and selection reticle on the live map.
   • Settings → Command & Control Live for the capture toggle, the live-window length and the telemetry port.
   Changed

   • Captures write ACMI 2.2 with proper removal records, so destroyed aircraft no longer sit frozen at their last position for the rest of the replay.
   • The DCS export script now reports the mission start time and your own aircraft's id. It is backwards compatible — update the app and the script independently.
   • Documentation now covers servers that delay their own Tacview feed, and what to do if yours prohibits client-side export.

5. v1.0.0

   First release

   Specter's first public build: ACMI parsing and indexing, the Kill Cam, Global 3D with hypsometric terrain, the analysis tabs, AAR reports, offline licence activation and the signed update channel.

Questions about updating? See the Updating section of the user guide or email support.