Miners Mettle News

Focusing on camera for this week’s patch, we’ve made improvements to camera smoothness, rotations and panning. We’ve also added in a couple of new settings for players to customize their experience, and a couple of UI changes as well.

Camera
Smoothing – We’ve gotten feedback that our camera is jerky, and we’ve worked on improving the feel by adding in some acceleration and deceleration that makes the camera feel a lot smoother
Rotation Style – We now have two rotating options so you can rotate around a pivot point (default Q and E) or rotate around the camera itself (default middle mouse)
Reduced Panning Margins – Shrunk the margins needed to pan with the mouse, reducing the chances that you may pan the camera by mistake
Pivot Point Rotation Axis Size – Added a min and max for rotating with (default) Q and E so the rotations are not too small or large

UI
Facility Tree hidden – Removed the facility tree being shown as default, and have hidden it. You can make it appear again by pressing the I hotkey
Circular Health Bar – The health bar will now reappear when the camera reaches a certain height and is locked onto a unit
Universal Weather Notifications – Consolidated what would be an avalanche of combat log notifications for players into one or two universal notifications

Setting
Smoothing – You can now toggle the new smoothing feature
Mouse Lock to Viewport – Added as a feature for those with a multiple monitor setup

Fixed
An issue with being unable to add multiple compartments to a unit at once
An issue with panning with mouse (edge scrolling) being inverted when mouse aiming is inverted
An issue with the change log now showing up on the game starting
An issue with camera deceleration not flipping for inverted rotation
An issue with rotation sensitivity being unintentionally tied with mouse movement sensitivity
An issue with multiple abilities missing their impact VFX. There are a few that are still missing that we aim to complete next patch

A bunch of small changes in a variety of different areas this patch, from cosmetic changes to the main menu to medium sized changes to the game mechanics like the revised unit health system and the centralization of sound rings.

Gameplay
Meteor Shower Visual Cue – Further testing shows that having a 10 second warning of where the meteors are going to be landing helps with strategic gameplay.
Blizzard – A new weather phenomenon that shows up on snow biomes, this reduces the visibility of facilities and units, and cuts the effectiveness of most recon abilities in half. Units are also slowed down.
Sandstorm – This works similarly to the Blizzard, with the obvious change of it showing up on desert biomes instead of snow.
Sound Rings Centralized – Based on feedback, we’ve changed how sound rings operate. Previously a unit could be anywhere in the sound ring, but now units will always be in the center. Certain abilities that are designed to cause confusion as to the unit’s location will still have unreliable sound rings and units can be anywhere within those.
Tail Compartment – This is a slight redesign of the unit health system. The “Tail” compartment which was always there is now the first to take damage, thus shielding ability-holding compartments somewhat. These now separated compartments cannot hold any abilities, and apply no penalty to the unit when destroyed.

UI
Main Menu change – A cosmetic change, which we think fits our theme and aesthetic well
Tail Compartment –The change to the health system mentioned above is also shown in the ability toolbar when selecting a unit, with a passive icon representing the tail and a health bar above that.
Mining Platform Icon Change – We’ve changed the icon from a train in a mineshaft visual to minerals with the icon color representing which mineral is being mined.

Camera
Toggle Edge Scroll – Requested by Tokyo Dan, we’ve made a toggle in the settings which can remove panning when you bring the cursor to the edge of the screen.

Fixed
A crash when using certain ‘hidden’ internally used hotkeys for other purposes
An issue with the first meteor shower not showing up
An issue with offensive projectile abilities damage being capped at 100
An issue with the destroyed mesh for the artillery and train compartments not being set
An issue with the Repairbots ability not showing up in sync with health increases
An issue with the combat log showing Repairbots were healing for 0/s
An issue with repair aura stopping if the facility wasn’t possessed by the player
An issue with Hecatomb ability not activating
An issue with Last Hope ability not adding a health buff to compartments as intended

The headliner of this patch is our implementation of the weather system! We want to bring more vitality to the world of Pentum and weather is one way to do that. We plan to have Blizzards, Sandstorms and Earthquakes in next patch, with Solar Flares and Meteor Strikes in for now.

Gameplay
Weather Anomalies – These weather effects whip across the surface of Pentum with short warning! Meteor Strikes cause damage on impact and Solar Flares cause damage to any units not under a facility shield. Meteor Strikes can occur on any map and Solar Flares can only occur on Desert, Rocky and Volcano biomes.

UI
Weather Anomalies – Hostile weather can be detected 30 seconds before it hits, and warnings will flash both across the screen and in the game log. The game log will also give further warnings 20 and 10 seconds before impact, as well as the expected length of the weather once it hits.

Fixed
Some graphical issues with Sabotage
Issues with Parry not having a cooldown on client, and Sat View not showing projectiles after Parrying
An issue Last Hope’s cooldown timer not being accurate
Multiple minor issues with the Scramble ability
An issue with Cluster Bombs being named by it’s old, obsolete name at Level 1
An issue with Targeting Beacon that forced enemy (!) units to fire if in range of the ability
An issue with Prophet’s Eye Level 3 not working at all

In the week since our surprise patch last week, we’ve overhauled our ability tooltips, added in tooltips in our Settings menu to explain some of the options better, and fixed a bunch of bugs.

Gameplay
Kylian: Sabotage – After using this tech on an enemy facility’s shield, it attaches on and provides recon of the area around the facility. Levels 2 & 3 of Sabotage add debuffs to mining platforms if they are attached to one.

UI
Added in tooltips for the settings menu, allowing us to explain more clearly what certain settings do. We also changed some of the names of the settings.
Changed the tooltips for abilities, removing lore in the hopes of delivering important information concisely. The lore will come back in during the campaign as well as our in game wiki.
Improved the UI for when autocast is disabled, and made it more consistent

Fixed
Issues with the Parry ability, such as the buff not disappearing and VFX glitches
An issue with False Echo levels 2 & 3 not being researchable
Issues with the Repair Garage, such as the repair aura not working, repairing not costing money and empty game logs when repairing
Issues with the Repair Bots ability not working, using an old icon, and being visible to enemies
Issues with the Scutum ability not working on recon orbs, and levels 2 and 3 not working at all
An issue with new units getting upgraded with all researched items even if the ability was not installed
An issue with Smokescreen not working if used twice in the same spot

Hello! Feeling the non-2020 energy, we’ve managed to squeeze in some extra gains this week. We have a bunch of abilities, an improved camera, and some bug fixes.

Camera
We’ve added in an optional setting under camera controls which allows players to toggle between two options while in free camera. The default is to rotate the camera around itself, while the new setting has the camera moving around a pivot point.

Gameplay
Effect based damage notifications – We’ve added in further information for when your units get hit, allowing you to see exactly what ability was used.
Iron Strike: False Echo Levels 1, 2 & 3 – False Echo is a silent, harmless projectile that produces a sound ring on impact. Very useful for confusing enemies and causing them waste time. Level 2 increases the range of the ability and Level 3 increases the intensity of the sound produced.
Zed: Parry Level 2 – Level 2 increases how long the ability is active for
Kylian: Afterburn Level 3 – Level 3 increases how long the ability is active for
Kylian: Smokescreen Levels 2 & 3 – Level 2 adds a slight damage resistance to units within, while Level 3 adds a slight healing effect to units within
EMP Mine Levels 2 & 3 – Level 2 increases the lifetime of the mine, while Level 3 increases the length of the debuff
Scutum Levels 2 & 3 – Level 2 increases the max range of the ability while Level 3 increases how long the ability is active for

Fixed
An issue with the Zed faction UI not showing the amount of further energy required for using abilities
An issue with players being able to see other players destroyed units through the FoW
An issue with incorrect costs for salvage abilities of various factions
Multiple issues with Condenser, including not being able to add minerals after upgrading capacity
An issue with repair and AoE repair not working