Miners Mettle News

We intend to make each faction as distinct as possible and, in that vein, Zed Initiative are our first to have an entirely different mechanic in how they play (as opposed to simply different abilities). We’ve added in 4 new abilities, and we’ve also fixed up a bunch of different bugs with the new save system. Finally, our ability images have been replaced with much improved versions. Check it out!

Gameplay
Zed’s Energy System – The Zed Initiative units no longer have cooldowns! Zed use their high-tech advantage to instead generate and store energy. Each ability has an energy cost, and if the unit has enough energy, you can use an ability multiple times immediately. This will allow Zed, who are designed as a high quality, low quantity faction to still excel despite the lack of numbers. Units regenerate energy automatically over time, and each compartment added also increases the max capacity of energy for that unit
Kylian: Cryostasis – A projectile that upon impact both damages and slows target units
Kylian: Leech – An acidic projectile that sticks to targets and increases damage received, while also causing damage to the target when it fires its artillery cannon while depuffed
Iron Strike: Kevalin Satellite – A recon ability that allows the user to see the entire map for a short period of time
Zed: Hibernate: A passive ability that automatically activates any time the unit is not moving, and doubles the energy regeneration
Repair Garages can not add compartments to units as well

Graphics
Our research screen has received a visual upgrade, with the ability images on the upper right of the screen all receiving a visual upgrade. Here’s an example!



UI
Zed’s Energy System – Zed’s UI now shows the energy stored in each unit, above the ability icons. You can also see the highlighted cost of any ability you’re aiming with, to give you an idea of what you’ll have after.
Save System – We’ve removed zeroes on the dates for a cleaner look, and we’ve made it so that the system now reads the style of date you have set your PC to and copies it (so MM/DD/YY if you use the US way, for example)

Fixed
An issue with debuffs not showing up on the combat logs
Several issues with certain things not being saved in our save file properly – resources, mid-air projectiles (and their reticles), right-click destination targets (both in world view and Sat view), facilities being constructed, units being built
An issue with loading a saved file while in game
A crash when pressing the save button in the save menu
An issue with the load menu in main menu being empty
An issue with AI units splitting after loading
An issue with being able to see the save option in an online game after playing a single player game
An issue with the Repair task not working properly, and sometimes also never leaving the task bar
A crash after undocking from the HQ while using right click

This patch has the save system as our headliner. You’ll be able to save single player Horde matches and load back in whenever you like. Multiplayer matches aren’t savable. We’ve also worked on Cloud saving, so that’s an option as well for players who switch between PCs. This is part of our work on the campaign, but since it has been requested before we thought we’d add this part in as soon as we could for players.

Gameplay
Save System – Save and load single player Horde matches.
Cloud Saving
Repair Garage can now add compartments to units

UI
Added a visual flow of abilities/compartments being added to a unit in the UMS
Added Buff / Debuff notifications in the combat log for your units, as well as any units you have buffed/debuffed

Fixed
An issue with the Coordination ability not having any resource requirements stated
An issue with the Cluster Bomb cooldown being broken
An issue with the Repairbots cooldown
An issue with the Recon Orb visual timer getting stuck
An issue with the Artillery Cannon doing damage through a shield after using the Scutum ability inside
An issue with the Cluster Bomb not having the appropriate VFX

Our new patch contains some new gameplay and UI elements, as well as many bug fixes. We were hoping to get in our new movement code in for this patch but were unable to, and so we plan on hotfixing it in fairly soon as we don’t want to have to wait another couple of weeks to introduce it to the game.

Gameplay
The Pentum Effect – As Pentum is the most valuable resource, as well as a victory condition, we’ve made it a more interesting decision to attempt to transport Pentum back to HQ. Any unit carrying Pentum ore back to HQ can be detected through the fog of war by enemies, making carrying Pentum a risky but tactical decision
Repair Garage – A new facility that can heal units within its radius, at the cost of resources
Salvaging facilities now cancels any other task on the queue and starts salvaging immediately. Also Salvaging now requires the player to hold the icon (or hotkey) for 1.5 seconds to confirm the decision, as it cannot be canceled once the process has begun.

UI
The Buff/Debuff UI section is now implemented, giving more information to players
The Totem abilities UI has been reworked, to improve the process of selecting a Totem
Added in costs to tooltips of certain tasks that were missing
The Research tab now opens with the specific missing research selected in the appropriate context
Audio
Added in sound effects for the Kylian HQ drones
Added in sound effects for all factions’ shield generators as units go through them.

Fixed
An issue with resources going into negative values
An issue with the Totem reticle activation delay
An issue with the Totem mesh only showing the Blood Totem
An issue with Recon not working for the server in 1v1s
An issue with Unloading not unloading all resources
An issue with Mining Platforms bricking if the unit undocked while the facility was being built
An issue with Drone Mining not transferring all resources
An issue with Research Orb level 1 not displaying properly in the combat logs
An issue with destroyed compartments not displaying properly in the UMS
An issue with being able to access the intentionally disabled UMS in the tutorial with it’s hotkey
An issue with certain items being researched, or certain abilities completing cooldowns being described incorrectly in the combat log
An issue with building abilities on the UMS not working

Hello!

We've been patching weekly since our Early Access launch in May, sometimes more than once a week. As we get a few months in, many of the remaining tasks are pretty complex and large, requiring more than a week at a time.

We'll be moving to a bi-weekly patch schedule as a result, allowing us some more time to make each patch a bit meatier. As always we'll see how it goes and make changes based on your feedback if needed. We're excited to continue to build and develop Miner's Mettle for you!

Thanks,
Ignatius

This week’s patch has a bunch of fixes, particularly with the tutorial. As the game improved and got new features, the tutorial wasn’t keeping pace and started breaking at various points. We’re aiming to have new features next patch (which are now bi-weekly).

UI
Changed the location of the passive income indicator to be more readable and consistent
Added in mineral colours changing for colour blind mode, as per feedback
Added in a “hold” action for the salvage facility button to prevent players from salvaging a facility by mistake. You must hold the icon for 3 seconds to initiate salvaging.
Added a Reverse Direction icon in the unit movement command taskbar

Fixed
An issue with the Unit tutorial breaking when the repair task wouldn’t end and couldn’t be canceled
An issue with the Unit tutorial getting stuck when trying to add a compartment
An issue with the Movement tutorial flow breaking
An issue with the Research tutorial flow breaking
A crash while adding compartments in any of the tutorials
An issue with transferring resources not canceling if the transferring unit was undocked
An issue with restarting auto un/loading resources simultaneously
An issue with being able to continuously cancel tasks
An issue with the Artillery Strike and Recon Orb abilities not showing as destroyed if that compartment was destroyed and unusable
An issue with tasks duplicating if the task was paused and unpaused
An issue with alignment for icons in the task bar
An issue with the Reverse button moving the camera if in free look mode
An issue with resource transfer progress not showing on compartments on client
An issue with Drone Mining not working on client
An issue with the Add Compartment hotkey not working
An issue with the mini-map icons for any facility under construction showing as blank black box