Miners Mettle News

This week we introduce the visually overhauled research screen. We believe it looks much better as well as reads more clearly. We’ve got a few bug fixes in as well.

UI
Visually overhauled the research screen

Camera
Double clicking on an enemy icon in SatView moves the camera to the enemy’s location

Fixed
The UMS showing Pentum even if you have iron in the compartment
Players being able to zoom and pan the camera with the menu toggled on during multiplayer
Some behind the scenes issues with the ability system which should reduce our technical debt

This week was us mostly focused on resolving multiple crashes and other issues that snuck in when we introduced the UMS and our new abilities.

Fixed
An issue with being unable to have multiple of the same ability on the same unit
An issue with Laser Satellite not spawning VFX in Satellite View
A crash on client relating to mini shields
A crash on client relating to compartments
A crash on client relating to compartments (another one!)
A crash on clients when going back to the main menu from the stat screen
An issue with Grav Pull mesh and VFX not being correctly shown
An issue with AI trains going back to their entry points and getting stuck there
Multiple issues with UMS – unintentionally disabled in the task bar, no grav pull icon, scroll wheel not working for the task list, fixed a bug where adding the same ability twice didn’t add the second one, compartment images didn’t update when swapped

A few new abilities this week but also the UMS – Unit Management System, which will help players manage their units more efficiently. We’re currently working on other abilities and a new tooltip system.

Gameplay
Zed: Cyclops Satellite – A re-deployable satellite that shoots a laser, Grav Pull – a recon orb with a slowing effect on units within its radius
Responders – Redemption Totem – a healing effect to nearby units, Cluster Bomb – a short range ability that works best the closer you can get to your target
Iron Strike – Targeting Beacon – any friendly units within the radius of the unit will also fire their artillery cannons (cooldowns permitting) and strike the same coordinates
UMS – The Unit Management System allowing a more in-depth look at your units, also allowing you to build compartments and abilities at your HQ and store them for quick installation later

UI
Visually changed our unit path indicators

Fixed
Some issues with last week’s new abilities and unintended behaviour
A crash with the minishield on client having attribute initialization issues
A crash when iterating over compartments trying to go tailwards

Introducing some new abilities for the factions this week, as well as some other bug fixes. We’d hoped to have more in but will have to settle for splitting them up between this week and next. This means some factions have more abilities than others currently.

Gameplay
Responders: Blood totem – an AoE buff to units nearby allowing them to do more damage
Kylian: Afterburn – a speed boost, Smoke Screen – a tactical screening system, Shrouded Shot – a muzzled cannon that produces much less sound at the expense of projectile speed
Iron Strike: Kinetic Catapult – a long range artillery cannon that requires precision, Scutum – a point defense gun that can shoot down incoming projectiles, Repairbots – a projectile with a repair drone payload, Power Surge – projectiles temporarily do more damage at the cost of taking more damage as well
Zed Initiative: Scramble – a projectile with an electronic payload that causes a random ability to go on cooldown, Electric Storm – a recon orb with a damaging area of effect.

Fixed
A bug where right clicking while docked would set the destination to the middle of the map
A bug where in multiplayer, selected units could be controlled while the menu was open
A bug where resources were not loading in the right compartment when drone mining
An issue with resources not being loaded correctly when certain compartments had abilities
A bug where multiple abilities were added to the same compartment if queued up

Some more fixes and quality of life improvements. The main new feature is our multiplayer pause, which allows each player in a multiplayer game to pause twice for a brief period if needed.
We expect to have a big patch next week or the week after introducing new abilities and other supporting system improvements, which we’re looking forward to sharing with you.

Gameplay
Multiplayer pause – each player can pause twice for 20 seconds each. We’ll change the number of pauses and length depending on player feedback.
Movement Indicators have been improved to be more accurate in certain edge cases

UI
Added in a missing tooltip for minimizing and expanding a part of the HUD
Added in tooltip heading wrapping, so text doesn’t extend past the text box any more

Fixed
A crash on client due to replication errors
The destination marker for each client train was visible to the host, now no longer visible
A bug where the artillery turret was not moving as it should while the player was aiming.
A bug where the turret’s fire animation wasn’t triggering the dust VFX around the unit
A visual bug with the Responder’s units, compartments are now properly spaced