Major New Features:
Washplant:
There are new major changes that will require much more management of the mining. However this allows the players to better control which ore is being mined. Also, if you are in need of a specific ore quickly you can now spend more fuel to get what you need quicker.
This should lower any advantage in leaving the game running to mine as the mining needs more direction than before.
Panels:
The 5 levels of panels have been completely redone:
Ore selection slider:
This now includes an ore selection slider which allows you to manually select the ore type you wish to mine. This replaces the previous mechanic of unlocking various ores by Time chamber (TC) level.
For example, previously you needed to get to TC level 100 to get more nickel, now you need to buy the level 3 panel to allow nickel mining.
Overdrive button:
You can now choose to mine ore much more quickly in return for a very large usage of fuel. For every 5x usage of fuel you will double the speed of mining. The overdrive button will turn off after a certain amount of time; it will be up to the players to discover the amount of time it lasts and the correct manner to use this.
Fuel Gem requirements:
Certain panel types now require specific fuel types. Also higher level panels will use fuel quicker. This all equates to more money required for fuel, and rewards have been adjusted to balance for this.
Some gems now have unique animations when inserted into the fuel panel, and upon close inspection of the fuel gems you may notice a track which slides to lock them in place in the panel. If you insert an incorrect gem into a panel, it won't animate, and will also warn you with a message.
Grating:
- improvements to textures and animations
Conveyor:
- improvements to textures and animations
Store changes:
Fuel Gems:
The fuel gems section in the store has been expanded to give you a new selection of the fuel gems required to control the washplant.
Upgrade books:
Information on each panel is now detailed in the panel upgrade book in the store. This paradigm will be used in the future to detail other upgrades.
Major Game Fixes:
- The Master Bladesmith tutorial has been adjusted to improve the spawn positions of the various MB avatars.
- The Master Bladesmith voice can now be adjusted up much higher than previous, and its nominal level at the start of the game is at the center to allow easy volume changes.
- The game will now close correctly and no longer hang in the taskbar upon exit.
- Cloud saves will now automatically restore the game across computers or upon windows file deletion, if you log in with the same Steam account (Steam auto cloud).
- The game has been updated to 4.27 to facilitate the above 2 changes. This then created a whole slew of secondary issues that needed to be adjusted including the lighting and cable components. Therefore there may be a slight change to the lighting brightness.
- Starting the game should no longer result in players falling out of the world, thus missing the starting tutorial
- If you do manage to fall out of the world before you have entered the TC for the first time you will be restored to the starting cave, instead of the TC area.
- Difficulty has been adjusted to make the game a little bit more challenging in the very early stages of the game 0 - 20. This will reset to how it was nearly a year ago, since the ease of these first few levels made the game too easy, and a lot of players were lost due to lack of challenge. Difficulty post level 35 is the same now as it always has been.