Today's update is a test build for the new mine system I mentioned in the previous announcement. This new system allows you to place additional mines to get more miners and get access to better ore rather than from placing the Stonemason and then having to wait for the quests to unlock the next ore. This is a really big change and it's backwards compatible with existing saves so I thought it best to upload it as a test build. I'm still working on some additions to the system, such as moving the mines, but the main parts are done.
New Saves
If you start a new game the tutorial related to the mine will be slightly different. Mainly, there is no existing mine on the map when you start out! So rather than asking a townsperson to clear the mine, the quest will allow you to place a mine.
Existing Saves
If you have a save that includes at least one assigned miner your save will automatically be updated to use the new multi-mine system. For example, if you have 3 miners, when you load your save with this build, the game will automatically place three mines and assign each of your miners to one of those mines. After that, you'll be able to place new mines to get more miners. Getting this to work with existing saves actually took more time than building the system itself, but was fun to figure out and implement!
Placing Mines
The build system has been updated to add two areas to place mines. These are located at the top of the screen in the shot above. In that shot, I'm actually placing a fourth mine on the left side. The three mines on the right were auto-placed by the system because my save had three miners.
The tutorial mine requires one copper ore (along with wood and stone) to place. One of the things I have to add is a safety check to give you one copper if you use all of it crafting ingots.
After that, each subsequent mine requires one ore of the next type. So the next mine requires an iron ore and the one after that will require unrefined jade, and so on. As soon as you place a new mine you'll get a quest to clear out the mine. This new quest will appear even if you are at the open quest cap. After completing this quest you'll gain the ability to assign a new miner and you'll unlock the ore that the mine was built with. The ore unlock applies to all miners.
So, after the tutorial mine, if you place the next mine with iron ore, you'll get a second miner and you can assign iron ore to both of the miners if you want to.
You cannot place a mine will the quest to clear out the previous mine is active. Also, for existing saves, if you've already unlocked diamond and/or blood stone, you won't be reset back to gold ore because you only have four mines. You will however be able to place a fifth and sixth mine assuming you have the requisite diamond ore and/or blood stone ore to do so.
Here I just placed that fourth mine and have the quest to clear it out.
Note one big change is mines no longer have ore in them for the player to obtain. Quests involving caves and other mines will continue to work as usual. I did this for a few of reasons, mostly related to balance. Overall this system should allow you to get ore faster since unlocking new mines and assigning miners is way more predictable than it was in the current system where you had to wait for quests to get the next ore type. Plus you can now have up to six miners! I still want to the tutorial mine to have ore inside though so you have a bit of a headstart creating copper items early on.
I also have some other things I might add to this to make getting a new mine more interesting, but don't want to talk about them just yet in case I decide they aren't a good fit. I'd like the quest to unlock the mine to involve more than just killing monsters but we'll see how that goes.
If you want to try out the new system and help test it, you can get this build by following these instructions:
1. In the Steam Client Library where it lists all of your games, right click on HammerHelm
2. Click Preferences
3. In the window that opens, select the "Betas" Tab
4. Enter the password to download this build - NewMineTest1 - and click Check Code
5. You should get a message that the code is correct
6. Click the drop-down box and select BigUpdateTest
Steam should immediately start a new download with the test client. The new game should be called "HammerHelm [bigupdatetest]". Once the download is complete you can launch the game and you should see "Beta 12 - test" in the title screen.
VERY IMPORTANT - if you load an existing save or make a new save and get the new mines, those saves will NOT be compatible with the current live build. So I recommend making a backup of your save or just sticking with the test build until I create the live one.
To get back to the main build:
1. In the Steam Client Library where it lists all of your games, right click on HammerHelm
2. Click Preferences
3. In the window that opens, select the "Betas" Tab
4. Choose “None” from the drop down
5. Steam should then revert back to the main client
Thank you again everyone for your feedback and suggestions. I really hope you enjoy this new system!
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
[email protected]
- My Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperSixStudios
- Discord Channel: discord.gg/soedesco