Hello!
Thanks for your interest in Miner’s Mettle. We’ve been in Early Access for close to a year now and as we gear up for our full release, we’d like to thank all our players for their feedback and comments that they’ve given us on this journey. It’s been great and a dream come true for us to see people playing our creation. As we are now not so far away from release, we’d like to answer some of the questions that we are frequently asked from interested gamers, as well as release some new information on what you can expect once we have our full release.
If you have any additional questions, please ask them below, or on our Discord.
What kind of game is Miner’s Mettle?
Miner’s Mettle is an artillery-based real time strategy game with elements of base building and logistics.
What kind of games might you compare it to?
While it’s hard to compare Miner’s Mettle as a whole to other games, we do stand on the shoulders of giants. For the artillery combat, we took inspiration from games like Scorched Earth and Worms. A little bit of Supreme Commander for a few things like salvaging and the global view, and we took customizable units from BATTLETECH and other similar mech games. Miner’s Mettle does not play like any of these games specifically, but these are some of our many inspirations.
When will it be released?
We plan on launching in April 2021.
What will it cost?
For the majority of Early Access it cost $20 (for Americans, with other regions getting Steam’s default regional pricing). As we get closer to launch, we are raising the price to $25 to reflect the years’ worth of work we have put in and the additional content. Also, we’d like to have a launch discount, so we must raise the prices in March before the additional content in order to be able to have a launch discount in April (this is due to Steam’s rule of not allowing discounts within 30 days of a price change). If you’re reading this in March, we recommend Wishlisting us and checking us out on launch day!
How long is the game going to be?
The story campaign has 22 missions, and we expect it to take approximately 8 to 10 hours. The campaign takes place entirely on the planet of Pentum, and you will visit icy tundra, parched deserts, tumultuous volcanos and stony landscapes.
What is the backstory of the campaign?
It is the 28th century, and humans have made tentative steps across the stars. While there are now 8 habitable colonies, space travel is still slow, dangerous and expensive. On the isolated mining planet of Pentum, a new mineral is discovered. Some experimentation shows this mineral could potentially be used as the fuel for faster-than-light travel, which would dramatically change the speed and intensity of the spread of humans across the stars. The only known source of this mineral is the planet of Pentum. As the price of this mineral skyrockets, and where there’s a profit to be made, greed follows soon after…
Are there different campaigns for each faction?
No. You don’t play as a faction but rather a person, Roland Derecho; an ex-artillery officer who is drifting through life after being discharged and finds himself on the isolated mining planet of Pentum working for his cousin. You will experience and play the different factions during different missions, but always as Roland.
Can I change the character I play?
No. Roland is the only playable character in Miner’s Mettle’s campaign.
Do you only control one unit? Do you need to tell each unit to fire individually?
You control multiple units. Each faction has a different max capacity, but each faction will let you control multiple units. You’ll also build and control multiple facilities. Yes, you do need to aim and fire for each unit as aim is a big part of the gameplay. We do not want to have a game that makes players rely on high APM to be successful, and as such there is a low max unit cap (in single digits for all factions), and cooldowns are fairly high.
Are the units customizable?
Yes, researching new technologies allows you to build new devices for your units, as well as new facilities and other tools. Each faction has their own unique pool of abilities, and then there is a shared pool as well.
What else can you tell us about units?
Units, known as AMPs (Armoured Mining Platforms) are quite versatile. They hold an artillery cannon and a recon surveying device as default abilities. You can attach a number of compartments to AMPs, which increase their armour (health) but decrease their speed. Each compartment can either stay empty to haul resources, or you can install devices which grant the AMPs abilities to use. By choosing the combination of compartments and devices installed therein, you can customize the unit to fulfill whatever role you choose for it on the battlefield.
How does resource collection work?
AMPs need to gather minerals and bring them back to headquarters for processing and use. The AMPs can either mine it themselves, a risky proposition as they are sitting ducks in the meanwhile, or invest resources and build a mining platform, which will extract resources and store them, until an AMP with empty compartments shows up, loads them on, and takes them back to HQ. A mining platform will also have some drones who will transport resources automatically to HQ, so mining platforms grant a passive stream of resources as well.
How many factions are there?
There are four factions to play as. Kylian Conglomerate are a massive corporation and an economic powerhouse, Iron Strike are a famous mercenary company and have strong fighting experience, The Responders are the militant arm of a theocratic nation and their zealous natures burn bright, and The Zed Initiative are the research wing of an ancient and obscure religion and their inquisitive minds are quick to grasp the potential of Pentum.
Is there base building?
There is facility building; but you cannot build anywhere you’d like. Instead, each map has buildable spots, where a unit can dock at and build a facility. So clustering facilities together around your headquarters is not an option. At resource nodes, the attached buildable spot can only build the appropriate mining platform to extract that resource.
What engine is the game built in?
Miner’s Mettle runs on Unreal Engine 4.
What are the system requirements for the game?
Our minimum specs ask for an Intel i3 processor, a NVIDIA GTX 750ti, 8GB of RAM, and 40GB of HDD space (the space requirements may change).
Will there be microtransactions?
Absolutely not. We do hope that the game does well enough for us to be able to make DLC that offers additional content like a new campaign, or a new faction or similar.
What have you added in during your year of Early Access?
We have made large strides from the launch of Early Access. Some of this progress will not be seen until we exit Early Access and do our full launch. Based off player feedback as well as our own plans, we have:
• Worked on the single player campaign
• Added in dozens of abilities
• Improved the AI to feel more human like and provide an enjoyable challenge
• Made each faction more distinct
• Salvaging mechanics
• Added in weather effects
• Improved visuals and lighting
• Added in many more sound effects
• Significantly improved the camera and controls, as well as various customizable settings
• Cloud saving
• Colour blind mode
Where can I see the unedited gameplay?
We will post videos on our YouTube channel, as well as recorded streams on our Steam Store page before our full release so you can get a better sense of gameplay.
Can I stream the game?
Of course!
What game modes are there in the game?
We are planning to launch with the story campaign, and a horde mode.
Is there multiplayer? Do you have dedicated servers?
No - we used to have a rudimentary multiplayer but were unable to make it work well. Our focus is on the single player campaign.
Will there be mods, or a map editor?
This is not currently planned. If things go well then, we’d like to be able to devote time into making them possible, but as of now we’ll need to see how well the game does.
What platforms will it be available on?
We’re releasing on PC only. We don’t plan to release on consoles.
Can I play using a gamepad/mouse/keyboard?
We designed the controls with only keyboard + mouse in mind. We felt there were too many hotkeys for gamepad playing to be considered viable, but if there’s a strong demand for it post-release we could try to make gamepads usable.
If you can think of any additional questions you’d like answered, let us know below and we can add the answers to this FAQ.
Thank you!