Hi everyone!
The 350th demo update for MineEngineer is here.
Honestly, seeing 350 demo updates is pretty crazy. I've been working on this game for around four years now, and there have been a lot of changes along the way. From this update forward, I also want to start sharing more regular development updates here on the Steam page, so you can see what I'm working on and what's changing in the game. This update is quite a big one. There are several new engineering and combat systems, a new demo, improvements to physics, controls and UI, and a lot of smaller fixes based on your feedback. Here are some of the bigger changes.
1. Projector Block
The new Projector Block lets you project a blueprint directly into the world. You can use it as a guide while building a ship, and you can also combine it with the Welder Block to create a kind of automated ship-building system. I'm really interested to see what people will do with this, especially when you start combining it with the other automation systems in the game.
2. Pusher Block
There's also a new Pusher Block. It can push blocks, objects and characters, so you can use it to make things like moving platforms, doors, machines, transport systems, traps, or whatever else you can think of. I'm honestly not sure what players are going to do with this one yet.
3. Energy Shield
The Energy Shield Block is another new part of the combat system. It creates a shield in front of your ship that can block energy-based attacks like lasers and plasma weapons. The important part is that it uses a lot of electricity. You can also change the size of the shield. A bigger shield gives you more coverage, but it's less powerful. So now you have another thing to think about when designing a combat ship: how much power do you want to put into your shield, and how much do you need for everything else?
4. Pressurized Valves and Ventilation
I've also been working more on the atmosphere system. With the new Pressurized Valve Block and updated ventilation system, you can create sealed and pressurized rooms inside your ships and bases. So you can actually build a room, close the doors, pressurize it and have a proper living space while you're flying through space. There is still more to do with this system, but I'm pretty happy with where it's going.
5. Self-Destructible Block
There is a new block that can be destroyed on command. This might sound like a pretty simple thing, but it can be useful for automation and programmable systems. For example, you can use it to automatically split a grid or create controlled destruction in a machine. And I'm sure someone will find a completely insane use for it.
6. Ships now have mass from their inventories
This is another change I'm quite interested in. The contents of your inventories now contribute to the ship's mass. So an empty mining ship can be relatively light, but once you fill it with ore, it becomes much heavier. That means you now have to think about what you're carrying, not just what blocks you put on the ship. An empty miner and a miner full of thousands of kilograms of ore can behave very differently.
7. New ship controls
I've also made some changes to the ship controls. I'm trying to make flying and controlling ships feel more comfortable, especially as ships get bigger and more complicated. There are still things I want to improve here, but this update should already feel better. You now can change Display-derectional and Cockpit-directional movement.
8. Physics improvements
I've made quite a few changes to the physics as well. Basically... Less clang. Some physics interactions could get pretty crazy before, and while that can sometimes be funny, it isn't very fun when your ship randomly starts shaking itself apart. I've been working on making these interactions more stable. Character physics around grids have also been improved, so characters should be much less likely to get stuck inside ships and other structures.
9. New movement effect
There is now a small movement effect that makes it easier to see which direction you're moving on the screen. This is especially useful in space, where it can sometimes be surprisingly difficult to understand your movement direction just from looking at the environment. It's a small thing, but I think it makes movement easier to understand.
10. UI improvements
The UI is also slowly moving toward the new design I've been working on. I'm trying to make everything cleaner and easier to understand as more systems are added to the game. It's still not finished, but you'll start seeing more of the new UI in future updates.
11. Tutorial improvements
I've made another pass over the tutorial as well. MineEngineer has a lot of systems that depend on each other, so teaching them without overwhelming new players is something I'm still working on. The tutorial should be a bit easier to follow now, but this is definitely something I'll continue improving.
12. Localization
I've also made another pass over the localization. There are still some things that need to be fixed, but translations should be more consistent than before.
13. Bug fixes and other improvements
And of course, there are a lot of smaller fixes and improvements in this update. I've been going through the bugs and issues people have reported and fixing as many as I can. Thank you to everyone who sends bug reports, videos and screenshots. They genuinely help a lot. Sometimes I can't reproduce an issue on my own, but someone sends me a 10-second video and suddenly I can see exactly what's happening.
14. New demo
And yes, there is also a new demo with this update. If you've played an older version of the demo, I'd really appreciate it if you tried the new one and let me know how it feels. I'm still intentionally keeping the demo limited, since I don't want to reveal too much of the full game before Early Access.
And that's v0.1.350. 350 demo updates. It's honestly a little difficult to believe I've made that many updates to the same game. Thank you to everyone who has played the demo, reported bugs, suggested ideas, shared the game, made videos, joined the community, or simply followed the development.
A lot of the things in this update exist because someone in the community asked about them, reported something, or gave me an idea.
There is still a lot left to do...
But we're getting there....
See you in the next update...