January » 2022 » Mercury Fallen

Howdy Folks!

Another day and another patch update. Thanks for the great feedback, suggestions and reports. This is another small patch to address a couple of reported issues.

Release Notes

Added Item Storage section to game guide
Updated Harvestable resources section of game guide
Fixed: Some grammatical errors in the game guide
Fixed: Some objects have incorrect selection collider when placed facing east or west

Howdy Folks!

Patch update 31.4 focuses on a few reported issues. Thanks for the great feedback and reports. 🙂

Check the release notes below for all the included fixes.

Release Notes

Fixed: Colonists stuck in a loop picking up and dropping off seeds when attempting to plant them if a colonist is assigned both the botanist and biologist job roles.
Fixed: Colonists stuck in a loop attempting to harvest crops in some instances.
Fixed: Game crash, in some instances, if returning to the main menu and starting a new game or loading a game
Fixed: Unable to use mouse scroll wheel to scroll global inventory if hovering over an item category header
Fixed: Particle effects not always being properly removed
Fixed: Missing text string for depressed attribute effect
Fixed: Missing text string for motivated attribute effect

Howdy Folks!

Patch update 31.3 is now live! This is a smaller update that includes balance tweaks, some changes and a few bug fixes.

Game Balance

It has been expressed to me from many users that they struggle to have enough material to reach the planet surface. This is primarily due to a lack of steel. Unfortunately this is not always consistent due to the procedural nature of the maps. It does happen often enough that I wanted to tweak this a bit.

While users were struggling to produce enough steel, they had an abundance of mineral compound for making structure resin. In this update I’ve added a new item called hardened structure resin. This new item, made in the smelter, requires 5 structure resin and 1 hematite. Steel usage, for surface progression, has been decreased in favor of hardened structure resin. I’ve also increased the structure resin usage for most of the objects in the game.

Thanks for the feedback during the experimental branch. Certainly let me know what you think of the new changes. Check the release notes below for the full list of changes and fixes.

Release Notes

Balance Changes

Added Hardened Structure Resin item, recipe and research
Updated many object build requirements to use additional structure resin
Updated several object build requirements to use hardened structure resin in place of regular structure resin
Updated several object build requirements to use less steel
Worker and Driller bot recipes now require iron ingots
Increased surface resource scanner speed

Misc. Changes

Updated the icons for advanced and superior scanner equipment to make them more visibility different
Batteries will no longer be added into the power meter and total stored value if disabled
Improved performance for colonist path validation
Exploration vehicle exploration behavior has been changed so that multiple vehicles won’t follow along the same paths.

Fixes

Fixed: Batteries still providing power even when disabled
Fixed: Surface tile scan overlay not updating without toggling it off and back on again
Fixed: Performance issue if exploration vehicle no longer has any tiles left to explore
Fixed: Error that can occur if Xeno Mold event attempts to spawn at the edge of the map
Fixed: Aquarium has incorrect selection collider

Howdy Folks!

Patch Update 31.3 is now available on the experimental branch on Steam! While this is a smaller update, it does contain quite a few game balance changes that need some testing and feedback.

If you’re interested in checking it out and providing you’re feedback then be sure to check out the experimental branch.

Update 31.3 Experimental Info & Patch Notes | What is the Experimental Branch and how do I access it?

Howdy Folks!

Hope everyone had a great holiday and an awesome new year so far. So far my year is off to a good start and I’ve got a lot of things planned for Mercury Fallen. Below I’ll go over the short term and long term plans for Mercury Fallen.

Removing Test Build Branch

Larger content releases have traditionally started in the experimental branch for initial feedback and then transitioned over to the Test Build branch for final testing before being released for everyone on the main branch. I’ve generally found that most of the feedback and bug fixing tends to come from the experimental branch. Having the two steps of testing hasn’t been largely beneficial, so for future updates I’ll no long be using the Test Build branch.

The Experimental Branch will continue to be used for new content that requires feedback and testing. Once ready updates will go from the Experimental Branch directly to the main branch for everyone.

Update 31.3

A smaller content update will be available on the experimental branch within the next couple of days. This update will focus on some bug fixes, but will also include some tweaks and game balance changes.

Energized Update Feedback Survey

It’s survey time again! If you have a couple of minutes your feedback would be most appreciated.

Energized Update Feedback Survey

Road Map

The above roadmap outlines the next three content updates. While this is the intended order of updates, I don’t have a specific timeline of when they will become available. I will say that a lot of the content for the Phone Home update has already been developed.

While these outline the primary content in each update, there will be additional tweaks and changes in each update as well. I’ll have more information regarding the next update in the next developer log.

Let me know what you think of the upcoming updates and thanks for all the great feedback and support!

Archive Content

Patch Update 31.5

Release Notes

Release Notes

Game Balance

Release Notes

Removing Test Build Branch

Update 31.3

Energized Update Feedback Survey

Road Map