Howdy Folks!

The Surface Control Update is now live! This update is packed with various improvements, changes, fixes and a few new items and recipes. A huge thank you for all the great feedback and support on the experimental branch. It’s always great to hear your thoughts on new content. There are a lot of changes, additions and fixes in this update so be sure to check out the release notes below.

Merchandise

Christmas is right around the corner and guess what? Mercury Fallen merch is now available. Some great deals are going on so be sure to check it out, get some great merch and help support Mercury Fallen.

Mercury Fallen Merch

And now back to our regularly scheduled update information.

Surface Resources

Surface resource visuals have been completely revamped and improved. The density of a deposit is now also visually illustrated.

Resource deposits are now limited to surface and subsurface resources. Mining vehicles are now only capable of mining surface resources and a mining platform is required for sub-surface resources. Surface deposits are also spread out a bit more on the map, but each resource deposit contains much higher quantities than before.

The vehicle action bar has been removed and all vehicle actions are now presented in the footer of their info panel.

Surface Buildings

Equipment items have been added for surface buildings. New POIs have been added to unlock tier II building equipment recipes.

You can now queue up to 3 vehicles for construction at the vehicle bay.

Surface Balancing

In addition to the changes above, I’ve reduced the construction cost of all vehicles and several buildings. This improves the transition and progression from the underground facility to surface side expansion. Tier II vehicles will now also require aluminium instead of steel in their construction.

Colonist Control

Colonists can now be directed to a specific location by clicking the Move To action button on their info panel and selecting a destination.

Decor Changes

An issue was discovered, and fixed, that was causing room decor values to calculate much more positively than they should be. This means your existing rooms may now have a lower decor score.

To help with managing decor, the decor overlay will now highlight objects that affect decor to show a positive or negative impact.

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Many more changes and fixes are included in the Surface Control update. Check out the release notes below.

Release Notes

Changes

• Robot recycle button moved to info panel footer
• Stink Plant POI now has more biomes it can spawn in. This should make it easier to find.
• Added move to button to colonist info panel footer. Clicking this and clicking a destination will force the colonist to walk to that position.
• Power generators now show a warning if not connected to power conduits
• Added new POI locations to find blueprints for tier 2 building equipment research
• Removed surface vehicle action bar display at bottom middle
• Vehicle action buttons now in vehicle info panel footer
• Reduced construction cost of all vehicles
• Reduced construction cost of vehicle bay, mining platform and resource depot
• Room highlight now visible when selecting rooms
• Added Only Collect When Full toggle to water traps
• Added tooltips to water trap toggles
• Added optimization to how room decor is updated
• Objects that provide positive or negative decor will now highlight green/red when in decor overlay mode
• Updated Vehicle Assembly guide section
• Updated Vehicle Actions guide section
• Updated Surface Resources guide section
• Game Menu now shows the game version at the lower right

Surface Buildings

• Vehicle bay now has enable/disable toggle. This serves to pause/unpause vehicle construction
• Added Vehicle Bay queue. Can now queue up to 3 vehicles for construction at the vehicle bay
• Vehicle Bay info panel now shows power info below assembly information.
• Added equipment slots to surface buildings
• Added new attributes and equipment items for surface buildings

Surface Mining

• Mining speed decreased for mining vehicles
• Mining vehicles can now only mine surface level resources. Subsurface resources require a mining platform
• Increased cargo space for resource collection vehicles
• Mining time attribute replaced with a mine speed attribute. This is to allow for better control over mining speeds for vehicles.
• Increased base travel speed and storage capacity of resource transport vehicles
• Increased base travel speed of beetle miner
• Surface Resources
• New visuals for surface resources
• Planet surface resources now show depth icons when zoomed out
• The minimum distance between surface resources changed from 3 tiles to 8 tiles. (Will only affect new game)
• Surface Resources now only have surface and subsurface resources. Removed deep depth.
• Reduced the total amount of surface resource locations
• Surface resources now contain much higher quantities of resources
• Surface resources will no longer spawn on river tiles
• Some surface resources are now faster/slower to mine based on their internal work_time value
• When selecting a surface resource to mine, the hover cursor will now show red if the target is invalid.

Modding Changes

• Robot XML data must now include a CRecycleable component to be recycled
• Vehicle action icons must end in _On and _Off. The tag, however, should reference the root icon name.

Fixes

• Fixed: Internal error generated during launch platform mission
• Fixed: Robot equipment items not brought to storage containers
• Fixed: Colonist pop icons are not always cleared properly when returning to the main menu. This could cause the game to freeze or cause performance issues.
• Fixed: Planet map visibility filters not showing objects if the category was marked as hidden first
• Fixed: If a gameobject can’t be found then an error is generated in the log instead of the game getting soft locked
• Fixed: Game soft lock if attempting to place a building on a tile at the edge of the map
• Fixed: Launch platform poi story able to be completed without meeting requirements
• Fixed: Error can occur if attempting to re-order the construction queue if only one item is on the list
• Fixed: Incorrect description for vehicle dock at facility action
• Fixed: Game crash that can occur when starting a new game due to colonist starting job roles in some instances
• Fixed: Colonist name in schedule screen incorrect after renaming a colonist
• Fixed: Robots not dropping carried items when interrupted to go recharge
• Fixed: Room decor score calculated incorrectly. This caused rooms to calculate as higher decor than they should be.
• Fixed: Decor colors not showing correctly for rooms after adding an item that affects decor. Decor overlay for rooms should show a solid color for the entire room.
• Fixed: Unable to select anything when in decor overlay mode
• Fixed: Decor overlay mode colors not showing correctly in rooms when loading a save game
• Fixed: Charging the mechanical generator does not provide technician skill experience
• Fixed: When in object placement mode the object does not get placed where it looks like it should when clicking in some instances
• Fixed: Item duplication glitch caused by destroying a receiving container with items in the receiving inventory
• Fixed: Can install cargo expanders on DOGE/Wasp vehicles
• Fixed: Time of day info on the game hud not showing correctly after loading a save game until the game is unpaused
• Fixed: Time of day info on planet map not showing correctly if opening the map while the game is paused in some instances
• Fixed: Colonist miner stuck attempting to mine after loading save game in some instances