Greetings Gear pilots, I wanted to take this opportunity to address the community and let you all know about what has been going on at MekTek and a little about what will be happening next.
First I’d like to let everyone that received a free key in a giveaway that they should all now be able to be activated in Steam and the game downloadable. If you experience any problems with the installation or authentication, we recommend that you take a look at the FAQ.
The last couple weeks have been a blur of activity around here. From preparing to release, to getting approval to release, to actual releasing. Not to mention the holidays falling in the middle of everything. Speaking of which, I’d like to wish everyone a prosperous new year.
Since we released on Steam, there has been a lot of great feedback that we’ve received. We are actively watching and listening to the discussions, reviews and comments on Steam, Youtube, and anywhere else we find people talking about HGA. We are taking everything into consideration and prioritizing our tasks accordingly, I would like to thank everyone that has taken their time to provide their feedback. In order to address these items, our plan is to push updates that make improvements to the presentation and user experience as we address them, while simultaneously working on larger upcoming features and content.
Right now, we are focusing a large effort into addressing a number issues with the Linux build of the game. It has come to our attention that many of our Linux players are running into various problems when attempting to play the game. Supporting Linux and the Linux community is one of our top concerns. We believe we should have most of the bugs addressed and will be pushing our next patch once we have had a chance to verify these fixes.
Maybe the most common feedback that we’ve received is that new players don’t know how to equip weapons. While we have a weapons and inventory tutorial in the works, we have made couple changes in the upcoming update to help address this issue. First, we have added a quick Equip Weapons step to the current tutorial. This will eventually be removed when the weapons tutorial is complete. Second, the weapon inventory slots will now highlight on your HUD when you select them. We have a couple more changes to the HUD that we plan to implement but we believe these changes should help most players equip their weapons.
Another common issue is players going into prone and being unable to get back up. We have identified and resolved the bug that was preventing the Gear from recognizing the get-up command. In the next update, you will be able to go prone by pressing [Z] then stand again by pressing [Z] a second time. If you are having trouble aiming while in prone, we recommend trying with Advanced Controls which allows you to torso twist while prone.
While we continue to make updates and expand the tutorials, I would like to invite everyone to take a look at the manual. It is packed full of useful information. You can find it on the Heavy Gear Assault store page on Steam or directly here: http://store.steampowered.com/manual/416020
In addition to the above updates, we also have a number of updated weapon models in production.
Light Pulse Laser
Very Heavy Autocannon
Heavy Laser Cannon
And last but not least, here is a teaser of the Spitting Cobra for the Southern fans!
Full Steam ahead! Heavy Gear Assault is now available for PC through Steam Early Access.
The market is now active. You can purchase available Gears, weapons, and armour parts. Players will also only have access to Gears they own whether purchased as a pledge, from our webstore, or with TEC. All weapons and armour plates are currently available through the Gear Bay and can be used in-game. We will be locking these inventories in a future update.
Fixes:
“Billboard” header fonts now display correctly
Correct Voice Overs now play in the Tutorial
No longer able to purchase items if you do not have enough TEC in the market
Added:
Confirmation screen when purchasing items in the market
New Very Heavy Autocannon model
Changes:
Updated Tutorial overlay text to show Standard, Advanced, and Gamepad commands
SMS to toggle by default instead of push-and-hold
Locked player Gear inventories, you now only have access to Gears you own
Gears, weapons, and armour can be purchased from the market (all weapons and armour are currently unlocked in the Gear Bay)
Changelist: 12/22/16
One of the first things you’ll likely notice in this update is that we’ve added a Market to the main menu. Feel free to explore the market, you can uncheck the “show available” box to view the myriad of items available in the Heavy Gear universe. You can even spend your TEC now, however we are planning on reverting any purchases made in the market when we lock player inventories to items they own. Currently you can access all available Gears and weapons in the Gear Bay and In-Game.
We’ve introduced a basic movement Tutorial to help new players learn how to pilot their Gear. We plan on doing another pass on the tutorial shortly to better reflect some of the other more recent changes. You can also expect more tutorials to come!
Gamepad support has been greatly improved. The game now plays and feels much better while using a gamepad, we highly suggest giving it a try.
We’ve also added a keybinding or control profile system. This will allow you to create and save multiple sets of keybinding layouts. We are currently working on phasing out the Advanced/Standard gameplay options and providing them as individual profiles instead.
Many other changes and improvements have been made, check the changelist below for a complete list:
Fixes:
Fixed issue that prevented chat from working in-game
Plate destruction particle effects are back
Tracer VFX now dies properly
Radar contacts now appear while playing in Linux
Added:
Market
Movement tutorial
New Gear skeleton
Steam account integration
Steam overlay support
Xbox 360 gamepad support
Minimap and radar contacts on HUD
Nav points
Options to in-game “escape” menu
Quick in-game options menu on [TAB]
Bullet and damage decals
Keybinding profile system
Sounds to get-up animation
Burst fire mode for Autocannons
Rocket Pod salvo
Walk mode (hold [Left Control] to walk)
New gameplay options
New V-Engine and Fuel tank
Side facing 3rd person camera ([ALT]+[C] to toggle between “selfie” and “combat” camera modes)
Changes:
Unlocked Gatling Laser, VHAC for all players
Reenabled front facing 3rd person camera
Wave Survival AI Gears can SMS and shoot rocket salvos
New main menu background scene and Gear Bay
New UI and HUD fonts
HUD shows loaded ammunition
HUD ammo bar instead of ticks for lasers and gatlings
HUD reticle shows neutral/enemy/friendly
HUD shows selected Rocket Pod and fire mode
Adjusted one-handed weapon positions
Adjusted first person camera
Increased Headlight brightness
Improved Snub Cannon particle effects
Removed placeholder announcer voices
New VLAC, LAC and VHAC sound effects
Tweaked jump jet behavior
New ricochet and impact sounds
New reload sounds
Default camera is set to 3rd person
Cover around objectives on Pioneer Outpost
Reworked the dock on Port Oasis
Foliage and rocks on San Lopez
Improved sand storm
Get-up command currently disabled (you won’t be able to stand-up if you go prone)
Double-tap dodging has been disabled
Continued to incrementally improve sounds, art, effects, animations and environments
When is the Steam Launch?
Stompy Bot Productions was set to release Heavy Gear Assault on Steam Early Access December 15th, 2016. What happened? Well, we believe Valve is overwhelmed with the upcoming Winter Sale and other happenings over there and as a result they were unable to give us final approval in time for our launch date despite us giving Steam 7 days for approval. As an end result we are stuck in Steam purgatory and we’re not happy about it! On December 15th, 2016 @4pm PST we released Steam keys to our early backers and alpha testers so they could play our game. Today we’ve decided to release a batch of our free Steam key giveaway for our splash page newsletter subscribers ahead of schedule. We don’t know what’s up at Valve but we will be sure to post an update as soon as we hear from them. #SteamDevPurgatory
