Graphics & AI Preview Build

Time for an upgrade! I've been busy the past few weeks working on a handful of things as you know. One of the main things that's actually sucked up a lot of my time though has been graphical work. It is always UNBELIEVABLE to me how slow this work is, and I procrastinate hard on it as a result. That's why the sprites in MetalMercs haven't been upgraded much in the past year. However, I truly do want to push MetalMercs past its fan game origins and have been diligently trying to get sprites made. And so, I present to you a Patreon-exclusive preview build. 

This build includes a graphical update to the Union, Sovereignty, and Imperium (Protectorate and Corporate are still in-progress). This means that EVERY mech for those houses has been visually updated with new sprites. These sprites not only try to update the detail in the mechs but also feature more dynamic sizes. So that 1000-ton Liberator is going to feel a lot beefier now than it did before. The sprites aren't 100% finalized so if you do have thoughts or feedback feel free to share it here or in the discord.

Lastly, there is one gameplay update included in this build: "improved" pilot heat management. I say "improved" because one issue people have pointed out in the discord is pilots are currently way too good at monitoring their heat levels. I've changed this now so that pilots will now be a bit more dynamic in how they handle heat. Pilots will all generally fire their weapons when their heat is low, but as it climbs they'll make decisions about how much to overheat. If their armor and internals are very high, pilots may choose to overheat a bit, and take some internal damage. As they take damage they'll get a bit more conservative however, if their armor drops very low they'll get panicked and begin to fire recklessly. Lastly, if their internals get very low they'll get VERY attentive to their heat levels since they can't afford the overheat damage anymore. And of course, all this behaviour is mediated by pilot skill level, with skilled pilots sticking closer to these rules than unskilled pilots.

To install this update simply download the zip file and extract the files within into your MetalMercs folder. It will overwrite your .exe or binary file, a few data files, and your sprite file. From there, you're good to go! (I should also mention this patch is unfortunately not available for Mac users at the moment however I will work on changing that next week if I can).