Welcome to an exciting State of the Game! Now, if you read the title of this post (and I know you totally read all my clever titles) you might be asking yourself “That is a curious title. That almost sounds like the name of a company.” Well, it is!
I would like to introduce you to the first ‘official’ part manufacturer in M.A.V.: Jovian Applied Mining, or JAM for you acronym lovers.
What is a part manufacturer? Well, all these parts in M.A.V. have to come from somewhere. Part manufacturers are the companies that make the parts. They each will bring their own visual style and namesake performance to the game. If you get a part from a manufacturer, you will be able to make some assumptions about the stats of that part, just based on who made it. This is similar to the prefix/suffix naming system already in the game (i.e. -HD means slower firing and more damage, vs. the other variants).
So, enough talk, lets here about Jovian Applied Mining!
Jovian Applied Mining was the first company to forgo waiting around for near Earth asteroids to mine and set out straight to the Jovian system to mine the asteroid belts. Because of them being pioneers in the long distance mining operations, they learned to adapt their technology to be highly durable, low maintenance, and very versatile. It was their machines that started the MMV (Modular Mining Vehicle) standards that the other companies eventually adapted to. Because their primary mining base was so close to Europa when the comet hit, J.A.M. employees were the first people to set foot on the planet. After the impact, they seized the opportunity to setup a permanent base on Europa and reduce the risk of asteroid mining by send chunks of asteroids down to the surface (with spectacular results) and then using ground based MMV’s to process the raw material on the surface. Processed material was then rail gunned back to orbit for the long haul back to Earth.
Do heavy nature of the work they did, JAM parts are known for their heavy armor and pulverizing attachments. They are also universally heavy and slow. Due to their heavy armor though, JAM parts were a favorite among the early freedom fighters, as they made the pilots nearly impervious small weapons fire.
Stats:
+ Armor
+ Durability
– Maneuverability
– Range
Part types:
JAM parts will be primarily focused on a large array of melee and ramming weapons. They also have a limited selection high load mobility bases, heavy cockpits, and armored generators.
If you like the artwork, it is avalible for purchase in poster format (and others) in the Bombdog Studios Store!
As for development, the JAM mech is just a concept right now. There will be some more concepts that are done to ‘flesh out’ the part line up and then all the models and animations will be made and put in game.
Speaking of development, I have been working hard on the Commander update. I wanted, very badly, to have a snapshot build ready for today, but there are still some deal breaking bugs that I need to get fixed up before it releases.
Currently, the CommSys parts are all functional and there are two new deployment systems for deploying uplink nodes that help expand the CommSys coverage area. Information sharing is in as well, so once the commander can see something you can see it as well. This ‘instant’ information sharing will likely change in the future, but I would like to get some feedback on it. So, basically, everything is working! Expect when it doesn’t 🙁 There is a bug that shares that information with EVERYONE, even the enemy team. Also, sometimes the uplink areas just doesn’t register MAV’s that have entered its range. I want to spend a few days getting these big bugs taken care of, so that everyone can get some good time in with the commander parts and report any ‘unknown’ issues.