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State of the Game #264: The February Update is Here!

In January MAV brought in the Ice with No Mans Pass, but with February it’s bringing the heat!

The Heat System

The heat system is in place and acts as it’s own damage type now. This means that Flamethrowers and ground fires will no longer do direct damage, but will instead add heat to the parts they touch!
Each part has a few stats that will influence how it reacts when it encounters heat in the battlefield.

Heat Generation: This is the amount of ‘static’ heat that a part generates just by being on the MAV. This heat will flow to the other parts on that MAV through the connection points. Some parts, like generators, will be big sources of heat. Other parts, like radiators, can help negate heat by providing cooling.

Heat Damage Threshold: This is the amount of heat that can accumulate in a part before it starts to overheat and take damage. The more heat that accumulates in the part, the more damage it will take! Don’t put low threshold parts next to high heat generating parts, as the results could be catastrophic!

Don’t worry, there are a slew of new parts to help manage this!

Radiators


T-RAD-3800:  A dual coil radiator it provides 38 units of cooling in a small, light weight, package. Limited attachment options though.

M-RAD-24: While it only provide 24 units of cooling, it provides a more durable cooling package, that can withstand higher heat levels. It’s attachment options allow it to cool multiple parts.

CUBE-4900: A highly connectable radiator that provides a full 49 units of cooling. This active cooling system requires a decent amount of energy to operate and to achieve the cooling requirements all armor was removed from the system.

HSK-I: This simple heat sink provides a minimal amount of cooling but can withstand incredibly high amounts of heat before failing.

HSK- Blade: This heat sink traded some of it’s ability to withstand heat levels to add some armor protection, ensuring this passive cooling system can withstand battles better!

 

Fire Suppression Systems

FSS-H1011, FSS-H1211, FSS-H1311: These fire suppression systems provide emergency cooling in case things get too heated! They have a limited number of charges and will only provide cooling for 5 seconds. When activated, they will spray cooling gel in a downward cone to disperse any heat in the parts below them.

Heat Levels

Parts that are in danger of overheating will show up in your health bars as YELLOW flame icons.

Parts that are actively overheating will show up in your health bars as a RED flame icon.

With proper heat levels on all parts, it was only natural for thermal vision systems to enter into the game!

Thermal Vision

These two AUX parts will allow you to visualize enemies current heat levels, either to better see them in low visibility areas, or to exploit high heat areas of the enemy for dealing heat damage to them.

Here is an example between using the Thermal system and not:

Minor Changes

Alpha Gold and Alpha 2 Silver updates: These 2 camo patterns got a long over due overhaul to their shading system.

 

AUX Icons: All AUX parts now have a proper icon that shows what they deploy and how many charges are remaining.

Piles: The piles have been given a hit box that extends backwards into the firing weapon. This prevents missing the target because you were to close when you fired. The overall range has stayed the same. There was also a mistake with the impact system that was preventing them from playing proper impact FX when hitting a MAV. This has been fixed.

 

New Camo Patterns

The digital HEX and Skulls camo patterns are being retired and will be replaced with these new patterns!

3D Triangles:

Stepped Squares:

 

And for the final addition, I have a special Firework part key to give away, The Secret Pink Firework. This key, once redeemed, will not only give the redeemer the special firework part, but it will also generate a new key for them to then giveaway. Sharing is caring! To ensure you are the first one to recieve this part, before it’s lost into the wild of the playerbase, leave me a comment telling me how you found out about MAV! I will select a random comment and transfer the key over this Sunday, during the Sunday Funday stream!

 

Comments 30

  1. Found it back when it was a wee wee little baby back in May of 2012. About when the very first release of “Multiplayer” was. Do not regret sticking around.

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  2. Found it on Google while looking for chromehounds 2 info way back in 2012, didn’t take it too seriously until about four months later when I backed it for the first time and tried it out then shelved it for two years to let it mature our of the dark ages.

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      1. Back when I first found MAV it was sort of just the forums and very little else around the block. But since I found it a second time and I heard of it before and it was still “going” I decided to back it.

  3. I found it after desperately going from Mech game to “Mech” game trying to find something that could capture that magic that ChromeHounds had.

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  4. I found MAV on 4chan’s /v/ way back in a thread bitching about kickstarter. Some guy said he’d backed MAV and it was slow but seemed to be going along. The kickstarter was already over though.

    Also, holy shit man, heat systems, THE FIRE RISES

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      I see traffic from 4chan all the time but the threads are always archived by the time I try and visit. 🙁

  5. Either this is the coolest update yet or the hottest….
    Another excellent and more in depth addition that will add new layers to both the design stage and deployment of a mav

    Brilliant update cyber!

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  6. I don’t remember where exactly I first saw it, but I heard about M.A.V. back when it was still being Kickstarted. I really wanted to throw some money at it, but was unemployed at the time and thus I wasn’t able to. Later down the road I picked it up during the second Alpha period on Steam, and haven’t regretted it since. It’s one of my favorite examples of indie game development in the industry!

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  7. Way the heck back in 2012, I was looking through some old Chromehounds videos on Youtube for nostalgia’s sake.

    I was looking through the comments and I see a comment from Bombdog Studios, I can’t quite remember what the comment said exactly, but it was something about Chromehounds being remade as MAV and to check it out; so I did.
    It didn’t look like much back then and admittedly I was less than impressed with the aesthetics of some of the parts (who could forget that droopy nosed heavy cockpit?), but regardless my love for hound building was rekindled and I wanted to get into it so badly. Sure, I had an aging basic model Macbook from 2007 but that didn’t stop me from getting the old demo version to work on CrossOver!
    Though my hardware’s specs fell woefully short of what was needed to run it beyond waiting several seconds per frame.

    Still, I took part in the community ever since, finding some way to support the project. That oddly ended up being through concept arts.

    It wasn’t until two years later in October 2014 that I purchased a new laptop and very soon after purchased MAV.
    Oh how amazing it felt to finally play the game itself for the first time.

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      That was the glory times, going around commenting on videos to try and spread the word. I am glad it worked and got you into the community! It’s been amazing having you around!

  8. Similar to Fenix, found it through YouTube- just saw a low-poly gameplay video when searching Chromehounds II, and that’s history.

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  9. I was on my iPod scrolling through Facebook, and saw an ad for this game in the sidebar. I noticed that the MAV shown in the graphic was really bulky and industrial looking, and thought “could it be…? Could there finally be a new non-anime mech game…??”

    I so I looked up some gameplay on YouTube, and though wasn’t initially fangirling all over the place, I bought the game as an investment. It’s been well worth it now, and it’s super fun.

    Question: Will this heat act as sort of a balancing mechanic, like in the Mechwarrior franchise?

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      No, it is not designed to prevent the firing of multiple weapons like in Mechwarrior. In MAV, the weapon groupings already help balance that out, along with the recoil system. Heat in MAV will be an actual damage type, providing a ‘rock, paper, scissors’ approach to situations.

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      MAV has been growing in Japan and I am very honored to have you in the community! I remember that article from 2014. I was very sad that I didn’t know any Japanese to read it.

  11. I was a big fan of Chromehounds and couldn’t find a mech simulator like it until MAV. The simulation and “realism” is far superior to action shooty-shooty robot games

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  12. So, I found MAV in 2016 after another almost futile search for a replacement to my Chromehounds addiction. Then I stumbled across MAV and knew immediately what this was and I fell instantly in love. As soon as I had the funds, I bought a 4 pack of keys and shared them with my brother and two of my friends so I’d have a few Houndmates to play with.

    Haven’t really played much since getting the game, but I LOVED Chromehounds and will 100% support MAV to be the best game it can be!

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  13. 100% Good update.

    I found this game when one of my nerd friends said “hey look at this cool game” and so I looked at it good.

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  14. Back then, when I played Chromehounds, I was an avid reverse joint rocket bombardier, with a bit of casual grenade usage to overheat the enemy with napalm grenades, if my memory serves correctly.

    Seeing that the servers closed in 2008, I missed out on a whole lot of things that the campaign didn’t offer.

    Multiple parts, including the majority of parts I used, like Sal Kar cockpits and chassis parts, which allowed me to close in fast and devastate.

    But then, while searching the internet (mainly Youtube), I came across this.

    A homage to the lovely days of playing Chromehounds, made physical (computerized, but still). Back then, the game was in very early alpha, and still remember the days where legs didn’t make a sound.

    It was awkward, but it was playable. So playable in fact that I was indefinetly hooked. Even the ambitions were awesome, digitigrade legs, hexapods, police force looking mechs that reminded me of Sal Kar’s aviation design, cannons, rigs used for battle where they were once used for mining operations…I still remember those concept art posts.

    Here we are now, with footstep sounds, fast bipedals, each part having their unique traits, and, the Heat system finding it’s way to this bauble.

    Now the mechs will be able to be taken out by heat, which now brings me to sub-munitions. My best guess is that a plethora of weapons will get sub-types of ammo, like Rockets with incedinary ammo instead of explosive, carpet bombing areas with flames, howitzers with AP rounds, for maximum on-hit damage. Cannons with HEAT rounds for overheating parts and doing colossal damage, with armor penetration to boot.

    This is why I loved Chromehounds, and why i’ll love M.A.V too. Now we just need more dakka grenades.

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      Thank you for the story! Grenades will come. I need them to NOT carry the same stigma as Chromehounds though. That is the single most ‘wedge’ weapon I have ever seen!

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