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)

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)

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

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

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

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