Greetings Mechanics!

Whoop! it’s been another amazing month here at Scrap Mechanic HQ. Our team has been tinkering their way to awesomeness and we have to plenty to show for it. This is a extra-special update today as we have lots to share on the coming Survival Mode features, which we’re quite excited about. There’s tons to read, so screw your reading glasses on! But before we get down to talking shop, we’ve noticed all the amazing creations with the new Timer and Logic Gate and…. Wow! The volume of creativity within the Scrap Mechanic community is mind-blowing. Keep it up, Mechanics!

- Priority: Fixes
One of our main goals here at Scrap Mechanic HQ is to keep you all entertained with cool, fun updates. But they can be hard to enjoy when some of you are experiencing crashes and drops in FPS, and other bugs. That should always be our priority, and we want you to know that. So, occasionally a piece of code doesn’t work how we planned. Then we do have to take a look at things and do a little fix up and tweak, here and there. Right now, we’re popping the hood and updating the game engine to Scrap Mechanics, to make it purr like a warm kitten in a cardboard box. We’re hoping that the changes we’re planning should address both the FPS drops and the crash bugs. The plan is to be running tests on it in late September, and we’ll roll it out as soon as we can.

- Introducing: character customization!
Now that Survival Mode is in the works, we are stoked to announce that we are introducing character customization! You will *finally* be able to customize your mechanic’s face, hairstyle, jackets, hats, gloves, shoes and much more. The fashionistas out there should note that, in Survival Mode, you’ll be able to scavenge a wide variety of clothing. This will mean you can keep up with the latest trends or perhaps even set them yourself!


All the new customization stuff will take a while for our artists to make so we most likely won’t be seeing any of this in-game until survival mode finally comes out. Posing: The new Male Model Now, our original mechanic model wasn’t really designed for customization, mainly due to budget restrictions at the time.  So while we’re looking at character customization, we’re also working on improving the overall look of the mechanic! To help you get excited we have a little sneaky peak of our male models, courtesy of the Farmbots. Just a word of note - these don't have a final fixed facial expression yet as we’re still working on it. Keep an eye out for our next devblog, where we will show you the female model!

- Building: A Whole New World
Our amazing artists, when they haven’t been crafting pixel pants, have been crazy-busy working on terrain assets for the new biomes that will be in Survival Mode. We still have a long way to go but so far the terrain assets are stunning. The Farmbots, in an unprogrammed moment of generosity, have allowed us to share a glimpse of these new looks with you Mechanics. Oh what?... a sunset?

- Constraining: the Survival Mode backpack 
Creative Mode is pretty sweet in that your backpack can carry unlimited items. You can cram every last hunk of junk and it swallows it up like a Tardis. Will it be like this in Survival Mode? Noooo. Of course not! It’s Survival Mode, it has to be harder! But it’s fine, as some items can now be stacked and have a stacking limit. We’re quite happy with how the work on the whole storage and stacking system is panning out.
Oh and the *coolest* part is that you can put a chest on your vehicle so you can haul extra stuff with you while you’re out adventuring. Leave no piece of swag untouched!

- Fearing: Spooky Warehouses
Ever wondered where some of the building parts in your inventory came from? Huge robot warehouses! And the awesome part is that you can explore and scavenge them in Survival Mode. We’ve been working on the look and feel of them to keep them consistent, yet immersive. We’re super happy with how it’s starting to look at this stage and have in fact created over *thirty* new building parts that aren’t in Creative Mode yet. Images above show work in progress. Looking forward to exploring the new warehouses? We are! Oh and one more thing, did we mention that the Farmbots lurk about inside them? Mwahahaha.

- Revamping: Crafting
So when we started drawing up our crafting plan a while back, our aim was to truly make it a unique crafting experience that's not too abstract.  We want something that truly allows you to be fully immersed in the feature. Crafting should be a fun, interactive and creative experience and not a boring chore!
We are definitely on this path but it’s too early for us to reveal its workings -  but we’re definitely excited about it all. If the Farmbots leave us alone for five minutes, we hope to show off more about this.

- Questions from Mechanics
John McClane asks:
When will Survival Mode come out?
Unfortunately, we’re not able to advise of a release date at this point in time. There is so much depth to Survival Mode and we’re working away tirelessly to eventually be able to give you definitive date. We are taking extra special care to ensuring that Survival Mode is superior quality and we would rather not rush an early release at that the expense of this. We appreciate your patience and love that you’re excited, it’s going to be great!

Arthur Curry asks:
Can you please add water?
Yes! However, developing the physics of water is such a complex undertaking. We’re confident it will yield amazing results, so we're not backing down from this challenge. Adding this extra dimension to the game will give you Mechanics even more material to get creative with. But we are not sure it will be added before the implementation of Survival Mode. We will try!

Dominic Toretto asks:
Will you ever fix the suspension glitch? 
We don’t have any plans to fix it. If you Mechanics are enjoying playing with it and it doesn’t impact Survival Mode then go for it. However there is a welding glitch that lets you weld different parts into each other. That one, we’re gonna have to fix in order to balance out gameplay in Survival Mode.

I think that’s it from us. Don’t worry, we’ll be back soon. And, until then, keep scrapping!

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