Build A Rocket Boy’s Title Update 6 for MindsEye is a substantial overhaul aimed at refining visuals, enhancing combat, and improving the overall player experience. The update introduces over 150 adjustments designed to bring the game closer to its full potential.
Visual fidelity has been a key area of focus. The update addresses inconsistencies in level-of-detail transitions and improves texture quality, particularly during important story sequences. Optimization efforts have targeted vehicle visual effects and road collisions, resulting in smoother performance, especially during high-speed chases. Character body physics have also been refined, contributing to a more realistic game world.
Combat encounters have received significant attention in Update 6. Issues with environmental cover have been resolved, ensuring bullets accurately hit enemies taking cover. Enemy AI has been improved with smoother animations, more natural transitions between cover and aiming, and enhanced reactions to being shot. Enemies now react faster to threats and make more strategic decisions during combat. The companion drone has been enhanced with individual cooldowns for abilities and the ability to hack two robots simultaneously when fully charged.
Driving, a core element of MindsEye, has been streamlined. Long drives in certain missions can now be skipped, and new checkpoints have been strategically placed throughout key missions. The turret vehicles that relentlessly pursued players have been removed, creating a more balanced experience. The addition of improved ragdoll physics and facial animations for background characters further enhances immersion.
A demo of MindsEye is available, allowing players to experience a campaign mission and explore ARCADIA, a platform offering various challenges.
The extensive list of improvements included in Patch 6 spans several key areas:
Combat:
- The Scan input has been remapped to L3 + R3. Updates have been made to cover positions for both armed and unarmed NPCs, and aiming behavior has been improved for better accuracy.
- The companion drone’s accuracy and behavior have been enhanced, and its abilities now have individual cooldowns.
- The drone can now hack two robotic enemies at once when fully charged.
- Enemy shotgun range has been reduced for fairer encounters.
- Ragdoll physics for enemies have been improved, making them more responsive.
- Unnecessary weapon reloading has been removed in certain situations.
- New Evade Roll and Shoulder Swap abilities have been added, mapped to A/X and L3 respectively.
- Adjustments have been made to enable greater upper-body movement during weapon actions, and shooting and reload animations have been updated.
- Ammo drops have been increased across the board. Environmental cover has been improved for more effective AI usage during combat.
- The difficulty tuning for mission-specific firefights has been refined for more consistent challenges.
- Flying drone handling has been improved when using mouse and keyboard.
- Weapons are now reloaded after coming out of a cinematic.
Vehicles:
- Flying vehicles have been overhauled to be fully physics-based, improving realism, responsiveness, and overall control.
- Vehicle health has been improved in certain missions.
- The system for exiting a moving car has been improved.
- The level of detail for vehicles from a distance has been enhanced.
- Vehicles now correctly cast shadows in bumper cam view.
- Improvements to vehicle interactions have been implemented.
AI & NPC:
- Aiming-from-cover animations for enemy NPCs have been improved.
- The AI transition when moving from cover to aim stance has been refined.
- Flinch animations and behavior when AI take hits while aiming from low or high cover have been improved.
- Enemies in multiple missions are now smarter and more reactive, spotting threats more quickly and responding more strategically during combat. NPCs in camps are now more responsive and interact more with the player.
- NPCs now coordinate better during combat and patrols, reacting more naturally to sounds, alarms, and player presence.
- Enemies react to robots being hacked. Simplified behaviors in aggressive drivers.
Missions & Design:
- Several driving route blockers have been removed to create smoother driving paths.
- The ability to skip long drives in select missions has been added.
- The success condition when reaching 100% in The Mole has been improved.
- The health of Military Trucks in the chase of the End of the World has been reduced.
- The option to continue driving and stop the vehicle freely has been added in Oh Lily! and Man Always Burns.
- In Lamrie’s Secrets, players can now enter any jeep.
- Improvements have been made to ‘Man Always Burns’ to make it easier for players to deliver the truck.
- Additional improvements and tweaks have been made to tooltips.
- Certain prompts have been updated with a distinct color to make them stand out.
- Community feedback around automatic activation/deployment of the Drone torch across missions has been addressed.
- The first portal mission has been made optional in The Missing Genius.
- The difficulty of the CPR minigame in This Means War has been reduced, with added sound effects for clarity.
- In Meeting Marco Silva, a GPS line has been added for the first part of the chase, and enemies have been added/moved for a better experience.
- Tip tutorials have been improved in A New Companion. Mission checkpoints and new spawn points have been updated and improved.
- Dialogue and text have been updated. Various improvements have been made to missions, including A Strange Happening, Oh Lily!, and The Wrong Move.
- Additional implementations of the Skip feature have been added during some journeys.
- New checkpoints have been added in key missions, reducing replay frustration after failure.
- Various updates and improvements have been made to Executive Paranoia and Man Always Burns portal missions.
- The turret vehicles that chase the player throughout the missions have been removed.
- Sky Car Races have been implemented.
Audio:
- Various dialogue improvements and music tweaks have been made.
- All ballistic weapon sound effects have been updated to make them feel more impactful. New sound effects for robots have been added.
- Checkpoints have been updated so music starts sooner.
- Pedestrian dialogue attenuation has been improved.
- Footstep audio during rain has been enhanced.
- Character motion audio mix has been adjusted.
- Improvements to pedestrian flee/panic dialogue have been made.
- Dialogue timings have been adjusted and lines replaced in key missions.
- Mission ambience has been updated and delay issues in dialogue reduced.
- New engine sounds for vehicles have been added.
- Combat audio from AI has been improved. Performance improvements and crash fixes have been implemented.
- New gameplay tags and countdown sound effects for Arcadia races have been added.
UI/UX:
- Improvements to the user experience of the Launcher Page have been made.
- Weapon pickup icons have been improved, with clearer ammo identification.
- A new weapon indicator has been added to highlight newly available weapons.
