How To Play Guide For Mechanic Miner

This page will serve as a basic how to play guide for . While there is very little information available at this time, we urge you to check back often, as new information is being added all the time! Feel free to edit this guide with any tips, tricks, and suggestions.
= So I have the game running, now what? =
This guide is also for you who downloaded Mechanic Miner, had a look at the menu, or maybe even tried to explore the world a bit, and then went to look up what to do next. Fear not, friend! We're here to help you become a veteran miner in no time. Read on to find out how to configure settings, start a new game, explore, get stuff, build stuff, and survive your first few night in the game.
=Controls=
If you click on Controls in the Menu, you'll see an overview of the most basic controls in Mechanic Miner. You might want to have a look now, but you can always look at it again while playing by pressing Esc and Controls. If you forget how to do anything, check there before looking it up in a guide. 
In order to move, you need to press keys on your keyboard and use your mouse. If you don't have a keyboard or a computer mouse… I have no idea how you managed to get this game to run on a PC. Well done. Have a cookie.
		
If you do have a keyboard and a computer mouse, you'll find that the following buttons lead to the following actions:
				
* Press A to go left
* Press D to go right
* Press W to go up (if there's a ladder or similar)
* Press S to go down (if there's a ladder or similar)
* Press Space or W to jump
* Right click on your mouse to mine an interactive object, such as stones, water or trees. You can also use right click and hold to move stuff you've made.
* Press E to use an object, such as a lever or a door.
* Hold Shift + left click to dismantle machinery you've built.
=Basic gameplay=
Before starting a new game, you're presented with some options. Select game mode, difficulty, singleplayer or multiplayer, and whether or not to skip the tutorial. As you can see below, we recommend that first-time players stick to the standard settings - but if you're in doubt, follow these instructions.
=== Game modes ===
Mechanic Miner has 2 game modes; creative and survival. Creative mode allows you to build materials in the game with no cost, and is more suitable for veteran players who just want to mess around and build some machines without having to explore and mine resources. Survival mode requires you to mine resources in order to build materials, progress, and stay alive, so it's more suited for players who want a more traditional game experience. That's you! (Just go with me here.)
		
 Choose Survival mode for now.
=== Difficulty ===
		The game also has a difficulty setting. Here you can choose between Peaceful and Normal. Peaceful difficulty gives you a world completely rid of enemies, so you're free to explore and build things without being eaten. However, with no enemies in the world. You have no way of procurring protein and other essential construction resources, so this difficulty is not recommended for beginners. Normal difficulty lets you play a game with everything included, where enemies will attack you on sight, and drop valuable goods. You want this.
		
 Choose Normal difficulty for now.
	
=== Skipping the tutorial ===
		Finally, the menu asks if you want to skip the Tutorial. The Tutorial includes a tiny cutscene and a set of guides and prompts on how to build your first and most necessary machines. As a new player, you'll definitely want in on that action.
		
 Do not skip the Tutorial for now; choose No.
		
		You're still here. Alright! Now press New Game to play.
=Starting a new game=
		You've now arrived with what appears to be an escape pod, and have probably started to look around, wondering what to do (you move by pressing A for left, D for right, and spacebar in order to jump). Standing on a strange new planet, the most obvious course of action occurs to you - take some stuff! Just stand next to some of those rock-like things, and zap them with your Multitool (move curser to object, right click, hold button for a few seconds).
		
Ok, ok, so now you have some stuff. It's in your inventory, which you can see in the bottom of your screen. Now, what to do with it? Your most immediate resources include Water, Copper and Peat. Nevermind how all that fits in your backpack. Actually, don't think about that bag too much.
		
Let's get you out there, so you can ravage the earth, build weird contraptions, and get killed repeatedly by harmless-looking critters. Most importantly, you'll want to get more stuff.
		
Read on for a guide on Mechanic Miner's basics, and remember that we won't go over everything. With any luck, however, this'll get you through the first couple of days after arriving. At which point you'll be ready to build some of those really cool machines, and maybe find out why this place looks so abandoned. 
Let's start over from the beginning.
==Interface== 
Here you'll learn about the different things on your screen - including your health, your inventory, the day-night cycle, and the first resources you'll be able to find. Note the Sun's placement in the sky, indicating that nightfall is nearing. The environment will change as you progress through the game, and the passing of time will affect that as well.
===Inventory and crafting bar===
		To the left on your screen is an overview of all the parts you can build in the game. This is your crafting bar. Everything you can craft is organized into these 11 boxes. The top 9 boxes show categories of items, the 10th box from the top shows Blueprints (containing models for machines you've previously saved) and the 11th box from the top (the bottom box in the row) shows Tech you'll later be able to unlock.
		
Right now, all the boxes are grayed out. They'll fill in with colors once you've gathered enough materials necessary for building stuff. 
		
 NB: We won't be going into Blueprints and Tech in this guide.
		
In the bottom of your screen you see your Inventory. This is a row of 9 boxes making up all the space in your backpack. Each box fits one category of thing - you can hold up to 99 of each item in your Inventory. Don't ask how that's possible. Hammerspace, you know?
===Health and EXP===
		At the top of your screen there's a number of hearts , and a grey bar saying Lvl 0. 
		
The 10 hearts displayed make up your Health Bar, meaning the number of times you can take bits of damage before your miner dies, at which point you'll have to start over from an earlier point in the game. The game is saved automatically at certain points, so you won't have to worry too much about that.
		
Some enemies are quite ruthless, and will gulp down most of your Health in one solid bite. You need to keep those hearts filled in order to stay alive and keep exploring. 
 NB: To restore health, you need to use a Health Generator and some Protein - click on either link to see how.
	
	
The grey bar above the hearts is your Experience Points bar. The bar will fill up as you mine materials and defeat enemies, and maybe it'll fill up under other conditions, too. When the bar is full, you'll gain a Level, and the bar will start over filling up. The more levels you have, the more access you get to certain things that are unreachable at the start of the game. Keep gaining Levels in order to find out what you receive in return.
===Your environment===
		You'll notice that the sun moves across the screen over time, creating a day-night cycle. Different enemies will appear at night, for instance. You'll also notice that the ground is littered with rocks. Many things in Mechanic Miner are interactive in the sense that you can use your tool to mine them or dismantle them in order to harvest resources. In the beginning area, you'll first come across some Copper and Peat. You should definitely get some of those. 
		
You start out in a marsh area, and will later progress to new lands with new resources and new enemies. At night, certain monsters roam the world, so you'll need to be prepared, by gathering materials and building things that will help you survive.
		
Read on to find out how to survive the first few days.
==Exploring, building, and surviving==
Here you'll learn about mining resources, building and dismantling basic machines, how to use weapons, how to survive the night, and how to progress to new areas in the game.
===Mining===
	After having exited your shuttle, you should move right and walk up the first black rock you see stuck in the ground. Now you'll see a prompt, telling you to Right Click and hold your curser on the rock to excavate it. Doing that for a moment will get you 1 Peat and some Exp. In other words, you got some stuff! Keep excavating to your right, where you'll find a bunch of Copper. Gather as much as you can find.
		
Once you reach the pond, it's very tempting to jump right in with the fish and try to cross on your own. That will definitely get you killed, so don't.
===Building===
		In order to cross, you'll need to build a machine. Click on Engines on the hotbar to your left, and then click on Aoilipile Engine. Luckily, you have enough materials to build it! It'll now arrive in your Inventory at the bottom of your screen. Click and drag the engine to the space indicated on the screen (the greyed-out flashing engine right next to the pond).
		
One part down! Now repeat these steps with the the Boiler, Lever, and two Wheels. You have a vehicle now, but it won't run until you add fuel. Good thing you grabbed some Peat earlier! Grab some Water, too, and now click and drag both items to your boiler, filling it up. It's ready.
If you're having difficulty completing this, there's another solution: For a step-by step guide with pictures, you can also look at the Building Stuff section.
===Using machinery and exploring===
		Jump on your vehicle, and press E to use the Lever. Now you'll be able to drive the vehicle left and right. Go right and cross the pond, maybe throwing some rude gestures to the carnevous fish as you dantily run them over and land on the other bank. (That's not a command, you'll just have to use the power of imagination here.)
		
Once on the other side, you'll get a short preview of what awaits you further on; hills, a mine, and a pack of strange fiends jumping about. You guessed it - we need to get past those hideous things in order to progress the game. That means it's time to gear up.
		
Hop off from your vehicle (press E to stop using an item) and collect some more Peat and Copper. We'll need that for later. 
		
Further on to your right, you'll come across some small bushes. You can use your Multitool on those, too! Zap them good to receive some Wood. Moving on from here, you get to that mine you saw earlier. Stand in front of it and press Enter to go inside.
		
Ok, it's rather dark in here, but we can't do anything about that right now. You'll just have to run right and left and see what you can find - hopefully a bunch of Zinc, which wee need to build our first weapon.
		
There's another entrance in here, leading further down into the mine, but since we don't have a lightscource there's no reason to look into it now. Go back to the entrance you came from, and exit the mine by pressing Enter. NB: If you don't know whether an entrance leads up or down, you can always check out the vague light appearing from inside it. If the light comes from above and inside, it leads up; if the light comes from below and inside, it leads down. Something might be generating a bit of light somewhere inside every mine and cave…
		
Once outside, you'll see another prompt to your right, next to the hill. Go check it out.
===Using weapons (and dismantling stuff you've built)===
		Now you need to build a weapon. Build a Ballista, place it on the ground (or anywhere you see fit), then start using it with E. You shoot by aiming with your curser and Left Clicking. 
 NB: It's a bit more difficult, but if you want an advantage when dealing with your first enemies, you should place the Ballista onto your vehicle, making your weapon mobile. It's possible to connect the Lever and the Ballista with some Cables and that way drive and aim/shoot simultaneously, but that requires building a set of Cables first, which in turn requires Bakelite as a building material. You'll get your first Bakelite by looting dead Frogs, so this strategy is more for advanced players. If you're very pressed and keep getting your rear handed to you by the Frogs, try to take down and loot some of them, then build a weaponized vehicle using Cables. You place Cables by selecting them from the Inventory after they've been built, clicking on a point on one component on your machine, such as the Ballista, and dragging the Cables to another component, such as the Lever. Beware that you don't run out of Cables midway, or place them incorrectly, in which case you'll have to remove them and start over.
Aim for the blue Frogs, and beware that the red leader Frog is the toughest one to slay. There's a bunch of them, so you might have to run away and try over a few times until they're annihilated. 
		
Once shot dead, you can search their bodies (with your Multitool) to extract some Protein and Bakelite. 
 NB: Protein and Bakelite are VERY precious resources, because they help you recover health and build connections between machine parts, so you'll want to hold on to these. 
		
You'll notice that the Frogs a spread out, and that not all of them will be within range of your Ballista. You can either keep building Ballistas as you advance (which is quite expensive), or dismantle your Ballista when it becomes useless, so that you get back some of your resources. Dismantle your weapon by moving your curser over the object, then hold Shift and Right Click. Move on to the right, then build and place another weapon within range of the last Frog(s). 
		
You survived and defeated your first mob! Well done. Protein and Bakelite's your prize.
		
Beyond this point lies the Desert, where a whole new set of challenges lie.
===Surviving the night, and building a shelter===
		There ain't no rest for the wicked until you close your eyes for good, as they say in that intro song to Borderlands.
		
Once entering the desert, you'll be prompted to quickly find some rocks and construct some bricks, in order to build a shelter for the night. You'll note that the sun is nearly across the sky. Time to get to work.
		
Find some rocks - those red rocks that only appear in the desert. Hopefully there's enough lying around. Oh, and ignore that big cave with the bones sticking out… unless your shelter flops, in which case you can hide in there. That's not recommendable, however, as you won't be much safer inside. 
		
Once you've collected enough, build some bricks! Make sure to hit Build 20, because you need quite a lot of them to build a shelter. You might have to do this twice or more, so work as fast as you can. You also need to build a foundation.
 Tip: Build and place only two foundation points directly on the ground, 1 on each side of you. That way you can build bricks on top of these foundation points, and save critical time when you don't have to build a foundation all the way under the bricks. It's important that you set at least two points, though, since you can't build the bricks directly unto the ground (that would make the building unstable, meaning not fixed at all. You don't want monsters carrying you off like a lunchbox, right?)
		
Select the bricks, and place them above and around you, holding down Right Click on your mouse. Make sure to connect all the bricks, if you want to make sure nothing gets in. If you're really pressed, then make sure to build two walls surrounding you first, then a roof. And then you wait. You can either wait until the night is over, or try to shoot some of the things coming for you. They carry 1 Protein each. Either way, make sure they don't gnaw through your shelter; rebuild along the way if necessary.
And there you have it! You now know how to mine stuff, build stuff, and keep yourself and your stuff safe. From here on, you can explore, and experiment with different machines and vehicles. Once you level up and find some more resources, you'll get access to new tech, too. Good luck out there.
=Tips and tricks=
* Hold Shift and press Left Click on your bag to pick up all the stuff in your bag at once. This is useful when you die, respawn, find your bag, and quickly want to retrieve your items.
* Build a shielded vehicle by placing blocks around the Lever, and maybe the weapon too, when you're up against larger enemies.
* You can build two Railguns on opposite sides of each others to make a weaponized vehicle that can shoot in several directions at once. 
* It's a good idea to store all your excess resources in a Storage Box or similar, placed in a safe location.
= Trivia =
* The day-night cycle wasn't always shown via the sun's movement across the screen. In earlier adaptions of the game, the dev team had a tiny clock with sun and moon icons, which would let you know what time of day it was (and when to anticipate the next mob attack). 
* Initially, the main character was set to be a typical young man - your standard game adventurer. The dev team thought he looked pretty boring though, so they put a beard and a top hat on him. It worked out quite well with a 40-year-something ginger steampunk protagonist.
* The game is inspired mainly by Minecraft in it's first iterations, and later heavily by Terraria. 
* The protagonist has hazel eyes, with a glint of purple near the middle. …Ok, no. They're just black dots. Everything's pixelated, who knows.
* If you feed the Critter a piece of material, it'll disappear in a poof of floating hearts. We assume it's because it becomes very happy, and darts off to tell it's friends about the glorious meal.
=See also=
* Release Date
* System Requirements
Category:Guides