DigitalNoob

November release Miner Wars 2081 (Steam version) required an internet connection in order to play the single player campaign, but this is no longer the case with the first major patch released today. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Steam offline mode will work, but that’s another beast entirely. The login screen to get to the campaign has been removed entirely, and you do not have to connect to the Miner Wars servers. Other notable fixes include:

• Performance issues caused by too many bots in an area
• Crashes in Pirate Base – after re-spawning from death
• Change to LOD blending algorithm increased performance by 5-10%
• Fixed various hardware compatibility issues (ATI graphics cards)
• Numerous script and missions bugs, crashes, invalid checkpoints, and inconsistencies have been fixed

In addition to the fixes, the patch also adds cheats and a 2.5D experiment for you to try. To access the cheats, press Ctrl+F1 in game.

The Miner Wars team also addressed the issue that many players have been reporting – low FPS on computers that should run the game smoothly. This occurs when the computer has an integrated GPU as well as an external GPU. The OS is supposed to switch to the more powerful, external GPU when the game is launched, but this doesn’t always work, and the game  has trouble running on the integrated GPU. The team is currently looking into the issue, but for now they have offered the following fix: disable the integrated GPU in the BIOS.