Mines of Dalarnia revealed plans for their upcoming patch, known as Deeper Depths, some time ago. However, they didn't provide a lot of details. That has now changed with an info dump about what new things to expect with this mini-expansion!
Deeper Depths is a huge update for Mines of Dalarnia. It brings new resources, new equipment tiers, new mines, new healing bots, new monsters, and a new marketplace!
Three new resources arrive with this update -- Gold, Aquarite, and Ragnarite. And with these new Resources come the equivalent equipment tiers. Equipping Gold equipment requires a Miner Rank of 10, while Aquarite and Ragnarite required Rank 15.
In addition, we get three new Mines, The Gilded Mine (Power Level 12), The Crystal Caverns (PL15), and The Storm Tunnels (PL15). They have also built a new map generation algorithim for Depths 4 and 5 to increase variety and decrease predictability.
And to help fill out both these new Depths and the old Mines, we have a variety of new things. For one, players may come across helpful Healer Bots when exploring. Collect them to restore some health. But there are also new foes and obstacles. Two new monsters -- Stalks and Burrowers. Stalks are stationary and shoot damaging burrs at any Miners they see. Burrowers pop up from underneath the ground unexpectedly, and will also burrow to chase their prey! And if that's not enough, we have new hazards to avoid along the way. These include falling stalactites, exploding poison gas pods, and dripping toxic slime!
But once you get back from a successful adventure, you might want a place to trade items you find or pick up new equipment. Lucky for you, there is a new web-based marketplace for all Mines of Dalarnia items. Make trades on the market using DAR tokens with a marketplace fee of 2.5% The new market will also support 24 hour auctions with auto extensions if a bid is made within 30 minutes of the auction ending.
Deeper Depths brings a new upgrade system. No more combining items. Instead, upgrades use Dust. Dust has variations matching the resource levels (ie, Copper, Silver, etc). Equipment needs the matching type of Dust to upgrade. Players acquire Dust by burning existing equipment, with more Dust returned for higher level items. Dust will not be tradeable.
This leads to a change in crafting cost for the existing levels of Picks and Armor. And so to recognize the equipment made from the old crafting system, when this system goes live, all existing Copper, Iron, Silver and Ozymodium Armor and Picks will have the (Original) tag added after their name. This specific armor can no longer be crafted, making it a collectible for some. To give the Picks and Armor some extra distinction, the new versions will have slightly different hues.
Land owners also get a new upgrade option via the Gold-Plated Injector.. Use the Injector to permanently add two new mines to a plot. One will be The Gilded Mine, the other randomly selected from the Crystal Caverns and Storm Tunnels.
There is a lot to digest with this update. You can read the official blog post here for more information.