v0.5.50 - Crate Merge, Crate Packer & Hand Stack Update

Hi miners, 😄

Thank you very much for your continued support, feedback, bug reports, and suggestions. We really appreciate everyone who keeps sharing their experience with the game, especially the reports and feedback that help us identify where the gameplay flow can be improved further.

In this update, we are focusing on several quality-of-life and workflow improvements related to crate handling, crate packer behavior, and inventory convenience. Some of these changes come directly from community feedback, especially around crate merging and crate stability problems that could disrupt production flow.

As always, we will continue reviewing feedback step by step and process improvements gradually based on priority and feasibility.

Here is what is available in the latest version.

Main Updates

1. Employee Crate Merge Behavior Updated

Based on player feedback, we updated the Employee Crate Merge behavior with several important improvements.

The updated behavior now works with the following rules:

• Employees will prioritize taking the nearest partially filled crate with the largest size for the merge process

• The merge target will be the smallest and nearest partial crate, with priority given to crates on the ground first, then crates stored on the rack

We also updated the post-merge handling behavior:

• If an empty crate is created as a result of the merge process, it will now be removed automatically, whether it is on the ground or on the rack

• For the merged crate result, if there is no suitable crate dropping zone after the merge, the employee will:

  • Place it in front of the nearest rack with the same rack focus

  • Or place it near the supply drop zone area

This update is intended to make crate merging more reliable, reduce leftover crate clutter in the workflow, and choose the higher capacity crate to make storage more efficient.

2. Crate Packer Behavior Updated

We listened to feedback from the community regarding crate piles at the Crate Packer that could often fall apart or become unstable.

Because of that, we overhauled the output system of the Crate Packer so crates are less likely to collapse after being produced. This will happen for the first 8 level of stacking, after that the system will use the old stacking system and can sometimes make the crate falling.

Please note that this is still our first iteration for this improvement, so if you have additional feedback after trying it, please feel free to let us know. We choose to do this solution to find the balance between performance and usability.

Also, this updated behavior only applies to newly created crates. Older crates that were already in a messy or unstable state will remain as they are.

3. Hand Inventory Can Now Stack Machine and Equipment Items

We added the ability to stack machine and equipment items in the Hand Inventory.

With this update, the same machine or equipment item can now be grouped into a single inventory slot instead of taking separate space for each one.

Please note:

• This only applies to machine and equipment items (marked with new stackable icon)

• It does not apply to Product or Supply items

• One hand inventory slot can now hold up to 99 of the same item

• If the stack reaches 99, the remaining items will continue into the next available slot

This should make hand inventory management much more convenient, especially during rearranging or larger building sessions.

Improvements

1. Item Collector Machine Can Now Accept Packaged Items

The Item Collector Machine can now also accept packaged items as input.

This means players can now create specific pipeline setups that use the Item Collector Machine on lines that already contain packaged items, giving more flexibility for production flow design.

Once again, thank you very much for your support, feedback, and reports. We will continue reviewing player input and improving the game step by step based on feasibility and impact.

If you encounter bugs or defects, please report them through the in-game report feature or through the Steam Discussions page. Suggestions are also always welcome and help us make the game better over time.

See you in the next update!

Mineral Mining Simulator