Update 1.14 is still in the making, and all focus goes towards polishing the game before being released in Early Access. So here's a summary of all the new features and changes that we've been working on.


Intro and outro storylines are being finally added to the game, to explain where players are coming from and why they are doing what they are doing. Pictures with Captain voiceovers explain the history of island and mission of the submarine crew that just landed at the shores of the island. We won't talk about the outro too much :) so that you can enjoy it once reaching the end and silencing the volcano.








As the time for official release gets closer, the credits screen got updated with names of active members of the Voclanoids Discord server. Moderators, closed-testing group, and localization creators will be listed in the credits as the gratitude of their hard work and commitment to the game. We are still adding names, so if you don't see your self there don't worry.

Also, we would like to thank everyone who sent bug reports or reported an issue with the game. We are going through them now and doing our best to fix it. Reports from you help us to make the game better, and with your help, many things get fixed faster as we get valuable data about how the issue happens.




Many people will be very excited about expanded options window, allowing them to adjust video settings to increase performance, but also things like Mouse flip Y-axis and so on. We hope this addition will make the game more enjoyable for those that had issues with low FPS.






The starter drillship that players need to claim at the beginning of the game, now has it's own crew that you have to fight before taking control. This gives us to change to introduce the COGs early in the game and bring at least a little bit of combat right at the start. From now on, it will also be possible to claim COG drillships. So if you find one that you like more than your own, feel free to claim it. Keep in mind that you lose ownership of the previous drillship, so pack all your valuable items in advance, or park closes so that carrying items from ship to ship is fast.




Modules and production stations also got some tweaks and improvements. Many players (including us), had issues with accidentally closing modules when inside the drillship. Now the modules can be opened only if the player clicks the small panel with light and module icon. The rest of the module case does not react. There is no change about opening/closing modules from outside. For production stations, new icon overlay was added when the item can't be produced because of no available module or missing materials.








Scrap station also got tons of new blueprints, allowing the player to recycle the majority of items into one base material. This comes handy after the last update, where COGs have tons of loot and players have no chance to get material even from items they don't need. Or it is possible just to scrap all old modules as the drillship gets better over time and T1 modules are not needed anymore. It can also come handy if you need one more grenade to blow up the Laser drillship but have no materials for it. Just deconstruct and scrap a device, and you can are good to go.




Many more smaller features are being implemented as well. Such as improvement of the drillship "orders" allowing players to call drillship to new landing sites (press + hold G). In 1.14 you also get chance to just tell the drillship to go underground, in cases where you need to focus on attacking the enemy and don't have time to run back to the drillship every single time a COG walks by.



Next to that island map got some new icons for player and drillship, but most importantly now also shows quest objectives and where they are. This will greatly help when planning the next destination for your drillship.



And that's it, thanks for reading! For more sneak peeks and updates consider following us on these platforms:

Discord: https://discord.gg/volcanoids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Volcanoids/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volcanoids

Hey everyone! One of the final updates for the closed Alpha is here! Lots of new exciting features have been added and for the first time, there's Linux support as well!


No more "press E and run". Now it's the real deal as you'll have to destroy all the modules located on the pillars to bring the whole thing down. Won't be easy as COGs are protecting it and some might have turrets on them as well.




Will come in handy, especially when trying to bring down one of the laser devices. Also great for taking out large groups of COGs or their drillships with turrets (as you can see in the screenshot below).

• Laser Structures - player now has to destroy laser structures in each cave in order to win the game
  
• Grenade that player can use against COGs and their drillships
  
• COGs now have random loot, a large variety of items can drop
  
• Linux support!
  
• Real-time player map - players can now see where they are and where the drillship is located (to open map press M)
  
• 2 new types of shotgun ammunition, switch by pressing the middle mouse button
  
• Drillship safety features, player can no longer lose ship by sending it underground, press G to call it back to surface, also you can call drillship to your current location by pressing G as well (drillship will land on the closest landing site to you)
  
• Drillship Emergency Handles - If players get to a situation where they are stuck, and can not move the drillship (devices lost, no material etc.), they can pull the emergency handles that will send the drillship to the landing site closest to submarine, player, can this way repair their drillship and continue further
  
• Warning: Online cargo is full (works same as Energy or Landing site occupied)
  
• Closed modules now have armor, applies only to modules that can be closed and opened
  
• New visual of lava and smoke particle effects in lava pools, volcano, lava sources

• Repair kit has only one stack, to balance it lasts longer
  
• Video tutorial screen in the main menu has been disabled
  
• COG NPC navigation, COG now do better patrols and should less get blocked by an obstacle
  
• Increased number of COG units on the map
  
• Drillships now bring more COG units in one turn (before they had to go 3x times to bring all up)
  
• Quests - updated to reflect the Cave Laser drillships, Turret quest, Preparation to fight quest
  
• Quests - adjusted to warn player eruption is coming, but not blocking players progress until only 40 sec left to eruption (was 2 min before)
  
• Overall Cave visuals
  
• Modules now have detailed info about their stats in the production menu
  
• Shotgun reload and shooting is faster
  
• A different sound of the eruption
  
• Sulfur powder now stacks 10 and is faster to produce

• Lava not killing the player
  
• Random death screams no longer happen
  
• COG bodies were not removed by eruption blast

Special thanks goes out to our closed testing group for helping us polish the update!

Hope you'll enjoy the new features as much as we do! If you have any questions feel free to drop them on any of these platforms:

Discord: https://discord.gg/volcanoids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Volcanoids/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volcanoids

If you haven't signed up for the Volcanoids Alpha yet, feel free to do so here: https://mailchi.mp/volcanoids.com/alpha-signup

What's up, everyone! Here's another Developer Update covering improvements on combat, NPC navigation, and cave structures. We also show a couple new features such as explosives, module armor and more.


In the upcoming update, there are going be many new features improving combat and the overall need to fight more than ever before.

The biggest change is that you will actually have to destroy the cave structures. No more pressing E and running before the COGs notice you.



Together with this, you will get access to some simple explosives (veeery raw and OP prototype on GIF below), that can be thrown on drillship modules or COGs. This should make the destruction of COG drillships, annoying turrets, and the cave structures.



Next to that, the shotgun will get two new ammo types that will allow the player to upgrade firepower while moving through the areas.


A lot of people will also enjoy the new armor feature, that adds armor to all modules that are closed. This means that you can better prepare for incoming attacks by closing all production modules, increasing their chances of survival.




Another big improvement was done on COG character navigation. The new system is very well optimized which allows us to add more COG units to the map.

Also their ability to get to places, and chase you increased a lot as well. They should not get stuck around obstacles as easily as before.



Red and green shapes represent COGs and purple shapes represent enemy drillships.




Other smaller features that were added include: emergency levers (in case you get stuck in a cave or something), warning when online cargo gets full, random loot dropping from COGs and more.





Thanks for reading! For more sneak peeks and updates consider following us on these platforms:

Discord: https://discord.gg/volcanoids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Volcanoids/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volcanoids

If you haven't signed up for the Volcanoids Alpha yet, you can do so here: https://mailchi.mp/volcanoids.com/alpha-signup

This week was in the name of bug fixing. We basically spent all the time going through bugs you guys reported and did our best to fix them. Some were easier than others, some are still in the game.

We originally planned to give you the hotfix update as soon as possible, but it turned out into a full week of fixing as new and new issues were popping up. That is why instead of hotfix update, there is now 1.12. Update released today. We are sorry for this and will do our best to have a better management system to give you the most important fixes sooner (especially those that kill the player for no reason).

Thank you for sending us all those bug reports, it helped us tremendously!


A lot of time was focused on COG navigation on the surface and correct deployment of units to locations. This requires a lot of test runs to find all possible choke points and issues where COGs would get stuck and never reached their location.




Apart from fixing, we also made some adjustments. Such as increased shotgun damage for the player, increased production speed in worktable and added starter items to submarine and starter drillship. So make sure to check all the chests before going out from submarine.




For those that are interested in bug hunting, there is a new type of challenge for reward. Check the bug trello board and see the second column called "Bug Bounties". These are bugs we know about, but can't fix them as we don't know when and how they get into the game. Anyone that tells us the exact steps to trigger at least 3 of the bugs listed there, will receive a key to the full game.

• despawn of COG units and drillships when the player enters another area
  
• improved COG guard locations, attacks and defense groups
  
• turret has a different sound and range adjustments
  
• faster worktable production
  
• increased player shotgun damage
  
• submarine and starter drillship has items in chests

• player no longer gets killed when standing in the tunnel between segments
  
• player no longer collides with a COG drillship when underground
  
• player no longer falls through the ground after loading the game
  
• improved COG navigation on the map and inside drillships
  
• COG drillships no longer become idle after a reload
  
• turret module no longer shoots player inside drillship
  
• player can no longer deconstruct modules and interior devices from enemy drillships
  
• enemy drillship does not go underground if player inside, instead it waits until player leaves
  
• player can no longer use COG drillship control panel to set a destination
  
• "send feedback" no longer fails if log files that are too large
  
• dead bodies of COGs no longer play sound after reload

Thanks again for your help and patience! If you have any questions feel free to drop them on any of these platforms:

Discord: https://discord.gg/volcanoids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Volcanoids/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volcanoids

If you haven't signed up for the Volcanoids Alpha yet, feel free to do so here: https://mailchi.mp/volcanoids.com/alpha-signup

The long-awaited update for the Alpha is here! New features include turret modules, enemy drillships with crews, drillship destruction, ability to break COGs to pieces and more!

For an in-depth explanation of the bigger features check out Developer Update 4

• Added the turret module
  
• Added COG drillships that drop off COGs on specific locations
  
• Added destruction of COG and player drillships
  
• Added notifications about the landing site availability
  
• Added lever animation to the target selector
  
• Added Santa hats (only red COGs have them)
  
• Increased inaccuracy when COGs shoot
  
• Added ability to break COGs to pieces
  
• Added option to turn off HUD in settings

• COGs no longer directly spawn in locations
  
• Player can now strafe while sprinting
  
• Player's stamina lasts longer and recovers faster
  
• Help screen has been updated
  
• New font used on all the remaining text
  
• Send feedback menu improved
  
• Drillship movement kills both player and COGs

• Player no longer gets stuck on a ladder if the ladder gets removed
  
• All drillship sounds should now be 3D and should play correctly based on distance from the player
  
• Hull integrity should now reach 100% if all modules fixed
  
• Fast mining no longer possible, sorry Hab :(

As some of the features are quite big, it will take some time to eliminate all the possible mess ups. But with your help, it should be smooth as butter in no time! (make sure to save often in case you encounter a serious bug)

Hope you'll enjoy the new update as much as we do! If you have any questions feel free to drop them on any of these platforms:

Discord: https://discord.gg/volcanoids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Volcanoids/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volcanoids

If you haven't signed up for the Volcanoids Alpha yet, feel free to do so here: https://mailchi.mp/volcanoids.com/alpha-signup

Hello everyone! This week we'll cover new ways to dismantle COGs, cave devices with effects, drillships roadkills, localization and more!


Ondrej focuses on all sorts of ways you can dismantle COG units. So shooting them with a shotgun won't be the last thing you can do to take them out.

The pickaxe can be now used to break apart disabled robots to pieces and last hit that kills a COG will break apart the part that has been shot (leg, arm, etc.).

This feature had to be implemented to ensure you won't get stuck in corridors if COGs board your drillship and you have to fight them inside while underground.






Drillships now kill anything that steps in their way when moving. This includes the heavy side wings that will squish anything standing too close. COGs better check twice before crossing any landing sites now!








The fleet of COG drillships is finally finished and assigned to locations.

Every area and travel node will have specific COG drillships guarding the place. Each ship has different interior setup, modules, and loot.



You can see the map notes marking all locations COGs will be guarding. Each area is assigned to specific travel node, and if COG drillship surfaces there, enemy units will make their way to the location and guard it.




Ondrej also started working on localization, that will allow translation of the game to different languages. The system is still under construction, but you can already see how it's going to work.





Anyone that will wish to do a translation, will download a file that can be translated. To test the translation, anyone will be able to place this file to their Volcanoids game and see right away how the text looks. Once the file is finished, you can send it to us and we will add it to the game for future builds + giving you credits for translation.



The cave device finally got all the particles and is ready for implementation when update 1.12 takes place



All the main features are done for the 1.11 update and we have to do a lot of testing to ensure all runs well. We won't be waiting till next Thursday, but as soon as the build is stable, we'll do an announcement and the new build will be released on Steam.

Summary of what will be added

• Turret module
  
• Enemy drillships
  
• Drillship destruction
  
• Enemy drillship crew (new COG behavior

And that's it for this week!

If you'd like to participate in the Volcanoids Alpha, you can sign up on our website: https://www.volcanoids.com/

To keep up with all the latest news, contests and sneak peeks consider joining our Discord server: https://discord.gg/volcanoids

Thanks for reading and see you next Thursday!

Hey everyone! Here's another Developer Update covering enemy drillships, wrecked drillships, turret modules, screenshot contest and more.


Enemy drillship will now be surfacing all over the island so you will have to be more careful when crossing the map.

• Each drillship will have its devices and COGs that will guard it
  
• You will be able to attack the drillships for loot and even destroy them completely
  
• If enemy drillship is on a specific landing site, it blocks the point and you won't be able to surface there with your ship

COG units won't spawn directly in villages and close to lava pools anymore. Instead, they will come from the surfaced Drillships and walk to their assigned location.

• When an eruption is coming, all COGs will return to the drillship and go under (this will add more interesting situations where you might run into a group of COGs "going to work" or running from the eruption as well)
  
• If you land in the same landing site node as the enemy drillship, COGs will keep attacking your drillship

Below you can see the enemy drillship deploying COG units.







Works as expected. Defends drillship from enemy units attacking it. Be warned tho, as the same turret will be guarding COG drillships as well!

• If drillship's hull HP drops to 0, it will explode and be destroyed, killing everything inside and in close proximity
  
• This can happen when all modules are destroyed by enemies, or by a volcanic eruption
  
• Torso of the destroyed drillship stays on the landing site until it is scraped for resources or future eruption takes it away completely
  
• If your or COG drillship lands on the point, the torso will be removed as well

• Finalize implementation of all the features mentioned above
  
• Localization support - community will be able to create translation sheets for the game
  
• Testing, testing and more testing so we can hopefully release a new update next week

These past 2 weeks players could submit screenshots from the Alpha to participate in the community screenshot contest.

Big thanks to everyone that participated and here are our top 3 picks:

"Drillship" by Mustaro


"End of my life" by Piterkooo


"Caught red handed" by The Politest of Cats


We'll get in touch with the winners and hand out prizes.


If you'd like to participate in the Volcanoids Alpha, you can sign up on our website: https://www.volcanoids.com/

To keep up with all the latest news, contests and sneak peeks consider joining our Discord server: https://discord.gg/volcanoids

Thanks for reading and see you next Thursday!

Hey everyone, here's a summary of what the dev team and the community have been up to this past week!


Tomas finished modeling and texturing the turret module. So it is now ready for the programming implementation into the game.



The back side is a little different from the other modules. The 3 lights on the back will tell you if the module has ammunition, if it's open and if it's targeting something.

The turret module is going to automatically take ammunition from the cargo module similar to how powerplant modules take coal. The only difference is that the ammo will be taken in bigger batches and not consistently since when you're under attack you don't want cargo modules to be open.



And here's a small sneak peek of how the drillship looks with the turret on it. Finally not only a mobile factory but a proper fortress as well.




Ondrej took full advantage of the new terrain optimization tools in the new Unity version and used it on the island. So the island is now way more optimized but at the same time looks better. (left unoptimized, right optimized)




The cave structure (that will replace the enemy drillships inside caves) is now fully textured and ready to be implemented.



And here's the animated version inside one of the caves (missing particles).

• Implement Enemy Drillships that will roam around the island with COG units inside them
  
• For anyone interested in the behavior of the Enemy Drillships here's the Game Design Document that contains a basic description of the features

Hab and Wildbill have been working on the Volcanoids Discord bot that's making the weekly key lottery among other stuff soo much easier to manage, so big thanks goes to them!

Hab also made this in-depth guide on how to defeat the enemy COGs: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1567396819

NoobySweede released a new video covering the State Saver device that allows you to create custom module layouts. So if you don't know how to use them yet, check out this video tutorial: https://youtu.be/zUiuEHuPlkA

A lot of people suggested that once the island gets bigger it would be nice to have an additional vehicle to travel just on the surface. Schakal made this awesome sketch of how the vehicle could look like. Later on, we found out that this kind of vehicle actually exists.



Schakal also created these 2 models of crow nest modules that could work really nicely with a long ranged rifle.




And that's it for this week. Thanks for all the support, feedback and suggestions, it means the world to us!

Welcome to the first Developer Update! These will be divided into two sections, the first section is going to be dedicated to our development progress and the second one to what the community has been up to over the past week.


New system for efficient bug reporting has been implemented. Check out this video guide explaining how to use the new system.


The project was updated to the latest Unity version, which was followed by a lot of code adjustments (new Unity brings big optimizations for terrain). Also, a big clean up of all the outdated files happened.


Buildings were optimized as they were heavy on performance due to a large number of subobjects. Here's a comparison of the original and then the optimized building. As you can see from the picture below, you won't be able to tell the difference, but the right one is much more performance friendly.




And lastly, we got more concept art for the story.

• Start implementing enemy drillships
  
• Update the turret model and implement it
  
• Work on the enemy cave structures

Early prototypes of the things mentioned in the list can be found in our public roadmap


We saw a bunch of people streaming the Volcanoids Alpha, we tried our best to drop by all of them. It was awesome seeing you guys play the game live!

NoobySwede created this handy guide with tips on how to effectively take out COGs.

Our Discord server has been steadily growing and we've been getting a lot of great feedback on the Alpha. Thank you so much for all the support and for spreading the word about Volcanoids!

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Here is another small update that includes a few suggestions from community feedback and several bug fixes.

• Shotgun has particle effect when a bullet hits the surface (you can finally see if a COG got hit)
  
• The player can now look around with periscope (good for finding out where the COGs are attacking and quickly react afterward)
  
• Different type of COG spawning (they still visit the Landings sites but should get longer to get there)
  
• Fixed stones inside caves that would collide with longer drillships
  
• Optimized lights to cause fewer performance drops
  
• Interior devices can now be destroyed
  
• All side modules now have damage indication when HP drops below 80%

Now we are going to move on in development and focus on bigger tasks such as enemy drillships and improved NPC behavior. Will keep you updated with sneak peeks on our social media and weekly announcements here on Steam :)

If you'd like to participate in the Alpha you can sign up on our website