Hey everyone, welcome to another Developer Update! As always here's what we've been working on for the past week.

Game design for the upcoming update is completed, and we've started with implementations. Majority of things you will see is a work in progress and there are a lot of placeholders. Every time a new feature is being added, we do multiple iteration rounds to make sure everything works well, and only then we do the final visuals and polishing.


A lot of players asked for more weapons and improved combat. Gatling gun and revolver with multiple ammunition types are being implemented, but they're still waiting for their final models. Testing is a lot of fun, especially when attacking a COG drillship with the Gatling Gun, shredding the entire crew and modules to pieces.

https://youtu.be/map3ZZ0JSRM


Apart from new guns, NPCs will also get an upgrade in form of new COG variations for each type. Until now colors defined the difficulty level, but in the upcoming update, each color will suggest a specialization.

Each COG will have its attributes such as speed, damage but also specialized abilities such as spotting player at longer distances. This ability makes the green research COG a priority target to make sure other units don’t notice the player too early.

Each specialization will have tiers, that will be deployed all over the island. The shown pictures are raw concepts to find shapes and visual differences. Once we test them in game, proper texturing and modeling will be added.




COG drillships will also get a lot of new features and will play a more important role in player's progress. Drillships will be specialized for a certain task, such as mining, refinement, research or simply guarding an area.

Each ship type will have its loot, crew, and symbol so that players can easily tell what type of drillship just surfaced in front of them. Together with that, some item recipes will be adjusted, and players will have to destroy COG drillships to get the necessary components for upgrading their own drillship.



On the pictures below you can see icons for damaged movement upgrade components you'll be able to loot from destroyed enemy drillships.




And to mention some of the smaller features, drillship movement upgrades will have an actual effect on the drillship attributes. Hull upgrades will grant bonus armor to all modules, while tracks upgrades will make the drillship faster both underground and on the surface.





More features are being implemented, but there is not much to show yet. Will keep you updated about the development in upcoming developer updates and on our social media.

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

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below.

It's almost a week since the game entered Early Access on Steam, and we would like to thank everyone for supporting the game. There is still a long way ahead, and a lot to add, but we are off to a good start.

We went through all the Steam discussions and read the positive and negative reviews. Thank you all for taking the time to write the feedback, it helped a lot to get a picture of what to focus at in the upcoming month.


Main focus will be on improving gameplay outside the drillship. More weapons, difficulty scenarios and improving progression through research and gaining new technology.

Smaller adjustments are also planned, such as making the time between eruptions longer, adding actual meaning to the drillship upgrades (speed, armor) and more.


The difficulty scenarios should ensure that players that are new to the game get all the important information from the captain, while those already familiar with the game, go into the world on their own armed with only the skill and knowledge. That will come handy especially when hunting down your first drillship, no longer served by the captain.

Based on the feedback, the tutorial quests will be adjusted for the easy scenario in a way that players can access them through the radio but are not bothered if they want to progress on their own. If players get lost at any point, the captain will be there to help. The tutorial quests will update with players progress, so it should be easy to get back on track.


We will do our best to deliver the mentioned features and changes in the next update. The exact date is not set, but it should be ready in several weeks. Will keep you informed about the progress in weekly Developer updates, posted every Thursday here on Steam.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below.

First things first, thank you for the support during the Early Access launch! It means the world to us to see that you're digging the game!

We got a ton of reports from you guys and we're doing our best to go through all of them. Thanks a lot and definitely continue sending them through the "Send Feedback" menu or posting them in the bug report section in discussions.

Today's update is a smaller one containing mainly fixes. In case you load your game and your quest is messed up, simply abandon the quest in the quest menu (press L) and get it again from Cap.

Screenshot in header by: ҀЯФИ ↁÆМФИ

• Quest: The first quest to craft door module as well (to ensure players won't block themselves in drillship)
  
• Quest: Moved turret quest after the Add segment quest (to ensure players have a free slot)
  
• Quest: Disabled scrap metal quest
  
• Quest: Contact captain quest won't show when the game finished
  
• HUD notification "Inventory full" now contains info about the trash icon in inventory
  
• HUD notification "Storage full" now contains info about the trash icon in inventory
  
• HUD notification "Landing site occupied" now contains info to pull the blue lever (players kept pulling the green, that did not solve the issue)
  
• Radio device has more HP now
  
• Door has sound on open and close
  
• Refresh rate in options now shows correct refresh rate

• Issues with joystick inputs (player should no longer randomly move in one direction)
  
• Submarine ladder stuck issue
  
• Light orb spawned after killing a COG
  
• Drillship call no longer sends drillship out of a lava cave
  
• Player getting killed underground by eruption blast
  
• Multiple typos in texts
  
• Issue with placing production module
  
• Main menu background video is now working on Linux
  
• Main menu background video recompressed to reduce lagging
  
• Achievement: Kill COGs
  
• Achievement: Full extender
  
• Achievement: Multitasking
  
• Core upgrade no longer destroys after placing to Core stats instead to the Core on the wall
  
• Items in submarine and player drillship (had wrong stacks and caused issues)

If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below or on any of these platforms:

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

Thanks for reading!

After more than a year in development, Volcanoids is finally out on Steam!

https://youtu.be/DzvX6ChThSg

Our team would like to give the biggest thank you to everyone who played the game, gave us feedback and motivated us during development. Your support has been truly amazing!

We're excited to continue the development and with your help, turn Volcanoids into a great game.

Hope you have an absolute blast playing it and consider leaving a Steam review!

We're excited to announce that Volcanoids will be hitting Steam Early Access tomorrow, January 29th, 2019! The price is going to be 19.99$

Big thanks goes out to our amazing community for being a huge part of the development and helping us shape the game into what it is now.

All Alpha keys are going to be revoked tomorrow at 3 PM CET. Anyone that received the EA key won't be affected. If you own both, just active the EA key once the Alpha gets disabled.

Here's a list of the final fixes and changes that we did based on feedback from our amazing tester group!

• You can now reactivate sprint at 50% instead of 75%
  
• All CoalPower top module tiers now take only 5 core slots
  
• Added info to EngineUpgrade (supports up to 2 drillship segments)
  
• Placed window module to higher tech tier (UpgradeBasicProduction needed)
  
• Improved speed of worktable

• Fixed all periscope sights in caves
  
• Fixed laser drillship hud marker in cave 2
  
• No more flying drillships approaching landing sites on high hills
  
• No flying COGs anymore
  
• Fixed ladder stuck
  
• Fixed player falling in void when entering LS 1 fixed
  
• Fixed player locked in spectator after death
  
• Fixed when the player calls drillship it lands on closest possible LS (won't get stuck anymore)
  
• Cog drillships no longer carry player custom logos if modded
  
• Fixed tree in drillship on landing site 25
  
• Fixed hud marker icons showing up everywhere
  
• Corrected hud markers on Volcano crane
  
• Fixed bad stone in volcano cave
  
• Fixed issue with module repair quest not triggering
  
• Fixed quest: Install ship engine 3
  
• Fixed quest: Research
  
• Fixed quest: Scrap station
  
• Fixed quest: No Coal in drillship
  
• Fixed slug and medkit stacking
  
• Fixed broken voiceover in the outro
  
• Fixed tree in stone at landing site 2
  
• Fixed repair of modules to 100%

If you haven't yet, drop Volcanoids in your Steam Wishlist.

Consider joining the official Volcanoids Discord server if you'd like to talk to us directly or participate in key giveaways.

More info coming tomorrow so stay tuned!

Final content update before the Early Access release is here! So we're calling on all our Alpha testers, don't go easy on this one! From now on we'll be only polishing and fixing the current features. New content update will come after the launch.

For optimal results with this update, we recommend starting a new game instead of using old saves.

Here are few of the features with some visuals followed by a complete list of all the changes.


From now on if you start a new game/finish one the story will be presented to you with concept art, subtitles and a voiceover from The Captain himself.




Based on your requests we added more options in the settings menu.




You will be able to scrap up to 95% of items that you find, so grab all the loot you can!




Appear when the item can't be produced for some reason.

Red = module not opened
Yellow = missing resources




Changes based on how far the object you're aiming at is. If the object is in your shooting range the cross will appear + when you hit something (and deal damage) the color will change.

• Intro and Outro with pictures, subtitles, and voiceovers
  
• Advanced video options giving player higher control over game's visuals
  
• Advanced game options giving player higher control over game's controls
  
• New recipes for the Scrap Station
  
• Ability to send drillship underground by holding G
  
• Localization support for quests
  
• New item overlay in stations when the item can't be produced
  
• Crosshair distance recognition and hit check
  
• Option to disable headbob
  
• Submarine doors
  
• First implementation of Achievements

• Modules can be now opened and closed in interior only by clicking the light and icon panel
  
• Starter drillship now has a crew of COGs that player has to fight before he claims it
  
• Island map has a new player and drillship icon + shows quest objectives
  
• Quest order has changed by moving the "Add segment" quest before going to first lava source
  
• Turret ammo now stacks by 5
  
• Lowered the amount of items looted from dead COGs
  
• Door window module now contains only door options, window module has now its own item
  
• Added message to drillship cinematics to inform player it can be skipped
  
• Updated credits with listed community members active in the development and community management
  
• The file name of the company was changed from DefaultCompany to Volcanoid which also changed the save file

• Caves no longer block long 4 segment drillships in caves
  
• New quest structure that improves the stability (quests line is less fragile)
  
• Fixed "Repair module" quest (was not possible to finish)
  
• Turrets on Laser drillships in caves 2-3 + Volcano cave shoot at the player
  
• If drillship gets destroyed before the player claims it, the player gets the quest again (before he'd get stuck)
  
• Stairs in submarine fixed (at some angles, you could not walk up)
  
• Submarine ladder fixed + added hatch (was hard to climb down)
  
• Volcano lava effect lowers intensity as the fog disappears (was too bright before)
  
• Modules no longer repair on reload
  
• Modules correctly show damage particle effect after reload
  
• Player now gets "properly" killed if dying inside a drillship hit by the eruption (player got stuck in strange spectator on death)
  
• Exploding drillship will kill the player if standing inside
  
• Closed modules no longer lower the repair speed (the armor of module was applied at repair as well)
  
• Objects do not pop on lower settings anymore (on low settings game objects would disappear too close to the player)
  
• COG drillships can now be claimed by placing Core upgrade to the Core on the wall
  
• Autosave should no longer save when the player is dead (it often happened autosave would override with the player already dead)
  
• Eruption effect no longer blocks after the 3rd eruption

• Optimized majority of drillship modules
  
• Optimized hull of the drillship
  
• Optimized visibility of underground objects such as caves and other structures

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

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