Techtonica News

Now that v0.3 has been launched, it’s time for a roadmap update! We’re gonna dive in to chat about all the new updates and content coming to Techtonica, but first, the roadmap.



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First, let’s chat about the two new updates on the roadmap!

[h3]Super Sandbox[/h3]

This one is a big one, so let’s break down some of the featured items!

[h3]New Game Modes[/h3]

We’re adding 6 new game modes to Techtonica, including Sandbox Mode and Hardcore Mode. In Sandbox Mode, all handcrafting is free, meaning you can build the factory of your dreams without needing any resources at all.

In Hardcore Mode, everything is, well, harder. It’s like playing the Dark Souls of factory games. May god have mercy on your soul.

Oh, and we’re actually adding Big Head mode to Techtonica. April Fools, it’s real.

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[h3]New Game Maps[/h3]

We’re adding two new maps to Techtonica; the Mountain King Underhill map and the Faithless Void.

The Mountain King Underhill is a brand new, handcrafted map with massive underground caverns and spread out resources. There is no scanning for unlocks in this map - all tech is unlocked and just requires cores to achieve it.

The Faithless Void is a revamped version of the existing River Biome map you’ve all grown to love, with a few big differences. The biggest change? The lights are off.

We’ll dive deeper into the game modes and maps in a later post, but those are some of the highlights!

[h3]Settings Customization[/h3]

We’ve added just under 100 customizable settings to modify the game experience or make your own version of Techtonica including but not by any means limited to:

• Infinite Ore
  
• Ignore Encumbrance
  
• Free Crafting
  
• Machine Statistic Parameters
  
• MOLE Heat

Yes, you read that correctly. You can now turn off ore depletion for veins, meaning you’ll never have to move a mining drill again! There are millions of combinations of game settings, giving you a new experience every time you open Techtonica. Endless replayability? Check.

[h3]Opening Cutscene[/h3]

We’ve added a swanky new opening cutscene to Techtonica! We’ll let you figure out what it means…

[h3]Bug Fixes and additional optimization[/h3]

We’re chugging along with a whole slew of bug fixes and performance upgrades for v0.4.

[h3]Some other stuff for v0.4 that isn’t mentioned…[/h3]

We’re adding incinerator recipes to smelters and a new fuel type! Regular smelters will be able to incinerate Gravel and Quicklime into Carbon Powder. Blast Smelters will be able to incinerate all machines into Carbon Powder. And both can incinerate Carbon Powder into… less Carbon Powder. You asked, we delivered.

Biobrick Diesel is a new, supercharged fuel with an interesting automation loop. We’ll give ya more details on that soon!

[h3]Laser Games, what’s that?[/h3]

There will be games that involve lasers. We’ll let you speculate on what that means, for now hehe.

[h3]What happened to Take Flight?[/h3]

As we’ve said before, the roadmap is a living object subject to change. As we’ve chugged along through Early Access development of Techtonica, we’ve shifted some timelines for adding things to the game and made changes based on community feedback.

A lot of the items for Super Sandbox were tools being added for future updates, and we realized we could make those public for players to have! We’ve also had a lot of requests for a sandbox mode and wanted to honor that as well. Adding replayability to Techtonica is really important for existing fans and new ones.

The items in Take Flight haven’t been removed from development, either. We shifted that update further down the line as the schedule works better for internal development. So you’ll still be getting the same content (actually, more content), just in a different timeline!

That’s it for this week’s update! We’ll also be launching the Public Test Cave version of v0.4 soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Want to chat about all the upcoming changes? Join our Discord!

See you next week!

Groundbreakers!

As a part of Early Access, we wanted to give the Groundbreaker character model an overhaul. Watch the video below, you won't regret it.

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We're adding a new Big Head mode to Techtonica! For all of your bobblehead and ragdoll needs. It's actually really fun and hilarious to play in multiplayer.

We'll have more news on game modes shortly! See you... tomorrow?

Techtonica is officially 34% off here on Steam, which is our biggest discount ever. We've just launched v0.3 and there's a ton of new features to sink your teeth into.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1457320/Techtonica/

Grab the game, tell a friend, and experience 4-player co-op. Together, you’ll plan your factories, dig into the terrain, and argue over who has the best layout.

Let’s get to work!

Hey folks! Now you can get two great games, bundled, at a 10% discount on Steam.

We’ve partnered with the Pacific Drive team to bundle Techtonica and Pacific Drive.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39806/Techtonica_x_Pacific_Drive/

Own one of these games already? This is a Complete The Set bundle, so you’ll still get the discount if you buy the game you don’t already own through the bundle.

Ready to get to work?

That’s right, we’re opening up a Public Test Cave for all of you to test out new features and report bugs before official update launches, for those of you who have purchased the game on Steam.

These updates will have bugs and other wonky aspects, as these builds will be in progress work from our team. You’ll also get to try out new machines, new balancing, and a whole host of other brand spankin’ new features before we launch them.

Watch the video for a bunch of info on our new testing branch, or dig in below!

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[h3]Things to know about the PTC[/h3]

Want to chat about the Public Test Cave? We’ve created a new section on Discord just for you! Do not talk about features, narrative, and anything else you see in the Public Test Branch outside of the PTC channels. No one likes spoilers!

Your save files from the Public Test Cave will not work once you switch back to the main branch of Techtonica. Make sure you have backed up your main game before switching!

The features in our updates are accessible in all supported languages; however, due to these features not being finalized, they may not include translations of related in-game text. A 'TEMP' prefix or '???' indicates localized text that isn't yet fully available.

Your bugs and feedback may not be addressed in future updates. We only have so much time to work on development for new updates, so we won’t be able to fix ‘em all. Sometimes there may be reasons why we can’t implement your ideas that we like. Also, just because we don’t act on your report immediately doesn’t mean we haven’t seen it.

Features and balancing in the Public Test Cave also may not make it into the final update. We use our earlier builds for testing, so anything you see is subject to change™.

[h3]There Be Bugs Here[/h3]

As we said above, we’re opening up the Public Test Cave and bringing you an advanced in-development version of upcoming updates soon™. Which, obviously, is extremely cool and good. But with great power comes great responsibility, and with new updates comes new bugs.

So if you want to contribute to the fight against the insectoid menace, here’s a quick guide (Editor’s Note: this was written by Rob) to how you can report your bugs to us in a way that makes it most likely they will get the squashing they so richly deserve.



[h3]Public Test Cave Feature Upvote: That’s where it’s at![/h3]

The first and most obvious question may be: so where do I submit these bugs I’ve heard so much about? Well, good news! You can submit your bugs in the exact same place where you give us useful feedback and share your deepest, most desperate Techtonica wishes: on our new Feature Upvote page! This page will go live when we push the first PTC (Public Test Cave) build live, which will be very soon!

A couple tips for using Upvote in the way that is most likely to get our bug exterminator (it’s me, I’m the exterminator) (Note: we will now be calling Rob The Exterminator) to notice your bug:

• Please make sure to include the word “bug” in the title of your submission. Ideally, it would be the first word in your submission, even:

• If your bug is a crash or another critical issue that prevents you from playing at all, please be sure to include this in the title.
  
• Please report bugs ONLY through Feature Upvote. Don’t rely on Discord, since posts can too easily become lost there. We may send you to Discord from Feature Upvote so we can get your save file, but Feature Upvote is the place to begin your reports.

[h3]But first… a search quest![/h3]

Before reporting your bug, there’s an important step to take first: search Upvote to see if someone else has already reported it! This cuts down on duplicate reports and makes it much, much simpler for us to keep track of which problems are happening and how many people they impact.

Upvote has a search box at the top right: try some keywords related to your bug to see if it is already in the system.



If your bug has already been reported, there’s no need to report it again! In fact, doing so is counterproductive. The thing to do instead is upvote the existing report, and also add a comment if you have new information that isn’t included in the original post.



If you don’t see your bug anywhere in the database, then it’s time to file a report!

[h3]Anatomy of a bug[/h3]

It doesn’t take any special knowledge or technical background to write a useful report, and you also don’t need to write a novel (tough luck, Tolstoy) or a poem (so long, Shakespeare). Instead, if you just keep these key principles in mind, you’ll be filing useful bug reports in no time!
When in doubt, include detail

More information is usually better than less, and specific information is usually better than general or vague information. The more detail you’re able to give us about what happens, and when, the easier it will be for us to reproduce your bug in our dev environment.

Case in point, consider these different titles for a Filter Inserter bug:



“Filter Inserters are broken” - this isn’t a super useful report. It isn’t clear what the problem is, beyond that Filter Inserters are involved, somehow.

“BUG - Filter Inserters stop working on my save game” - OK, now we’re getting a little better. At least we know that the problem occurs when loading a save game, and doesn’t happen all the time. But we still don’t know much about what the problem is.

“BUG - Filter Inserters stop taking items off of conveyor belts when I load my 0.3 save game in 0.4PTC” - Now we’re talking! This title makes it much more obvious what isn’t working, and the circumstances under which it doesn’t work. It will also be easy for other people to find and Upvote if they are encountering a similar problem.

[h3]Remember the 3 “whats” [/h3]

The three most important pieces of information to include in your bug are the answers to these three questions, all of which helpfully start with the word “what”:

What were you doing when the bug happened?
What did you expect to happen?
What did the game do instead?

Again, you don’t have to write a novel (like Rob did for this post), or list every single thing you did before and after the bug, but using these three “whats” as your guide is an easy way to write a helpful bug description.

“I loaded my saved game from right before I finished the PT Victor tier 3 upgrade quest, and I put the last items into the terminal in order to upgrade it. Then I tried to click the upgrade button.” (What you did.)

“I expected the terminal to upgrade to tier 4.” (What you expected to happen.)

“But instead my game locked up. I could still hear game audio, but the screen didn’t change and the game didn’t respond to my controller.” (What the game did instead.)

[h3]Other useful information, if you’re feeling frisky
[/h3]
In addition to answering the three “whats”, here’s some other information which is often useful for us to know:

• How often does the bug happen? Every time you do the described action? Only some of the time? Once ever?
  
• Has this always happened when you are playing the current version? Did it happen on prior versions as well?
  
• Were you playing in single player or multiplayer? If multiplayer, were you the client or the host?
  
• If you reload a save or restart the game, does the bug go away?
  
• What are your region and language settings?
  
• Is there anything unique about your setup that seems like it might be important? (i.e. are you using a particular kind of controller, or running streaming software in the background, etc.)

[h3]A picture is worth a thousand words
[/h3]
If you’re able to include a screenshot of the bug in question, that is often a HUGE help. If you can draw on the screenshot with arrows or circles to show exactly what you’re concerned about, so much the better.
Thank you for being a friend

All the bug reports we get from our players are useful, and we do our best to investigate and reproduce each one. So thank you in advance for your reports, and, the more you’re able to follow the basic steps described above, the more likely it is that we’ll be able to squash your most-hated bugs.

[h3]So, when can we play on the PTC, and how do we get in?[/h3]

Soon™! Like, within the next month soon. We just wanted to get you the information before you dove into testing.

When the Public Test Cave goes live, you will access it by switching branches on Steam. Right click Techtonica in your library, then select the “Properties” tab which will bring up a new window. Next, click “Betas”, and under Beta Participation, select the Public Test Cave.

Want to join the PTC channels now? Head on over to our Discord for some memes, dreams, and machines.

We’ll see you in two weeks for some more Techtonica updates!