Techtonica News

That’s right! The M.O.L.E. can do more than just tunnel in a single dig size.

You might already know about Flatten Mode, an upgrade that makes the M.O.L.E. level the Calyxian terrain around you for flat factory floors. Today, we’re introducing the unique bit sizes that take the M.O.L.E. from useful to absurdly powerful.

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Let’s dig in!

[h3]Wait, what’s the M.O.L.E.?[/h3]

For the new Groundbreakers among us, there might be some lingering questions about what, exactly, the M.O.L.E. is. We’ll touch on that quickly.

Techtonica is a factory game with destructible terrain. You’ll need to dig out ore veins, hidden chests, buried facilities, and paths to massive, open caverns. You’ll also want to clear space in the terrain for your factories, of course!

You can use your pick to do some digging, but that doesn’t work on all materials and is rather slow. The M.O.L.E., then, is one of our terrain manipulation solutions (to be expanded through Early Access!).



The M.O.L.E. is a black hole gun that digs in a 5x5x5 cube with its default mode.

[h3]Massive M.O.L.E.’ing with upgradable bit sizes[/h3]

As you upgrade PTs and build and place Research Cores, you’ll slowly unlock additional M.O.L.E. bit sizes, and these are super useful for bigger or more precise digging.

Aside from the default 5x5 bit size, you’ll be able to unlock 5x9, 3x3, 9x9, and, eventually, the massive 12x12.

I took a quick GIF to give you a sense of the 12x12 bit’s scale.



[h3]Invest in Coolant![/h3]

The eagle-eyed Groundbreakers among us likely noticed that the M.O.L.E. overheated in a single shot with the 12x12 bit size in operation. My advice? Invest in Coolant. To get that, you’ll need Iron, Shiverthorn, Miners, Power, Planters, Threshers, and Assemblers.



You’ll need a factory. Are you ready to get to work?

With every update, we’re getting closer to the Early Access launch of Techtonica this summer.

Wanna chat with the devs, watch live streams, and learn more about the game before anyone else? Join our Discord!

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

In Techtonica, our intention is to give players the tools they need to automate virtually every process. From mining to terraforming, farming, and production, we want you to automate it all.

The tools to enable the automation of these systems will grow over the course of our Early Access journey, but we’re ready to reveal one final machine for our 0.1 launch this summer.

This is the Core Composer, and it automates Research Core placement.

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To understand why the Core Composer is essential, you’ll need to understand how Research Cores work.

[h3]How do Research Cores work?[/h3]

Techtonica features a Tech Tree that’s upgraded with three key methods: Production Terminal Upgrades, Scanning Artifacts, and Research Core placement.



Think of Research Cores, seen above, like points. These Cores come in different colors, and tech unlocks require increasing amounts of Cores. Some things may require 10 Cores to unlock, while others require hundreds. The power of the tech involved correlates to the placed Core cost.

You can manually place hundreds of Cores if that’s your jam, but we wanted to give you a tool to automate Core placement. That’s where the Core Composer comes in.



[h3]Automating Core production and placement with the Core Composer[/h3]

The Core Composer features eight ports on each of its four sides, sits on Power Floors, and automatically builds Cores fed via Belt and Inserters. Depending on how fast you feed it Cores, this massive machine can create a tower of research potential rapidly.

Here’s a timelapse to give you a sense of how it builds.



Once the Core Composer reaches a certain height, the five-by-five build pattern expands on all sides, and the Core Tower turns into a sort of Core Tree. The Cores themselves rotate, hum, and pulse, giving the Core Composer’s work a hypnotic, breathing vibe.

[h3]Designing Techtonica’s largest machine[/h3]

Designing and building the Core Composer meant establishing a massive machine for the world of Techtonica that offered an open top for Core placement. How, then, did the art team avoid a machine that essentially looked like a pizza box?



They started by looking at the design already established by items in the game’s universe like the Production Terminals. The rounded profiles and piped and lit exteriors make for a clean, almost mid-century vibe. The machine would be modular, too, allowing for more rapid production and implementation, much like our PTs.



The Core Composer is immediately readable from the sides and at a distance, and its open design allows for the Cores themselves to be the star of the show once they begin forming on its surface.

Thanks for reading this week’s update, Groundbreaker! We’ll be back next week with another batch of info as we march towards our Early Access release this summer.

Wanna talk Techtonica? Join our Discord!

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

Did you know that the Conveyor Belts and Power Floors in Techtonica have been purely placeholder for the last year or so?

It’s true. And it was something we wanted to address before we hit our Early Access launch this summer.



The differences between the old and new Conveyor Belts are subtle, but the Power Floors have received a major overhaul that helps with legibility and gives us the option to let players customize them in the future.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start by comparing the old models to the new ones.

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Dig in, Groundbreakers!

[h3]Compare and contrast[/h3]

Right, let’s start with the Belts. The differences between the old Belts and the new Belts are relatively minimal. First, the old belts.



We played around with many changes to these before finding a happy middle-ground between adding new stuff and retaining the visual clarity we'd already established. Here are some of the concepts we toyed with.



Now for the new Belts, and then I’ll get to the subtle changes.



Okay, the new Belts have more grime and grit without sacrificing visual clarity. You can still tell they are belts, and the chevrons on top signal their direction. We’ve also retained the flowing lights on the side to help spell out direction when you’re viewing them from a distance, too. If you’re looking closely, you’ll also see that belts now have rails along the side to better fit into the Techtonica universe.

Like I said, subtle changes.

The Power Floors, then, are way more apparent. Let’s start with the old ones once more.



You’ll immediately notice that they are dark and hard to read. They also don’t really match the materials available to the player during the beginning of the game. They look too futuristic when they should, instead, match the grittier feel of ANEXCAL’s aging outfit on Calyx.

How about the new ones?



Much, much better.

The old Power Floors signal that they are powered by adding hard-to-see blue-ish lights to the top. The new Power Floors add bright lights to their corners, and being able to tell when they are on or off is way, way easier. We also opened the sides so that players could see through them and maintain sightlines when the Floors rise to higher levels in more vertical builds.

[h3]Plus, we’ve done a bit of future-proofing[/h3]

When we were concepting the Power Floor updates, we wanted to ensure we were ready for eventual customization. Yes, some customization options will come to Techtonica. This won’t be ready at Early Access launch, but down the line, we’ll be giving folks the ability to paint floors, and the new designs make that possible.

Here are some art mock-ups to give you an idea of what I mean.



The tops are free from significant design elements to allow for eventual painting. Again, this won’t be with us at Early Access, but it’s coming soon™.

That’s it for this week’s update. We’ll be back next week with, potentially, a longer developer commentary video.

Techtonica launches into Early Access this summer. We’ll see you then!

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

We heard you loud and clear. Techtonica will support ultrawide displays.

Say goodbye to the black bars on the sides of your display that hang out as you’re sculpting the alien caverns of Calyx.

Say hello to fullscreen.



[h3]Ultrawide support will be available at Early Access Launch[/h3]

While the ultrawide community represents a relatively small slice of the massive Steam player base, it tends to be vocal and passionate about the enhanced display resolution. We get it. You want games to fit your setup; it makes sense.

The fact is several of our team members have ultrawide displays. They’ve wanted this for a long time, too.

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While we knew this request was out there, we weren’t sure when we’d tackle it. Building an Early Access game like Techtonica means shifting priorities and juggling feature requests. Whether it’s a design overhaul that rebalances in-game recipes or demand for a feature like UW support, we have to figure out how to dedicate our small team to build the game we want players to enjoy.

We listen to players, we read forum posts, we try our best to gauge what’s important, and we go from there. We also have to balance that action with building and testing the game itself. Sometimes, those two things are at odds with each other.



Ultrawide got reprioritized this spring, thanks to your feedback, and we’ve made sure that it’ll be ready for Early Access Launch this summer.

In addition to ultrawide resolutions, players will also be able to set their FOV. This is an oft-requested feature, too, for reasons including the prevention of motion sickness for some folks.

Did you hear? Our Discord was recently overhauled and now features weekly events like streams, Q&As, and more. Come hang out!

If you haven’t already, Wishlist Techtonica on Steam!

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

Greetings, Groundbreakers! We’re thrilled to share that we’ve officially narrowed the release window for Techtonica.

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[h3]Techtonica will launch into Early Access in Summer 2023.[/h3]



[h3]What are we working on right now?[/h3]

Now that we’ve narrowed our Early Access release window down to this summer, we’re only a few months away from getting Techtonica 0.1 in your hands.

The focus right now for the bulk of our small studio is on performance enhancements. We’re working to lower the minimum required specs as much as we can for Techtonica ahead of launch, and that includes adding behind-the-scenes tech like the occlusion culling we described in last week’s update.

While we’re essentially content locked for 0.1, there are a few surprises that we’re polishing up for our Early Access launch, too. We’ll save those for later, so stay tuned.



[h3]What’s coming after the 0.1 launch?[/h3]

The bulk of our tech team’s working on optimization for 0.1. But, we have artists and designers hard at work on what’s next. We’re not ready to reveal that quite yet, but we have plans to start showcasing what’s coming soon.

Techtonica’s Early Access launch comes first.

We have years of content planned for Techtonica. A lot can and will change over the course of development, so we’re not ready to share what we have planned for the far-off future.

The near-term stuff, though? We’ll publish a roadmap in the weeks ahead of Early Access launch that offers cursory details for what’s coming in the near future, such as milestone updates (0.2, 0.3, etc.).

Until then, thanks for reading, Groundbreakers. We can’t wait until your adventures below the surface of Calyx begin this summer.

Want to chat about the trailer and release window? Have questions for the devs? Join our discord.

Techtonica hits Early Access this summer.

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