This guide lists some tips and tricks that new players might have not known already.
 
 
Not all of the things that you might not know are listed here. This guide only lists one of the most common things players have not known yet. I noticed these things when playing out with other players. So to help them out, I made this guide!
 
 

When in doubt, follow the quest and press F1 on stuff.

The quest system has been created specifically to handhold the player throughout the game until the end. It’ll tell you what to do, what items are needed, whether the items are in your inventory or in other players’ inventory, where the items or drillships are located, and the absence of the items or drillships.
 
 
How convenient! Just shut off your brain and follow what the captain says!
 
 
Be grateful that you’ve spent 20 bucks for a quality game the developers have created an extensive quest system.
 
 
And if you don’t know how something works… just point your crosshair to an object and press F1.
 
 
 

Placing modules on the ceiling

Power plant modules and storage modules can be placed on the ceiling of the drillship. Modules placed on the ceiling are less prone to being shot down by COGs, because they usually aim for the wall modules first.
 
 
 

Alternate ways of surviving the eruption

Being underground in a drillship isn’t the only way to survive the eruption! Look for other ways you can hide from:
 

• Abandoned mines (These show up in maps, e.g. “Coal mines”, “Sulfur mines”, etc.)
• Blast shelters (Villages usually have one of these, look for the slanted door in one of the houses!)
• The submarine (Yes, that one submarine)

Abandoned mines and Blast shelters are not checked and the quest system will still warn you that you are not safe from the eruption even though you are inside one of them, but I can assure you that you will always be safe inside them.
 
 
Just don’t forget that your drillship also needs safety from the eruption.
 
 
 

Pickaxe is a melee weapon.

Use it. Smash these COGs. Save your precious bullets.
 
It even deals more damage than the standard revolver bullets.
 
 
 

Isolated underground caverns

In Tunnels 2 and Tunnels 3, there are landing zones that do not have numbers beside the name. There are 4 of them in the island:
 

• The Little Den
• Foxhole
• Whispering Heat (Tunnel 3)
• The Pit

Compare to the other sites that do have numbers beside the name, for example:
 

• Devil’s Stomach 1
• Volcano Hearts 5
• Magma Sanctuary 3
• Dragon’s Lair 2

The number-less landing site leads to an isolated underground cavern that does not lead to any other landing sites. These isolated underground caverns only have one landing site. That way, you can land on these sites and rest assured that the COGs won’t bother you in there. Even though you still see their marker through the wall, they won’t be able to come to you.
 
 
Unlike underground mines and bunkers, these isolated underground caverns are not safe from the volcano eruption, and they will still be flooded with lava during an eruption.
 
 
 

Picking up scraps and destroyed modules.

Press F (Interact) on scraps and destroyed modules to pick it up. It’s faster to pick them up than to smack them with the pickaxe.
 
 
 

Alternate ways to obtain parts and destroyed modules.

So, you want to get the new track/drill/hull parts but you don’t want to destroy a drillship?
 
 
If so, look at the underground. There exists so-called wrecked drillship spawns that seems to only serve as a place where parts and destroyed modules can spawn. That way, one can avoid wasting resources on destroying drillships.
 
 
 

Abandoned Mines

There are underground mines scattered around the island. These mines contain only one specific ore, some chests filled with random items, and some abandoned devices such as refinery and worktable. Despite the eruption not reaching inside the mines, the contents of the mine always refreshes after an eruption. The amounts of ores inside the mines are random and proportional to the “Deposit Richness” in the custom settings.
 
 
Like underground bunkers, players inside the underground mines are safe from eruption. The COGs also can’t find a path into inside the mines, and therefore the underground mines are safe from COGs.
 
 
Each area has exactly 3 underground mines, and their location and ore distributions do not differ from each playthrough. The ores of each mines of each areas are as follows:
 

Area	Coal Mine	Common Mine	Rare Mine
1	Coal	Copper	Sulfur
2	Coal	Iron	Crystal
3	Coal	Titanium	Diamond

There are 1-3 wooden chests inside each mine that you can loot from. On higher level areas, these chests can COG pickaxe, which is only craftable at the very late game. Obtaining the pickaxe early will speed up your mining process significantly.
 
 
Knowing that there exists a coal mine in each area, you can be assured that you need not return to the first area should you run out of coal. The worktable can also be used to craft another worktable to be placed inside your drillship, should you lose your worktables and your production station.
 
 
An advanced player could formulate a strategy to repeatedly extract all the ores from the same mine, since each mine always spawns the same resource every eruptions.
 
 
 

Optimal time to start going underground

What is the minimum time left to eruption your drillship can go down without being destroyed in the eruption?
 
 
Short answer: Pull the up/down lever at 30 seconds before eruption. This is the simplest answer that guarantees your safety at anytime and anywhere.
 
 
Long answer: The minimum time to go down depends on your track upgrades in the drillship, the amount of segments in your drillship, and the distance from the landing site to the eruption source.
 
 
1. The worse your track upgrades, the earlier your drillship need to head down before the eruption.
 
Better tracks make your drillship faster, which allows your drillship to sink faster into the ground.
 
 
2. The longer your drillship, the earlier your drillship need to head down before the eruption.
 
The furthest end segment of your drillship will have to take some time before it goes fully underground.
 
 
3. The closer your drillship is to the volcano (in the surface) or lava pools (in underground cavern), the earlier your drillship need to head down before the eruption.
 
 
On surface, you might be able to go down at the exact moment the eruption happens (0 seconds before eruption) without getting harmed. On underground caverns, going down in 20 seconds before eruption might result in some of your drillship segments to be be destroyed if not complete destruction.
 
 
 

How multiplayer works

The player makes a new game, sets the game to anything other than single player mode, and starts the game. Now, this player is called the “host”. Other players can now join the game.
 
 
Only the host can save the game, other players cannot invoke the host to save the game. Knowing this, the other players should notify the host to make sure they saved the game.
 
 
If the host disconnects, all the other players are disconnected. Unless the host made a save in preparation before the disconnect, all progress will be lost. Therefore, the host should save the game just in case their internet connection dropped or before quitting the game.
 
 
Other players should remember to sleep in the bed, to prevent their inventory getting lost. Refer to the section “Disconnecting from multiplayer” for more information about sleeping in bed.
 
 
Later, a host can continue their progress with the other players by simply loading the previous save. Now, other players can now join the game.
 
 
Depending on how the hosts and other players handled the situation before quitting, some of these cases may occur:
 
 
Case 1: The host saves the game, then quits, dropping the other players’ connection.
 
Result: The next time the host opens the game, the other players might have their items dropped in the floor, in the form of backpack. However, the game progress is not lost. The host could pick them and save the item, before it gets wiped, usually from the eruption. Then, the host could give back the items to the other players when they rejoined.
 
 
Case 2: The other players sleeps in the bed and quits, but the host did not save the game and instead simply quits.
 
Result: The game progress is lost, forever. If autosaves are enabled, the host can try to recover their progress from the last autosaves. Then, the result will be the same as case 1.
 
 
Case 3: The hosts sleeps in the bed and quits, dropping the other players connection.
 
Result: Since the host can’t save while in the bed. the results would be the same as case 2.
 
 
Case 4: The host saves the game, the other players sleeps in the bed and quits, and the host quits.
 
Result: Since the save was made before the other players slept in the bed, the results would be the same as case 1.
 
 
Case 5: The other player sleeps in the bed and quits, the host saves the game and quits.
 
Result: The next time the host opens the game, the other players will continue sleeping in the bed, until they rejoined the game. The game progress and the other players’ inventory are not lost.
 
 
Therefore, it’s important for the host to let the other players know that they’ll be disconnecting, and let the other players sleep in the bed, before saving the game and disconnecting.
 
 
Addendum: As of the update, the host are given an extra button in the bed to save and quit the game. The result would be the same as case 1, i.e. saving the game and dropping the other players’ connection.
 
 
 

Disconnecting from multiplayer

When someone disconnects from a multiplayer game, their character will linger around for 5 minutes before disappearing and dropping their backpack. If this happens, the character might do some “dancing” and other silly emotes. The player still can return to the game within this time limit and won’t lose their inventory this way.
 
 
Alternatively, you can disconnect safely while sleeping in your bed. Your character will stay in the bed until you join back. Unless the bed you’re sleeping is disassembled or destroyed.
 
 
It’s pointless for the host to also sleep and disconnect this way, because the host owns the save file. Even worse, the game won’t save! Instead, hosts should simply save the game before disconnecting.
 
 
 

Skipping upgrades

You can “skip” drillship upgrades. i.e. you can install a titanium hull on a drillship with copper hull. With this knowledge, one can simply not waste resources on upgrading hull, and only upgrade into titanium hull when it’s needed (to progress into the 3rd laser device).
 
 
 

Spawn tubes

You might not know this, but it’s the thing that are placed inside COG drillships for COGs to spawn on. These things have two dials, one indicating the progress of spawning one (in percentage), and the other indicating the cooldown timer (the “Cool” dial)
 
One example can be seen in the submarine, in the bunk bed room.
 
 
Unless you’re not bothered with the COGs trying to kill you while you’re destroying their ship, destroying them will be always your top priority.
 
 
NOTE: You can have spawn tubes in your inventory, if you happen to claim a drillship with spawn tubes still intact, and disassemble them with your wrench. It doesn’t spawn any COGs if placed inside your drillship, but it’s still a nice thing to have…
 
 
 

Progressing the game: TL;DR version

1. Make a drillship core 1.
 
2. Claim a drillship.
 
3. Make and install the production schematics T1.
 
4. Make and install the production module T1.
 
5. Make and place the production station. Use that from now on. The production worktable is no longer needed and may be disposed safely.
 
6. Do step 3-5 for refinery and research modules.
 
7. Get some hardened drill parts from wrecked drillship spawns or from destroying T2 COG drillships.
 
8. Make and install the hardened drill in order to drill through soft rocks.
 
9. Go to 1st laser device through the soft rocks and destroy it.
 
10. Go to area 2 for the materials required for next steps.
 
11. Make and install the production schematics T2.
 
12. Make and install the production module T2.
 
13. Do step 11-12 for refinery and research modules.
 
14. Get some corundum drill parts from wrecked drillship spawns or from destroying T3 COG drillships.
 
15. Make and install the corundum drill in order to drill through hard rocks.
 
16. Go to 2nd laser device through the hard rocks and destroy it.
 
17. Go to area 3 for the materials required for next steps.
 
18. Make and install the production schematics T3.
 
19. Make and install the production module T3.
 
20. Do step 18-19 for refinery. Research module T3 is not needed to complete the game.
 
21. Get titanium hull parts from destroying military T4 COG drillships. Wrecked military T4 drillship spawns do not drop titanium hull parts.
 
22. Make and install the titanium hull in order to drill through hot magma safely.
 
23. Go to 2nd laser device through the hot magma and destroy it.
 
24. Go to tunnel 3 after unlocking it by destroying all 3 laser devices.
 
25. Go to the last laser device and destroy it.
 
26. Win the game!
 
 
 

Hidden achievements

Two secret achievements can be achieved from:
 

• Closing the captain room door
• Closing the submarine door

 
 
 

The End!

Well, that’s it.
 
 
If you’ve already known some or most of these things, know that there are other players that might not know some or most of these things. There are no such thing as common sense, only learned sense!
 
 
Again, not all of the things that you might not know are listed here. Therefore, I implore you to go play the game and try to learn how things work. This guide only lists one of the most common things players have not known yet.
 
 
If you know what most people might not know that are not listed here, let me know in the comments section about what I’ve missed.
 
 

 
 
Hope you enjoy the Guide about Volcanoids – Useful Tips and Tricks for Volcanoids, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!