Volcanoids – Beginners Tips and Tricks

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!

Useful Tips and Tricks

All credit goes to RealOfficialTurf!

Sending Drillships Remotely

Hold down G (Call Drillship) for 3 seconds to send your drillship underground (if it’s on a landing site) or to a landing site nearest to you (if it’s in underground) without the manual work of flipping the lever inside it.

Useful if your drillship keeps getting attacked and doesn’t have a sufficient turret system to deal with them.

You can also bring the drillship to you this way, if you’re too far away from the drillship (or too lazy).

You can also send the drillship underground this way, away from the eruption. Just make sure you’re also safe from the eruption.

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 shows 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 explicitly mentioned in the quest, but I can assure you that you’ll be safe from the pyroclastic cloud there.

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

COG-Free Zones

In Tunnels 2 and Tunnels 3, there are landing zones that do not have numbers beside the name.

Examples:

  • The Little Den
  • Foxhole
  • Whispering Heat
  • The Pit

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

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

The number-less landing site are connected to an underground cavern that is not connected to any other landing sites. These underground caverns only have one landing site.

That way, you can land on these sites and rest assured these COGs won’t be able to bother your drillship in there. Even though you still see their marker through the wall, they’ll never come to you.

…just be mindful of the eruption timer, these place can still be flooded too.

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.

Drillship Upgrades

You can “skip” upgrades. There’s nothing stopping you from installing a titanium hull on a drillship with copper hull.

Really, you could save time this way.

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 you disassemble them with your wrench. They won’t spawn any COGs if placed on your drillship, but it’s still a nice thing to have…

Abandoned Mines

On each area of the island, there is always 1 coal mine, 1 common resource mine, and 1 rare resource mine.

And the resources varies between each area:

  • Area: 1
  • Common: Copper
  • Rare: Sulfur

  • Area: 2
  • Common: Iron
  • Rare: Crystal

  • Area: 3
  • Common: Titanium
  • Rare: Diamond

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.

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. Trash the production worktable.
  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.
  9. Go to 1st laser device with the new drill 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 3-5 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.
  16. Go to 2nd laser device with the new drill 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 3-5 for refinery. Research module T3 can be skipped.
  21. Get some titanium hull parts from destroying T4 COG drillships. Wrecked drillship spawns do not drop titanium hull parts.
  22. Make and install the titanium hull.
  23. Go to 2nd laser device with the new hull and destroy it.
  24. Go to tunnel 3 after unlocking it by destroying all 3 laser devices.
  25. Go to last laser device and destroy it.
  26. Win the game!

Hidden Achievements

Two secret achievements can be achieved from closing the captain room door and 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.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 13981 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

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