Hello everyone!

Engineers, we have arrived at the Major Update station. The game version has been updated to 14204. Please check out the detailed patch notes below.




Let's start with the most negative point noted by many players. After the last patch with mutations, the shark's stats were too strong relative to the player in the early stages. We have rebalanced and significantly nerfed it in terms of health and the damage it deals to the train.

Additionally, here are some simple tips for the early stages of the game, when you don’t have significant firepower on your side.

If you want to get rid of the shark for the entire cycle ahead, stop the train and get off. When the shark starts swimming toward you, deal maximum possible damage while it’s close. Then wait for it to swim toward you again. Prevent it from devouring fish in the Void to regain health and keep it away from mutagens or destroy them to prevent mutations. Furthermore, turrets also damage and repel the shark; they become available at a certain game stage.


Among these, 12 were suggested by players - huge thanks to the community for their contributions. The authors of the selected achievements are credited in the descriptions. Note that you won’t need to replay the game, as the achievements are not tied to the storyline.


Including additional features:

• The ability to move wagons without any cost (this applies to regular wagons, not the first one with the engine).
  
• The ability to move an already built engine without spending resources (this feature has been added to the engine's pin).
  
• The ability to move levers after construction without spending resources.

Added to the Game


The research table has been reworked - now it features a scientific creature that reacts to various research actions, making the process more interactive. Mechanics and UI have also changed. Now technologies are researched using points added to the research table through almost ANY items from the void or crafting. The more complex and rare the item, the more research points it provides. There’s no longer a need to search for a specific set of items for each research and spend that set twice on both technology and construction. The research UI now more clearly and transparently highlights the research available in the early stages.


In addition to regular items, you can use Red or Blue Samples obtained from loot at outposts, depots, and arenas. These samples provide a substantial number of points if you don’t want to spend your own resources. If you have already researched all possible technologies, you can recycle the samples into random resources using the Recycler.


Now the train can get dirty from various sources:

• Rofleemo has soiled itself.
  
• You took damage.
  
• The shark damaged the train or jellyfish harmed the player.

When the train accumulates too much dirt, your Rofleemo will receive a debuff, affecting their efficiency. Don’t worry, the system is balanced so that the NPC debuff occurs only when there is a significant amount of dirt. Additionally, all dirt sources have a cooldown, preventing your train from getting dirty too quickly.


Equipped in the weapon slot, the mop allows you to quickly clean the entire train. During cleaning, you collect pieces of trash that can be recycled into resources in the Recycler. If you prefer automation, you can build a Cleaner’s Station and assign a Rofleemo to gradually clean the train for you.


Instruments are equipped in the weapon slot. A new technology (research stage 8) allows you to craft instruments at the workbench: Djembe, Kazoo, Domra, and Concertina. Fill your train and the void with five compositions. You can play with your friends or with the Rofleemo, who magically have their own miniature versions of the instruments.


At outposts and on puzzle islands, you can now find resource clusters. Destroying these clusters grants you a set of items at once.


These resources have been completely removed from the game as they caused a balance issue due to their rarity and difficulty to obtain. The recipes that previously required them have also been adjusted.

• Lump of Zinc
  
• Lumps of Silicon (can be recycled in the Recycler into Silicon resources, which can be used to create a new item, Silicone, now part of various recipes).
  
• Inhibitor (a new drop item from depot, arena, and outpost loot, used in recipes).

You can now eat Rofleemo Salad, and it will deal damage to you. We won’t explain why, but players will likely figure out its use.


A tutorial for the research table and cleaning has been added and the crafting tutorial has been updated.


Volume settings have been added for Rofleemo and Loot Catcher, as well as for musical instruments (both player and Rofleemo).


There is now a separate setting for depth of field in the graphics settings.


A new mutation has been added to the existing list of shark mutations, which we didn't have time to implement in the last update. The shark now has a certain chance to grow a long tongue. Under specific conditions (if there are no walls or cover), it can occasionally pull the player from the train and deal damage.


General improvements and fixes to the AI logic of soldiers, along with reworking some of their old animations to new ones, and adding more variations in hit reactions. We have also added death animations that play with a certain сhance (meaning that now you can see both death animations and ragdoll in the game).

***

— Soldier VA and audio reactions. We’ve enhanced the soldiers' sound system to make them more lifelike. Now you can hear not only their updated reactions to damage but also their conversations with each other and other phrases in their own unique language.

— Visual loot attraction. This purely visual improvement adds smoothness to the process of collecting resources by hand. Now the items appear to fly into the character's hand, gradually shrinking in size.

— Bullet marks and soldier blood on surfaces. These visual enhancements have been added to the game.

— Weapons now take up less space in the inventory. Previously, weapons occupied 3x1 slots, now they occupy 2x1 slots.

— Weapon tier color is now displayed in the inventory.

— Rebalanced damage from status effects. All types of status effects are now balanced. Previously, the toxic status had an unaccounted advantage over the others and has been standardized. The base chance for status effects has also been increased. Additionally, the Flamethrower and Ice Storm have become more effective.

— Rebalanced vending machine prices and items — more interesting offers, including discounts and x2-x3 item variations for some positions (previously always x1).

— If an item provides fuel points or research points, this is now displayed in its description.

— Multiple sound balances in the game.

— Optimization of character blueprints and their references.



— The quest "Touch the Creature" (Arena quest) was skipped in certain situations, causing the player to enter a different location and blocking further progress. Now, if the player encounters this situation, the progress will not be blocked, and they can proceed and complete this quest in any other Arena, whether in the next cycle or a few cycles later.

— Too many soldiers were mistakenly spawning at outposts - fixed.

— A small number of crashes that occurred since the last update have been fixed.

— If the player approached a soldier AI from the side or behind while they were in cover, they would remain in cover - fixed.

— Shot collision didn't match the aim UI - specific improvements have been made.

— Enemy soldiers were shooting at the wall without any physical possibility of hitting the player - fixed.

— The installed game size has been reduced by ~3 gigabytes through file and archive project optimization.

***

We understand that you are eagerly awaiting the Second Chapter and we see how often you ask about its status. To give you a better understanding of the processes and the amount of work involved, here are a few words on the subject.

We are working on the Second Chapter every day, but unfortunately, the release date remains TBA. The Second Chapter is larger and more unique in terms of locations and content compared to the first, so it takes a significant amount of time to complete for our small team. This is especially true considering that we also release game updates every 2-3 months.

After the current update, our team will fully focus on working on the Second Chapter in the coming months and will only release hotfixes or minor improvements before the major Story update.

As soon as we have even an approximate release date for the Second Chapter, we will share it with you immediately.

Thank you for playing VoidTrain and for your feedback! Please don't forget to leave reviews or share any issues and questions through the Steam forum or our social media – it really helps us a lot.