Hi Miners! ⛏️

Masters of Oil, our first major roadmap update, is now live!

With Phase 1, Ore Factory Squad expands beyond traditional mining and into a brand-new industrial layer: oil extraction, fluid transport, petrochemical production, and fuel-based manufacturing.

Here’s what’s included in today’s update:

A forgotten desert town outside Redstone City is now open for business, and there is still plenty of oil waiting under the dirt.

• This new property takes you to an old desert settlement with an active oil extraction facility, an abandoned motel, and plenty of buried oil waiting underground.

• The land may look empty at first, but there are still active reserves beneath the surface. Turns out, empty desert plots can be surprisingly valuable.

• Be careful around old oil pipes left behind in the area. They may not be as harmless as they look.

Crude Oil has been added as a new underground resource, but finding it works a little differently than regular ores.

• Oil is found deep underground as a reserve that needs to be cleaned with the Jackhammer before extraction.

• The Ore Detector now includes a new Radar Mode, which works like a simple underground sonar to help you scan oil density beneath you.

• Once you reach the oil bed, clear the reserve, install the Pipe Head, and get ready for extraction.

Oil extraction introduces a completely new fluid-based workflow.

• The Oil Pipe Head acts as the surface unit for pulling oil from underground reserves.

• The new free-placement pipe system lets you extend pipes piece by piece from the surface unit all the way down to the reserve.

• The new Tanker Truck is used to collect Crude Oil from the extraction point and bring it back to the factory.

• Once connected, the motor starts running and Crude Oil slowly transfers into the tanker.

• Back at the factory, the new Oil Tank lets you store the Crude Oil for later processing.

Oil brings a new petrochemical production chain to your factory.

• The new petrochemical license unlocks the oil processing workflow.

• The Oil Refinery separates Crude Oil into Fuel and Bitumen.

• The Oil Processor turns oil-based materials into products such as Asphalt Mix, Lubricant, Rubber Sheet, Tire, and more.

• Some oil products connect back into older production trees, so your existing automation lines may become useful again.

Besides petrochemical licenses to unlock the oil production chain, several new upgrades have been added with Phase 1.

• A new Off-Site Mining Training tree has been added, allowing you to improve Miner crate capacity, efficiency, and oil extraction ability.

• A new factory size upgrade has been added, letting you expand the factory one more step with more building space and 4 new storage output sockets.

A new Warehouse Robot type has joined the factory, and moving building boxes should be much easier now.

• Merge Robot is a red Warehouse Robot focused entirely on keeping your storage cleaner. If multiple pallets inside a Pallet Drop Zone contain the same item, the Merge Robot moves items from the smaller stack into the larger one.

• Building boxes can now be placed on pallets, allowing you to stack and transport multiple building boxes at once instead of moving them one by one.

• Elevated Belt pieces now allow other belts to pass underneath them more consistently. This also allows robots to pass under Elevated Belts more easily.

• Several robot behavior improvements have been made to make automation smoother and more reliable.

Digging navigation has received a new helper UI.

• A new indicator now shows your compass direction and how deep you are underground while you are at a digsite. You can disable it from the settings as well.

• The Equipment Wheel has also been updated. Placeable digsite buildings are now grouped into a second radial menu after selection.

• Equipment Wheel behavior has been improved, including better tap and hold behavior for opening and closing the menu.

Two new languages have been added:

• Dutch

• Danish

• Added Inspect animations for the Shovel, Pickaxe, and Jackhammer. You can now inspect your trusty tools with the default I key on keyboard, or through the Inspect option in the emote menu.

• Added the ability to change the wallpaper on the computer, allowing you to customize your desktop background.

• Added a new update notification interface to the computer. When new content is added and you return to the game, it can briefly show what’s new and direct you to the related Info Book page.

• Increased the Level Cap to 12. New machines and licenses can now be unlocked through the new level range.

• Made broader balance changes across early-game and end-game progression, especially to better support the new oil production chain and the expanded level range.

• Rebalanced Off-Site Contracts, especially around higher-volume end-game resource flow, so later-stage contracts should feel more rewarding and better aligned with upgraded Miner Employees.

• Added UI elements showing whether a property has oil reserves and how much oil remains in the active property.

• Broken hazards, such as gas pipes in the Construction Site, now disappear after a while instead of staying suspended in the air.

• Fixed an issue where the player could fall after climbing the ladder in certain Vertical and Horizontal Mining Lift connection setups.

• Fixed an issue where resources were not spawning inside hidden caves in the Forest property.

• Fixed an issue where resources inside machines were not being saved correctly after save/load.

• Improved several UI interactions and descriptions for newly added Phase 1 systems.

• Improved localization across multiple languages and fixed several incorrect translations.

• Made small polish improvements across multiple gameplay systems introduced in recent updates.

• Improved save/load consistency for several gameplay systems.

• Added several performance improvements, especially for larger factories and later-stage saves.

• Fixed several other reported bugs and small inconsistencies based on community feedback.

Thank you again for all your support, feedback, and patience while we continue expanding Ore Factory Squad. We’re excited to hear what you think about the new systems. See you in the factory! 💙

• 💬 Feel free to join our Discord[discord.com] to follow development closely, share feedback, and be part of the community from the beginning or just say hi!

Hi Miners! ⛏️

Before we fully move into Phase 1 and start digging into oil extraction, we’re releasing one more QoL focused update.

We know many of you were also waiting for the patch notes for v1.0.8, which we released as a silent patch last week. Normally, our goal is to keep you informed with every update, but this follow-up patch took a little longer than expected and we wanted to cover both versions together in one post.

Including the changes from the previous version, here’s what’s new in this update:

Steam Cloud has been re-enabled.

• In update v1.0.8, we made a core change to how dig data is stored. Dig data is now packaged and saved in a safer way, which should make save files more stable against Steam Cloud sync issues.

• The Backup folder is no longer included in Cloud Save. This means if a cloud conflict ever gives you older save data, your local backup should still remain safe as long as you do not save over it.

If Steam ever asks you to choose between two conflicting saves, please make sure to select the newest and most up-to-date save file and If you receive a Steam Cloud sync warning on Steam, restarting the game should clear the issue.

Warehouse Robots can now be managed more clearly.

• You can now interact with a Warehouse Robot and choose whether it should prioritize moving products into storage or pulling items from storage for packaging and delivery.

• We also fixed several cases where robots could get stuck, and added a new option to cancel a robot’s current pallet-carrying task.

Elevated Belts are now more flexible.

• Elevated Belts now support more belt pieces on the raised section, including Merge Belts, Splitter Belts, and left/right turning belts.

• This should make elevated factory layouts much easier to build and connect properly.

Tutorial Skip function has been added.

• If you have previously completed the tutorial on a save file and then start a new game later, the game will now offer you an option to skip the tutorial.

• Added a wider and more varied selection of Off-Site Contracts.

• Rebalanced end-game Off-Site Contracts. Contracts involving end-game tier resources, such as Diamond, should now appear at a better and more balanced rate.

• Added a notification on the left side when a Miner Employee returns from an Off-Site Contract and is ready to work again.

• Removed the Coal requirement from Copper production.

• Added an undo button to Storage Output, allowing you to return to the previous selection.

• Sack generation now scales based on your backpack capacity.

• Improved the Excavator by increasing its digging area, reducing stuck issues, and allowing unlimited swing rotation.

• Excavator resources now go into the storage on the back of the Excavator instead of directly into the player’s backpack.

• Added ISO / SAE control scheme switching for the Excavator in the settings.

• Added Excavator joystick keybindings to the settings.

• Added sitting interactions for the Roulette table and office chairs.

• Miner Employees are now removed from the list immediately when fired, and they should also leave their vehicle properly.

• Reduced the hold duration required when selling buildings for all building types.

• Updated the Iron Ingot visual so it is easier to distinguish from other ingots.

• Fixed an issue where Splitter Belt filters could skip a specific item when other items were selected alongside it.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Pallet Dispenser to spawn pallets inside each other.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the offer button on properties to stay disabled.

• Fixed an issue where resources hit by an Excavator without a driver would go to the host player.

• Fixed an issue where placing a pallet on top of an item pile could cause items to get stuck under the pallet instead of being placed onto it correctly.

• Fixed an issue where the camera could get stuck if the player leveled up or progressed through a tutorial step while in the Character Customization screen.

• Fixed an issue where the UI could get stuck if the player leveled up or progressed through a tutorial step while the Pause Menu was open.

• Fixed several UI-related issues.

• Fixed various localization issues and some incorrect item descriptions.

Thank you again for all your support, feedback, and patience while we continue improving Ore Factory Squad. See you in the factory! 💙

• 💬 Feel free to join our Discord[discord.com] to report issues, share feedback, or follow development more closely.