Greetings Fellow Dwarves!
We are excited to announce the first update of the year for Orebound. This update has a variety of changes ranging from new added content! New tiered shovels and felling axes with different capabilities, and fixes such as moving the build hammer out of the way when building. In addition we have a shiny new dwarf cannon!
If you’ve been playing for a while, we would appreciate leaving a review on Steam! All reviews are super beneficial for us planning and developing the game further!
The Dwarf Cannon!
Fed up of walking everywhere? At the risk of your own health, you can now launch yourself using the new dwarf cannon. Although, we would personally recommend building a net to reduce the amount of broken bones! Several explosives can be used to fuel the cannon, with larger explosives sending the dwarf further. You can also place a net to stop your fall damage!
New Tools!
After much consideration, we decided to give the shovel and felling axes an update in the form of new versions! Each tool will have different capabilities, making it worth working your way up to the electrum versions. These tools will be unlocked at different stages of the Tool Station.
Types of Shovel
Stone Shovel
Can remove basic surface ground and dirt, as well as level. The stone shovel cannot affect stone and cannot rotate.
Iron Shovel
Can remove basic and stone material, as well as add and level. The add and remove can be done as a rotational box. A pop up window will appear to tell you the commands on the right side of the screen.
Electrum shovel
Can do the same as the stone shovel. The shovel can also change the size of the area that can be removed, levelled or added to. This shovel also has double the range of the iron shovel.
New Visuals For Shovel
We have reworked the visuals for the shovel and also added the ability to flatten as well as raise and lower. 
Types of Felling Axe
Stone Axe
Stone axe will give 2 wood per hit on a tree
Iron Axe:
Iron axe will give 4 wood per hit on a tree
Electrum Axe:
Electrum axe will give 6 wood per hit on a tree
Walking On Belts & Item Pickups Off Belts!
This has been a heavily requested feature, and we’re excited to announce you can now walk on belts and pick up moving items directly from them! Alternatively, you can let the belts carry you away slowly by standing still, but what’s the fun in that? This will give players more ways to move about their base and makes grabbing specific items easier while they’re moving through the factory system. The photo below shows what this will look like in-game.
Independent Flow Rate For Items
More back end improvements to the factory! We’ve added a improved flow rate system for belts to easily define their speed and flow-rate as well as making them FPS independent. This now preps the game for better min/maxing over time independent of the computers FPS which will help greatly when we expand the game in 2026.
The full patch notes are as follows:
New Content:
The shovel has been split into three new types similar to the pickaxe, stone, iron and electrum. The shovels have different capabilities, detailed below:
Stone Shovel - Can remove basic surface ground and dirt, as well as level. The stone shovel cannot affect stone and cannot rotate.
Iron Shovel - Can remove basic and stone material, as well as add and level. The add and remove can be done as a rotational box. A pop up window will appear to tell you the commands on the right side of the screen.
Electrum shovel - Can do the same as the stone shovel. The shovel can also change the size of the area that can be removed, levelled or added to. This shovel also has double the range of the iron shovel.
Added stone, iron and electrum felling axes which will be unlockable at different stages of the Tool Station:
Stone axe will give 2 wood per hit on a tree
Iron axe will give 4 wood per hit on a tree
Electrum axe will give 6 wood per hit on a tree
Added a dwarf cannon that launches the player using explosives
Items that can be used in the cannon are Copper powder, Placed explosives, Barrel Bombs, Demo Charges and the Mountain Vaporiser. With the bigger explosives sending the dwarf further
Added Dwarf Net that negates any fall damage if the Dwarf lands on it
Added a Position Lock (Default Key U) to the ghost placer where it can lock the position of the ghost allowing players to move around them to check the exact location
Added the ability to pick moving items from belts
Changes/Fixes
The back end of the static buildings has been changed from an object system to an instance representation system. If the building doesn't do anything but just be there, it's now an instance representation.
Many orc camps and other POI buildings are now also this new instance representation system.
Loading up saved games, all buildings that are currently built, which should be instances, should switch over. This means you will see the immediate benefits of the new system which will increase performance by reducing draw calls on the GPU. This also comes with less replication over the network which means better performance for multiplayer and the CPU.
The tunnel algorithm has been changed to be more efficient by cutting up tunnel borders more efficiently. For our testing, we went from a 6 second additional game load up time, to about half a second. This also affects the voxel world recalibrating itself as it is edited and as you move around, making it more efficient.
The build hammer has been moved out of the way on the screen when building and should not block the view anymore.
Christmas decorations removed from the hub
All explosives are now items rather than buildings, and can be made in the tool station
Reduced Demo Charge costs
After dying, the player's Hunger is now hard set to 75 and fullness to 15
Replaced the Mining category with the Transport category in the build hammer
Removed the Explosives category in the Research Station and moved them to the Crafting Category
Improvements to the belt code to make vertical belts with different item spacing work well with regular belts
Players now will get moved slowly by belts when standing on them.
If you would like to suggest new features or meet like-minded dwarves, join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/rD6cXwgppk
As always, thank you for your continued support and we hope you enjoy playing the new update!