Captain's Diary #51: What’s coming in Update 4

Hi everyone, after a short break, Captain Marek reports for duty. This time with some highly anticipated news regarding our next major Update!

Patches

Before we dive into Update 4, I wanted to quickly mention that since our last Captain’s Diary we have released four large patches containing hundreds of fixes and many improvements. Here are the highlights:

• New powerful entity replace/upgrade/downgrade system (e.g. placing an entity over another one can perform upgrade/downgrade, or conveyors can be downgraded).

• Surfaces and decals can now be saved in blueprints and copy-pasted. Text decals can be placed by typing the desired text instead of placing them letter by letter.

• Added priorities for train stations within a group.

• Significant performance improvements (up to 20% more FPS) and fixed multiple memory leaks.

• Increased maximum number of products from 255 to 65k (great for mods).

Full patch notes are here:

• Patch notes for v0.7.6 (24th of June)

• Patch notes for v0.7.7 (13th of July)

• Patch notes for v0.7.8 (2nd of August)

• Patch notes for v0.7.9 (29th of August)

Update 4

Since Update 3 launched, we’ve been debating the best feature set for the next milestone. Something that meaningfully moves us toward 1.0, but that we can also deliver in a reasonable timeframe (less than 9 months) as we are trying to increase our updates frequency.

Bridges

One such feature is bridges, coming in Update 4! Bridges let you expand your factory and mining operations to islands and other hard-to-reach spots without dumping excessive amounts of land. Expansion gets easier, traversal gets cleaner, and best of all, you won’t block ship traffic when connecting islands.

Until now, the only way of connecting islands was to dump loads of rock to the ocean to make a land bridge.

A bridge prototype. Note that 3D models are still under construction.

We first considered simple straight spans, but quickly realized we’ll need turns to connect places that aren’t aligned to the grid’s cardinal directions. A simple 45° turn gets you pretty much anywhere with ease. Beyond straights and turns, bridges need ramps – starting low and climbing to leave enough clearance for ships. Bridge ramps will use the gentler 12% grade, which means 8 tiles of run for every 1 tile of rise.

Bridges don’t have to be straight, and they don’t have to be over the ocean either.

Building bridges will feel familiar to laying train tracks. Pick a start point, move the cursor to the destination, and we’ll auto-assemble the sequence of pieces to get you there.

A bridge is a modular surface: you choose what lanes go on the deck and in what order independently of the bridge itself. A small bridge will offer two lanes: road or track. Wider bridges will have more space. Road-only, train-only, or a hybrid bridge – it’s your call.

Bridge lane selection UI prototype. This example shows a 4-lane bridge.

Bridge construction

During the initial proposal, there were several design issues. Buildings are constructed by trucks delivering materials, but how do we deliver stuff to a bridge segment that’s in the middle of the ocean? Plus, if your bridge is heading toward an untouched island, the coastline will most likely be too rough to allow placement of a bridge exit until the terrain is flattened.

We considered auto-leveling of terrain under bridges, but in Captain of Industry, the EOU (Excavator Operators Union) strictly forbids any automated terrain adjustments that might endanger excavator operators' employment or benefits. So we had to think outside the box.

And then it hit us: what if trucks and excavators could simply drive on water? Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce another Update 4 feature: amphibious vehicles!

Amphibious vehicles

To make bridge building practical, Update 4 introduces amphibious excavators and trucks. These workhorses handle the same tasks as their land-based counterparts, but they operate both on land and on open water.

Flooding abandoned mines to create new waterfronts for pumping, disposal, or docks is now a viable strategy!

Amphibious vehicles are useful far beyond bridge projects. They unlock a lot of new possibilities: amphibious excavators can mine the ocean floor and shape coastlines, making them perfect for gathering sand at beaches or carving new ship-ready canals. Amphibious trucks can dump cargo anywhere at sea, so artificial islands become a real option.

Finally, you create an artificial island and isolate yourself from the peasants.

Amphibious vehicles can also cut delivery times by taking smart shortcuts across the water while hauling goods around your map. Although let’s note that amphibious vehicles are slower than their ground-based counterparts.

Work doesn't stop even when the sea is rough. EOU note: The union will provide seasickness pills to amphibious operators. Side effects may include bravery, mild swagger, and believing your excavator can crab-walk.

To integrate amphibious vehicles into the game, we extended and improved the logistics system. By default, amphibious trucks will only take on assigned jobs or tasks that regular trucks cannot reach. We also added vehicle filters to storage units and logistics zones for precise control. As a bonus, you can now specify that certain storages should, or should not, be serviced by specific vehicle types, such as haul trucks.

If a storage should only be accessed by certain vehicles, you can now configure this in the new vehicles filter UI.

Ship pathfinding

One area that needs love is the world map. It’s probably the least-polished part of the game, and we have a ton of ideas for improving it. But there is one huge blocker. Currently, ships don’t have any path-finding; they have fixed trajectories based on the position of their dock, which is quite limiting and also quite confusing (due to the overlap of three possible trajectories).

The old way of placing docks. The three predefined ways of ship approach are all blocked so the dock cannot be constructed. Also, new players often did not understand what the areas mean.

We actually started working on ship path-finding during our work on Update 3; that’s when we realized how massive undertaking it is. We had to put it on hold, but with Update 4, we realized that without ship path-finding, there won’t be any bridges, unless we want ships to drive through them. So it was set, we had to finish it. It took a lot of effort, especially as ships have docking / undocking procedures and need to drive beyond the map edge. But we got there!

Ships leaving a bay for the open ocean. You are looking at the map called Armageddon and this lake used to be the crater in the middle of the map (save from JD Plays).

This means that docks can be built in many more places, including bays or artificial canals, as long as they have access to the ocean.

The new way of placing docks. Only the area directly in front of the dock needs to be open ocean, and the rest is left for pathfinding ships. If they cannot find a path to their assigned dock, they will notify you.

Given the lack of path-finding, all the logic in ships was scripted and controlled by hard-coded states, meaning they lacked the autonomy of vehicles. If we ever want to recover them, assign them, have them show before having a dock built, we need them to be more autonomous. That led to another significant rewrite, but now ships are much more extendable and we have something to build on.

The good stuff is that we managed to make this all save-compatible. We migrate the old ship into the new entities with the new behaviors and capabilities when we load the game from pre-Update 4. The only difference is that all ships will appear at their docks, no matter where they are. But that's a small price to pay for fully backwards compatible Update 4.

Tier 2 trains

Update 4 will also introduce tier 2 trains! They are twice as long, more powerful, faster, and tier 2 wagons can carry 4x more! And the best thing is that tier 1 train stations will remain fully compatible with tier 2 trains, so you don’t need to update your train infrastructure. With faster trains, you may want to start looking into eliminating tight turns from train tracks, though!

Tier 2 diesel locomotives pulling some serious cargo.

Tier 2 hydrogen locomotive with new fluid wagons.

In future updates (not Update 4 yet), we might be removing the current steep slopes for train tracks and vehicles to provide better immersion. We were, to some degree, forced by our current terrain designations into the steep angle; otherwise, train tracks wouldn’t be easy to place on terrain ramps.

Trains DLC

With Update 4 we plan to release a trains-themed DLC. As we shared in our last Captain’s Diary, we want to offer more depth for players who live and breathe Captain of Industry. Many of you love building extensive rail networks so we thought you might enjoy a few extra toys to play with.

Why make this a DLC?

1) Fit and focus

Captain of Industry is not primarily about trains. The current set of trains in the base game is balanced and does the job well. A train-centric DLC keeps the base experience focused while giving rail enthusiasts the option to go deeper.

2) Sustainability and growth

We want to grow the team, accelerate development, and push the game to its full potential. Free updates are great, but they do not add much financial room. Optional paid content lets us reinvest in the game so future updates can be bigger and better for everyone.

For us, Captain of Industry is still an Early Access title, and this remains unchanged, as we will continue to deliver major free updates just as we have so far.

Enough about the why. What’s inside?

The exact content is still being decided, but our current plan includes:

1) Electric trains and tracks

As in the real world, electric trains offer cheaper and faster operation at the expense of infrastructure costs. Electric trains don’t need to refuel as they use power from the grid directly, but that also means when power is down, electric trains will stop as well.

Electric train tracks have a higher construction cost and require one extra tile of clearance due to the electric wires. We’ve also made a track electrification tool to assist with mass upgrades of train networks.

Train track electrification.

One notable issue with electrification was level crossings that were suddenly not passable by medium or large vehicles due to the overhead wires. We’ve developed hi-tech crossings that have retractable wires so that vehicles of any height are free to pass (looking at you, mega excavator, with minimal height clearance of 14 meters).

2) Five new locomotives

Electric tier 1 and 2, turbine (fuel gas), fireless-steam (high-pressure steam), and nuclear (spicy!). Each new locomotive utilizes a different fuel type and performance characteristics for you to experiment with. Many of the 3D models are still in works so we will update you once they are all done.

3) Molten train logistics

Transporting molten materials long distances is usually not needed. However, if you really want to do it, a new specialized “torpedo” wagon together with a station for molten materials will allow you to do just that. It is a niche, and that is the point.

By the way, have you ever heard stories of how incredibly tough it is to clean a concrete mixing truck that had its concrete solidified inside? Now imagine the same thing but with molten steel… You may be relieved by the fact that we don’t simulate molten materials temperature in-game (for now).

We may keep adding specialty train content to this DLC after release, so tell us what you want to see next!

When?

We are targeting a quicker turnaround than the previous update. Our best estimate for Update 4 release is the first half of Q1 2026, and we will keep you posted as we lock it in.

Hiring

We are also hiring across the board – coding, 2D/3D graphics, and sound design. If you are interested in working on CoI, take a look at our open positions on our website. Alternatively, if you know someone who might be a good fit, please let them know. Thanks!

That’s all for today. Let us know what you think, and see you around! Captain Marek out.