s&box

39 changes in this update

Caves: digging sometimes opens a tunnel in the wall to explore. They collapse when the next lap digs into them
Caves hold geode veins, glowing fungus, crystals and abandoned mineshafts
Fossils in caves, dug out and cashed in when you prestige
Prestige: start your plot over for skill points, spent on a permanent skill tree in the toolchest menu
An elevator: build it beside your warehouse, ride it or fill it to sell. Your vehicles unload into it too
Multiple plots: switch, start or leave plots at the computer in your warehouse
Shared plots: invite another player onto your plot to dig and earn together
Your progress is saved online to your Steam account, so you can play on any PC
25 achievements, listed from the pause menu and unlocked on your sbox.game profile
A Getting started tutorial that walks you from your first shovelful to your first prestige
A headlamp (F) for dark caves
An Options menu on the pause menu: sounds, particles, view distance, grass and trees
Digging and ladder sounds
Player name tags, and you can see other players' vehicles at work

New lighting: shade, the pit and caves are only as bright as the light that reaches them
Day and night look right: a real dusk, a starry night with a moon, and a ten times longer cycle
The warehouse has ceiling lamps, and its ceiling catches their light
Wall lanterns and lamp posts light the pit evenly and glow
Much better performance from grass and trees, and in caves and deep pits
Players use the human model with your s&box avatar's look
Upgrades show what they change and what the next level gives
The chunk you dig next glows on the ground itself, green to red as you dig
Things you can use outline when you look at them, and a dot shows where you aim
Diggers dig with a real shovel stroke
Your garage glows through walls, with a marker on screen when it's far away
Shorter reach for digging, so you have to get close
Selling a vehicle asks you to confirm

Stutters on deep holes and big caves when digging or buying upgrades
Width and depth upgrades redig the hole cleanly from the top instead of leaving rings and ledges
Vehicles no longer slide off the plot, freeze in the air, climb walls or get stuck at the dig front
Players no longer get launched, left behind or stranded when plots shift or a neighbour leaves
Other players' plots no longer show doubled or missing parts
Players joining now show up fully dressed
Geodes and fossils show correctly for other players, and every geode can be cracked
Ladders no longer get you stuck
Light no longer leaks through rock into walls or deep into caves, and deep pits are no longer black
Gaps and holes in cave and warehouse walls
Wheelbarrow upgrade levels 4, 5 and 7 now carry more than the level before

The Plots button in the garage menu (use the warehouse computer)

The Mining Crew Update 14 July 2026

19 changes in this update

Grass now grows across the surface around the pit, thinning out at the rim and staying clear of the spiral.
A day and night cycle now sweeps the sun across the sky, so the surface shifts through warm daylight, golden dusk and moonlit dark while you dig.
Warm lanterns now hang down the pit walls, lighting the descent so a deep hole glows against the dark instead of falling into flat black.
Fine dust now drifts through the inside of the pit, catching the lantern light like motes in a shaft.
A loading screen now covers startup instead of showing the world assembling itself.
Diggers are a new vehicle you can buy at the garage: instead of carrying ore they mine the pit themselves, digging a chunk and then hauling the spoil back to sell. Pair one with a wheelbarrow in a convoy and the digger keeps the wheelbarrow fed for a hands-off mining crew.
Convoys let you group vehicles that then drive as one: lay them out side by side on a grid, and their lengths and widths combine, they move at the slowest one's speed, and they head back to unload together.

Geodes now glow softly in their gem's colour, so they read as jewels set into the pit walls and catch the eye in a deep, dark shot.
Digging a chunk no longer stutters the game on big holes: the terrain rebuild runs in the background and the next chunk is prepared while you dig, so the ground updates the instant a chunk breaks.
Haulers now drive real two-way traffic: everyone keeps to their own side of the path, and a faster hauler overtakes a slower one whenever there is clear room alongside for the whole pass - the wider the path, the more can run abreast. A hauler now needs a path twice its width (a lane each way) before it heads out, so oncoming traffic always has a clear lane.
Vehicles can now be sold at the garage, freeing the bay to buy a different one in its place; each bay keeps its own price, so an early, cheaper bay stays cheaper to buy back into.
Wall ladders are now built from stacked copies of the ladder at natural size instead of a single mesh stretched over the whole wall, so the rungs stay evenly spaced however deep the hole gets.
Big pits now stay round: the terrain adds more segments per turn as the hole widens, so the outer rings curve smoothly instead of facetting into long straight chords. Small pits are unchanged.
Digging the wide outer rings of a big pit now breaks into smaller, more even bites instead of one oversized chunk per swing, so the dig pace stays steady from the rim in toward the centre.

Pit wall textures no longer stretch, smear into flat colour strips, or run backwards as the hole gets deeper: the walls now tile evenly the whole way down.
Pit walls no longer show sawtooth steps where an old, deeper dig meets the current one: those hand-offs now land exactly on mesh seams, so the walls run clean and continuous.
Returning players now spawn exactly where they left off: the saved position is applied after the world finishes loading, so the load-time resizing can no longer drag it out of place.
Vehicles no longer queue uselessly behind one parked at the dig front when there is room beside it: a digger or hauler now pulls into a free lane and works alongside instead of waiting its turn.
Vehicles now reload in the lane they were actually driving in, so a saved game restores them on their own side of the path (or mid-overtake) instead of dumping them all onto the centre line.

The Geode Update 12 July 2026

16 changes in this update

Geodes: seeded gem pockets embedded in the pit walls. Crack one (dig into it) before the spiral carves it out from under it, or it crumbles to dust for nothing. Gems don't auto-sell - sell them yourself at the register with F.
Hole Depth upgrade at the toolchest (key 4): each level makes every circle of the spiral dig deeper. Like Path Width, the pit re-digs from the top - you only pay for (and earn from) the newly deepened material. Depth is capped so the pit bottom stays walkable - widen the path to unlock more.
Fall impact: big drops now hurt - a bone-crack, a slower and less responsive few seconds, and a queasy camera sway that fades. No health lost.
Extra haulers: buy more wheelbarrows, each parked in its own garage bay with its own capacity and speed upgrades.
Ladders now run the full depth of the pit - every ring down to the bottom, not just the level you're digging.

Haulers take a much cleaner route now - out of the garage, alongside the warehouse, and straight down the spiral to the dig site.
The warehouse grows a new bay each time you buy a hauler.
Vehicle capacity/speed upgrade prices now scale with the vehicle's purchase price.
Prompts (load, sell, upgrade, buy) now open when you look at something, instead of just standing near it.
The toolchest and garage bays are now proper pop-up shop menus: press E to open one, then click the upgrades you want (number keys still work too).
The warehouse and haulers snap into place on load instead of sliding around.

Digging in a large, deep pit no longer causes a frame hitch on each breakthrough - the terrain's material-blend layers are rebuilt far more efficiently and no longer all on the same frame the chunk breaks.
No more lost materials on a nearly-full backpack: a dig whose yield wouldn't fully fit is blocked instead of silently dropping the extra. Exception: with an empty backpack you can always dig (only the overflow is lost).
Deep ladders no longer stick out of or sink into the pit walls.
Hauler capacity upgrades now show the correct capacity.
Multiple haulers queue up instead of piling into each other.

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