I think some tactical underground gameplay should benefit Volcanoids. It would be something like this:
Both player and cog ships move in the underground layers using various fuels.
Ships move significantly slower and accelerate/decelerate overtime using the WASD keys, the current mouse based terrain sensitive navigation should only work with an installed navigation module. Ships can only turn while moving.
Ships leave a trail behind until the next eruption allowing them to be followed. Ships moving on a trail get a speed boost to catch up with the enemy and breach the back of their ship and start fighting.
Ships have a sonar profile and a sonar range. You can only see ships that are closer than the sum of your sonar range and their sonar profile. The sonar profile depends on the size of the ship, the speed of the ship, type of fuel used, type of ship components(drill, core, etc.) and the number of active modules/devices.
Hard difficulty introduces oxygen management with compressor and oxygen tank modules(or filters).
Destroying a laser lowers temperature on the map around it and decreases eruption frequency, instead of removing enemy spawn.
New modules/components:
Back of the ship: various armour plates to slow down breaching, minelayer to fight pursuing ship, single use rocket booster to escape, high explosive cap to cause massive damage to breaching ship.
Various caterpillar tracks effecting speed, turn rate and sonar profile (speed, manoeuvre or stealth build ).
Sonar systems: standard and specialised(longer range but only detects ships with specific components or cargo), signal jammer, decoy launcher
furnaces for coal refining(peat,lignite,anthracite,hydrogenated,coal coke)

