Settlement Zero News

* A new Drone robot type had been added. Capable of both flying at altitude, and hovering close to ground level. More resilient than the other 3 robot types. It takes accumulative damage from all your weapons, unlike the patrolling spacecraft above that only take damage from charged up balls of plasma. It fires a series of high energy plasma pulses from 2 guns mounted on its wings so can inflict a considerable amount of damage. They are capable of getting to all areas on the surface of the settlement, so you need to think carefully about your location when they come for you.
* Changes to the Starship’s return route so that it now flies directly over the settlement on its return journey.
* Tweaks to game difficulty. An increase in your total health to compensate for the added challenge of surviving the Drones.
* The underground area accessible from the surface lifts has been extended.

* An underground area has been added consisting of a network of rooms and passages. This area can be accessed from lifts placed at several points on the surface.

* A new non-humanoid robot type has been added! They are smaller and a bit slower than the humanoid robots, but can fire small balls of plasma that can give you a fair amount of damage at close range. These can been found at various locations throughout the settlement.

*A torch upgrade for your raygun is now available as a pickup. Use same process to apply the upgrade as with the battery and crystal module upgrades, just pickup with your left hand and move it to your raygun. There is a button on the side for turning it on and off. It uses your raygun's energy so wont work when energy runs out. A dimly lit underground area is planned for a future update, so it will become much useful once that's completed.

* New raygun pulse weapon upgrade allowing your raygun to also fire balls of plasma. This requires a new resource in the form of Laser Crystal Modules. These wear with use and need regular replacement.
* Two modes of operation are available. Either firing as a continuous stream, or a single chargeable plasma ball of up to 4x strength, speed and cost. Each plasma ball fired uses up both energy and laser crystal resources.
* The 2 buttons on your raygun are now operational and allow you to selection either of these pulse weapon modes. A small screen with a magenta coloured bar on the side of the raygun displays the current state of the crystal module, and will also indicate when it needs replacing.
* Laser Crystal Module upgrades can be applied to your raygun by picking them up and moving them to your raygun. Replacement Raygun Crystal Modules can be found lying around the environment.
* Patrolling spacecraft can now be permanently disabled by hitting them with 3 plasma balls with at least a 50% charge-up. A plasma ball with less than 50% charge-up will just cause an immediate temporary retreat, so giving no accumulative damage (the same as if being hit by the standard laser, but immediate)

* Impact Grenades Added. These can be found scattered around the environment. Store/Retrieve grenades using the Left controller's Menu Button ( Y Button on the Rift).
* HUD has been updated to display the current number of grenades in your possession.

The grenades will explode immediately on impact with anything when thrown, but will not explode if shot with your laser. This means you can use your laser to ‘push’ grenades that are just out of your reach.