Zerograve News

Fixed issue with Explosive Dodgeball achievement where it sometimes didn't get unlocked even if done correctly.

Added two arena levels with a scoring system. The levels are accessed from Mission Select -> Extra Levels.

Levels
- Arena: Factory: straightforward arena without gimmicks.
- Arena: Train Mine: arena with 4 deadly trains speeding through regularly.
- The levels have 40 waves, with 8 waves based on each of the 5 environments.

Scoring
Tech point from enemies is base score.
Bonuses: (these stack multiplicatively)
- Wave clear speed: up to +100% (falls gradually to 0% over 30 seconds)
- No damage taken: +20%
- Difficulty: normal +20%, hard +50%, insane +100%

Pickups
- Enemies will drop only ammo pickups (so the arena won't get filled with shield pickups floating in the air if you don't take damage)
- There are some shield pickups initially. Shield, ammo, and power-up pickups are also spawned after specific waves. 

Other
- Music changes after specific waves.


Added a sound and an additional UI effect when player gets locked on by enemy homing missiles.

Quick help section in pause menu updated.


Projectiles which ricochet from walls no longer disappear when hitting a door. Affects Chain Lightning weapon and Bouncer enemies.

Fixed bug where Mission Select menu allowed skipping missions in some case.

Beaming: Fixed issues where encounters could stop progressing.

Added Custom as new difficulty option. When selected, a menu window is opened which allows modifying 9 parameters, e.g.
- Player damage taken
- Enemy health
- Pickup drop rates and types from enemies
- Enemy weapon cooldowns
- Time speed (below 100% is slow-motion)

Added short descriptions for each difficulty in the Difficulty Select section of Mission Briefing.



New setting - UI Scale. Scales all UI elements. Has auto scaling by default and some options for more control.

New setting - Unlocked mouse cursor during gameplay: allow mouse cursor to move freely instead of being locked to screen center (usually not recommended though)

Settings menu button positions changed slightly

Added numbers to some sliders which didn't have them before



Changed Loading Screen visual to the one without tips when going to Mission Select or Main Menu.
Also slightly tweaked visuals for loading screens.

Game start intro
- Minor tweaks to the intro text.
- Unrevealed text is no longer shown as *** symbols
- Added some sounds and adjusted text appear sound.

Mission Select menu now uses the same music as Mission Briefing.



Gatling - damage reduced 8 -> 7 (it still has the best single-target ammo efficiency by far)

Missile Massacre - cost reduced 32 -> 30

Plasma Gun - bullet speed +25%, bullet hit radius +33%



Scrapbot (Hard+): reduced bullet cone angle



Entry:
- modified enemy placements.
- Changed hidden loot in red room.
- Modified blue and yellow key guide cables to be slightly simpler.
- Modified energy cables after blue door to be less in the way.
- Some other tweaks

Updeep: yellow key guide cable is now a bit simpler

Dronefactory (first tileset) changes
- Blue Room: floor material now has a bluish tint. Edges modified slightly, and edge glow color adjusted to be slightly more blue. Upper wall-side edge modified to have 1 rib instead of 2.
- Blue Corridor ceiling texture changed, wall color modified
- White area corridor materials/models added (was previously same as blue corridor)
- Red corridor ceiling texture changed
- Red room: floor is slightly brighter and ceiling slightly darker. Upper wall-side edge has 1 rib instead of 2.
- Green Room: edge non-glowy material changed, edges tweaked, new material for ceiling
- Green Corridor (new)
..plus misc other changes



Fixed bug where crates with red edges dropped ammo pickups.

Fixed small sound issue where player movement sound could play during load screens & such.

Fixed issue where Plasma Wheel weapon projectile didn't trigger the explosion correctly.

Fixed some cases where lockdown encounters could stop progressing if enemies were alive outside the arena. Last encounter in Preview had the most problems with this, but a few other encounters were also improved so the issue would be less likely to happen.

It's the end of Early Access.

Achievements: added 30 of them.

Upgrades: 4 new upgrades.

Other: Changes to levels, enemies, UI, sounds. A few new options.

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[h3]Changes[/h3]

Vertical: Removed one Laser Slicer near red key. Changed some enemies in red area and encounter (encounter now has a Homer and some Divebombs, instead of Laser Bruisers).

Glass: Minor enemy changes, updated blue area a bit and added more windows

Training: Moved blue key to other side of room

Descent: added a power-up to last encounter area

Lava Labyrinth: moved red door higher, making it safer to pass through. Changed a one-sided wall to basic hidden door.

Preview: Added a little space to the blue encounter area, minor other changes

Training, Redball, Explosive: Added some resource and tech
pickups
Explosive: hidden doors no longer require keys
Tech point pickups

Cryptic, Training: Added a couple of lockdown doors to paths which were accidentally left open during encounters.

Mainframe: Added some tech pickups. The entry path to boss area now stays closed after boss is defeated (so enemies from the start area can't attack player if they were skipped). Different music now plays after defeating boss. Also music changes to a low hum while systems are offline

[h3]Sandbox updates[/h3]
Added a large room with a group of enemies near its center, a couple of moving enemies and some respawning ammo pickups.

[h3]Mission briefing texts[/h3]
Added intro texts for levels which didn't have any: Freezer, Preview, Beaming

[h3]Props[/h3]
Key holder props are now colored to match their key. Also added some colored effects to them.

[h3]Secret doors[/h3]
New implementation for one-sided secret doors. Changed one regular hidden door to those secret doors in 2 levels.
Added a new type of tricky door to secret paths in 4 levels.


New aggro sound for: Divebomb, Homer, Laser Bruiser & Bigshot, Turrets

Increased volume of enemy death and aggro sounds

Lockdown doors now block enemy navigation, which may or may not have a small effect in some situations.

Homer: attack wind-up and launch visual effects adjusted.

Ice Destroyer: tech loot increased 75->90

Plasmadive: tech loot increased 5->10

Plasma Destroyer: now drops more resource pickups (similar to the amount from other Destroyers)

Bosses

Cybernoodle, Hot Hatter: health increased by about 9%

New aggro sounds for bosses

Updated encounter messages for some bosses

All boss names are now fully capitalized


Closed doors, windows and energy walls now block the map scan, so it is easier to see the paths you can actually use.

Chainsaw: Added crosshair which initially indicates the lock-on angle, and then angle for lock-down break. Maximum angle before lock-on breaks reduced from 30 to 20 degrees (note: lock-on angle is 10). Volume of the base channel sound up.

Chain Lightning: ammo cost increased 12->14

Assault Laser: hit sound changed

Nova Bomb: explosion volume and light up

Shield Leech: Gain 5 shield per 300 damage dealt

Ammo Leech: Gain 3 ammo per 300 damage dealt

Volatile Bots: Every enemy explodes when destroyed, causing 15 damage in a small area. (Player takes reduced damage from the explosions)

One-Hit Wonder: +30% fire rate for all weapons, +30% ammo gains, +30 max ammo, -99% max shields. Have fun.


Tech level max increased to 40. New rewards include the 4 added upgrades, also some late shield and ammo upgrades were split from 10 to 2x5. Several rewards were also moved to different levels.

Loadout customization and weapon switch are now disabled while at tech level 0. They become unlocked as an additional reward on reaching tech level 1 (so usually after completing the first mission)



Modified sound rolloff to be more sensible, basically effect sounds at range are louder. Increased max simultaneous sounds from 32 to 64 which should solve some sound issues (e.g. when firing Assault Laser and Gatling simultaneously)

Up volume of player damage taking sound. Bigger increase for lower damage amounts.

Increased velocity threshold for wall collision sound/effects, slightly reduced volume at lower velocity.


Added one more difficulty step called "Easy", placed between "Casual" and "Normal"

Casual is slightly easier than before, while Easy is more difficult than Casual was previously.

Hard/Insane: adjusted enemy attack delay after aggroing to be slightly closer to Normal difficulty.


Added option to show ammo as "shots left/current ammo" instead of "current ammo/ammo cost".

Added option to show ammo near crosshair as shots left instead of current ammo

Added option for framerate cap (values: 30/60/90/120/999)

Compass Orb option: changed to a 2-color wireframe ball, with blue/teal upper half and orange lower half. It is now also visible in the map display mode


Added 2 more save slots for a total of 4.


Added 30 achievements


Updated desktop shortcut icon

New menu slider and toggle visuals

Added sounds to some menu buttons which didn't have them yet.

New sounds to slider and toggle changes.

[h3]Main menu[/h3]
Background is now a map scanning view with scan pings starting from varying locations, instead of a generic scrolling space background.
New game button now starts new game immediately instead of through a difficulty select section. If save data exists, a confirmation box is now shown first to prevent accidentally overwriting current save slot data.

[h3]Mission select screen[/h3]
Visuals updated. Tech level and current tech points are now shown there, also added statistics for number of enemies killed and pickups looted.

[h3]Credits[/h3]
Credit texts updated a bit. Also changed end credits to have map scanning happening in background, similar to the new main menu.

[h3]New game intro[/h3]
Changed music and background visuals

Small changes to intro text and other


Fixed issue where Chainsaw channel sound continued playing if pause menu was activated while holding the fire button

Pickups from boxes now correctly play a sound if trying to loot them while at full resources. Also they can no longer be pushed around

Fixed minor visual glitch when starting new game.

Fixed minor issue where weapon switch sound played on new game start, level load and such

Fixed several key holder props which were placed the wrong way

Fixed a couple of frame drop issues

Overload: Fixed issue with Reactor enemy hitbox

Training: fixed frame drop issue with train spawning

(Initially released build: b134)

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V1.0.0 b135 sneaky bugfix: fixed issue where the new option to show ammo as [shots left/value] didn't work, and the toggle instead changed another setting.