Colony 37 v0.53

Hi everyone!

This is yet another small update, yet it contains some improvements that should help new players as well as bring some outdated features slightly up to date (just slightly). Just as usual, QOL improvements and bug fixes.

Quest Tracking improvements

• Reworked "Track Quest" behavior. The top-left panel is completely removed, and instead the player can see on-screen information with a point.

• Main quests are automatically being tracked upon receiving them (you can still untrack them by pressing the button).

• Added a button to switch between the "Stats panel" and "Quests panel" right in the player's inventory. Claiming quests still requires the user to get to a quest giver or a personal computer.

It was a needed change, considering how easy it was to skip that "track quest" button. Besides that, the top-left panel looked extremely out of place. Hopefully this should give new players clearer direction on what they are supposed to do at the start (and not just dig grass for 30 minutes). It is still a work in progress. I have yet to add another point for each quest that will lead players to the place where they can turn in the quest.

Building improvements

• Reworked "Block Placer" model. Now it displays what block you're going to place on a schematic.

• You can now preview a block's model before building it.

• Added rope. Allows vertical movement. Reach is limited to 5 blocks down.

• Added "Building" filter section in both shop and player stash (All of the building instruments are now only in that section).

• All building instruments have updated descriptions.

No more weird boxes for each instrument. Hooray! Seriously, it was way too easy to completely forget what you're about to build, and hopefully these preview models should give an additional idea of what you're going to construct and where.

New Detector

• New detector: "Röntgen detector". Allows detecting crates and valuables on screen. Can be bought at the vendor.

Apart from fixing and updating the old detector. I've added a late-game detector that should simplify finding those hidden crates. More detectors and support instruments will come in the future.

Other additions & balance changes

• New Item: Dash Module MK-1. Allows the wearer to dash. Can be bought at the vendor.

• New Item: Rusty Climbing Shoes. Allows the wearer to wall climb. Can be found in the upper level chests.

• Reworked "Sound detector". Changed the model and rewrote the code (now it should be a lot more stable).

• Added more "stats" to the "stats panel."

• Oxygen restoration in the hub changed from 10 per second to 15% of the maximum value per second (it will take 7 seconds to fully replenish oxygen no matter the maximum value).

• Players now flying at 80% of the original movement speed.

• "Simple Boots" cost changed from 15 to 5.

• "Rusty Sprinting Module" cost changed from 220 to 15. Energy drain increased from 3 to 6.

• "Advanced weapon alloy" perk flat damage bonus further decreased from 4 to 2 (24 damage at max level).

• "Rocket Boosters" perk's extra jumps per level decreased from 1 to 0.5. The maximum level is now 5.

• "Aggression Stimulant" perk base cost changed from 1 to 3.

• "Precision Improvement" perk base cost changed from 1 to 2.

• Fixed frost rocks having weird collision.

• Fixed Portable Extractor. Now it also counts the user's mercantile level.

• Fixed wrong transmission messages on lower biomes.

• Removed "Take damage to yourself" button.

• Minor visual improvements.

I'll be releasing another small update just like this in the near future. It is just really important to clean up messy things before I'm going to add completely new content. Otherwise, all of these half-finished things will pile up in one big mess that will be really problematic to fix. So... stay tuned because there are still so many things that I would love to add/improve.