Gauss

A new melee weapon has been added. It zaps its facing tile for damage when activated. But when presented with a block attached to an enemy ship it safely detaches it without causing any damage. You can hit the jackpot by zapping an enemy core - causing it to drop all of its blocks!

I've put it early in the upgrade tree as it's very hard to use without taking a hit. But hit the right thing and you've just secured yourself a lot of blocks.