1.6 Milestone Reached!

After 10 months of development, version 1.6 is finalized today. It completely reformed planetary terrain and generation algorithms, overhauled and expanded environmental effects, and added spreading fire and gas. This cycle also included creating 23 damage types for away-team weapons (and making monsters resistant or vulnerable to them), added grenades, gave your officers activated skills, and granted monsters lots of new powers too! It even made your away team members die one at a time (instead of all at once), and introduced "retribution strikes" when you turn against your allies. It even got its own Discord channel!

It was really REALLY *big*.

Now it's done. So let's talk about the final changes:





The final new feature was to expand the selection of officer uniforms from 14 to 79. Now your crew can dress for success (or piracy or casual adventure)...Create a team of color-coded scientists and soldiers, or a rag-tag mismatched group of people thrown together by fate or necessity. Or don't. Uniforms, like many things, are optional. (Disclaimer: They still have to *wear* uniforms, you just don't have to change them if you don't want to.) (Eww...)

Loading a save with the old uniforms will randomize your selection. Starting a new game will provide you with outfits unique to each ship class! There's also a new "closet" screen to more easily adorn them. And 3 new clothing-related achievements, as well as more Steam achievements.

There were also some visual adjustments and last-minute minor bug fixes, but this is it. It's ready!



Approaching Infinity will be on its biggest sale ever in celebration of this development milestone, and you'll have 10 days to take advantage of this deal. If you're not already part of the AI crew, join up today! (Like many Steam sales, it starts at 10am PST)



I will be streaming on Twitch, playing AI and talking with whoever shows up. I think that should be you, but maybe you're busy. I love to answer questions, reveal story and secrets, and you might enjoy seeing me either kick alien butt with my near-total game knowledge ;) Follow me to get notified!

I'd like to do 2 streams, one in the morning and one in the evening, and I'm in USA EST zone so make those time conversions if necessary.



Today is AI's anniversary: one year in Steam Early Access. When I started, I thought maybe 6 months would do it, but when I got such a huge positive response from players, I started working towards much larger goals: expanding Approaching Infinity to rival the complexity of some of the other massive real rogue-likes out there. There are now *years* of content additions and other upgrades planned!

The upcoming Version 1.7 will add a plethora of new experiences to the game: lot's of non-combat actions, role-playing, new quests, and deeper social interaction with the game-world. You can check out just *some* of what's planned here in the Starmap.


[h3]Thanks for all the feedback and support, I couldn't have made it without you, the Steam community!

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