Approaching Infinity News

What does 2 months of semi-secretive development get you?


All 20 starting ships now come with a unique background story and quest, further differentiating your experience based on early-game choices. The new game screen is updated with even more tooltips, and there are more quests you can find early in the game, just by exploring.


That's cool, but it's not really the big news item here...



That's the big announcement: A new faction. A new kind of location to explore. People you can have conversations with! And they're all intertwined:


Who are the "syndicate"? Have they taken over loot stockade planets? Are they coming after that shipwreck you're towing? Are they building a secret base somewhere? You'll have to find out!


(They look kinda friendly to me... I mean, they don't even have guns!)


This is the great new location you've been promised. And guess what? No monsters! And new stores the likes of which you've never seen:

• Data Broker
  
• Scrap Dealer
  
• Parts Junkie
  
• Gadgeteer
  
• Planetographer
  
• Virtual University
  
• Boutique
  
• Your Best Self
  

This is what's available right now, but that list is going to get a lot longer in the future. Eventually you'll be able to buy just about anything you can imagine. Asteroid bases introduce 6 new quests and 2 new devices, and there will be a lot more exciting new systems later on as well.

And one of the really cool things about asteroid bases is that you get to help in their construction... You decide what to build next!


Wait, this game is 9 years old and you're just introducing NPCs now?! NPC's have always been "implied" in Approaching Infinity. You can hail alien ships and take quests from their representatives, but you never just had conversations with them before. Now you can:



Now think about all the people and aliens (wait, aliens are people too, right?) you can meet in all the different places, and just how much potential this opens up! It's just getting started... And that's not the only mind-blowing change that's happening:



Pirate raiders have been firing on freighters for years, and sometimes your allies will aid you in a battle. But once again, that's not what I mean...

I'm talking about killer bunnies that swarm mercenaries, territorial wars between Limoquee agents and Vordalene security, slimes spitting acid at rock monsters... A whole new level of interaction between
forces in the game-world!

And that's exactly what I've done. All "monsters" have been given a category, such as predator, prey, silicon, or elemental (there are 17 kinds). And every monster now has a list of which types they attack. Finally you'll see resistance soldiers valiantly defending their ships from the floating eyes and zombies that infest them.





Expanding on the recent wave of "play how you want" changes (such as allowing achievements to be granted even with perma-death turned off!), I decided to add some new game modes as suggested by some Steam users:



If worrying about oxygen on away team missions is too much for you, turn it off! It's the future right? I'm sure they've solved that problem by now!

If you really like finding, using, and sharing daily codes, and you don't want to stress about which one to use, why not select "unlimited daily codes" for you next game? You still can't use the same code twice though...

And finally, if you don't care whether you're using a fire weapon against a fire monster, and you really want to do those 32 points of damage, you can now turn off resistances (and vulnerabilities)... so don't expect your hammer to be extra good at smashing bugs anymore...


I Added shortcut keys for "move to area transition". Hold the [ALT] key while on an away mission and you'll get a little menu in the upper left that tells you ALT+3 to go "down", ALT+4 to go "west" (those are based on using the numpad for movement, the game will automatically use whatever your movement keys are).

I should also call your attention to



THE GRAPPLER GUN! It's a mod for ballistic weapons that pulls monsters closer. But be warned: there may be unexpected consequences if the creature your try to reel in is too big...




[h3]Somehow there are only 3 months left of 2022, but that's less time than it took me to create all this amazing new content. Alchemy, custom crafting, fargates, and legendary weapons are all on the horizon, as well as further development of the syndicate's story, new asteroid base rooms, and meeting NPCs in new locations.[/h3]

Everything mentioned here is in the Beta branch for now (free and open to everyone, won't break your saves), but I'm hoping to move it to main shortly to introduce the Syndicate to everyone!

Keep in mind that if you have a problem with a syndicate quest in a current game, you can fly your ship on top of the asteroid base and enter the code "reset syndicate".

• I re-wrote the botanist's later interactions to make it play a little faster (took out a quest).
  
• Menger-mouth enzyme is also handled differently.
  
• You can actually use it to clear out rock-rooms.
  
• NPCs can now wander around their rooms, but it might not work with ones already generated.
  
• Starting the game with one of the alien-race ships (corsair, pugilist, observer, etc.) will change your starting reputations with other factions
  
• Some starting ships have new quests.
  
• The "race relations" tab now shows races/factions you haven't met yet as "(unknown)".
  
• I introduced 3 new asteroid base rooms:
  
• "Boutique" (uniform trader)
  
• "Virtual University" (XP for $$)
  
• "Planetographer" (gives survey quests)
  
• There will be fewer planets and shipwrecks in the early sectors.
  
• "Lose 'em in here" skill now works in radiation belts and ion storms, if you can go there safely.
  
• I altered away team status effects:
  
• Fire hurts you more than before, but goes out faster.
  
• Poison does less damage but lasts much longer.
  
• Energy damage decreases over time, and lasts about the same amount of time as it used to.
  
• Damaging status effects now show their duration on the away team tab.
  
• Ships can now hail you during combat, either telling you to surrender, or asking you to let them live!
  
• I added hails for all races regarding the new syndicate faction.
  
• Ships that are "about to blow up" (alien rescue missions) should now seem more dire...
  
• I moved the new "cheat modes" onto the new game screen, as a button at the bottom.

There are also a lot of other small fixes, changes, and additions, but these are the ones I want to tell you about.

Enjoy!

For anyone who has had an asteroid base spawn and you can't find anyone to talk to, try this:
On the sector map, put your ship over the asteroid base in sector 9, go to the options menu and enter the code "Syndicate Reset". The next time you land, it will re-generate the interior.


This version also includes the ability to start the game with various "cheat modes": infinite oxygen, unlimited daily codes, and no resistances. These are directly inspired by a discussion thread here on Steam that I can't seem to find right now...

Lots of reasons to check out the Beta branch right now!

This is only in the beta branch for now (which is open to all players), and it just scratches the surface of what's possible. In it, you will find:
[h3]

• A new faction: The Syndicate
• A new location: asteroid bases
• A new entity: NPCs
• A new interaction: branching conversations
• A new machine: the construction interface
• A new pickup: harvest rare plants
• 3 new space enemies (find them yourself)
  
• 5 new planet enemies (hope you don't find them...)
  

[/h3]
The asteroid base is currently located in sector 9.
You can use an existing save-game, but you'll understand more of the story if you start a new run and look for subtle (or in-your-face) changes to the universe.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

Approaching Infinity has been in Early Access on Steam for 2 years and it has changed my life!

And with your help, I've taken a game that was "complete" according to the original design, and used it as a framework for an increasingly-deep space exploration adventure.

[h3]Here is a partial list of features that have been added:[/h3]

• Alien race portraits
  
• Hailing ships
  
• Planet scans
  
• Elemental weapons
  
• Activated skills
  
• Starting quests
  
• Sprawling planets
  
• A new melee weapon
  
• Custom ships
  
• A UI-skin DLC
  
• Med pods
  
• Shipwreck stories
  
• Gadgets, stacks, and scrap
  
• Explosive decompression
  
• Grenades
  
• Lower decks
  
• Monsters with powers
  
• Floating texts
  
• Exploding tanks
  
• Planetary surveys
  
• Towing shipwrecks
  
• Invisible space mines
  
• Retribution strikes
  

I got tired of scrolling through all the Steam News items, so that's not everything, but as you can see, an abundance of new interactions. And those things are all new. It doesn't even touch on the existing systems that have been remodeled and improved, or the hundreds of quality-of-life upgrades.



If you haven't tried Approaching Infinity, now is a great time, because I'm offering

for this anniversary milestone.



But if you're waiting until it's out of early access, I'd like to offer you some perspective: I've been at it *constantly* for 2 years, and I estimate another 2 years to bring my vision to life. Players have used Steam and Discord to help shape the game, and the community interaction has VASTLY improved it.
[h3]Join us now![/h3]










And now really is the time, because I just released a limited-edition beta of the asteroid bases with NPCs, and that is going to CHANGE THE UNIVERSE!
https://youtu.be/azoe8Tv0hv4

• A new combat-free area
  
• 2 new factions
  
• NPCs with branching conversations
  
• 30+ new types of stores
  

This is *not* a DLC, it's ongoing development of the game. And there's more to come after that. Yep, it's big.