Approaching Infinity News

Here is a list of changes available in the beta branch this week. It's free to join and doesn't break saves.

• You don't pick up medkits if you're at full health, or oxygen tanks if you have 90+% of your max oxygen.
  
• Black Ooze monster slowly destroys most items it touches.
• There is a warning on the warp screen that the warp point in sector 7 is blockaded.
• When a ship won't respond to your hail, it gives a floating text message, such as (...silence...) or Done talking.
  
• The eater devourer (ship) now takes several actions to completely destroy a planet. For instance a terran planet would first become barren, then molten, then dying, and then be destroyed.
  
• Flying next to a black hole can cause "time dilation", which will allow other ships around you to take additional moves (slows you waaay down).
  
• Further (but gently) slowed the spawning of code fragments
  
• Creatures in cells should be ignored for "monster vs. monster" attacks.
  
• Gave asteroid bases a music selection.
  
• Whitespace creatures shouldn't exist in our realm (and will be deleted if they do).
  
• Stationary ships should not spawn shipwrecks when destroyed.
  
• Banker monitors are always hostile
  
• The supply use of multi-fire weapons has been REDUCED.
  
• Big changes to end of the resistance quest line...
• If its a banker warehouse, you should always be allowed to dock, regardless of supplies.
  
• Created (yet another) check to ensure all areas of a shipwreck are connected
  
• Added "notes" to scans of planets and shipwrecks.
  
• Fixed a visual bug when entering a new sector and an alien hails you immediately, the map is only partially drawn. Shouldn't happen anymore.
  
• Stunned or tangled monsters shouldn't be able to dodge.
  
• I gave the Resistance destroyer its own unique starting quest.
• When you enter the warp screen and your drive is cooling down, the popup now gives you the option of closing it immediately.
  
• Bone piles are now dissipated when you move onto them. More will come from them in the future. (Archaeologically speaking)
  
• Created a new function intended to help if you go in a transit tube and end up outside the ship. It's never supposed to happen, so we'll see if this can be a solution. The only way to test it is for the bug to occurr...
  
• Added 2 new bad effects for artifacts and diseases
  
• "Comm jammer" power can now fail due to witnesses. Limoquee witnesses, as well as those of the same race as the one you're shooting, will always interfere. But if you kill a pirate and a gruff sees it, they're not going to tell anyone.
  
• When intelligent aliens tell you why they're on a shipwreck, they'll remind you with occasional floating text messages.
  
• Supply drops during hails are now actual supplies dropped in space
  
• You now get a pop-up warning when you would shoot or throw a grenade at a quest item.
  
• I fixed several bugs with artifacts (there were more than expected)
  
• Activate cheat modes in a game-in-progress:
• Oxygen always full: "O2 Problem Solved"
  
• Unlimited daily codes: "Cryptographer's Delight"
  
• No Resistances: "The Galactic Empire"
  
• You can press [TAB] in the commodities exchange to view the warp screen.

That's a lot for 1 week! [h3]Still much more to come...[/h3]

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!