Approaching Infinity News

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!

[/h3]

Could this be the end for version 1.6? Is it finally time to move on to 1.7 and follow the Starmap?

You tell me.

You have a few days to find bugs, text overflows, whatever, before I finalize
Approaching Infinity: One Point Six.



August 5th will mark the one year anniversary of Approaching Infinity on Steam, and what a year it has been! Totally changed my life...

I want to thank everyone who got in early, all the folks who took the time to leave feedback, and anyone who gave it a thumbs up, shared it, made a video, whatever. THANKS!

What should we do to celebrate? I'm taking requests ;)

• Fixed some typos
  
• Put text in its place
  
• Settled on a new font (at least for now)
  
• Fixed more auto-explore bugs (asteroids and supplies, I'm looking at you!)
  
• Lead-Lined Suits works again!
  
• Fixed an out-of-bounds error with known effects, and allowed your list to go beyond page 4 (if you know more than 100!)
  
• Eliminated some text overflows.
  
• Tried to make sure that you don't warp into a sector, trapped in an asteroid belt.
  
• Added a sound when selling surveys.
  
• Added "how many of a device you have" in the pawn shop, if you have more than one.
  
• Fixed a bug where away team cargo was displayed on the warp screen.
  
• Added 9 new computer terminals (thanks David!)
  

That's mentioned in passing up there, but it's kind of a big deal. The text is a lot more readable now, more uniform, more reliable. I like it. A lot of you like it too. Maybe some day down the road we'll switch again, but for now, I think this is a huge improvement.

I don't often make 2 beta releases in one weekend anymore, but I think this is kind of a big deal...



That's what you'll get by downloading the latest beta. Another new font. But wait till you *see* it. It's got so much more sci-fi character :D




I've also fixed a few other out-of-bounds errors reported by the ever-vigilant Huntroid, and changed some misleading "monster attitudes". But seriously, just come look at the text!


Note: there are definitely some *spacing* errors, I know about most of these, I didn't want to make too many changes until I knew whether you were as taken by it as I am.


Let me know...

A beta test just for a font?

Yep.

There's a lot of text in the game, and I'd like to make sure it's all working properly. But more than that, I want it to be *readable*. The thing we have the most trouble with is daily codes (is that an eye or an ell or an exclamation?). I'd like to standardize the text.

So the game will look a bit different, but mostly the same. Please let me know what you think.



Mostly the same, unless you play with permadeath *off*. Then you'll probably realize that David remade ALL the interface elements in a nice bright blue (not just the big panel on the right). This is part of the work that I hinted at last week, and it paves the way for future UI expansions and differentiations.

Here are some other changes:

• Pressing Control+M will change how messages are displayed in the log (whether new messages appear at the top or the bottom)!
  
• Fixed
• another* bug with multi-fire weapons!
  
• Fixed EMP skill not affecting the right monsters. It's more useful now ;)
  
• You will now not pick up supplies on away missions if the ship is already full (save 'em for later!)
  
• Added some new cave floor-tile art.
  
• Added DPT (damage per turn) to ship weapons! It's listed in parentheses after the normal damage number.
  

If any of those things up there were your idea, well hey, thanks!


OK, so how can you get into the Beta branch? It's no secret, and it's not password-protected. Just go to
Steam Library > Manage > Properties > Betas > betafromnowon
This won't ruin your saves or anything, and it's just as easy to opt back out of if you want.

Enjoy, and after you've spent some time with the new font, tell me what you think, ok?

Thanks to a bug report here on Steam, I have fixed multi-fire ship weapons.
What? You didn't know that was a thing? Well...


Starting in sector 18, there's a small chance that any ship weapon spawned will be able to fire at all hostile targets in range :D It'll have a name like "Gatling Laser" or "Missile Battery" and you'll see that special effect in the tooltip. Just be careful: every shot uses supplies!

Other changes:

• Plasma-lancing someone is guaranteed to make them mad at you!
  
• Adjusted the price and "sector of first appearance" of many devices.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could start fires in space!
  
• Increased intimidate skill blast radius to 5 tiles (from 2), cooldown reduced, and monster flee time increased.
  
• Stopped the floors from being completely destroyed in star temples.
  
• Fixed a bug where asymptomatic diseases were being improperly displayed on the stats screen.
  

David is currently subtly altering the existing user interface, and in the process I'm laying the groundwork for further UI differentiation and improvement down the road.

This will include a rework of all existing UI elements, as long as a completely new set for the "non-perma-death" games (currently the right half has a different color, but in the future, I think all interface elements will match it.) These changes probably won't be earth-shaking, but they'll look nice! (I've seen a hint, and yes they do!)



No, I'm not launching a Kickstarter... I did one years ago.

I just wanted to use this space to thank all my KS Backers, once again. Approaching Infinity might not be here if it weren't for you. I'm saying this now because I've recently distributed Steam keys to all those who are still paying attention (and I found out that some of them had already bought the game, extra thanks for that).

I really look forward to hearing what you have to say, especially since you've seen the game develop from a tiny little alpha-version to the sprawling space adventure that it is now.

THANKS EVERYONE!

Bob


PS: The planned release date for the completion of version 1.6 is rapidly approaching... If you haven't yet, take a look at the roadmap (Starmap 1.7) for some of the exciting changes on the horizon.