Approaching Infinity News

Sunday update: Steam Cloud Saves Are on!



The number of alien art items that can be found in Approaching Infinity has more than doubled, including a brand new series of detailed abstract doodles from player Cameron, like this:




You can see more of his work here. Thanks for getting in touch!

• The number of crafting parts bought from stations has been raised to 10 per purchase.
  
• Daily codes found in-game are now copied directly to your clipboard for easy pasting.
  
• Daily codes also get a second printing in a larger, more readable font.
  
• Crew-related aspects of the UI have been modified due to recent changes. They look better.
  
• Damage to your ship's hull can now kill crew members!
  
• To take the 2nd level of a skill, an officer must already be level 4.

That's right: you can't max out the most powerful skills as early in the game. I've always felt it was very exploitable (and actually narrowed player choice) when a particular skill was just too good...

So now you have to wait a bit.


But hey, look:



Cloaking devices have been split into two types, certain aliens de-cloak you at different ranges, and you get tool-tips about it too!

Tactical Cloak

• Short duration (6-20 turns)
  
• Short cool-down
  
• One-time supply cost (~125)
  

Strategic Cloak

• Long (indefinite) duration
  
• Long cool-down (~100 turns)
  
• Per-turn supply cost (2-5)
  

Some hostile aliens can de-cloak you within a certain range. Usually, the more powerful the ship, the longer range. Tool-tipping the ship while cloaked will tell you the range. If it doesn't mention it, then they can't see you!


...AND...




This started from a fun little graphic David provided me with a few months ago, and player's frequent calls for more rescue codes.





So now, on some shipwrecks, you'll find a space-age slot machine. If you've got the money, you can take your chances and get random prizes such as...

• Boxes of boxes (or any of the other trade commodities)
  
• A new weapon, grenade, or space suit
  
• Credits
  
• Crafting parts
  
• New Uniforms
  
• RESCUE CODES!

That's right. Now you can find rescue codes in the game, and share them with your friends (or the entire community).


Thanks to everyone who helped beta test these new additions, you found a few things I had no idea about :)


Like someone last time who found an earthquake on a shipwreck ;)

Whoah, it's January!

Time for me to get back to work... and you too!

There are some new features that need to be beta tested, so if you've got some time this week, opt into the "betafromnowon" branch and check out some of these things:

• The number of crafting parts bought from stations has been raised to 10 per purchase.
  
• Daily codes found in-game are now copied directly to your clipboard for easy pasting.
  
• Daily codes also get a second printing in a larger, more readable font.
  
• Crew-related aspects of the UI have been modified due to recent changes. They look better.
  
• The number of alien art items has more than doubled (more about this on Friday)
  
• Damage to your ship's hull can now kill crew members!
  

But what really needs to be tested is...



Cloaking devices have been split into two types, certain aliens de-cloak you at different ranges, and you get tool-tips about it too!

Tactical Cloak

• Short duration (6-20 turns)
  
• Short cool-down
  
• One-time supply cost (~125)
  

Strategic Cloak

• Long (indefinite) duration
  
• Long cool-down (~100 turns)
  
• Per-turn supply cost (2-5)
  

Some hostile aliens can de-cloak you within a certain range. Usually, the more powerful the ship, the longer range. Tool-tipping the ship while cloaked will tell you the range. If it doesn't mention it, then they can't see you!


...AND...




This started from a fun little graphic David provided me with a few months ago, and player's frequent calls for more rescue codes.





So now, on some shipwrecks, you'll find a space-age slot machine. If you've got the money, you can take your chances and get random prizes such as...

• Boxes of boxes (or any of the other trade commodities)
  
• A new weapon, grenade, or space suit
  
• Credits
  
• Crafting parts
  
• New Uniforms
  
• RESCUE CODES!
  

That's right. Now you can find rescue codes in the game, and share them with your friends (or the community).


So do us both a favor and join the beta (it's super easy) and send me some

I said I wanted to do one more update before 2020 was over, and it's actually a pretty big one! The last version letter was 'e', so next it's the perfect letter to sum up the year:





A near-universally shared sentiment we'd all like to express regarding this pandemic / recession / political / rioting year. So I'd like to close it out with another awesome feature update. Here's what you can expect:



How many times were phasers used to dig or burn or otherwise mess with the environment? Plenty! Why can't I do that in Approaching Infinity?!

Now you can!



Previously, you could only affect the environment when there was a monster to shoot. No more! Now you can spend all day shooting a tree or a rock or the broad side of a shipwreck if you want.

You'll still need a weapon that has some kind of special power, like cryo, explosive, of incendiary. Launchers will always have a chance to alter the scenery, regardless of what type it is. They're just that powerful.

And speaking of launchers: you will now take proximity damage from all types of launchers if you fire them at point blank range. Stop shooting yourself! :P

Anyway, you can now shoot anywhere within range and line-of-sight, either by left clicking (once to select the target, and again to actually fire), or using the "Peer/Look" command, which now has the additional shortcut [CTRL]+[F], then pressing [F] again to fire.

Try it!





When planet scanning was introduced, suddenly there was a wealth of information to be gathered and acted upon. Many of the planet's stats have effects on gameplay: fires spread faster on planets with high atmospheric oxygen, and sonic weapons don't work without enough atmospheric pressure, things like that.

But one readout was mostly for show: tectonics.



Uh oh...

Yep, now you have to look out for planet-quakes! Any planet where the scan shows "frequent" or "constant" tectonics will sometimes have ground-shaking ripples propagate across their surfaces. These disturbances don't last too long, but they can hurt you if you get too close (they also hurt monsters and your shuttle!), and they can leave a mess.

The deeper you go into caves, the worse they get :)





As a first step towards introducing multiple UIs for the game (another request from David the artist), and in response to a thread here on Steam...

We are experimenting with having a different user interface for non-perma-death games. It's gold, and it's just the right side of the screen so far. Perma-death games will not see any change.

But maybe in the future, we can have UI choices based on accomplishments...

• Fixed: a display bug that always said "unexplored". (thanks Huntroid!)
  
• Fixed: Narcratu ships will never surrender!
• Changed: All grenades now have some chance of destroying cave-in traps.
  
• Changed: Launchers hurt you at point-blank range (don't forget!)
  
• Changed: Flying monsters are immune to certain ground-based effects.
  
• Changed: You get even
• more* oxygen with every space suit!
  
• Added: There are 4 new kinds of custom cursor available.
  

That's It, go celebrate, stay safe, have fun!

Greetings! I've taken the past 3 days off for Christmas, but I'm back to work a day early.

I woke up to a message from a player who was having trouble with keyboard input: It was way too fast! This is rare, but it does happen. I could slow it down for everyone, but that's not fair to a lot of people. So I made it an option.

And since the options menu already needed some work, I decided to tackle the whole thing. It looks pretty similar, but along with a few additions, you should notice some much-needed visual feedback.



It now tells you what the current setting is for anything that has settings.



Auto-Scan Planets
This new option allows you to automatically scan un-scanned planets the first time you move over them, or all planets every time you go there, or not at all. It's a convenience feature.

Key Repeat
This is the input speed control. It affects how long you have to hold a movement key down before it starts to repeat. From very slow to very fast, you should be able to find a speed that suits your system. If it doesn't get slow enough (or fast enough) let me know ;)

Text Animation
This feature is there for those who just want the information and are tired of waiting even a second for it. If you turn this off, then all scans and hails will immediately show the final full-text state, with no waiting.


That's it for now, but I might still have one more update in me before the year is over... and keep those map editor submissions coming, I like what I'm seeing!

A few months ago, I asked David (Gervais, AI's artist) for some "new dirt tiles", and he ended up giving me over 300 beautiful new terrain images that eventually set in motion a complete remodel of planet surfaces.

Last week, he asked me if there was a level editor so he could "make some ships". I said there wasn't, but I'd make him one. I did...so...

[h3]You get a level editor, and you get a level editor, and you get a level editor, and YOU GET A LEVEL EDITOR![/h3]

Approaching Infinity 1.6e3 comes with a built-in level editor where you can design not only shipwrecks, but also caves, planets, and sectors!






What David made opens up some very interesting...







What do these ships (shapes) remind you of?



Could it be...



The playable ships?!

Yes! This just screams "bones files": finding the remains of previous runs in your current game. Maybe you didn't die for nothing, and you can come back later and loot your own space-corpse (yes, I feel weird saying that).


OK, but once you've played a predesigned level, won't you know what to expect?

Nope.

AI already uses a few pre-designed levels (not many, but certainly the one that looks like a giant "AI", yes, I made that a long time ago).


But to keep it fresh, Approaching Infinity makes...





The game occasionally takes something that's already made, wipes it clean, and gives you entirely new content.

This is also useful in that, if you want to make a cool shipwreck or planet, but want to leave it without specific monsters or treasures, you absolutely can, and AI will add whatever is appropriate to the player's level and location.

That's right, Approaching Infinity will populate your levels for you. Let's take this cruiser that David designed, and see what happens:



It adds different enemies, set dressing, loot, even additional force-fields, traps, and damaged areas. It almost always adds lots of commodities to the big open space in the middle, but everything else is pretty unpredictable ;)





No.

Not yet.

The editor comes with a built-in "submit" function that uploads your map to a database where I can look through what has been created and add to one of the periodic updates. Your steam name gets appended to the file name so you'll get credit for it.

What about Steam Workshop?

Maybe someday. I don't have the integration for that right now. Approaching Infinity has a huge potential for modding, in addition to creating levels, so that can be addressed in the future. For now there is still so much content waiting to be added.

So for now, upload it:




There are a few other limitations, too:

• You must be logged into Steam to use the level editor
  
• You need to have reached sector 5 in the game
  
• You can only upload 1 level every 2 minutes
  
• That's it. Go nuts!
  

[h3]What else?[/h3]


Feature-wise, there is one new addition to the game, partly inspired by my own over-use of nuclear weapons in the game, and the subsequent infamy boost that creates. But the motivation to actually do something about it comes from a Discord user trying to start a particular alien quest line.




Having too much Infamy will slowly but surely erode your reputation with certain races, and until now, there hasn't been any way to counteract this...

Monks, Limoquee, and Unifier embassies will now offer a paid service to remove 20% of your infamy. Each race calls it something different, but it has the same effect.



The more total infamy you have, the more it will cost. There's also a fairly long cool-down after using the service, to prevent abuse by criminals. In that picture, I'm in sector 2487, with nearly a billion credits. It won't be that expensive for you. Probably.

OOh, what about special services from other races? Yep, they're coming. It is already planned to have Tentaculons and Vordalene offer a "Skill Re-Spec" service for your officers. What else can you think of?


That's it for now. Activated officer cool-down skills are coming in early 2021.


So Happy Holidays! Stay safe! I look forward to seeing what you create