Approaching Infinity News

Somebody got killed by an image not found. In fact, that thing has taken several captains down, both in space and on planets. Then I found out that tooltips didn't work in the officers screen anymore.

Even though I'm in the middle of this crafting project, I can't stand to see these kinds of issues. So I released a hotfix. You'll notice a few cosmetic changes, and also get to see some (but not all) of the new crafting work.



The science skill "Ship's Surgeon" hasn't had a valid effect since 1.9 began, I just never told you :O
So it has been replaced with "Naturalist" (thanks to members of the Discord helping me to flesh out this idea!)

This new skill is all about being at peace with nature (yes, seriously)
"Some creatures become non-hostile. level 1: plants and prey animals. Level 2: insect, aquatic, and silicon life-forms. Level 3: predators, slimes, and apex creatures. If you move into their space, you examine them for DNA (25%/level) and essences (10%/level)."

"What are essences?" you may ask. Well, let's talk about...



As you may know, the current project is a complete reworking of the crafting system. You probably don't know many details. Let's fix that!

There are now only 14 crafting parts instead of 25. Each one is more unique, and 5 of them are actually naturally-occurring things you can collect from various environments.




Crafting recipes can now have as few as 2 ingredients for really simple things, all the way up to 11 for crazy-high-tech things like the Singularity Launcher or a quantum shield (though the most anything has at this point is 9).

This solves a long-time problem the game's crafting system had: a knife was just as difficult to build as a warp drive. Not anymore!

Some of the more esoteric items will also require "essences": distillations of natural qualities like heat, speed, and reason. These can come from rare plants, monsters, and even planet surfaces. They're spawning now, so you can start collecting them for later. There's even a new melee weapon that guarantees you extract essences from plants and creatures.

I just built my first weapon with the new crafting system yesterday. Here's how it looks:






The Steam Exploration Fest has been really great for Approaching Infinity, lots of new players, Discord members, and more positive reviews. In fact, it's the 4th largest period of wishlist additions ever. THANKS!

But the sale is ending today. If you're on the fence, this is your best chance to get the game at a big discount. But hey, I've been doing this for a loooong time and I don't plan stop. Approaching Infinity will be here when you're ready ;)

These last 4 years of Steam Early Access have been quite a journey, and the end of this 12-year project is in sight! Full release is planned for August 2025 (next year), and you can see all the major steps that need to take place right here in the Starmap:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/551620/view/3714965613418825879


I just finished the complete user interface overhaul, 9 months of grueling work bringing the game up to modern user-friendly standards. And the feedback from that monumental undertaking has been 100% positive. I'm glad I did it. Here's the trailer:

https://youtu.be/-dVKi-Alj5U?si=eGwYw2QezhJVkGaE

Next stop is reworking the crafting system from the bottom up, and that has already begun. You can follow development and contribute feedback and ideas on our discord:
https://discord.gg/mWymeRz37n

I've commissioned 2 artists to make new promotional art for Approaching Infinity. The first one is done, and you can now see the results. The 2nd is Kenny Dalman, the artist who created the alien portraits. I've seen some progress shots, they're great!


At the last minute, Kenny sent me a preview:






The UI Skin DLC has been updated to work with the new UI!






Crafting has been temporarily disabled because that's the next system that's being rewritten. You'll have freedom to create what you want, when you need it. As long as you have the parts...

It's underway right now, and my plan is to finish it by the end of September. You can follow development on our discord. and find out things like:

• There will only be 14 crafting parts
  
• Each one will be more unique and have a description and specific uses
  
• 5 of them will be naturally occurring
  
• Rarity is "baked in" to the new system
  
• A warp drive will be much harder to build than a knife (finally!)
  
• I'm introducing a "modding" system for upgrading existing gear
  
• The crafting lab is going away
  
• I've already replaced the first Tentaculon quest with something else...
  
• You'll be able to craft consumables like medkits, rad remover, and squik poison!
  

To see the rest of the steps to reached the planned August 2025 release, see the Starmap:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/551620/view/3714965613418825879



If you love the game, and you've appreciated these last 4 years of updates, please consider writing a Steam review today. Every single one counts. Thanks!

[h3]You might know him from his recent "CURSED" Dwarf Fortress Video:[/h3]

https://youtu.be/kw8jsJwm0gg?si=_WWyrQgj15ffGiby


[h3]I've known his name for years as he really supports the roguelike community. And apparently, he's known about my game for years too. Ironically, one of the things that kept him from playing was my constant updates: he kept saying to himself, "I'll wait until that next feature is finished".


Well, we finally got on the same page, and he Streamed the game. Afterwards, he had some really positive things to say, and gave me a chance to talk about my experiences creating my universe over the past decade+. [/h3]


[h3]You can read the whole thing here. [/h3]

Greetings captains, just a small patch to all branches with a few little fixes and changes. The main issue is a rare but pervasive text overflow issue, but a few crashes have been solved as well.

[h2]However:[/h2]

• Scans of existing planets may show the wrong information about terrain for a while.
• The ampersand "&" in daily codes has been replaced with the dollar sign "$". Old codes will need to be changed, but newly generated codes will already have the change accounted for.
  

[h3]Other smaller things:[/h3]

• Players will now see a new kind of planet (long-time players may recognize it and realize it was missing)
  
• I have cut the number of pre-loaded images in HALF, speeding initial load and somewhat lessening working memory requirements.
  
• Shipwrecks should no longer keep spawning when you have the "disaster records" quest.
  
• I fixed the "3rd treasure" pirate quest.
  
• Clicking on the lower-right icon for your swap weapon will now swap it.
  
• Your away team may now comment on planets with no monsters.
  
• Removed another case where a quest pointed to sector 50.