Approaching Infinity News

For about 10 days, we will be experimenting with removing the "skips shields" tag from all ship weapons. I really like the idea of weapons ignore that shields, but sometimes they can end your game as soon as you go around a corner (planet, nebula, etc.).


[h2]So in this beta, the machine gun, hull raker, railgun, spinal driver, and neutron beam no longer pierce shields. Their damage has been increased to offset this.
[/h2]

Anyone can join the beta branch, it won't break your saves (you can even start a new game if you want).

Just go to Settings>Properties>Betas>betafromnowon

[h2]Thanks to player feedback, I've executed a major balance of the new ship combat systems.


One problem was that enemy difficulty was outpacing equipment available to the player. This has been fixed.


Is it too easy now? Still too hard? Let me know!
[/h2]


Other changes:

• Away missions now employ a 4-frame animation for the landing party and monsters.
  
• Space stations have new art!
  
• Weapons can't force "crew crits" unless your shields are down.
  
• Reduced the rarity and minimum sector of all new ship weapons, shields, and armor, making the more interesting ones more available.
  
• Added explanation spiels about this and the shuttle's autopilot.
  
• Increased the base hull points scaling of new ships from the shipyard, and those you repair yourself.
  
• Some faction ships can have cloaking devices instead of shields!
  
• Further reduced the cooldowns on most of the new space activated skills.
  
• Changed the stealth runner's starting weapon to hull raker (thanks eharper256)
  
• New device: Ballistic Accelerator : +1 range for all cannon weapons
  
• New device: Cyclic Capacitor : +33% damage for all beam weapons
  
• New device: Armored Missiles: +1 PD required to intercept your missiles, and they do more damage even through point defense.
  
• New device: Missile Scrambler: Enemy missiles can't target your ship from a range greater than 5
  
• New random quest: Gas giant survey: collect special data pickups near gas giants (fairly basic stuff).
  
• New random quest: Embassy spying: intercept secret communications in space without being seen! (new and different!)
  
• Skill change: Level 2 of Thermal Dissipators (Lava-walk) further reduces duration of burn status effect.
  
• Skill change: Level 2 of Mountain Climbing skill reduces earthquake and cave-in damage.
  
• Skill change: The new "scan every plant and tree for data" function is now tied to the "eco-examiner" skill of the explorer class.
  
• Skill change: "Cartography" skill (explorer class) now helps you survey planets at less than 100%, at -5% per level.
  
• Skill change: "scanning specialist" skill increases your de-cloak radius by 1 per level.
  
• Skill change: "Mining Specialist": Level 1 automatically picks up whatever you get out of the asteroid. Level 2 automatically mines all adjacent asteroids. Level 3 increases this distance to 2 tiles!
  

[h3]I also updated the demo to include all changes here, and a fix for a rare bug that was plaguing some users.[/h3]


Have fun out there, space captains!

Greetings captains,

Recent casualty reports indicated some issues. These have been addressed:

• The HP and damage of most space enemies has been adjusted ("reduced").
  
• Scaling issues that start around sector 20 have been resolved.
  
• Did I mention that I fixed the "upgrading from demo" issue?
  

I've been working on version 1.8 for almost 3 months now, following the plans laid out in the Starmap, and I've really gotten a *lot* done:




✔ SPACE WEAPON / DEFENSE REWRITE
The changes here are too many to list, but you can check out the steam guide for all the details. The most important points are as follows:

• You can install any weapon in any weapon slot (no more small/medium/large)
  
• Weapons are divided into cannons, beams, and missiles, and each has unique properties.
  
• Shields are great protection against beam weapons, but many cannons pass right through them!
  
• Missiles have long range and high damage, but are stopped by point defense.
  
• Your installed weapons determine your "point defense" stat, which protects from missiles but gets depleted as it's used.
  
• You (and your enemies) can now score
• critical hits* which can knock out engines, weapons, sensors, or even kill crew!
  
• There are lots of new kinds of armor and shields too, providing powers, bonuses, or protection against certain types of damage.
  

✔ SPACE ACTIVATED SKILLS
20 exciting new powers available to your officers, like "emergency warp", "false evidence", and the oft-requested "orbital bombardment".





✔ SHIP STAT BALANCE
✔ ARMOR AND SHIELD BALANCE
✔ SUPPLY USAGE BALANCE
✔ NEW POWERS FOR SPACE ENEMIES
✔ OFFICER PAY BY TIME
✔ COMMODITY VALUE/SIZE REMODEL ✔ ACHIEVEMENT RENOVATION ✔ MANAGEABLE SIZE
Judging by the speed I've accomplished things, I definitely got this one right.



✔ New Spaceship Art!
Some of the new ships are featured on the artwork for this update ;) Thanks David!



NEW SPACE MISSION TYPES
You don't always have to go down to planets to do cool stuff, and not all space missions need to be "kill that!" or "get that!". I'll expand on space mission types in the final leg of 1.8's development.



ASTEROID BASE PROGRESSION
I'm really not sure about this, because it's more of an "away team" thing, and I'm *really* into space right now ;)



ENHANCED CRAFTING
This will happen, but again, it's not "spacey" enough for the current dev cycle. Imagine being able to make whatever kind of special weapon, suit, or shield you want, as long as you have the long list of ingredients, some scrap metal and gadgets, and a few thousand extra data... it's like that. Just not yet.



NEW USER INTERFACE
The UI is a big deal. It's how the user interfaces with ("PLAYS") the game (hence the name) (and the importance). I'd prefer to have all new systems in place before I tackle this one, so I know what I need.



OLD SAVES ARE INCOMPATIBLE!
With all these changes, your old saves won't work anymore! This is the first time in almost 3 years this has happened, and I think it will be the last time too, but I wanted to tell you.

I created a Steam branch called "Legacy17" if you can't stand to part with your current game just yet.



[h2]Have fun, space explorers![/h2]

I've been working on it for almost 3 months now, it's been in beta for weeks, and soon it will be available for everyone. If you look at Starmap 1.8 , you'll see that I've already hit most of the major points:

• Space weapon and defense rewrite
  
• Armor, shield, and ship stat balance
  
• Supply overhaul
  
• Commodity size / value remodel
  
• Officer pay by time
  
• Space activated skills!
  

I feel great about these! But there's a catch to all this innovation...

Your saves won't be compatible ːsteamfacepalmː There are just too many fundamental changes.
That's why I created the...




If you can't bear to let go of your current game, you can switch to the Legacy17 branch *right now*. It is the exact same version you're already playing, and it won't change when I finally roll out the new features.

Go to Approaching Infinity on Steam > Manage > Properties > Betas > Legacy17


But seriously, finish up and then come back to main, because all the new space weapons and skills are pretty amazing ;)





Approaching Infinity has 143 in-game achievements right now, and 70 official Steam Achievements. Most of these were created almost 10 years ago now, and include things like "kill 10,000 monsters", which is a grind and not a fun motivation to try something new.

So I'm going to scrap a lot of existing achievements, and put in new ones that are more interesting. This is discussed in the Starmap, with some hints about what's coming.

Steam users may see your achievement count go *down*, as I remove the overly grindy stuff. This will affect all players, and no version-switching can stop it.


See you space captain...