Approaching Infinity News

[h3]

• Play for free up to sector 7
  
• Get all the latest story developments
  
• Experiment with new weapons and skills
  
• Meet 7 alien factions
  
• Many quests available
  
• Extra starting ships unlocked
  
• Includes the new bestiary and installation screens
  
• Carry over your run from the demo to the full game
  

[/h3]

Your officers have some powerful abilities on away missions, but they've been slacking when it comes to the harsh realities of deadly space combat.

Well no more!

Now each division has 4 activated skills to use in space, whether for offense, defense, movement, diplomacy, or information. Even the often-suggested (and just as often denied) "Planetary Bombardment" is now an option. Check it out!


CURIOSITY DIVISION (Blue)

• Shields Up! : Removes shield cooldown and instantly restores them to half strength (but not above).
  
• Interference Burst : All adjacent ships lose 50% of their max shields. If they are already below 50%, this will drop their shields completely.
  
• Firing Solution : Your shots this turn ignore the target's evasion and point defense.
  
• Sensor Attunement : Your ship has +2 sensor range and +5 planet scanning for 20 turns.
  

COMBAT DIVISION (Red)

• Another Volley : Clears cooldown timers on all weapons.
  
• PD Reboot : Instantly restores your point defense to its maximum value and removes the PD recharge cooldown.
  
• Ion Tracker : For 20 turns, all entities beyond visual range will be shown as red dots on the sector map.
  
• Orbital Bombardment : Fire ship weapons at a planet, causing damage and weakening life forms on the surface.
  

SYSTEMS DIVISION (Yellow)

• Emergency Repairs : Immediately removes cooldown from engines and sensors. Restores hull up to your ship's base hull (does not repair armor).
  
• All She's Got : Doubles your effective speed for 10 turns. When this period expires, engines will be on cooldown for 3 turns, leaving you temporarily stranded.
  
• Target Engines : Your next shot will knock out the target's engines for 5 turns.
  
• Maximum Evasion : Your evasion becomes 75 for 3 turns, greatly reducing damage from enemy cannons and missiles.
  

SOCIAL DIVISION (Green)

• Truce : All ships within visual range will stop attacking for 5 turns, unless fired upon. Does not work on Narcratu.
  
• Distress Call : Calls allies. If you have friends in this sector (rep 60+), several may come. If not, it may take time for one to warp in.
  
• Sensor Ghost : Creates a temporary copy of your ship. Anyone attacking you this turn will target the decoy instead.
  
• False Evidence : You provide false information that pits 2 ships against each other. May not work against closely-aligned factions, or ships already hostile to you.
  

ENVIRONMENTAL DIVISION (Purple)

• Deep Scanning : For 20 turns, you can see (but not shoot) beyond terrain that would normally block sensors, like nebula, stars, and planets.
  
• Vapor Screen : Release large quanitites of gas and water vapor into space, creating temporary sight-blocking clouds around your ship.
  
• Emergency Warp : An escape maneuver that uses your warp drive in an unintended way: to jump randomly within a sector. Adds your warp drive's normal cooldown time plus an additional 50.
  
• Go Dark : Makes your ship invisible until you move, shoot, or are detected by an enemy that is actively looking for you. You must be in sight blocking terrain like nebula or over a planet.
  

I understand you might be concerned about becoming too powerful... fear not! These skills have cooldowns of 500 turns, so even if you're willing to exhaust large quantities of cyber-gel, you're not going to be spamming "another volley!". They're more like panic buttons.


[h3]These skills aren't set in stone. I'm testing them for the *fun* factor, and I want your feedback. So get into the beta branch right now and test them out![/h3]

I'm already working on space activated skills, but I wanted to let you know about all the changes to space combat. I did a lot of playtesting this week, rebalanced weapons, and made the following changes:

• Finally fixed the syndicate interdictor quest completing under all conditions.
  
• Fixed a mouse targeting issue
  
• Sword parry now allows a strikeback if you have that power.
  
• Fixed a bug where the transcendent horror wasn't attacking you at long range. (sorry)
  
• Fixed a bug where the Sil were not demanded artifacts. (sorry)
  
• The last enemy you shot will automatically be targeted next turn!
  
• I fixed "starfighters" asteroid base room to properly represent the new ship weapon model
  
• I improved "heavy" weapons
  
• Station equipment store restock cost no longer goes exponential.
  
• A ship's weapons are now displayed directly in the "target info" window, no need to tooltip.
  
• not released.
  
• I further decreased the amount of damage you take from missiles when point defense shoots them down (now take 10%)
  
• E-Warfare Pod now is guaranteed to crit some internal system on a hull hit.
  
• I have reduced a global variable that controls HP & Damage. Enemies and equipment will be weaker. your current items will be overpowered.
  
• I have reduced the damage of many missile weapons.
  
• Decreased the price of many weapons.
  
• I found and fixed the "shipwreck levels re-generating error"
  
• You can now build exterior walls on top of floors in shipwrecks (like you would expect), as long as they're next to a wall and some space.
  
• fixed quest completion screen hang
  
• Changed "wanderer" starting ship weapons and supplies.
  
• E-Warfare Pod and Nano-Cannon now do half damage vs. shields.
  
• Fixed "both stations sold out" issue
  
• Fixed a space AI bug
  
• Updated boss spaceships and race showdowns to new models.
  
• You only have to pay the Bankers docking fee once per sector.
  

[h3]I've compiled all this information into a new Steam Guide:[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971265991
But I think you should just play it for yourself ;)



[h3]If you're consulting Starmap 1.8,[/h3] you'll find that I've hit about half of it in the first month. AWESOME!



[h3]Sale![/h3]
In celebration of this release, for one week (starting 10am PST / 1pm EST) you can save 10% on Approaching Infinity and the Interface expansion. Stop waiting. Start exploring the infinite universe today!



[h3]Note:[/h3] for the first time in almost 3 years, your old saves will **not** be compatible. Sorry, there are just too many changes for them to work. They won't be deleted though, so you can switch to the main branch if you want.

As I begin work on 1.8 (check out the Starmap) , I find that I can't quite let go of 1.7 yet...

This main-branch update fixes some typos and other little nagging issues, like the amount of cargo space not updating in real time when you salvage something, or space stations spawning out-of-depth ships to kill their enemies in the early game...

I'd also like to call your attention to the

which is going on right now in the beta branch!

Should missiles be individual entities that track their targets for several turns, separating them further from other kinds of "direct fire" weapons like rail guns and proton beams?

There's a quick implementation of this potential feature, and you can play it right now in the beta branch. In addition, you can even *vote* right in the game for whether you'd like missiles to behave in this new way, or you just want them to remain a type of instantaneous weapon like everything else.

Play it this weekend because I'll be counting the votes on Monday ;)