Approaching Infinity News

After months of work and vigilant beta testing, all these features and so much more are now available to everyone in the main branch:

• Go on a randomized multi-step quest with over 100 variations to obtain...
  
• Over-powered away team weapons with high-level artifact powers!
  
• Visit new locations, perform new tasks, and get killed by new monsters
  

You can start the legendary weapon quest by searching corpses in shipwrecks starting in sector 5.




It is now possible to build and encounter unlimited asteroid bases, so the "syndicate" will follow your exploits as far as you go! Here is a list of the new rooms, each one either offering quests or selling vital equipment:

• Transportation Safety Board
  
• Ship Tuner
  
• Gun Runner
  
• Device Dealer
  
• Suit Up!
  
• Bombs Away!
  
• Cybernetics Emporium
  
• Virologist
  
• Duelist Depot
  
• Gal-Tran
  
• Spacer's Rest
  
• Starfighters!
  
• Core Systems
  

The "Transportation Safety Board" wants to install escape craft on all spaceships, so crew can survive when ships blow up. Help them gain support for this project from alien governments and find a way to cheat death one more time!






Spacer's Rest is a place where tired captains go to *not* die... just fade away. This new way to "win" doesn't save the galaxy, but it doesn't destroy it either.




Firax Vaults have always existed, but there's finally a way to *find* them: insane acolytes in star temples can drop notes about their location. They are found in the deepest of caves (around depth 20), so if you find a really deep cave system (or notice acolytes on planets), you might want to leave a note...

These vaults are among the most difficult and deadly places in the game and require high level skills and equipment. It is possible to encounter them in early sectors, but it is NOT advisable to attempt them too soon ;)




This is another thing that's been in the game forever, but they were taken out during the shipwreck overhaul earlier this year. Now they're back, and in addition to the original 30 there are 40 new ones designed by players like you using the built-in level editor!

• New cheat mode: install anywhere
  
• New unexplored tiles, to make it more clear where you've been and where you haven't
  
• Quest pointer arrow shows the way to known destinations within a sector
  
• Permanently install one device in a space-suit
  
• New tool-tips and log messages
  
• Wow, so many bug fixes and added features!
  

...and...



...available on the Steam page... if you're curious, try it out!

Wait no more:


Satisfy your need for strategic galactic exploration, alien diplomacy, or xenocidal aggression right now, risk free! The download button is on the Steam store page.

That's it. That's the tweet.

Do you want an over-powered weapon that also grants special abilities?
Do you want to explore a new procedural quest line that can take you to never-before-seen locations?



Somewhere a relic hunter is awaiting a delivery, a package that will never arrive... unless you find it.

But that's just the beginning. You'll learn about a powerful ancient item: what it can do, how it was made, who used it, and eventually, where it is now. Follow this never-the-same-twice* story to give your away team even more flexibility to handle the tough situations they always find themselves in...


Sample Items:



Join the beta today, it's open to everyone and joining it (or leaving it) doesn't break saves!



* There are over 100 ways this quest can play out, not counting the final conversation with the relic hunter.

"The Roguelike Celebration is a community-generated weekend of talks, games, and conversations about roguelikes and related topics, including procedural generation and game design. It's for fans, players, developers, scholars, and everyone else!"


I won't be presenting a talk this year, but Approaching Infinity is joining in the festivities as part of the sale! (I'm working on one for next year, about scope-creep, because I walk that fine line every day...) Virtual talks start 9am on Saturday, get your tickets here!


Apart from the sale, there's an update that includes everything listed here, plus some other big-ish things:


There's one pushy alien species out there that considers themselves to be the galactic police, and they're tired of people moving illegal commodities like small arms, narcotics, and anti-matter through their territory.

Limoquee ships will now chase you and scan your ship when you jump into their sectors. If you have illegal goods, they'll try to confiscate them. My advice: go along with it. Or you can try to dump your cargo, but they're looking for that... Maybe there's a way to make yourself invisible? Even then, keep your distance, because they're scanning for cloaked vessels too!



What's the point of having contraband if that doesn't jack up the price?

So now, whichever factions are present in a sector will affect certain commodity prices: Gruff like shiny things, so the price of gemstones is elevated due to increased demand. Vordalene produce a lot of microchips, so they're cheap in their territory. You can get this information in the commodities exchange at every station, by tooltipping the commodities.



I've made changes to the process of identifying artifacts, making it harder and more dangerous to just make random guesses. This includes a sort of cooldown on the whole process, as well as several new damage types, like injuring the captain, reducing the artifact's power, dissolving your cargo, or even destroying the artifact itself!

You'll also find improved tool-tips, new monsters, and increased interactivity between creatures. I even fixed a bug the DLC ;)

Here is a list of changes available in the beta branch this week. It's free to join and doesn't break saves.

• You don't pick up medkits if you're at full health, or oxygen tanks if you have 90+% of your max oxygen.
  
• Black Ooze monster slowly destroys most items it touches.
• There is a warning on the warp screen that the warp point in sector 7 is blockaded.
• When a ship won't respond to your hail, it gives a floating text message, such as (...silence...) or Done talking.
  
• The eater devourer (ship) now takes several actions to completely destroy a planet. For instance a terran planet would first become barren, then molten, then dying, and then be destroyed.
  
• Flying next to a black hole can cause "time dilation", which will allow other ships around you to take additional moves (slows you waaay down).
  
• Further (but gently) slowed the spawning of code fragments
  
• Creatures in cells should be ignored for "monster vs. monster" attacks.
  
• Gave asteroid bases a music selection.
  
• Whitespace creatures shouldn't exist in our realm (and will be deleted if they do).
  
• Stationary ships should not spawn shipwrecks when destroyed.
  
• Banker monitors are always hostile
  
• The supply use of multi-fire weapons has been REDUCED.
  
• Big changes to end of the resistance quest line...
• If its a banker warehouse, you should always be allowed to dock, regardless of supplies.
  
• Created (yet another) check to ensure all areas of a shipwreck are connected
  
• Added "notes" to scans of planets and shipwrecks.
  
• Fixed a visual bug when entering a new sector and an alien hails you immediately, the map is only partially drawn. Shouldn't happen anymore.
  
• Stunned or tangled monsters shouldn't be able to dodge.
  
• I gave the Resistance destroyer its own unique starting quest.
• When you enter the warp screen and your drive is cooling down, the popup now gives you the option of closing it immediately.
  
• Bone piles are now dissipated when you move onto them. More will come from them in the future. (Archaeologically speaking)
  
• Created a new function intended to help if you go in a transit tube and end up outside the ship. It's never supposed to happen, so we'll see if this can be a solution. The only way to test it is for the bug to occurr...
  
• Added 2 new bad effects for artifacts and diseases
  
• "Comm jammer" power can now fail due to witnesses. Limoquee witnesses, as well as those of the same race as the one you're shooting, will always interfere. But if you kill a pirate and a gruff sees it, they're not going to tell anyone.
  
• When intelligent aliens tell you why they're on a shipwreck, they'll remind you with occasional floating text messages.
  
• Supply drops during hails are now actual supplies dropped in space
  
• You now get a pop-up warning when you would shoot or throw a grenade at a quest item.
  
• I fixed several bugs with artifacts (there were more than expected)
  
• Activate cheat modes in a game-in-progress:
• Oxygen always full: "O2 Problem Solved"
  
• Unlimited daily codes: "Cryptographer's Delight"
  
• No Resistances: "The Galactic Empire"
  
• You can press [TAB] in the commodities exchange to view the warp screen.

That's a lot for 1 week! [h3]Still much more to come...[/h3]