Approaching Infinity News

I really liked shield-piercing weapons as a concept, I'm sad to see it go. But it had the potential for instant death without warning, which is not fun. And "fun" is what you're here for.

The machine gun, hull raker, railgun, spinal driver, and neutron beam will no longer ignore shields. Their base damage has been increased, so your existing versions of those weapons may be under-powered.




Most space activated skills now have cool-down times of 25-50 turns, a few are 100-125, and the most potentially disruptive ones (including "false evidence", where you can pit 2 other ships against each other) are 250 turns.

This should make them much more useful. I've also increased their drop rate, so you'll get more of them earlier in the game.




This game comes from a genre (traditional roguelikes) where graphics were of minor importance. I wanted to fit as much information on the screen as possible, and I didn't really care how big the play area was...

Times have changed, and so will Approaching Infinity.

My eyes were opened when I got this mockup from Polat Yarisci (who you may know from his work on the Caves of Qud UI). I encourage any indie developer who isn't a front-end genius to get in touch with him.


Here's how he saw my game:
Amazing, right?!


I immediately set to work making lists and taking apart the existing UI and realizing that I wasn't really ready to work on this yet, it was just too big.

But my pixel artist friend David Gervais got involved and together we started moving things around and re-imagining them...


Here's an early iteration:



And here's one of the latest:
Look at all that _S_P_A_C_E_!


Or Maybe you can move those info windows wherever you want?!


You can expect the evolution to continue until we get everything right. Then we'll take the revolution to the entire game, revising every screen for maximum style and user-friendliness.

None of this is in the game right now. I'd make an even bigger deal out of it if it were ;)



After 10 years in the making and 3 years on Steam Early Access, this is the 131st update (I went back and counted), and the end is in sight:


I hope to reach full release (version 2.0) in 2024.


[h2]Join me on my quest to save destroy create the galaxy![/h2]

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]