One Month After Release
After 12 years, I don't know how to stop. This is my "Star Wars", my "Stellaris". My game's universe is always on my mind. What stories can I tell? What features can I offer? And there's another important question I must ask: How can I continue living my life as an indie game developer?!
Getting to 500 Steam reviews and hitting "overwhelmingly positive" would help greatly. We're almost there. But that's something I can't directly control. I plan to strike a balance between continuing free updates and paid DLCs, for as long as you continue to reward my hard work ;)
There have been a lot of additions, fixes, and changes over the last month, but first:
TBT Fest!
Approaching Infinity is finally part of Turn Based Fest! This week-long event features over 400 turn-based games and is brought to you from the same people who host Turn Based Thursday on Twitter and Bluesky every week. Approaching Infinity has 2 streaming events during the fest:
BlindiRL : Tuesday, June 3, 5:00 – 9:00pm EST
Ic0n: Wednesday, June 4, 6:00 – 7:00pm EST
Approaching Infinity - Classic Plus DLC:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3723910
Released today, just in time for the big event. You get
- Hats for your officers
- Selectable ship images
- Unlock all ships and officer classes (optional)
- The complete original version of Approaching Infinity from before Steam
It's surprising how fun and challenging the older version is. It lacks a lot of modern convenience and social features (there's no hailing, surrender, or planet scanning) while still having all 12 major faction quest lines. Officers have different skills, and both ship and away team weapons function differently. But there are no grenades, consumables, or activated skill modules.
You know how it's going. See how it started!
https://youtu.be/vO9qlKxjCDY
The DLC comes with selectable ship images for the main game:
And hats:
Fixes and Changes for Everyone:
...an insanely long chronological list of updates since launch, compiled from my Discord Dev Log:
- Crafting key now works on away missions when standing on shuttle.,
- I tried to disallow "blank" items from being sold by the schematics dealer.,
- Repair skill should now properly repair floors.,
- It was reported that having a knife (auto-attack on adjacent move) with the "naturalist" skill still attacked monsters. Could not duplicate, but added additional check.,
- Using the Naturalist skill to examine a creature now gives that character 1 XP.
- Sometimes the player will spawn in a wall at the bottom right in caves. There is now a fix for that.
- "Hazardous Materials" skill now also increases environmental resistance (reduces planetary environmental damage).,
- Xenocide gas now spawns again!,
- The spawn rate of Engraver Waystations is somewhat reduced.,
- When the crew of stationary space enemy is all dead, they will now just blow up.,
- Large station-like enemies now have a limit to the number of support ships they can launch.,
- Playing the tutorial will no longer delete your selected cheats!,
- "retribution squads" are working again. Don't be a jerk to your allies 😉,
- Any vessel that fires on you loses its "surrendered" or "victorious" status, making it fair game to shoot back.
- On shipwrecks, isolated floors near space but no other floors will be automatically destroyed upon map load or accessing repair terminals.,
- In crafting screens when highlighting essences, faction embassies will be added to the list of sources.,
- Modding a grenade to increase its max ammo now gives you +1 grenade.,
- Having 2 sources of hull shears (device, wreck tech skill, artifacts) allows you to remove undamaged ship walls by walking into them.,
- There is a setting in options under automation for this wall-removing power. Default behavior asks if you want to do it, but you can set it to 'always' or 'never'.
- The Explorer's "Eco-Examiner" skill's special ability of gaining +100 data for each kind of plant or tree touched WAS BROKEN. It is now fixed.,
- Right click now closes many windows that don't require a specific choice. I need to find more.,
- I fixed the choppy rotation of pulsars.,
- I fixed some janky movement when a searched computer yielded a clue fragment.
- Finally truly fixed the "hire crew" achievement.,
- Also fixed the sector 100+ achievement which I didn't even know was broken.,
- Found some weird behavior when your ship's armor is destroyed.,
- There are 2 very long conversations that <1% of players have encountered. When those talks start, all your ship components and cyber-skills will be fully cooled down, in case you need them afterwards...,
- The new "remove solid walls" power is now limited to shipwrecks only and gives a warning if you're about to breach the outer hull.,
- I added a more forceful spawning of certain quest-specific locations. It should work retroactively as well, on sectors already generated.,
- Solar assimilator now gives more supplies per turn.,
- Tooltip now shows enemy ship's hull and shields in red and blue (matching the color of the player's hull & shield bars).,
- Fixed an infinite loop in asteroid base generation.,
- Salesman skill now also affects the price of surveys (as well as shipwrecks and items sold in pawn shop).
- You can now swap weapons on the away team by clicking the swap weapon button (didn't work if you selected text-type buttons).,
- The cost of hiring crew goes up a lot more according to the number of crew deaths you've had.,
- Abandoning diseased crew on an away mission now properly removes the disease.,
- Leaving diseased crew on an away mission results in them becoming zombified enemies.,
- When "auto-install on purchase" is turned off, you now get a message that something was bought and stored.,
- Oxygen cake and immune booster consumables are now a little more powerful.,
- There is now a more robust system in place to prevent endlessly purchasing from the same station in the same sector.,
- There is a new setting "no surrender" : you can stop ships from hailing you about you or them surrendering.
- I removed a function that moved entities away from you when entering a map. It was too easily exploitable.,
- Sil will only approach you demanding an artifact once per sector. They may still demand it as part of your surrender.,
- In the diplomacy screen, your reputation with the Mercenaries is better described.,
- Membership Card skill now gives you +20 Rep with Mercs per level.,
- Dirt walls now spawn in caves. They can be dug with Spelunker 2 or excavator 1, similar to rubble.,
- Rich Dirt now also spawns and is dug the same way, but various loot will be found inside it, like raw ore or gemstones.,
- Right-clicking the wait button will now "long rest", waiting for healing and cooldowns.
- On the warp screen in commodity price section, it now shows amount you have and the price you paid.,
- I added a status indicator for how long until the away team starts to heal.,
- Spaceborne creatures like the astral phoenix and vacuum amoeba will no longer spontaneously die!,
- I reduced the number of Amoebas needed in the Vordalene quest to 15.,
- I have the beginnings of a "help" screen, accessed from the Options menu or just by pressing F1.,
- Removed the "NOT IMPLEMENTED YET." from the settings "ignore illegal" and "get loot" because they've worked for a long time now.,
- The Bankers "money" quest is now fully complete-able in a single station visit, if you already have the $15M needed. (Not going to apply to many people.),
- I've increased and stabilized the value of planetary surveys.,
- I increased the credit rewards of all Bankers quests.,
- I increased the chance that a Bankers station will sell an upgraded version of your ship, if it's one of the classes that Bankers sell.,
- I Added a new setting "3rd Party Attacks" and it speeds up or gets rid of animations where creatures are attacking eachother (not you).,
- I Fixed an issue that allowed some games to be continued after "game-ending victory".
- I increased the base range of pistols to 4 (from 3).,
- The rifle's "return fire" power can now trigger an unlimited number of times per turn.,
- Snakes now have the camouflage power.,
- I reinstated a kind of level binding per sector.
- I changed the nature of the "Smuggler's Compartment" device: it now protects up to 30 cargo units of items and commodities. It is (currently) the only device that can be installed multiple times.
- I fixed a bug in the officer team cheat where the away team's 2nd weapon would be worth millions.,
- I added a counter on the embassy quest screen that shows how far along you are in that faction's quest line.,
- Each sector now has a maximum tech level, which goes up as you progress deeper into the galaxy.,
- I increased the chance that a merc bounty quest target will spawn, and tried to make sure they always spawn.,
- If a merc bounty quest points to a sector with no locations available, then one will be spawned.,
- I updated the powers a merc bounty target can have.,
- When you come out of a cave in a north/east/south/west zone, you get a popup message telling you how to get back to the shuttle
- Dogtag quests work again! You need to search bodies to get them.,
- I fixed some bugs related to installing the smuggler's compartment multiple times.,
- You can now install cargo containers and supply storage multiple times as well.,
- I fixed a bug where classic mode was not saved.,
- Retribution squads no longer spawn in whitespace,
- Victory screen no longer treats your current crew as dead!,
- Merc bounty hunter quest targets now get stronger as you take more merc missions, and they can have up to 3 random powers!,
- I fixed a bug that prevented the Nanopocalypse from being resolved in certain circumstances.,
- I fixed a bug where your game would be re-saved after it was deleted for the Amulet of Yendor victory.,
- I fixed a bug where you couldn't travel to N/E/S/W in some caves without being on the arrows.
- I added new mouths, eyebrows, and glasses for everyone.,
- I changed the short description of the rock plow and a few other devices.,
- I updated the descriptions of some of the keys in Options => Keybinds,
- If you're invincible, artifacts interactions will no longer damage you.,
- I added a one-time explainer popup for the Peer / Look command.,
- You will no longer mine asteroids during combat. There is a one-time popup about this, and also a new setting.,
- There is a one-time popup message about the new help screen.,
- The help screen now has a section listing all possible skills for every officer class.,
- I fixed a bug where you couldn't sell items if you had more than 100 things to sell.,
- I fixed a bug where syndicate ships were treated as non-hostile.,
- I've slightly increased commodity price fluctuations between sectors.,
- I've increased the amount that factions affect the price of specific commodities.,
- Most races no longer sell natural resources (ore, transuranium, gemstones), but will buy them. (Pirates sell raw ore and gemstones, Firax sell transuranium.),
- I've raised the price of the natural resource commodities ore, transuranium, and gemstones. (This is especially good for asteroid miners.)
- I increased the amount of some Commodities that fit in one cargo space.,
- I fixed a bug where Limoquee scans weren't detecting contraband.,
- I started tracking number of commodities smuggled into Limoquee space. It's displayed on the Stats screen.,
- After certain milestones (500,1000,2500,5000) of smuggled commodities, the Limoquee take notice and up their anti-smuggling game.,
- Limoquee are also now tracking how many times they've caught you with illegal cargo.
- You can now leave yourself notes directly from the captain's log screen. Sorry that wasn't always possible.,
- Red Alert status icon now has a proper description.,
- Cloaked now has a status icon and description.,
- You will once again drop items and devices when your ship is carrying too much!,
- Diplomat will get XP for big sales including towed shipwrecks.
Congratulations
on getting this far: you get some codes!
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Go to Options => Enter Code and copy/paste the code you want to use. Everyone can use these codes, but you can only use one code per day (unless you use the "unlimited codes" cheat).