Weapons will no longer ignore shields.
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.
Activated skills have shorter cool-downs.
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.
Work has begun on the UI overhaul!
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 ;)
Some numbers
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.