• Put a PISTOL in both your main and swap slots, and fire both of them when you attack. Dual wield!
  
• RIFLE will automatically return fire once per turn if the away team is in cover.
  
• SNIPER gives +1 vision range but now has a 50% chance to miss at close range (1-2 tiles)
  
• CLOUDGUN provides protection against whatever element it shoots: flamethrower = walk through fire. nano-cloud = safe from nano, etc.
  
• LAUNCHER now shoots further but has less damage mods available.
  
• KNIFE now attacks all hostile creatures adjacent to the space you move into. Doesn't work when waiting.
  
• SWORD now has a 33% chance to parry a melee attack, negating all damage and other effects.
  
• HAMMER now also permanently slows a target, in addition to its knockback.
  
• ZAPPER now hits all creatures around the one you attack. This is the effect of the energy hitting a large area and does NOT discriminate between friend or foe, so be aware. Does not hit you.

Stratovulkar, Flabberach, Vexoid Nest, Vexoid, Tapfly , Squik, Kelphorse, Swolsak, Porkha, Drift-Strider, Buccarana, Arboleax, Muggot, Plated Infestor






Now you can tooltip on the "active effects" screen to see exactly where your powers are coming from:




There are a lot of other quality-of-life adjustments, available now in the beta branch (open to everyone, doesn't break saves), and always more to come. Enjoy!

Greetings space explorers! After working on the bestiary and its new "full screen" design, I wanted to try updating some of the other functions, and I may have started with the hardest one:

• Items are arranged in order by which slot they go in (instead of random)
  
• Icon size adjusts to guarantee your entire cargo fits on the screen (instead of multiple pages)
  
• You get full details of the item you're looking at (instead of abbreviations)
  
• It tells you how to "favorite" an item (new)
  
• Do you know the crafting recipe? (new)
  
• Details on what's already in that slot, if anything (new)
  
• Points out slots that exist but aren't available, due to your reactor (new)
  
• Allows easy mouse or keyboard control (new)

I've been working on this for a few weeks, and beta tested several versions. This one does everything quite well. Of course if there's anything missing, let me know!





Did you know David sent me over 70 additional creature sprites? Now I need names! Adding new monsters (and unique powers for them to use against you) is my next project.

We've already done one round of this in the Discord, but here are 12 more creatures in need of names.



Pick a few or do them all, in any order, in the comments... have fun!

You probably never realized just how many creatures are gunning for your away team. What you need is...










Available for everyone, right now!

But wait, there's more. If you call in the next 10 minutes you'll get...





This is just a small sample, but David has not only created unique icons for every type of damage, but also made 10 sets of every kind of gun, and we put them together so your toxic cloudgun has a very different appearance from your lightning rifle. And hammer grenades. What?! OK, look at the picture. It's actually a "concussion" grenade, but it does "smashing" damage, so yes, hammer grenades!


All this and so much more awaits you in...





(I feel like I'm doing a cheesy late-night commercial from the 80s, I don't know why.)


If this news wasn't long enough, or you're curious about the past and future development of the game, please check out my [2023 in RoguelikeDev] post ;)

I'm done.

Live now in the beta branch (free to join, doesn't break saves) you will find these new features:


There are about 25 different kinds of exotic sci-fi damage in Approaching Infinity, and over 130 creatures you can encounter on away missions. Figuring out the fastest way to deal with these threats ("kill") just got a whole lot harder (and easier)!

What?!

First, we erase your omniscience about monster's resistances and vulnerabilities:


Then we keep track of what you learn, and display it in the bestiary:


By default, this new information is shared across all your games, but it's possible to turn that off when you start a new game, if you want an extra challenge.

How does it work? Every time you try a new kind of weapon on a monster, you "learn something". This info is stored and displayed in the bestiary. It's also possible to learn about monsters by analyzing their DNA, or reading reports where alien races have studied a creature in their lab.

If you gather enough information about a particular species then you...


To "grok" is to deeply understand something, and when it comes to enemies, that means you really comprehend the fastest way to kill them. Therefore, grokking results in a 25% chance to score...


That's right, for the first time ever in Approaching Infinity, you have a chance to do double damage with every gun or melee attack. All you have to do is shoot every monster with 10 different guns.
FOR SCIENCE!

And to make what's going on just a little more transparent, I've added some quick visual feedback: little floating symbols when you strike a monster and it is either resistant or weak to your attack, or if you get a critical hit.


To make all this shooting even more exciting, David has made a wealth of new weapon art, as well as icons for all the different damage types. So now, instead of "all shotguns look the same", we get things like these:


From left to right: toxic cloud-gun, shock rifle, nano-launcher, and concussion grenade. Yes, the grenade hits you like a hammer.

• The warp screen now shows a mini-map of the target sector (if it's explored).
  
• Tool-tips and warp screen show which rooms are available in the local asteroid base.
  
• All known tiles inside asteroid bases will always be lit (easier to find the store you want).
  
• Blowing up a shipwreck for scrap will now drop way more loot.
  
• I Doubled the base damage of launchers!
  
• Planet and shipwreck scans may make load-out suggestions based on life-forms detected and weapons in your cargo.
  
• But scans won't reveal the names of monsters you haven't me yet!
  
• YOU *CAN* GET ACHIEVEMENTS WITH PERMA-DEATH OFF!
  
• The criminal syndicate has been weakened somewhat (they have been way OP forever), but the Assassin now does triple damage!
  
• The amount of cover provided by terrain is now displayed in tool-tips.
  
• There is some temporary "zone transition background" art right now, but the real ones are coming and they are WOW!

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!

What does 2 months of semi-secretive development get you?

All 20 starting ships now come with a unique background story and quest, further differentiating your experience based on early-game choices. The new game screen is updated with even more tooltips, and there are more quests you can find early in the game, just by exploring.


That's cool, but it's not really the big news item here...


That's the big announcement: A new faction. A new kind of location to explore. People you can have conversations with! And they're all intertwined:

Who are the "syndicate"? Have they taken over loot stockade planets? Are they coming after that shipwreck you're towing? Are they building a secret base somewhere? You'll have to find out!


(They look kinda friendly to me... I mean, they don't even have guns!)

This is the great new location you've been promised. And guess what? No monsters! And new stores the likes of which you've never seen:

• Data Broker
  
• Scrap Dealer
  
• Parts Junkie
  
• Gadgeteer
  
• Planetographer
  
• Virtual University
  
• Boutique
  
• Your Best Self

This is what's available right now, but that list is going to get a lot longer in the future. Eventually you'll be able to buy just about anything you can imagine. Asteroid bases introduce 6 new quests and 2 new devices, and there will be a lot more exciting new systems later on as well.

And one of the really cool things about asteroid bases is that you get to help in their construction... You decide what to build next!

Wait, this game is 9 years old and you're just introducing NPCs now?! NPC's have always been "implied" in Approaching Infinity. You can hail alien ships and take quests from their representatives, but you never just had conversations with them before. Now you can:



Now think about all the people and aliens (wait, aliens are people too, right?) you can meet in all the different places, and just how much potential this opens up! It's just getting started... And that's not the only mind-blowing change that's happening:


Pirate raiders have been firing on freighters for years, and sometimes your allies will aid you in a battle. But once again, that's not what I mean...

I'm talking about killer bunnies that swarm mercenaries, territorial wars between Limoquee agents and Vordalene security, slimes spitting acid at rock monsters... A whole new level of interaction between
forces in the game-world!

And that's exactly what I've done. All "monsters" have been given a category, such as predator, prey, silicon, or elemental (there are 17 kinds). And every monster now has a list of which types they attack. Finally you'll see resistance soldiers valiantly defending their ships from the floating eyes and zombies that infest them.




Expanding on the recent wave of "play how you want" changes (such as allowing achievements to be granted even with perma-death turned off!), I decided to add some new game modes as suggested by some Steam users:



If worrying about oxygen on away team missions is too much for you, turn it off! It's the future right? I'm sure they've solved that problem by now!

If you really like finding, using, and sharing daily codes, and you don't want to stress about which one to use, why not select "unlimited daily codes" for you next game? You still can't use the same code twice though...

And finally, if you don't care whether you're using a fire weapon against a fire monster, and you really want to do those 32 points of damage, you can now turn off resistances (and vulnerabilities)... so don't expect your hammer to be extra good at smashing bugs anymore...


I Added shortcut keys for "move to area transition". Hold the [ALT] key while on an away mission and you'll get a little menu in the upper left that tells you ALT+3 to go "down", ALT+4 to go "west" (those are based on using the numpad for movement, the game will automatically use whatever your movement keys are).

I should also call your attention to



THE GRAPPLER GUN! It's a mod for ballistic weapons that pulls monsters closer. But be warned: there may be unexpected consequences if the creature your try to reel in is too big...