Things have been great since the official launch back in April, the game hit "overwhelmingly positive" and I've enjoyed having a stable build up for the past month. But it's time for some updates! Everything here is released for all players today in version 2.0.16c (now 'd', see below).

When there are 14 different officer classes (including the new alien officers) to choose from, and only 6 officer slots, it can be hard to decide who to have on your team. In the past, you had to dismiss an officer to hire someone new. That changes now with...

The Cryo-Chamber!

It needs to be unlocked through a quest chain, and it'll be easier if you have asteroid bases unlocked... Anyway, once you have 5 or 6 officers, if you touch a cryo-tube in a cave or shipwreck, one of your officers will come up with a brilliant idea... and the quest for the cryo-chamber will begin.

It's optional, of course, and once you're completed the quest in one game, it unlocks cryo-chambers for sale in future games. They're expensive, and there's no reason you couldn't do the quest again. It's up to you.

Freeze & Thaw

Using the cryo-chamber now costs 1 essence of ice to freeze someone, and 1 essence of heat to thaw them. I was originally planning on higher costs, but for now, these token costs are fine.

And speaking of 'costs', I know that the prices of some items get way out of hand in the higher sectors... like $53 MILLION for a knife. So I did a few things to make prices more reasonable. This should help keep trading relevant, and money in general too.

I also made it impossible to sell an item for more than you bought it for (this used to be exploitable with the greed inducer or salesman skill). Crafting parts will also be more expensive in the later game.

It was pointed out to me that the new Limoquee Marshal's "Arrest" skill wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it was... Sure you can take certain enemies out with a single melee attack, but you had to get close first, and you would take too much damage getting there.

So now that skill works by distance, and the distance is equal to the skill level. So at level 3, you're arresting all criminals within 3 tiles every turn. Goodbye syndicate!

If you don't have the new alien officers yet, I encourage you to complete the quest lines of the Pirates, Gruff, Limoquee, and Sigorn. They can be game-changing.

Someone else pointed out to me that even though it's a powerful limiting factor at first, in the late game, planetary environmental damage becomes a non-issue.

So now, enviro-damage continues to scale with sector, like most things. Terran planets are unaffected, frozen planets scale the least, and dying planets scale the most. I've now seen planets with over 3000 environmental damage per turn. And since dying planets are so very dangerous, I've made it so that natural resources (ore, transuranium, gemstones) found there can appear in stacks, not just single units.

So of course, your suits' resistance now continues to scale as well. And there's a skill that used to give you +5 environmental resistance. Now that skill gives +5 or +5%, whichever is higher. So if you're in the 1000's, you get +50, etc.

What?!

So "grokking" a monster is to fully understand it and get a 25% chance to score critical hits on it. This is tracked in the bestiary, you can spend data to learn it, and there are some achievements for grokking lots of monsters.

But now the Tentaculons have come up with a way to suck that knowledge out of your brain (and computers). Of course they'll pay you for such valuable information. You even get to choose from 6-8 different rewards, and the stronger the monster, the bigger the reward!

But "grok" is across all games. If you 'spend' the info (and crit chance) now, you won't have it later until you've shot that monster with lots of different guns, or collected its DNA many times.

Still, it's a fun new thing to play with, and the really powerful monsters grant some insanely high-powered weapons.

Everything else I've done since the last update, in semi-chronological order. Like I've said, I don't plan on stopping. Approaching Infinity will continue to grow.

• There are now random modifications for missile weapons : hardened, heavy, light.

• Ship weapon modifications can now randomly appear during crafting (heavy, rapid, light, etc.).

• Shields that reduce damage of certain weapon types (cannon, beam, missile) now reduce that damage by 50%, not 30%.

• I modified crafting recipes (mostly making them more expensive).

• I tried to make it so that items that don't have recipes can't be salvaged (for example tac-nuke grenade and ion storm cannon).

• I fixed the math in the "oxygen conservation" power and added to the description: " Chance caps at 90%."

• I added some descriptions for monsters that didn't have one.

• You can no longer research creatures you haven't met yet (in the beastiary).

• The cryo zapper now automatically freezes liquid terrain you try to move into.

• I tried to fix naturalists petting bunnies.

• I added rep and faction power to the top of station displays.

• When looking at Commodities in the inventory, it will show you which races affect the price of each commodity.

• Ammo Belt skill no longer selects nano-bullets.

• Bartol Grimes now admits there is a way to get rid of radiation on shipwrecks.

• High-Gravity planets also have stacks of resources, but half as much as dying planets.

• I tried something else to prevent entering whitespace from destroying the sector

• I randomized some base stats of newly created items (in stores, crafting, etc.)

• Star Temple quests now have an XP reward! (they didn't?!)

• The total armor of Ablative Armor is now reduced every time it is damaged.

• When Limoquee scan you and detect illegal items, you immediately go into red alert (so no last-second docking!)

• I improved the spawning of certain secret cave levels...

• I improved the usage of consumables on away missions (UI issues).

• I added extra sounds and visual effects when the away team gets hit.

• I am allowing the "Identify Artifacts" process to be carried out on away missions. LMK if there is too much weirdness about it.

• Spelunker level 2 will always detect caves from orbit, and level 3 reveals their final depth.

• Medical Bay device now doubles the speed at which you recover from cured diseases.

• I created a new type of quest: the "Shopping List". It requires you to gather up a list of a specific number of crafting parts, gadgets, commodities, rare plants, consumables, and/or essences. For example, maybe the Vordalene need 100 raw ore, 200 wiring, and 1 repair kit to complete a project. That could be a quest.

I'd like to point out just how many of the above changes have come from player feedback both here on Steam and in our Discord[discord.gg]. I can't think of everything, but with your help, we get a lot done! Thanks ːtentaculonː

Saturday morning update:

Some users were experiencing a loss of sound when the away team was attacked (I just put in some new sound effects for this). So I tried to fix that (please let me know!), and I also tried to improve the internal logic when repairing shipwreck floors (it won't always be a wall now, and sometimes it will ask you "wall or floor?"). Version is now 2.0.16d.