Approaching Infinity Crafting

The definitive guide to crafting in Approaching Infinity (probably).

Unlocking

Warning!

This entire guide is out of date and needs to be rewritten.

You can find more information on crafting right in the game, on the crafting screens.





Crafting in Approaching Infinity is a little bit different.

First, you need to unlock it. Unless you start with the Scrap-Hound ship, you're going to need to unlock crafting for each new run. Do this by finding or buying a "Crafting Lab" device. You are absolutely guaranteed to be offered one around sector 7, but you can find one sooner.



Once you install the device, it should become a permanent part of your abilities, and disappear. If it doesn't go away, then you can just replace it with something else, and sell it. Or disassemble it! In the crafting lab :O

Crafting

OK, you just unlocked your shiny new crafting abilities, and you want to build something!

Well, you can't.

WHAT?!

You need a few things first:
1. A "Schematic": It's like a recipe for lasers and warp drives. It tells you which "parts" you'll need to build it.

2. "Parts": Now where have I heard that before. Oh yeah, they're like the pieces you need to actually build the thing. Photon bolts, quark screws, non-linear manifolds, you kow, that stuff.

3. That's it.

Once you have a few schematics, things will show up on the crafting tab. Click on one or press its associated letter key to see which parts you need, and how many of each you have and need. You'll also see a short description of the item's effects, if any.



At first, you need a LOT of parts to craft just one thing. But you can bring this number down with various devices, skills, and artifacts.

So how do you actually get schematics and parts?

Salvaging

By salvaging!

You find an item, like a used fission engine or an extra pair of water walkers, and you salvage it in the crafting menu. That will give you the schematic for that type of thing, plus one of each part that's used to build it.



Ok, so I have to take apart 6 shields to build one new shield?

Well, technically, maybe. But you can also find crafting parts laying around, especially on shipwrecks. All those other captains out there were busy collecting parts. Then they died. Just go take their stuff.

And of course you can buy parts at space stations.
BUT!
There are 5 parts in each game that are rare and are never sold on stations. You'll have to get them elsewhere...

And a few more things about salvaging:

1. You have a "base crafting level", which is how good you are at crafting. Every time you take apart an item, this level increases. Unless you salvage extremely inferior equipment, or something you've built yourself. That's cheating. And if something's really good, you can get a double increase.

2. Salvaging devices teaches you their "effects". That is their core "power", or their nature. This is tracked separately. It's possible to know an effect without being able to build the device, but probably not vice versa. But knowing effects has other advantages too...

There's even a nice little legend at the bottom of the screen that tells you what you'll learn in each case.

Effects Known

This isn't the next tab in the crafting interface, but it's important, and it's easy, so let's do it.


(Some are pretty self-explanatory, huh?)

So salvaging devices teaches you effects. You just read that. But you know what else has effects?

Artifacts!

So if you find an artifact that happens to have an effect you already know, you will auto-identify it. That will save you some trouble!

There are currently 127 effects in Approaching Infinity. Some are only available for artifacts. And when you find one of those, you'll understand why...

The Lab

I know, this is the most cryptic part, right up there with artifact identification.

So you've got your parts on the left, and how many of each you have. Then on the right, a place to put them, and a test button. BUT HOW?



Wait how did you get so many parts?
I'm the dev, I cheated!

When you come into this screen, the first test pattern is selected. That's the box at top right. You can have up to 5 different "experiments" going at any given time. But let's focus on just getting one right.

So you put in 6 parts, randomly chosen or whatever you think will go together, and hit "Test" (or the [enter] key). The test will consume one of each part, and then the boxes below each part will change from ? Question marks into either red X's or green check-marks.



The parts that are green "go together", and the red ones don't. So take out the red ones, and put in something else. Keep trying until you discover a working combination.



You never know what you'll get, you're just tinkering, trying to see what does what. And what works in one game, won't work in the next. It's procedural. So don't bother writing it down.

Summing it up

At first, crafting in AI seems daunting, but once you've got the hang of it, you'll be cranking out new components in no time.

But what's it good for?

Depending on how much time you put into it (and devices, skills, and artifacts), you can end up making much better stuff than you can buy. But that takes a while.

You can also use the crafting system to build whatever you need, on demand, and then take it apart when you run out of cargo space.

What else? It's up to you... Enjoy!

P.S.: You can find "Crafting Manuals" which increase your base crafting level.

P.P.S.: While writing this guide, I realized you deserve an extra reward for using the crafting lab to discover schematics. SO... You now get +3 base crafting level for discovering something. Good job, you!

[sk]

>Maybe you ran out of parts?
0\ you're right, sorry!

[IBOL17]

can i see screenshot? F12. Maybe you ran out of parts? Because testing in lab consumes parts.

[sk]

err "some parts are out of stock"

[sk]

Thank you for the guide! Maybe I missed something but when I start second experiment on the same 'table' replacing red components I get "this item is out of stock" message. What could it be?