No Man's Sky Catch-All 2.0

I'm an unabashed No Man's Sky lover. I absolutely adore this game. I have happily played more than 140 hours at this point. I pre-ordered at full price, and have no regrets. I made sure the download for this update kicked off last night, and I can't wait to dive in when I get home tonight after work. If you can purchase this on the cheap, I encourage you to do so.

But, I recognize this game isn't for everyone. The opening hours of this game are not well managed, and the complete lack of tutorial and training can be tough. But, if you can push past that opening to find your first exosuit upgrade, and you can find those early resources to get your ship repaired and flying, the game just opens up and rewards you from there.

Approach this game as an experience instead of a challenge or a story and you will enjoy it a lot. It has some of the most amazing screenshot worthy experiences I've encountered. It is NOT, however, a great game mechanically.

Great thanks. I'll buy it and give it a try. I love the art style and I love naming stuff.

Higgledy wrote:

Great thanks. I'll buy it and give it a try. I love the art style and I love naming stuff.

If all you want to do is see neat art and name things, then No Man's Sky has got you covered.

Has anyone here played the new update? What are your thoughts?

I was a fairly big fan of the game at launch but eventually drifted away after 40-50 hours or so. I came back to it after the first update but unfortunately suffered a hard drive failure and lost my save game. The new update is tempting me back into it, but I'm not sure I have the patience to start from square one.

Valmorian wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

Great thanks. I'll buy it and give it a try. I love the art style and I love naming stuff.

If all you want to do is see neat art and name things, then No Man's Sky has got you covered.

IMAGE(http://cosmouk.cdnds.net/15/31/980x490/landscape-1438173668-cute-success-kid.jpg)

I tried the new update, and after a good 12 hours of fruitlessly searching for one of the starting minerals, I think I will be sticking this one back in storage, yet again.

Ya, when you can't find Zinc, so you can't fix the wreck you spawn beside at game start, the frustration factor starts kicking in, hard, again. Even through my on-planet drive is fully repaired and fueled, I can't fly the ship around on planet until that space drive is fixed...

I can find carbon and plutonium, so I can make powergel and thereby recharge my suit's lifesupport in the field. I've searched in all directions, 3 total charges (i.e. head 'north' (no compass... an explorer with no compass..), swing back after 2 charges, barely make it to safety). No zinc. A few abandoned alien camps, no actual aliens.

I do keep finding rare and exotic minerals and plants.. all of which require gear I can't possibly get. My suspicion is that they modified the spawn table instead of expanding it to make room for the new materials, overlaying some common with uncommon or rare materials. So, best I can do restart and wipe all progress.

*

As far as the naming things, two things will happen. Go down to your nearest beach in RL, engrave the name you want on a particular grain of sand, then slingshot it into the ocean. The odds are much better that someone will find that grain.

Or, the other thing, which happened once when I first played this game. Every critter/plant, every planet, every system. Dick jokes. Someone had spawned in the same or nearby systems and eventually named everything with lame dick jokes or just profanity. I could detect the pattern of burnout, when I started running into things where he just tossed yet another k on the end.

So, sure, you can 'name' things. Might get more excitement from naming the dust motes trapped in your PC's filter.

*

Don't forget to feed the animals on planet, might get something useful.

Sorry to hear of your frustrations LtWarhound.

I've duly bought the game.

Did manage to find all the resources I needed to finally take off from the planet Tarn in the Happenstance System leaving behind exotic wildlife including the rather squeaky Pushmes, the almost identical Pullyous and the surprisingly friendly Cupcake Crabs. I nearly crashed into Tarns moon Hythe but managed to do an inelegant u-turn back out into space at the last second. Getting more of a grip on the flight controls I've now safely landed on the moon, home to the lumbering but flexible Fat Panther and have set out to explore.

Thanks for the last two pages everyone. Even though I'm in Australia, I get the same discounts Higgledy does.

At AU$21.97 (down from AU$54.95) I was looking for a reason to either abstain, or dive in.

There is a parallel deal going where if I spend AU$75 during March, I get $15 back in April. In my mind, that puts NMS at the Princely sum of only AU$6.97.

Part of me still wonders if I will get to it before it (potentially) becomes a PS+ title though

Okay, I've been a No Man's Sky apologist for a while but I'm starting to get really ticked off with how every update is both one step forward and one step back.

The main point of this update was to add vehicles to your home world. Cool right? Well not if your homeworld is full of trees you can't drive through and holes your vehicle can fall in. Even if you had a perfectly flat and barren world it's still faster and easier to go to waypoints with your f*cking space ship so taking a car is pretty much just for the scenic route. After you unlock all the car upgrades you get a repeating quest to race to a location and your reward for doing so is a measly 2000 credits. Awesome.

Meanwhile I've been stuck on the same 27 slot spaceship for a while. Apparently buying a new spaceship while trading in is cheaper but I still haven't found a good deal. In the meantime I just found a 28 slot crashed spaceship but apparently in their infinite wisdom Hello Games decided to "rebalance" this aspect of the game by introducing the concept of "damaged" ship slots. The ship only had 12 actual slots, the remaining slots had to be repaired for 250k credits a pop. So basically finding a downed ship is now no different from buying a new one which eliminates the only easy way to actually get a ship with more slots.

Also in like 30 hours of play I still haven't found another world with some f*cking oceans on it so I could get the stupid water mineral and actually advance the crafting quests from the previous update.

Sigh, Hello Games made a very pretty and relaxing world but they are just f*cking terrible game designers who have no idea how to fix their broken game and actually make it palatable for normal people. Before adding new features that no one asked for how about making the core game loop actually fun?

Oh, and this is in the game now. Really shows what the developers intend the target audience to like, and how high they are themselves when working.

IMAGE(http://www.gpforums.co.nz/attachment.php?attachmentid=216609&stc=1&d=1489038906)

So, as an aside, I'm hearing a lot of issues with how the "rebalancing" is affecting people with games in play.

How would you rank these changes from the perspective of someone coming at this from a new game, new experience?

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Part of me still wonders if I will get to it before it (potentially) becomes a PS+ title though :lol:

Sony seem to be avoiding putting their own titles on PS+ at the moment but it could happen. It's the spectre that haunts all my PS purchases but there is something nice about owning a game outright (as much as you can do) especially a game like this where I can see myself, in X number of years time, thinking, I'll just go explore some planets.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

How would you rank these changes from the perspective of someone coming at this from a new game, new experience?

It's strange not knowing what has been improved but, as it is, with all the quality of life stuff in place, the inventory system is just a Glogtrop's whisker shy of driving me crazy and I felt like there was just the bare minimum of instruction to let me know what I should be doing so heaven knows what it was like before.

I'm very pleased that I've bought it (and in digital form so I can pop into the game without changing a disc.) At the moment it feels like it could be my Minecraft. I'm not someone who loves endlessly building sh... stuff but I love exploring and gathering (I suspect those things are the real reason I played WoW for so long) and, as I've said, I love naming sh... stuff. The fact that I get paid to do it in this game is icing on the cake.

Thanks again for the enablement ThatGuy42 and Valmorian.

You have learned the phrase: 'Double post.'

I may just dive into this.

I don't get a lot of gaming time. To the point where I've bought Horizon Zero Dawn but haven't started it as I know I won't be able to commit the time it requires. I have a 40-50 minute window I can fill with 'some kind of entertainment' after my night shift.

Netflix used to work, but the draw of 'just one more show' sees me blowing that window more often than not. If I can drop into this world for a limited time, then get out with a minimum of fuss, I might just do so.

What's the save system like? Save anywhere, or is it a different setup?

Saves any time you exit your ship. Which can be almost any time, unless of course you are nowhere near your ship.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

How would you rank these changes from the perspective of someone coming at this from a new game, new experience?

It's hard to say since I haven't tried restarting or doing survival mode. I think the new player experience probably isn't too different now or maybe slightly better.

My biggest gripes are the end game where it's almost impossible to make meaningful progress. The cost of all the high-end upgrades increase dramatically and there's no efficient or reliable way to get the money you need to pay for them.

Although I will say that after my rant about the ship I did get lucky and found a ship with ~20/39 slots. Still less usable slots than my previous ship but it was A class and has the potential to be much better if I scrape together enough money. It's also valued at 10M units for trade-in so I might get lucky again and trade-in for a better ship without needing to fully repair this one. (All assuming I actually keep playing this game beyond this weekend which seems doubtful.)

As much as I enjoyed some aspects of this game, I'm probably going to trade it in at some point this week. All my time is going to HZD that it is collecting dust on my shelf. It was all right while it lasted.

Orphu wrote:

Saves any time you exit your ship. Which can be almost any time, unless of course you are nowhere near your ship.

Ship only, or do the new vehicles also have the "save on ship exit" functionality?

m0nk3yboy wrote:
Orphu wrote:

Saves any time you exit your ship. Which can be almost any time, unless of course you are nowhere near your ship.

Ship only, or do the new vehicles also have the "save on ship exit" functionality?

I don't think they do but you can also build a save point whenever you want if you have the resources. Saving isn't a huge deal in this game, you can get to your ship pretty easily most of the time. The save points only matter if you're playing survival mode.

I'm finding the game to be a heady cocktail of complete joy and bitter frustration. I had an amazing time exploring a planet yesterday (four or five inventory slots added to suit, all fauna discovered and lots of gorgeous vistas) but the ship situation is driving me crazy. I loathe my little Fisher Price ship but any ship I get the opportunity to buy either has one or two extra slots, which doesn't seem worth the vast asking price, or it is a decent upgrade and costs 10 times what I have in my wallet at any one time.

I'll see a small ship and think I can afford it only to find out that it's apparently a tardis made out of unobtanium and diamonds and costs 12,000,000 when I'm driving myself crazy mining minerals and am only just cracking 1,000,000.

I realise there are supposed to be salvageable ships out there somewhere but I've read that the effort to get them going hardly seems worth it when you only gain one slot at most.

I haven't ventured out past the outer limits of my ship. I keep getting radiation warnings.

I think I need to give it more than half an hour of play

m0nk3yboy wrote:

I haven't ventured out past the outer limits of my ship. I keep getting radiation warnings.

I think I need to give it more than half an hour of play ;)

Those radiation warnings are extremely alarming. Your suit has built in protections against it you just need to keep those systems charged.

Higgledy wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

I haven't ventured out past the outer limits of my ship. I keep getting radiation warnings.

I think I need to give it more than half an hour of play ;)

Those radiation warnings are extremely alarming. Your suit has built in protections against it you just need to keep those systems charged.

Also it seems weird but if you get into a cave or some other structure that provides cover above you, you're safe from the atmospheric effects.

muraii wrote:
Higgledy wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

I haven't ventured out past the outer limits of my ship. I keep getting radiation warnings.

I think I need to give it more than half an hour of play ;)

Those radiation warnings are extremely alarming. Your suit has built in protections against it you just need to keep those systems charged.

Also it seems weird but if you get into a cave or some other structure that provides cover above you, you're safe from the atmospheric effects.

I had problems with this.

I actually scrapped my first planet, and started again.

I was able to find all the bits I needed to repair my ship, and also gathered all the components for a Health Cell, as my health was down to 20% for some reason.

This planet has toxic rain, so the cover element is making a bit more sense. The radiation, I was trying to rationalise as it being airborne irradiated particles, so the wind couldn't reach me inside...

Rain planet makes more sense.

Yeah there's some dissonance but I'm okay with it. You can also blast out a hole in whatever and get in there. I've done that lots of times.

Came home for lunch and am spinning it up!

Low Flight Enhancements - pilot ships at lower altitude, improved ship landing

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a difference a day makes.

I bought a very cool looking explorer ship for a reasonable price. I have also been tripping over drop pods on a planet that, at a low point last night, I named Discord (it's also green and brownish red with lots of wiggly stone snake like structures on the surface, so the name suits it.) Many more slots in my suit inventory and I'll have to be re-classed as a freighter.

The only thing bothering me now is the torch. Torch technology has really taken a dive in the far future. I own crap torches that are better torches than that one. I've lost track of the number of times I've thought about turning my torch on because it's so dark only to realise that it's already on.

Higgledy wrote:

The only thing bothering me now is the torch. Torch technology has really taken a dive in the far future. I own crap torches that are better torches than that one. I've lost track of the number of times I've thought about turning my torch on because it's so dark only to realise that it's already on.

I always forget that thing exists. Never really use it.

Valmorian wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

The only thing bothering me now is the torch. Torch technology has really taken a dive in the far future. I own crap torches that are better torches than that one. I've lost track of the number of times I've thought about turning my torch on because it's so dark only to realise that it's already on.

I always forget that thing exists. Never really use it.

When I used it it seemed okay but it's not strong by any means.

I bought this after the latest update. To me it feels like a graphically worst version of Subnautica. Oxygen meters on both and environmental hazard on NMS compared to food/water in Subnautica.

You don't get the ability to build a home base and get exocrafts until you've hyperjumped a few times.

A quick tip if you're missing an element, look for the little galactic trade orb things. You should be able to find one near your starting area. Scan and just run around the to the question marks. IF for some reason it's not there, as there is some randomness, do your best to find a beacon, it'll point you to a shelter that will definitely have one. Sell what you don't need(I generally always keep plutonium, iron, carbon and thamium for survival) and then buy what you do.

Exocrafts don't save, but you can build a save point with plutonium and iron at any time. I would say that's more of a last ditch effort sort of thing. It's easier to just drive to the closest outpost, you can save at those.