No Man's Sky Catch-All 2.0

Has anyone else noticed the viewer for cataloguing inanimates behaves differently? Like, it doesn't respond with "You've already discovered this <thing>". It just highlights it and that's it. Is that by design?

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 ;)

There is something wrong with your television set. They control the horizontal. They control the vertical. I repeat there is something wrong with your television set. You are participating in a great adventure. You are experiencing the awe and mystery which reaches from your inner mind to The Outer Limits.

Building my Roamer was cheaper than I anticipated. I think it's fun and even pulled it out of a couple of holes.

But it is hella clumsy and it is very easy to run over and kill animals. The camera perspective makes all animals look much smaller and even if you're careful you can hit babies.

I know this is basically a game of resource extraction on worlds where every resource is nonrenewable, but I try not to kill animals unless they're attacking me or others.

Baron Of Hell 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 ;)

There is something wrong with your television set. They control the horizontal. They control the vertical. I repeat there is something wrong with your television set. You are participating in a great adventure. You are experiencing the awe and mystery which reaches from your inner mind to The Outer Limits.

"Liking it" was just not enough.

muraii wrote:

Has anyone else noticed the viewer for cataloguing inanimates behaves differently? Like, it doesn't respond with "You've already discovered this <thing>". It just highlights it and that's it. Is that by design?

I have been a stalwart NMS lover since launch. I am not happy with the recent update.

Previously, if you already owned or knew a blueprint, the system told you that when you came across it again. Not anymore, all blueprints are always treated as new, even if you have already built it and have it installed.
Previously if you have already scanned something (animal/plant/whatever) you were given feedback with a simple prompt "You've already discovered...". Not anymore, but instead of the blueprint error where it's treated as new, you're now given no feedback at all. Leading me to constantly ask myself, "am I scanning this right?"
Heck, previously scanning would give you a progress bar, now it just makes a noise you can barely hear.
The "quest" prompts are now totally broken, and continuously remind me to do the things I've already done, with no way to interact with them or turn them off.
The feedback for the GUI is also changed now. You have to hold the "x" button to select something in the interface, and previously that showed a small circle filling up to give you feedback. That small circle filling up is now gone and you can't tell how long you have to hold the damn "x" button.
Previously, you could see in interior settings and generally had enough light at night or in caves. Now, the darkness level is up to 11 and you can't see anything.
The HDR mode is absolutely horrible, as it creates a heightened contrast that makes it impossible to see anything. I have found no way to turn this off. I would trade 4K resolution / HDR for a greater draw distance in a heartbeat.
Finally the inventory management is a nightmare, although that's been pretty true since the beginning. I have my suit, my ship, my exocraft, and my freighter, and storage containers at home base, but the ability to move items between any of those is limited. I can auto transfer from suit or vehicle to my ship, and from ship to suit. But nowhere else. The freighter can only take items from the ship. In order to get something out of the freighter I have to physically visit it! In order to take items from base inventory I have to visit each one of my storage containers, one at a time, and transfer only from container to suit and vice versa. Never mind that the ship is parked on the landing platform and the vehicle is on it's "garage". And, even though on most trading outposts and space stations you can sell directly from your ship inventory, you can't do that with a trading terminal built into your own base!

Sorry for the rant. I've had my fun, I loved the game at launch, but after playing 4 hours in the most recent update, I think I'm out. So long, and thanks for all the plutonium.

Meanwhile I'm reaching WoW levels of obsession with the game. I'm really enjoying it but I've actually had to stop playing for a while to get some perspective. I now have my own planet 'Clemency' with bobble grass, tropical islands and creatures that get around by bouncing like space hoppers. I'm in the very early stages of creating a home base. Love the Gek and their history. Clemency is in Gek space.

It's good to get these things off your chest ThatGuy42. I've definitely bought blueprints I didn't realise I had. That's annoying considering the slow drip feed of Nanites.

This could be your GOTY 2017 Higgledy

I think I still have my copy lying about, I was literally gonna wait until they got 3-4 big updates out to see if it really changed the game. The bases literally being the same slight variations on every planet was a big gripe, upgrading your ship was a bit of a pain too.

Sounds like the new update is a bit of a mixed bag to say the least, although the 60fps would be nice to experience on my PS4 Pro.

It's certainly taken me by surprise.

I hope they keep improving the game. Fingers crossed for autonomous mining robots.

So what is my "goal" in this game?

I'm going in blind, having ignored EVERYTHING in the media, but I keep hearing you guys discuss talking with traders, and lore and stuff, and I'm just curious.

What's the end game (or isn't there one)?

The "goal" is to explore. There are a few questlines that have an ending but there's not much of a payoff. The three basic goals of the game are:

1) Follow the Atlas Path. (main story)
2) Reach the center of the galaxy. (main goal)
3) Build a base, get all upgrades, get the best stuff, etc. (player-driven goals)

Personally I watched the end of (1) and (2) on Youtube and decided there wasn't much point in completing those myself. The most satisfying thing in the game for me is to just go visit new worlds. To that end one tip I would give is to make sure to get the different hyperdrive systems, those let you explore different types of star systems that have different properties.

I still don't know why I keep coming back to this game, I think it's just relaxing in its simplicity. Also I just got a new video card and the game looks really good now. However I currently made the mistake of trying to do the survival achievement which basically has you stay on a planet with extreme conditions for about 8 real time hours. It's not hard to get since you can just idle inside the shelter the entire time if you want, but you can't leave the planet or else the counter resets so it's really boring.

I jumped back in last week, having read about the Survival mode. I gave it a shot for a few hours and then uninstalled. It gives you a harsh planet to start on, a 30-60 minute walk to your starting craft and some pretty heinous gathering requirements to get repaired. There's not enough gameplay when your ship is unable to take off, so that first section of the game is an annoying grind of managing your suit power, your mining laser power and trying to scrape enough of the resources you need to get repaired. I imagine it's fine after that, take off, go find a more pleasant planet (if they exist) and enjoy the rest of the game, but it was a curve I wasnt willing to get past.

Well, I guess I couldn't walk away. I spent another 10 hours playing this weekend. You know what? I'm still frustrated with everything I mentioned earlier, but I'm back in.

I'll tell you what changed my mind: the play loop.
Since launch when I really became a dedicated lover of this game, it's always been due to the simple exploration play loop.
1) land on planet
2) explore environment
3) gather resources
4) upgrade technology (suit/ship/mutltiool initially, and now including freighter/base/vehicle)
4) repeat

I think my frustrations were really about not fulfilling that loop. I was getting lost in trying to deal with my base, my freighter, the quests, etc. But over the weekend, I was back to my "Zen" place. I ignored everything else, and just explored a fresh planet. That's what always makes me smile, and what brings me joy about the game. Find a planet, and just explore.

Also, I moved my base to a new planet. That move, alone, was a ton of fun. There's way more structure options now and blueprints available for the base building. And, because I knew so much more about construction and spacial needs, I was able to build a much better layout for the space. Of course the downside is that I had a garden of 15 Albumen Pearl plants for continuous income, and moving the base only returns 50% of the resources required to rebuild plants. That was definitely frustrating. I ended up doing a lot of resource runs for Iron, Zinc, etc. to build up the new structure. But, since my true joy in this game is in that resource gathering mode, I was able to really get into it.

That's wonderful! I think I'm gonna jump back in myself, tonight. I have only built minimally and still don't have a freighter. Hell, I have only bought one ship, I think. I'm not grokking the economy well enough to make lots of money. The good news is there's a lot there to explore.

I'm in a similar spot in Fallout 4, where I'm gathering and building mostly. Thing is, I try not to fast-travel but gathering resources can take a lot of time without it. No Man's Sky doesn't present that kind of conflict.

Yesterday I tried to tackle Survival Mode for the first time. Wow, what a brutal and crushing experience that was! I started with a ship that was 12 minutes away on a frozen planet. I figured it wouldn't be too bad, as there were enough resources near the shelter I spawned at that I could make a good go of it and get to the ship. But I was absolutely wrong.

The problem is in the resources. One death, and all resources I had gathered were gone from my inventory. All the equipment on my suit and multi-tool that I had repaired were once again broken. That's bad enough, but when you add on top the fact that every resource I had gathered into my inventory was now gone from the game world I was instantly screwed. I had literally gathered every bit of Thamium necessary to power my life support, and every bit of Zinc for my hazard suit that was in range. Once I re-spawned, there was literally nothing I could do as there were no resources in range of my suit to gather and recharge. I died 6 more times last night just testing this theory out and trying anything I could do to stay alive.

The challenge is exciting, and I really want to try again, with more information on my side this time about what to expect and how to plan appropriately for this game mode. Really looking forward to my next crack at this!

If you want to grind up some money, trading Dynamic Resonators at the space station is a good way to do so, they buy in is around 33k, and they sell at 66k.

Fastmav347 wrote:

If you want to grind up some money, trading Dynamic Resonators at the space station is a good way to do so, they buy in is around 33k, and they sell at 66k.

Farming 20 or so Albumin Pearl plants might be a better strategy.

I don't think ever seen those, are they new?

It's a quest if you get a farmer worker person.

Albumen Pearls will show up on the planetary scan from space. Once you find a planet that has them, get down there and track down the pearls. They normally grow in clusters. Note that as soon as you harvest one, a large sentinel force will come after you, so be prepared. Once you have 3 pearls, you can plant your own in your base and get a nice cash crop going. I have a large cuboid hall setup as a green house with a row of 16 Albumen pearls which nets me about 160k every harvest. So far, I have found that the easiest way to gain money is farming.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

Yesterday I tried to tackle Survival Mode for the first time. Wow, what a brutal and crushing experience that was! I started with a ship that was 12 minutes away on a frozen planet. I figured it wouldn't be too bad, as there were enough resources near the shelter I spawned at that I could make a good go of it and get to the ship. But I was absolutely wrong.

The problem is in the resources. One death, and all resources I had gathered were gone from my inventory. All the equipment on my suit and multi-tool that I had repaired were once again broken. That's bad enough, but when you add on top the fact that every resource I had gathered into my inventory was now gone from the game world I was instantly screwed. I had literally gathered every bit of Thamium necessary to power my life support, and every bit of Zinc for my hazard suit that was in range. Once I re-spawned, there was literally nothing I could do as there were no resources in range of my suit to gather and recharge. I died 6 more times last night just testing this theory out and trying anything I could do to stay alive.

The challenge is exciting, and I really want to try again, with more information on my side this time about what to expect and how to plan appropriately for this game mode. Really looking forward to my next crack at this!

Update! I have been back to survival mode several times now. I have absolutely determined that the mode is f*ckED. Do not play survival. I have now started and deleted 3 different survival mode runs, and in each run, there is no way to survive. You are spawned away from your ship, without enough resources between you and your ship to survive, nor any safe harbor within your travel distance. Even traveling in an alternate direction from your ship is fruitless, as the back-end calculations that spawn these hell-worlds simply do not want you to live. Perhaps if I tried 20 more times I might get one spawn where there was a possibility of survival. But I wouldn't bet on it. I can state unequivocally that survival mode in NMS is simply not for me.

Can you still dig out caves that protect you from the dangers? Might make survival mode...survivable.

Also, I found out a while back that apparently plants will start growing in tunnels you carve out after a while.

That's what I had to do. It was running from cave to cave, digging out shelter in resource nodules to survive the acid rain until I made it to my ship. Got a lot easier after that!

Well, I'm off to a rough start. I went into this with zero knowledge of the game mechanics, and got attacked by some doodlebugs. I tried fending them off with my mining laser -didn't realize I could melee attack- and now it's depleted, and my resources to recharge it are gone.

Guess I better do some research!

It's fun but the mechanics are occasionally counter-intuitive. I think you start with a mining tool that also had a bullet mode, but maybe you have to get that later. If you're on PS4, hit triangle to see if you can switch modes.

I'm on pc, Steam sale and all that. So I did some reading and returned to it, really liking it now after 5 hours. Got my ship up and running, did a hyperspace run for the first time. I'm wondering though, do most of the planets look the same? Seems odd no forests or other biomes so far.

There are definitely wooded areas and water planets and such variation. It's not quite as distinct in my experience as, say, Minecraft's world generation. But I do think there's enough variation, fwiw.

Good to know! I had a pretty good run in with some sentry bots. They were kicking my butt til I hopped in my ship and strafed them a few times with photon blasts.

Each planet/moon/etc. is only one biome. The idea is to check out more planets, not wander on one planet looking for new biomes.

I don't think that's as interesting exploration-wise, personally, and wish they could re-jigger the code to allow for multiple biomes per planet.

Eventually you'll see that many of the creatures are very similar to others you've encountered. The game then moves from the simple joy of finding new stuff on new planets to trying to find truly unique creates or vistas or whatever. Meaning, you have to grind planets to find stuff that's new or cool to you.

Found this cool twitter feed that runs a weekly screenshot contest with a different theme each week. They are magnificent.

https://twitter.com/nmsQwest

Followed!