No Man's Sky

[Terre]

Wasn't keen on Corvettes initially, but I must admit they are quite good. Just wish they had more Tech Slots for all the new Corvette upgrades in addition to the normal Starship upgrades.

It makes me laugh when I see corvettes with fifteen engines, when the metric cap is easily reached with 3. I have 2 weapons, the necessary reactors, and the other required parts. But that has left me with enough room to tune the build, just over 430u/s at sea level.

[alt3rn1ty]

Wasn't keen on Corvettes initially, but I must admit they are quite good. Just wish they had more Tech Slots for all the new Corvette upgrades in addition to the normal Starship upgrades.

It makes me laugh when I see corvettes with fifteen engines, when the metric cap is easily reached with 3. I have 2 weapons, the necessary reactors, and the other required parts. But that has left me with enough room to tune the build, just over 430u/s at sea level.

Found something called OffSet building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OviTjOwAfp8
Using it to cover up having things like 3 x reactors etcetera, with things like Nacelle/Cowling/Fairings set at half height of a habitat.

Latest but probably not the last :
https://postimg.cc/f3Tbp82q
https://postimg.cc/WDB1zsbN

Damage is irrelevant with an Infra-Knife weapon, that currently has DPS 43500 (its on a SuperCharged slot, in addition to the Adjacency bonuses from Upgrades installed .. Honestly its overkill for this game).

Like those Thunderbird Landing addons, they swing round in flight to be main thrusters.

Would like to use the smaller landing thrusters upside down on top, to look like RL retro thrusters ("The Expanse" style), but current building restrictions doesn't allow it, maybe Hellogames will tweak all of this more in future.

[Terre]

This the strength of the NMS ship building, get as creative as you like. I enjoy seeing just how much wring out of my various craft and weapons.

By swapping the figurines about, I've got the speed up to 548u/s at sea level.

That's a nice build you have.

Latest but probably not the last :
https://postimg.cc/f3Tbp82q
https://postimg.cc/WDB1zsbN

[alt3rn1ty]

Thank you, its only taken 9 years experience with the game
Sooo adictive.

[Terre]

I was thinking about my corvette layout, and the lack of technology slots. One of the strengths of the corvette is, you don't have to land, so why have launch thruster upgrades, so I removed all bar aquajets, just in case of a miss-click, this gave me 3 extra slots for a start.

[alt3rn1ty]

Oh, now, thats a very good idea
They really aren't needed.

[Gavrushka]

I've just bought, and am now installing, No Man's Sky.

I'll be back with an expletive laden rant if I don't enjoy it!

Since I live in a little village, my maximum download speed is around 9MBytes/second, so it'll take some time...

[chew-ie]

Grind away Gavrushka - and have fun

[Observe]

I've just bought, and am now installing, No Man's Sky.

So far, I've avoided this game - in fear of the time sink. I've kept my eye on it over the years and will be very interested to hear how you like it.

[Gavrushka]

I've played around 40 mins, and am still really just searching for controls at the minute. I received a message, weird one, from someone saying I'd left them behind, then received a 'signal source identified' message, but hadn't a clue how to find where that was! Old with ADHD, I do understand the learning curve can be a little skewed for me, but I'll stick with it. It has little in the way of barriers to what you can do, feeling like a true sandbox, but it does feel a little overwhelming right now.

Yeah, it could well be a 'just one more...' kind of game, leeching too much free time, so a little discipline might be required.

But I can see me and it are gonna get on just fine after, perhaps, a difficult 'courtship'.

[Redvers Ganderpoke]

But I can see me and it are gonna get on just fine after, perhaps, a difficult 'courtship'.

It can be a bit frustrating that it can switch "Objectives" without telling you so you are following a plot line and you lose any idea what you are supposed to be doing as the next objective isn't related to what you thought you were doing.

It's like a "Elite- Dangerous" - simplified - but not in a bad way. It's less of a simulation and a bit more of a game. (I'm 880hrs in at the moment.)

Spoiler

Show

Once you get to the "Anomaly" it becomes easier!
Do the expeditions - they speed your build along nicely.

[Terre]

I've just bought, and am now installing, No Man's Sky.

Good luck on your NMS journey.

It's that moment when you warp into a system, only to be told that you discovered this system 7 years ago!

[Gavrushka]

I'm gonna stumble for a little longer, and then restart, I think. Yeah, it's pretty intimidating realising just how vast the sandbox is...

I can't even find a keyboard map, but have worked out a few important keys. I still have little more than an hour in the game.

After starting, doing a few bits and pieces on the start planet, and then going into orbit, I ended up heading towards a space station where a dude offered missions like to 'find a person', but I've little idea if this is any way related to the original message I got while in orbit ('message source located') or whether I ended up doing something different.

Thing is, and I like this, there doesn't seem to be any constraints on time for doing anything, so that makes it pretty chill. I am playing with multiplayer switched off for the minute.

Have a little free time now, so will try again.

[alt3rn1ty]

welcome to NMS Gavrushka, I was a 60's child, and estimate having played about 9400 hours in this game.
You can load it up for ten minutes .. and then dash out the door being "dads taxi".
You can play it for 2 days solid .. no problems if its just paused occasionally.
Its a jump in for as long as you wish kind of game .. but it can hook you.

As you go just follow the occasional mission lines (Nada & Polo, Artemis .. a few others), they will slowly teach you most of what you need to know.
But mostly just enjoy it. Recommend dont go on reddit, spoilers are everywhere.

A tip I will give for later - Upgrades to equipment in your various Tech inventories have whats known as "Adjacency bonuses". If you put an upgrade in an adjacent slot to the equipment it upgrades, they will both have their own colour highlighting around the icon. The more the merrier.

Have good look at all the settings, and if you decide to play with Multiplayer on, turn off PVP, there are some very clever players in this game and Hellogames do not restrict anyone from using mods in Multiplayer. Something simple: You might be lured into a seductive base you come across, and after wandering in there for a while you find you cant get out, the whole thing is a trap. They seal off your way out, and the more clever ones make it so that you cant just simply report the base to make it vanish and allow you to get out.

Oh and dont fall asleep at the keyboard, if you are on the Anomaly (you'll find out later) you might end up being kidnapped into another galaxy.
Aaand lastly dont fall asleep at the keyboard if you are on a planet which has bad storms and you are not well protected. The game save system is a bit weird, but for each save slot you have 2 save/restore points, one is automatic and the other is triggered by for example you getting out of your ship .. If you die, you get a gravestone, and this contains everything you collected so you can get your stuff back. But if you are asleep and the game recovers you near that gravestone, then you die again, a new gravestone is generated which has nothing in it because the newest gravestone has replaced the first. So you lose everything.

Beware hidden triggers. A player can use wires and different types of switches to activate some things animations, imagine a garage door, placed horizontally instead of vertically, over the mouth of a Volcano (the whole thing being hidden by the base design). You walk over it the switch activates the door and down you go, the door closing behind you. Griefers are a pain in the butt .. settings, network, have a good think on what you want other players to be able to do.

Make a backup of your saves once a week/month. They are in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Hellogames\NMS\

Have fun, it is more of a fun game than other space games, and has a strange chill feel to it. You will also notice occasionally so many things in this game which are sci-fi nostalgia. Hellogames wanted the game to feel like you walked into an old sci-fi book cover, artists like Chris Foss have influenced it, some sounds are also reminiscent of old sci-fi (I mean old by our standards, not just Star Wars). A good example is somewhere you may not have been yet I mentioned already, when you get to the Anomaly, go up the ramp to the right, walk to the back of that part of the Anomaly and turn right until you are on a balcony looking over an area you cant go - Ever seen Forbidden Planet?, when the professor introduces the crew to the underground parts of the planet and shows them the cavernous areas underneath where the planet makes it own energy.

Right now I am fishing, for all the Legendary fish (soooo many fish).

Enjoy

Edit: Oh and for the messages you get in the starship, press x, thats the quick menu, then press q or e to go left / right, and select an option with the left mouse. You respond to the odd messages you get that way.
Last tip, if you get bored building a base (though the first one the game leads you to doing is worth it for the tutorials given by a few characters you pick up along the way), then a Freighter is good as you can build a base onboard and take it with you.

I .. better stop. See you beyond the centre, traveller

[alt3rn1ty]

Oh godz no .. one more thing that isn't a spoiler.

Your save game slots and Expeditions.

There is a new thing in the Anomaly, where you can change your current playthrough into taking part in any current Expeditions. Its just a case of visiting the right place and clicking .. convenient but ..
.. Personally I still use the old method to participate in Expeditions, for reasons which will become apparent.

So first the old method. When an Expedition becomes available (right now they are re-running an old one), Load up NMS, and when it comes to choosing your save game to playthrough, choose an empty save slot, and then choose the Expedition to play. All of your saves during the Expedition are now saved in this slot.
When you complete the Expedition, the game will tell you the save will now be converted to a "normal save" (in the same save slot).
Everything you earned as a bonus in the Expedition (Banners/Special Ships/new Equipment) are now recorded in this save.

So in your long term playthrough, you maybe now want all the special bits you can get from that save. All you need to do is load up your long term play through saves, go to the Anomaly, and visit the QuickSilver Bot at his stand. He will give you an option to recover items from your Expedition save, into your long term playthrough.

Thats the old method. The "Why would I do that instead of just continuing my long term playthrough and using the console in the Anomaly to sidestep into an Expedition" is because Hellogames generally make a big update which includes a new Expedition, and initially its buggy as hell. Three or four weeks later they will have put out about 5-6 patches to the update and resolved most of the issues. But that period can be a pain in the butt and negatively impact your long term playthrough (though I must admit they are getting better these days at not having long periods of serious impact problems).

So TLDR: I recommend using the old method of participating in Expeditions.

If you have participated in an Expedition, and you have got the bits you want out of the save into your long term playthrough, then later on the loading screen you can delete the saves made in the Expedition, freeing up a save slot for the next Expedition. Just make sure you get the bits out of it you want first.

I can imagine Gavrushka reading this and thinking "Whooosh!, over my head it went and plopped against the wall" , just bookmark this post and come back later

Oh and .. you dont have to participate in Expeditions. You dont have to have Multiplayer on either, the whole game can be played Single player, so maybe preserve some of your bandwidth (and maybe some sanity, multiplayer is the buggiest part of this game especially if you dont have high speed internet out in the country).

[Gavrushka]

I can imagine Gavrushka reading this and thinking "Whooosh!, over my head it went and plopped against the wall" , just bookmark this post and come back later

Oh and .. you dont have to participate in Expeditions. You dont have to have Multiplayer on either, the whole game can be played Single player, so maybe preserve some of your bandwidth (and maybe some sanity, multiplayer is the buggiest part of this game especially if you dont have high speed internet out in the country).

It was more my head exploded, spattering bits all over the walls and ceiling!

I do get the depth of the game, but at the same time I appreciate you can actually do stuff from the 1st minute without having to go through a huge tutorial. Upgrading my ship and exosuit are two of the biggest issues at the minute, but I've learned to play with an alt-tab to Grok now, and that keeps me edging forwards.

About to abandon my current game as I decided to appoint myself overseer of some distant failing colony and realised I probably don't have the resources or firepower to help in any way.

But I love the vastness now that I've learned how to warp to other systems. I just wish I had some idea of what resources I need to gather, and how to use the damned things! (I'll get there eventually - the rest of you have a seven year head start on me!)

[alt3rn1ty]

Grokking comes with time.

Settlements imho are a pain in the ass, Hellogames wanted to satisfy the demanding reddit crowd on the subject of cities .. but you might get some entertainment short term, until they become a bit of a nagging feature.

Resources .. omg, this game has its own Periodic table, roughly similar to our RL periodic table, but with oddities.

What you eventually learn is what you enjoy doing .. But you have a huge amount to do until then

[Redvers Ganderpoke]

Right now I am fishing, for all the Legendary fish (soooo many fish).

I hate fishing mini games.

[Redvers Ganderpoke]

I'm gonna stumble for a little longer, and then restart, I think. Yeah, it's pretty intimidating realising just how vast the sandbox is...

I can't even find a keyboard map, but have worked out a few important keys. I still have little more than an hour in the game.

After starting, doing a few bits and pieces on the start planet, and then going into orbit, I ended up heading towards a space station where a dude offered missions like to 'find a person', but I've little idea if this is any way related to the original message I got while in orbit ('message source located') or whether I ended up doing something different.

Thing is, and I like this, there doesn't seem to be any constraints on time for doing anything, so that makes it pretty chill. I am playing with multiplayer switched off for the minute.

Have a little free time now, so will try again.

You barely use half a dozen keys, the key map is really simple.

On my first play through I didn't even notice that I could summon the Anomaly from the "x" menu in space, until I had done quite a bit.

Always check in the log that you are on the mission that you think you are and always hand in missions to the same station as you got it from - if you don't the rewards won't be as good.
You can land on Freighters (and own them - several ways of doing this) you can find crashed starships and change your ship (while keeping the old one).
The built in plots are rather "naggy" and have to be done for later progression and you do get "given" quite a lot of stuff that helps you.

If you do an expedition it can cut out some plot lines- The current one will give you an Atlantid Drive and a type of multitool you can't get until later in the game.

[alt3rn1ty]

~ Always check in the log that you are on the mission that you think you are and always hand in missions to the same station as you got it from - if you don't the rewards won't be as good. ~

3 times yesterday I was trying to remember this needed a mention. Someone already mentioned you can get confused with the game changing active missions.

Esc key gets you to the Log / Discoveries / Options
Tab key brings up your inventories
An unusual key combination in your starship, while pressing W for forward thrust, pressing W + Shift is faster forward thrust, pressing W + A + D (Hold until the short countdown finishes) = Pulse drive. Press S to stop Pulse drive or just brake.