Hooooo boy. This is a doozy of an update.
This is a Terraria-level update. I don't know how to prioritize things, so here's a quick overview of the new hotness in the order in which Hello Games presented them.
First up, the graphics have been significantly overhauled, with better textures and lighting effects. The PS4 Pro can take advantage of new features and shinies.
Other players' bases can now be found and explored, and Steam Workshop will let you find them more easily.
YOU CAN NOW OWN MULTIPLE SHIPS OMG THANK YOU HELLO GAMES
Speaking of ships, each ship type has a clear specialization for combat, hauling freight, and exploration.
Multi-tools also have specializations, for mining, combat, and scanning.
Ships and weapons now have classes: A, B, C, or a rare S-Class.
You can now build ground vehicles called Exocraft for getting around on-planet. There are three classes of these for speed, hauling loot, or somewhere in the middle.
You can make Exocraft races and challenge others to beat your time!
There are new traders in space stations, some of which sell blueprints that you can buy with a new currency: nanite clusters.
Base-building now has way more options so you can pimp out your house in style!
Multi-tool and ship weapons have far more variety now, for close-, mid-, and long-range combat.
There's a new game mode: permadeath. If you were ever playing NMS and thought "I wish I could lose all this when I die," then this mode is for you.
There are five new trophies for claiming a base or freighter, building an exocraft, visiting another player's base, and reaching the center of the galaxy in Survival and Permadeath mode. Those last two should take a while.
There's now a dedicated photo mode so you can stop time and line up the perfect shot! You can choose the time of day and lighting effects and add photo filters.
The Discovery menu has gotten some significant updates; it's actually useful! You can find yourself and set waypoints to previous systems.
65daysofstatic has created 8 new soundscapes for that awesome procedurally generated soundtrack.
You can name your ships now.
You can skip those annoying black bar cutscenes.
NPCs are faster at getting to the point when you talk to them.
And various other improvements.
For the full list, check this post from Hello Games: http://no-mans-sky.com/pathfinder-update/
This is a Terraria-level update. I don't know how to prioritize things, so here's a quick overview of the new hotness in the order in which Hello Games presented them.
First up, the graphics have been significantly overhauled, with better textures and lighting effects. The PS4 Pro can take advantage of new features and shinies.
Other players' bases can now be found and explored, and Steam Workshop will let you find them more easily.
YOU CAN NOW OWN MULTIPLE SHIPS OMG THANK YOU HELLO GAMES
Speaking of ships, each ship type has a clear specialization for combat, hauling freight, and exploration.
Multi-tools also have specializations, for mining, combat, and scanning.
Ships and weapons now have classes: A, B, C, or a rare S-Class.
You can now build ground vehicles called Exocraft for getting around on-planet. There are three classes of these for speed, hauling loot, or somewhere in the middle.
You can make Exocraft races and challenge others to beat your time!
There are new traders in space stations, some of which sell blueprints that you can buy with a new currency: nanite clusters.
Base-building now has way more options so you can pimp out your house in style!
Multi-tool and ship weapons have far more variety now, for close-, mid-, and long-range combat.
There's a new game mode: permadeath. If you were ever playing NMS and thought "I wish I could lose all this when I die," then this mode is for you.
There are five new trophies for claiming a base or freighter, building an exocraft, visiting another player's base, and reaching the center of the galaxy in Survival and Permadeath mode. Those last two should take a while.
There's now a dedicated photo mode so you can stop time and line up the perfect shot! You can choose the time of day and lighting effects and add photo filters.
The Discovery menu has gotten some significant updates; it's actually useful! You can find yourself and set waypoints to previous systems.
65daysofstatic has created 8 new soundscapes for that awesome procedurally generated soundtrack.
You can name your ships now.
You can skip those annoying black bar cutscenes.
NPCs are faster at getting to the point when you talk to them.
And various other improvements.
For the full list, check this post from Hello Games: http://no-mans-sky.com/pathfinder-update/
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OK so, early impressions:
1. I had like a week after upgrading my PC where I could max this out. :D
2. This is really pretty. On planet everything just looks all-around better.
3. The sounds seem better, not just the music. That could be the new PC. Newer Realtek stuff, etc.
4. It's... kinda buggy. I've crashed a few times in the past 30 minutes or so. They have some kinks yet to work out.
I read last night that it was coming out this week, but with little details other than the vehicle. I'm looking forward to having a vehicle, finally. I'm still on my way to the center and have some more crafting to do. I enjoyed the last update very much, so I'm looking forward to checking this one out.
Oh, and 5. The melee boost-jump still works!
Wow, this all sounds great! I don't know when I'll get back to NMS, but when I do, it sounds like it'll be awesome :)
After a couple hours, this is solid so far. One annoying "bug" that may not be a bug is still present-- a new NPC sends you on quests like the ones from the Foundation update, and you have to go to a specific kind of landmark. You need multiples, so you'll be scanning for them multiple times. All too often, it keeps sending you to the same one, which is basically useless since you've already retrieved the items you're after.
The exocraft controls surprisingly well, but you can't turn when backing up for some reason (at least with KB/M).
The chromatic abberation (the distortion from your "visor" at the top of the screen) still gives me some motion sickness and the mod that removes it doesn't work with this version yet. Ughh... worth it though.
I'm digging the new quests. I see that "Class C" on my ship now and I really want to upgrade it. I feel like adding ship/multitool specializations AND classes to them will make replayability much higher. That might be the big highlight for me, and I haven't really even dug into it yet.
Oh also! The bug that this mod fixed has finally been officially fixed: https://nomansskymods.com/mods/polo-warp-reactor-theta-fix/
I was wary of using a mod to do something that central to the progression so I just waited for an official fix.
And one last comment of things I keep forgetting. I should make a list.
It seems everyone has had framerate dips on PC. Hopefully that gets back to smooth sailing in a patch.
And this one is important: YOUR EXOCRAFT CAN GO UNDERWATER. You can actually explore the depths without fear of drowning.
I'm excited for the exocraft. I've spent way too much time walking along the surface of planets I visit. I've been wanting a vehicle. If it works underwater, that's even better! I hate swimming, movement is much too slow. I'm looking forward to getting an exocraft.
You can still preserve your momentum from the melee speed boost in water by submerging briefly and then re-emerging with a full jet pack but it seems it now diminishes over time if you have a big lake you're trying to get across.
But yeah, I am no fan of swimming
@Travis, what kind of new hardware did you get (that you mentioned in your post here)? Also, I recommend sending crash reports to Hello Games, I think they've done well with that. I sent them at least one, I'm sure.
Maybe Hello Games will give us a submersible for those big lakes and oceans we sometimes run into. Even a little handheld device, like the one in Subnautica, would be a vast improvement to swimming.
If you go back and read the post I made about Mass Effect Andromeda recently, the new PC is detailed there.
And a sub would be awesome. The buggies don't handle well underwater and you can't really control the z-axis much. You have to trust that you can drive your way out.
Sorry I missed it, thanks for pointing me to it. Nice GPU, I'm kind of jealous, although my 980Ti Classified has satisfied me greatly in the last year. I'm glad you've upgraded (now you can check out Ark)!
Subnautica is almost entirely underwater and in the beginning you can craft something you hold with both hands and it moves you forward. Something like that would be excellent for NMS. Although something bigger, like a one person sub, would be great for those planets covered almost completely in water.
Your card is still more powerful than mine, and I still have no interest in Ark :D
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-980-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB/3439vs3639
Much more powerful! Mine is a generation newer but yours was the top of last year's line.
Wow, really?! I think it's close to Titan power, but probably not quite there. I thought your's would be better than a Titan. That's just an uneducated assumption. I don't know how the 1060 compares to anything. Now I'm seeing that a 1080Ti is out or coming. You said you ordered your new PC, is that correct? If so, what brand is it?
No interest in Ark?! I have no idea what I'd have been doing since our last Terraria server if it wasn't for Ark. I suggest single player mode for many reasons, including mods. You get to tame, raise, and use dinosaurs and other kinds of awesome creatures! You can build your own base/house/nearly anything. I think it's amazing!
Holy crap. Well that just tells you I know next to nothing about most GPUs. I should have looked that up before making my incorrect statement, but thanks for correcting me and showing me a benchmark comparison. I could have done all that myself, but I've been gaming.
The game seems to look different, but I've been away from it for a while. What's what my first thought was, but then I looked at the before and after images for this update. I think it does look like the "after" image, yet still kind of dark. I wonder if it could just be the lighting of my locations. I spawned on my freighter, flew to the outpost, and warped to my base. Maybe if I spend more time my eyes will adjust or it'll get brighter by sun/day light. I did check to see if it was optimized by Geforce Experience and there was one setting that it wanted to change. It think it was one of the AA settings.
Daylight looks better, I guess I just need to put up more lighting inside my base. Still, even the outposts are darker than usual. I may have to take some screenshots to compare.
The game is stable for me, but still seems too dark. I'll upload my screenshots soon. One other thing that "bugs" me is that it seems the base building quest is still active, even though I already have a base with every station that I can think of (I'm currently working on the exocraft station pieces). I've created another corridor, room, and terminal (after deleting the previous one). Once I place a new construction terminal, an NPC instantly spawns at it. I can go to a station and hire someone, but then the mission goes back to repeating the first step.
I had that same issue with the base building quest, but after I hired a new construction NPC it went away.
But now I have a permanent quest item for building the last exocraft upgrade even though I've built it in every one of them.
And I noticed that it's darker too, in the dark. It seems like the lighting has changed so that day is about the same, but it gets really dark at night. I'm ok with that, it actually gives you a reason to use the torch and feels more atmospheric.
The quest isn't in my log when I'm not on my home planet. I've tried deleting and rebuilding, but it gets stuck repeating. I don't know if maybe it would clear if I moved to another home planet. I watched a YouTube video about a similar bug with a quest and the solution was to move the NPC to the freighter while on a different planet, then activate quest.
I forgot about the "quick menu." I thought my exocraft upgrade quest was bugged. I was supposed to find a depot, but the log said I had to build the cannon, but it repeated after I did that, even after I did it again. Then I realized the "quick menu" (x I think) and switched to the exocraft signal booster (q and e) and use (f). Now, I need to find another one because I need more for the next upgrade.
I'm glad you noticed the dark darkness, too. I never use the torch, I guess I should try it more. The lights I put in each NPC room don't help. I thought adding windows and glass ceilings could help at least with day time lighting.
> I thought adding windows and glass ceilings could help at least with day time lighting.
OK then maybe you have something else going on. I was talking about outside, I didn't realize you had issues inside. The default room lighting, without adding anything extra, is plenty for inside. In my base everything looks to be the same level of lighting as before the update.
Check out my screenshots. http://steamcommunity.com/id/gregopeck/screenshots/
That does look way dark. Huh.
Yeah Greg, that seems like a bug.
Reported bug, then found solution. I had to change the AA from Ultra to TAA+FXAA. http://steamcommunity.com/app/275850/discussions/0/135511294067811214/
Looks better!! http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/169288467318159581/0ED92BE8ABB912B840AC7B0780972F5ECEE2C841/
Yeah it looks like all those inside lights weren't actually lighting anything. I guess their AA options are still problematic.
New patch. Now we can build geobays (for exocraft) on any planet!
http://www.pcgamer.com/no-mans-sky-patch-lets-you-summon-your-new-vehicles-on-any-planet-you-want/
I'm willing to bet that was just because of player feedback, not a "bug" fix. The announcement even mentioned you couldn't build them on different planets.
But I'm SUPER glad they did that. The exocraft only have limited use on your home planet. They're super-useful elsewhere!
Actually reading the patch notes here, that's more obvious. The notes for the experimental patch a couple days ago were more vague. So it may seem like I'm being obvious above :D
I was thinking of a ship big enough to carry an exocraft, so that you could take them with you to other planets. I didn't pay much attention to the fact that you couldn't originally take them off your home planet. Although when I found out about the exocraft, I thought I'd be done with walking all over a planet. So, I initially imagined them not being limited to home planets. So, yeah I'm glad that they made this feature available. The game gets dull after walking around on a planet for quite some time looking for flora, fauna, and waypoints. So, the exocraft was definitely something the game needed, especially for use on other planets. Now, I did see that one of them actually traverses the surface of water, but as we said we could use something for underwater as well.
I really do like the exocraft. Right now I just have the Roamer with signal booster and cannon. The cannon seems to auto aim, or so it seemed when I tried it after installing it. The exocraft is kind of loud, not abnormally, but kind of drowns out the background music (which I have at 100). It's not bad though. I'm currently working on getting the speed boost, which is what I really want right now.
I do not like that when you press ESC, it goes straight to the menu that allows you to quit the game. I'd rather it open on the page I closed. Most often I use the ESC key to upload my discoveries. This is in the patch notes.
I don't know yet how to own multiple ships, but I know how to find out. I ran into some discussion of that in the Steam forums while looking to see if anyone else was experiencing "the darkening of NMS" as I was. I only looked into my issue so I didn't read into what I don't know. I also don't know if you can transfer inventory between ships or the exocraft. My guess for ships is that you have to put things in your own inventory or the freighters, because I assume you can only access one ship's inventory at a time. I'm not sure how to transfer inventory to or from the exocraft. It would be cool to have a nice all-in-one place where you could manage the inventories of your freighter(s), ships, and exocraft. Some way to select which inventory to transfer to would be nice. How many freighters and exocraft can you own at once?
This one (from the website's listed patch notes) also confuses me: "Prevent all docking points in stations, freighters and outposts being taken by AI ships." I thought this meant that AI ships wouldn't land at outposts, but I see them doing this at the landing pad I have at my base. So, I think I'm missing something here that's causing my confusion.
Oh the speed boost is terrible! I was hoping for a lot more!
I think "Prevent all docking points..." just means that it prevents ALL of them from being taken up. So there's always at least one available for you to land in.
Also if you want speed, you'll like the Nomad. It's pretty speedy and can even speed over water. JESUS BUGGY.
That makes sense, although they're still landing on my one platform. I expected my ship to be there when I spawn, but it's on the ground. I can land it on my dock with a bypass chip, so long as an NPC isn't docked there.
I'm surprised I made it to the transmission tower in time (for the mining laser bp quest). I had almost half a minute to spare. Luckily my home planet is rather bare, but it still has canyons/valleys, and caves, which cost me some time along the way. Sometimes the terrain can be difficult to traverse. I saw where people had trouble with this quest because they lived on watery planets. I also saw someone say they just took their ship and flew there, which sounds brilliant to me.
Although the Roamer's speed boost is short lived and disappointing, it can be very helpful and fun. There were times when I've gotten stuck on terrain and was able to do the boost and get myself out. I also liked using it to run up the sides of terrain, such as out of an valley. The boost gives you some air time and it can be fun. Gravity is truly the Roamer's speed boost.
I guess since your ship is already grounded it doesn't count? That's weird.
So, for those timed missions, I just jumped in my ship and flew there. :D The first one I knew there was no chance I was getting there because I just had the Roamer and my planet is like 60% water if not more. It's kinda cheating I guess but hey, it worked!
Yeah my ship is grounded and not even near the landing pad. I'll try moving it around and see if it changes.
I'm thinking about sending in a bug report about the Log, like the repetition and incompletion of quest objectives despite actually having completed them (even multiple times for testing). I hope that's something they look into.I can ignore it, which is all I can seem to do about it for now, but it's still kind of annoying. The Log also tells me what my NPCs want and for the Constructor and Armorer it says to see them, but then they tell me they can't teach me anything further. So, yeah I think the Log needs some work.
The game specifically says X is to "transfer elements from your exosuit to your starship," which seems to work if you that way if you hold X. However, pressing X shows you materials in all inventories and you can select what you want and place them easily enough.
I'm happier with the Roamer now that I have the mining laser. Now I'm working on building a Nomad Geobay. "I feel the need for speed!"
Oh and even at one less than "Ultra" AA setting, the game definitely looks different and better. I like it!
And now I feel the need for exocraft grenades so I can modify the terrain as I'm driving, instead of getting stuck and having to use a grenade to get my exocraft out.
Instead of letting us build geobays on other planets, I wish they would have given us a way to carry or teleport exocraft. It'd be even cooler to be able to build a geobay in a freighter, enter your exocraft, and fall onto the planet. That would be fun! But, by the time I'm even close to gathering enough materials to build a geobay, I've already obtained what I need to warp. So, there's really not much need to build a geobay on another planet unless there's something there I really need. It's still a bit too much work for a simple vehicle to get around whatever planet you're on.
I guess the idea is to temper the ease of use with construction requirements so that it's not just free to use anywhere. But it's super cheap to build for the most part, luckily.
Ugh, I feel like all those people who've complained about NMS since launch. I guess it's because I'm running into issues that are kind of annoying. Even after completing a step in a quest, the game will tell you to do it. The NPCs are usually good about knowing whether or not you did what was needed. However, after getting the third speed boost upgrade for my exocraft, the NPC told me to go to an observation place and shut down the terminal. I did, but when I went back to him he sent me to do the same thing again at the same place, which I did yet again. I tried a 3rd time and he wants me to still do it, so it seems like an endless quest loop.
The Colossus is big, kind of too big, or at least I think that the camera should be a little better. I can't hardly see the ground I'm driving on because the Colossus takes up too much space on the lower part of the screen.
I also thought I'd try to warp as far as I could, but progressing through the galaxy map can be difficult. Lines are hard to see, the selection piece doesn't always stay firmly where you put it.
The repeating quest is a feature-- you can keep doing it for money. Think Skyrim radiant quests.
If you read the text that comes up your inner monologue tells you about him being content to continue doing this.
I realized it could be repeated for money. I don't think I read the monologue, I think I just tried to get it done and didn't pay attention to that. Thanks for pointing that out for me.
New patch fixed the darkness caused but Ultra AA, among other things. http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=275850
That's a lot o' bug fixes!