No Man's Sky

I saw some news about this, but I didn't look deep into it. I just saw that there was some website promotion going on. Thanks for filling in those details. I'm not sure if I'll look into it, but that pass seems like something that'd be cool to get (assuming it can be used somehow). I'm looking forward to the future of NMS. I still haven't found the center of the galaxy.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

Check out my screenshots. http://steamcommunity.com/id/gregopeck/screenshots/

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/

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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

No surprise ;)

Wow that looks pretty cool, much more than I was expecting from what I read about recently. It kind of baffled me how base building would be relevant, because this game is or was about exploring a vast universe. I figured they'd find a way to make it fit in and it looks like they nailed it.

Cool. Funny, before I went to bed I was thinking about the similarities and differences between NMS, Starbound, Terraria, and Minecraft.

I wasn't quite sure how this base building would work, especially since there's that remote possibility that some other player could visit your planet. Would they destroy your base and plunder your resources? Can you build in the normal game mode, or creative only? Is creative mode more like Minecraft in that there are no enemies or perhaps it's your own universe which others can't discover? I guess we'll figure out the answers eventually. I'm not sure when I'll check out the update, maybe when I'm done with Skyrim SE.

Well yeah, I remember that he said there was a remote chance of seeing another player, but it turned out that you couldn't. Still, could another player find your base? Perhaps the buildings are on the client side and the server just notes discoveries made, that seems to make sense.

Please continue to post your thoughts on the update.

I found an article that contains the video posted here and the patch notes. However, there's a very cool feature on this one, an image that helps you see the new visual changes. You can drag the center bar to cover or uncover parts of the picture to see the changes. You can also right-click on one side and open it in a new tab to get a bigger, better view. I'm not really a fan of motion blur and I haven't tried it in this game yet, but it does make a lot of sense for this kind of game. It makes me think of those space movies where you would see it. The TAA difference is quite stunning and it looks so much better!

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/huge-no-mans-sky-update-arrives-adds-base-building/1100-6445743/

Ah, I didn't look at the official announcement.

I was agreeing with you about motion blur and how it is in this game because I saw those before and after pictures.

It seems a buggy may be coming: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/no-mans-sky-update-files-hint-at-new-vehicle/1100-6445772/

Because of something @scrypt mentioned in the new Roundtable, I thought that maybe discoveries were reset with the planet redesigns and realized the better way to answer a question regarding my curiosity was to find out for myself. So, I loaded up the game and found that all my discoveries are still there. Like @scrypt mentioned, I believe I exited the game on a planet, but when I loaded it, I found myself on the space station. I went back to a nearby planet I had already visited, but not completely discovered the fauna.

What I noticed right away when loading the game was the musical change in the loading screen. I like it!

I also thought it was funny that I ended up landing in a cave. There is a beacon nearby and a medium-sized hole above it. I thought that was cool. I like being able to scan a planet from space and tell what resources it has. I like the new icons on resources. I also like that there are new resources I never saw before. I also like that I found 3 Geks in the space station instead of one (by the terminal).

New patch "coming soon!" http://www.gamespot.com/articles/no-mans-skys-next-pc-patch-detailed-makes-small-bu/1100-6445868/

Travis, I see you've been playing NMS lately. Are you going to give us an updated perspective on this update? I hope so! :)

Oh I like this update! At the start of it, I found myself in a space station, due to how planets were redesigned. So, I went back to the planet I was on to continue searching for undiscovered creatures. After a while, I found myself walking endlessly, not finding what I was looking for, then I gave up. I went to another star system and found myself on a mostly barren planet. I was looking for zinc and couldn't find any. There was no fauna to be found and flora was almost non-existent. So, I decided to try another planet. I found one that had something new to me, a "habitable base," so I thought I'd check it out. However, a distress signal came upon my screen above the planet and I fought off the pirates attacking the freighters. Once I defeated them, a new message popped up for me to land in the freighter and speak to the captain. It offered an award, one of which was to purchase the freighter. However, it was had 13 slots and cost over 7 million units. I only have over 6 million, so I took the supply reward instead, which was helpful.

I got to the habitable base and started to build a little bit. I got confused on how to select a color scheme, but a quick search on Google let me know that the Q and E keys were what I needed to switch between them. I didn't see this on the screen and I think it should have been stated. After a tiny bit of building, I had to go hire someone. I thought this would cost units, but it didn't. After that, the Gek I hired pointed me towards further upgrades, which required a scientist, so I hired a Korvax at the same space station. Now they're both giving me more to do and helpful blueprints.

I like all of this as it adds a bit of depth to the game. At first, I couldn't really understand why you'd want to build a base, when the point of the game was to explore, but I think this is definitely good for the game and I'm enjoying it. It certainly removes a bit of the same old routine that gets old a bit too quickly.

I like how there are new elements and certain things that give them. Even old things give new elements, so they have a new purpose. I think this is good for the game and makes it more interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing what else the devs add to the game. So far, I think they've done a good job. I hope others agree and the negative backlash fades away.

I built a storage container, but I couldn't seem to fit one in my base, so I had to place it outside. It's huge. At first I was disappointed that it only has 5 slots. Then I quickly realized it can hold stacks of 1000. I also found freighter info on the wiki, which stated that they have increased stacks, too. They can have a max of 48 slots. For more details check out the link: http://nomanssky.wikia.com/wiki/Freighters

I took things much more slowly than you. I didn't farm for units, I got most of my money from uploading discoveries and discovering all creatures on a planet. I have 48 exosuit slots and a fully slotted (24 I think?) multi-tool, but my ship only has 30 or so slots. I have not yet finished any path.

I hit some walls, too. There's a particular wall I've hit that I really don't like. The game got a bit tiring after a while, chasing down creatures to get that "all creatures discovered" bonus, walking from one Monolith to another, etc. Eventually I learned all of the Gek and Korvax languages and enough of the Vy'keen to understand them. I learned some Atlas words, but the Atlast Interface isn't understanable yet. I just choose to go along with it. Now I'm system hopping. I don't visit every planet in every system anymore. I go to one if I need things like Plutonium and other resources to power my Hyperdrive so I can warp to another system on my Atlas path. If I notice there are creatures on the planet, I try to discover them all, but sometimes give up if it takes me too much time. I also interact with knowledge stones if I'm on a Vy'keen planet. I also got tired of Monolith icons staying on my HUD and pretty much telling me I hadn't visited them, when in fact I had. This seemed to reset when I left the game and came back to it.

I haven't come across any blacholes or portals, but it would be great to be able to travel back to planets and systems I've been to. In and on the first few of them, I didn't realize the whole scanning flora and fauna thing, especially to get the bonus.

I liked the Boltcaster, but once you get the Railbeam (or whatever it's called) for the multi-tool, there's no more need for it. The grenades are good if you get under ground and want to make your way through. This is especially helpful if you find yourself tired of being lost and want to get back to the surface. Combat was a little challenging at first, but this ended kind of quickly while on a planet. Space combat isn't nearly as difficult now as it was in the beginning, but it can still be challenging, especially going up against a group of pirate ships.

I also agree with your assessment of the survival mechanics. I did get and use all those upgrades, which were helpful, but I usually am able to charge one of the three shields once it goes down. I even noticed that you can still survive a good while without them.

I also agree with you about value. I know I've spent over 120 hours in the game, so that's about 50 cents per hour, which isn't bad. I think it is a good game. I would like to see more added to it, I think there's room for improvement, particularly with these walls we've hit, but overall it's pretty cool.

I joined the NMS hype train very late. I didn't really know anything about it before it was released. It was only then that I decided to see what it was all about, so I checked out the CG Event, read some stuff, and watched some videos. I didn't really have many expectations of it. I mean I expected what I saw and it looked like a cool game that I'd be interested in, so I got involved in the CG Event and bought the game. I played it for 148 hours according to Steam and I've enjoyed it. There's still much for me to do.

I understand that others had been following the game's development announcements much longer than I had. I understand that some people had expectations that weren't met. I do remember seeing Sean mention the very small chance of seeing another player, but it seems that's actually not something that can happen (like the Twitch example). I think I read somewhere that there really is no character model for the player. I also understand that the development team may have had more planned for the game than they initially released. I've also heard (from the CG Roundtable I believe) that they still have plans for features to implement in the game that were not there initially. Jon did give a good example of how software development works, where you have to ship a product and the time table might force a developer to be unable to complete some features on time. I can understand that as well.

Again (birthing a cross-post), no matter what a developer does someone isn't going to be happy about something. The Internet is full of people and full of negativity, too, but there are going to be those of us who feel positively towards a game and still be able to enjoy it even if it didn't meet all of our expectations.

"There are still videos on Steam's page for No Man's Sky that at least exaggerate the scale of the game."

There are two videos on the store page. Other than the giant dinosaur (which everyone is focusing on), what in those videos exaggerates the scale of the game?

I must be having a different experience. I've been involved in a couple space battle where I had to fight off more than 10 ships, with a fleet of 6-8 freighters looming in the distance. Space battles can vary, going from 1 on 1 situations, to engaging large quantities of attackers (especially when answering distress signals). Animal activity is also varied. I've been on planets that are swarming with life, on land, sea, and in the air (those planets cause a bit of a dip in frame rate when I'm flying around). Fish move in schools, some of the smaller animals will move together, though maybe not specifically in herds (though they will react to my presence concordantly, or from a shot from my multi-tool). I've seen carnivorous animals attack other animals.

Personally, I prefer the graphics in the game as they are, as opposed to some of the stuff I've seen in earlier videos (those Steam video's included). The lower frame rate is the only thing that I notice that's a detriment. I felt like some of the things in the early trailers looked a little cartoon-ish (I guess that's how you could say it). The lighting and shaders look much more realistic, or at least more appealing to me.

Pathfinding for the AI ship landings is a bit wonky, especially when you see them approach after circling a platform, but that's negligible. I don't know if you mean the graphics, or the animations, but anyone arguing that ships land better in older videos as opposed to how they land in the game, to me, is really picking nits.

It's a huge game. More than huge. There are bugs, maybe even a lot of bugs. It really blows my mind that the overall score for No Man's Sky in the Steam store is "Mostly Negative." That confuses the hell out of me. I see problems with the game as it was released, and up to almost a month later. I see differences in early promotional material than what was released in the game. Every game does this. Every game. Why do people have such a hard-on for ripping this game (early PC problems aside)? That's a general question, not specific to this article ;).

It's also very easy for me to believe that a majority of the people aren't playing much of the game. Around half or less (between 45-51%) of players have reached Nomad status, which is 30,000 u traveled on foot. It's one of the easier achievements to get, and half the people don't have it. This means that most people aren't doing much on-foot exploration. They are probably just hopping from fixture to fixture on planets, and then jumping to another system (made more evident by the most commonly popped achievements). A lot of a planets nuances are more visible on foot, particularly given the way the world renders around you. The experience will differ greatly from the ground than it would from the air.

After playing the game and then watching the Steam videos, I can see some differences, too. In one part, it looks like a couple of ships are following you through a space battle, but don't take any "friendly fire." There are some ships and animals in the videos that I haven't seen.

I also agree that I'm not sure why the game has a "Mostly Negative" review on Steam. Yeah, I get that it had some initial issues where some players couldn't get it going. I didn't experience all of them, but the game did stop crashing for me after an update or two.

I'm pretty sure I surpassed the Nomad status as I spent most of my time travelling on foot.

Back to the graphics, I think we might be agreeing further still. What I meant is that the lighting and textures look more dynamic or real, not necessarily the models of flora, fauna, or environments. Things definitely look more exotic/alien than the earlier trailers, and I love that.

I suppose it could be, but no more than any other game that has a minimalist score with good sound design :). The fact that you can control the volume of the music and effects in No Man's Sky might be another reason. ASMR is all about quiet, mellow environments, interlaced with sounds that are intended to trigger some kind of neural "tingling." Sounds like fingernails gently tapping on a variety of surfaces, distant crinkling cellophane, hair being brushed... that kind of thing. There are sounds in NMS that could serve this purpose, however with constant interjections from your suit AI, rogue carnivorous animals, and impending death, it might be hard to keep that zen moment going.

It might be cool to record a section of video/audio, and then loop it to get that ASMR-like effect. That would be really cool, actually!

I should note, I'm not an ASMR expert, just a dabbler, and an appreciator of such things :D!

NX: I have a Wii U and right now I'm not sure if I'm going to buy Breath of the Wild for it or get an NX with it. I'm waiting to see what the NX actually is and if the game will be any different on the new system.

NMS: My hours = 99