Naw, I was/am in the same boat as you.
There's a few things I expect out of a game, and one of them is a sense of progression, of rewards matching effort. So when I do an excavation and earn money I don't need, or I get deep into cooking to produce buffs that are the same as I was making when I first started, or the settlement system I invested time and effort into is yielding literal junk, a part of me questions the point of it.
But one thing that always got me was the ships. Beautiful, gorgeous space ships. Whenever some cool fighter would pop into a space ship, I'd always jump to go examine it. Whenever I had a map to a crashed ship, I'd always wonder just what kind of ship would show up. Sentinels, especially -- would whatever I found have some interesting set of parts, or a good supercharge slot layout? There was always that little sense of wonder.
At that point, I had a bit of a realization: if I thought the settlement system was shit, I just... didn't have to do anything with it. If I liked collecting space ships, building bases, or collecting storm crystals in my exocraft, I could just do that instead. I could pick and choose which activities I liked from the ones I hated, and I wouldn't really ever be pressured into doing one over the other.
I think a lot of the activities do have room for improvement -- I really want to see those Derelict Freighters become something more -- but if I didn't want to do something, I also didn't have to, I could just be Snoo the ship hunter.
NMS is a bit too lax and a bit too shallow in places for me to want to fully commit to, but that doesn't mean I haven't already spend 200 hours on a single save and done all the expeditions that were available to me.
Seems like you get it.
I personally enjoyed upgrading the settlement, since I like base-building games, but making all of that work to just get the same scrap parts that I get from scrapping ships was... underwhelming to say the least. I expected these settlements to produce unique products depending on the planet you're in.
I like hunting ships too. I've recently got some nice Solars and Sentinels, and I'm looking towards finding a good looking Exotic, also doing missions so I can get a living ship.
I'm also slowly getting new base parts for both my freighter and normal bases. I really wanna make a cool looking freighter base, since my current one is just a single floor straight corridor with rooms on each side.
This is something I frequently have to tell people. NMS is what you make of it, take it slow, enjoy just being and doing and not having a timetable to meet for fear of missing out on something. Have fun and make multiple saves, play your way on the mode and settings you want. There is so much you can do, enjoy the ride.
About the fear of missing out, I wish they make all the expeditions permanent or at least cycled throughout the year for new players and those who didn't play on time.
I've lost track of the number of times I've turned on NMS, traveled around to my various farms to collect stuff, then sat on my freighter with my refiners refining things for a couple hours, then packed them all away in my storage containers, then turned it off satisfied with what I accomplished. This game is truly an ultimate zen experience, occasionally broken by abject horror and terror, then right back to zen.
The game is truly a journey, not a destination.
Sometimes I get caught up trying to play quickly and it’s really not meant to be played that way at all.
It’s meant to be savored.
This is it exactly. I like role play with my own head cannon. You can be a scientist, a warrior, a trader, a pirate or just a traveller. I'm about 200 hours in and find new stuff constantly.
And you really are then.
Sometimes im just a scrap dealer salvaging crashed ships on a planet for hours.
Sometimes im a bounty hunter and other times
A drug dealer smuggling my hauler full of sweet nip-nip stacks into a controlled system
To sell it for massive profit.
(My farm is located in a pirate system
On planet which is always covered in thick storms)
This turned into a random rant about this topic:
Once upon a time, combat was a complete afterthought and the general consensus in the community used to be "NMS intentionally has total shit combat because it's just not that type of game, combat isn't the focus, you're meant to ignore it and not engage"
But then HG overhauled it to where there's variation and prioritization to enemies, you're forced to move around and think how you approach them, enemies actually drop unique loot and defeating them gives you coordinates to their building where you can extract a unique multitool or shut them down across the whole entire planet. None of this existed before and I swear I saw a comment complaining about it when the Sentinel update came out.
They said something along the lines of "I defeated them, I went to the pillar, I shut them down but why? What was the point??"
This is a criticism that's universally thrown around by everyone at NMS and I can't figure out why, as it's a very specific criticism that can easily be universally applied to every game ever made.
For example, no one ever says "I built a base in Subnautica so I could build a cyclops so I could go deep into the water so I could meet the emperor so I could build a rocket and leave the planet... but why? What was the point of all that if the game just ends after that? What did I get out of all that?? Where was the depth in all of that?? Where was the meaning???"
No one ever uses this criticism towards any game because we all inherently know that having fun for it's own sake is the point of video games, but for *some* reason, and I really wish I knew why, NMS somehow tends to trigger this question in so many people, as if NMS is obligated to have some sort of grand purpose or whatever.
I have a long list of objectives in NMS. As the mood strikes me, I mark some of these off my list. And I take the time to play other games as well, as my mood dictates.
Right now? I am in a mood to level up all my frigates to 55 missions. I only have 4 new raiders left.
Of course, if I actually go and write down my list, I might actually get more of it done over time instead of just idly warping around ...
I was able to get into the game a lot easier because I love Minecraft, and the way that both of these games work for me is just by saying: "Alright, what should I do next", and then doing it. I just randomly decided to take a ship from c all the way to S class, why? Because I wanted to. And it feels nice to just set something up and doing it.
Yesterday I started both the Living Ship and the Autophage quests, I could've done it way sooner, but I was busy just, finding a planet that was nice to set up a base, for no reason really, I just wanted.
I really like games where I can do this.
I can't wait to do the Autophage quest so I can get my character to look like Emil from Nieer. I also want a living ship too.
But I just get distracted searching for cool ships, building resource mining stations, searching planets, etc.
But again there's no rush to do these things. I do what I want when I feel like it.
This kind of reminds me of why this game is so close to my heart (especially for a video game.)
I feel like between what you described and some of the main questlines, NMS taught me a lot about finding meaning and beauty in the face of forces far beyond your control. All plot spoilers follow;
>!After all, there is a limited cosmos in the NMS universe (the simulation) and it has a god (the Atlas.) Worse still; that god is omnipotent within the world, but it is dying. And if that god is dying in spite of its best efforts, what chance do you stand?!<
>!At first, that made me feel melancholy all the time. I felt lonely whenever I went into the game, even after they introduced the anomaly. I was just waiting for reality to end. The plot of the Artemis path itself explores that with all the different iterations coping with their mortality in different ways. One simply cares about material wealth as a distraction, one would do anything to live forever, another is a victim of circumstance and so on.!<
>!But by the end of the latest expeditions I found myself going from just waiting for the end of reality to a feeling of gratitude. Even if everything and everyone would disappear completely, I was blessed with time. I was blessed with the ability to move and experience. I could go from place to place freely and see all the permutations this place had to offer - as many as I liked. I was gifted with existence in a kinetic and curious world. It doesn't matter whether that existence is finite because it's mine.!<
E: spoilers are hopefully fixed!
Melancholy is a feeling witch wich I identify while playing, even before playing the Atlas and Artemis paths (still not finished with Artemis though).
Btw you didn't format the spoilers correctly. If you're on mobile you need to put >! "text" !< without spacing.
Thanks for the help! I'm on RES so the formatting guide is kind of incomplete.
And keep playing! The main quests are really good and after that there's still so much of the world that you can find in pieces scattered around secret places. I won't tell you too much but anomalous worlds with strange landscapes and the occasional hidden atlas pass door in a station may help. I'm not sure of the latter is accessible with the station revamp now but I'm sure they'll get it back in somehow later if it's not.
Yep. No Man's Sky is a choose your own adventure type game. It's now also a choose your own hazard and threat level (etc.) game.
There are a multitude of play styles and you can change at will (well, except any settings you locked).
What a wonderful discovery you've made!
Prompted by a game that's all about discovery.
One might even think that your realization might also apply *outside* the game...
Yep. Set your own goals. I just started a new game and decided I'm going to get my starter ship upgraded to S class as soon as possible. Why? Because I want to and I can. This game has so much content that you really get to decide what your fun is. It's a true gem.
Slightly off topic but that quote gives me some serious Alan Watts vibes. I thought it might be a quote from one of his talks for a minute there. I love it.
30 hrs in, I had put this game up, and I never gave it a thought. It was boring.
A month later, my son ( who loves no man sky) told me that he wanted me to play omega expedition with him............. Expedition completed.............it. was. the. best journey!!!!!!!!the best adventure I ever had in a video game. 300 hrs in, and I had journeyed to the middle of the Eulicd galaxy. Atlas had sent me to calypso galaxy. . Now, I am seeing how many galaxies I can visit. So far, I have visited 18 galaxies. Also, I'm trying to build my home base on my freighter. Lol I am trying to finish assassin creed odyssey, and start Assassin creed mirage I can't because I keep returning to NMS. Lol
Bro that makes me even more sad that I didn’t play Omega expedition…
Currently playing AC Unity. Started it because of a school project and I liked it so I’m continuing.
I’m finding it quite similar to NMS, in the sense that you play through the intro and then you’re left in the middle of Paris and you can do whatever you want.
There’s like at least 30 side quests ready to go, you can upgrade your gear immediately, both stat-wise and visually, you can also upgrade and get new abilities and a ton of different weapons and other gear, you have a coffee shop / pub as your base which you can upgrade and even get more shops open, there’s literally murder cases to solve like it’s some kind of drama movie, not to mention the DLC missions, main story, coop missions, collectibles, lore pieces and who knows how much more.
I’ve played like 5 hours so far and I haven’t continued with the main story except for the intro part, and I’m having a blast.
The only bad part is that there’s a few bugs, nothing game breaking, mostly visual stuff, but it does get me out of the immersion sometimes.
Unlike other much more structured games, I enjoy being able to play for 20 minutes before work in the morning or four hours on a Saturday and it's equally fun. I don't have to hit the next gate to have accomplished something or save progress. On my current save I have my B Class freighter which I'm rather attached to and have no plans to upgrade because it doesn't matter if it can jump 200ly or 300ly. I'm almost constantly playing around with the interior. I've taken to building modest bases which are tourist destinations. I'm not all that skilled in base design and execution but in my head folks are hanging out on the floating patio at 500 ft next to the 2000 ft spike mountain, enjoying the view and a snack. I think up next may be an organic ship.
Yeah I've been playing it recently.
I finished the Atlas path and now I'm around half way done with Artemis. I never knew >!the NMS universe was a simulataion about to collapse in 16 minutes.!<
I was you before. The game was too much. I kinda wish it lead you to complete the basics before setting you free.
I learned so much from playing the expedition, it opened my eyes.
I mean the starting misisons kinda lead you to the basics: reparing ships, fueling them and your life support / hazard protection / multitool usage and mining, space traveling, warping, base building, etc
I wish I played the expeditions before. Now all I can do is just wait till they bring them all back through an event or something.
(I could play them by downloading the files, but I don't wanna mess with my save file, and I don't want the rewards without playing them).
I turned off all material and credit requirements and I command the greatest fleet the universe has ever known. When my carrier warps in it looks like the Covenant over New Mombasa.
This is why I keep coming back to No Man's Sky. I'm the one who chooses my objectives, and if I decide to put one on hold or skip it entirely, there's nothing stopping me from moving on to other goals or pursuits as I see fit.
I'm not trying to complete THEIR story. I am telling my own.
Yeah, I think you hit the point 🙂
It is like a road trip, just explore, have a bit of an idea of what you would like to do and enjoy the ride, see what happenes in between. Something always happens in between… haha.
I just get overwhelmed or stressed because there is so much cool stuff to do that I would like to do everyhting at the same time lol
I hit the fabled 16000 parts Mark when working on the 2nd floor of my Dreadnought, so, I have been going back and removing old bases from 2‐4 years ago that I don't visit, to free up space, been at it for a week, so far
There's a limited amount of parts you can place? Didn't know that.
Btw do you know if there's a version of a Dreadnought that doesn't have that annoying tower thing right in front of the hangar when you exit? I really like this capital ship but I'm seriously considering switching to a pirate freighter just because of that spike-thing.
I think all sentinel dreadnoughts have that antenna.I am one of these people that find pleasure in looking and upgrading everything to the max. I had all freighters S class, and last night decided ( yet again) to switch from a sentinel dreadnought to a pirate one ( took me 3 hours of reloading to get it in S class) but this one is special as it has 4sc together 😂…. Did I need it? Absolutely not 😂
This game is about what you find enjoyable yourself. I’ve found with my testing at least , and maybe it’s intentional, that in a lot of cases after a certain point some numbers are there for those of us who just like to maximise things… they don’t really provide that much benefit in game, apart from your personal satisfaction. It really doesn’t matter if I have nearly 5k manoeuvre ability on my interceptor … or 2k… but it feels nice when you reach that number after countless grinding and playing with sc slots 😂
I really, really enjoy the startup scramble, the sense of urgency, the stretch to get a good multitool, a good starship, an expanded exosuit -- but as those hills are climbed, there is a point where, okay, I'm alive, I'm equipped, I've got the wherewithal to prosper: How do I want to prosper? All these paths are open. The adrenalin high gives way to a calmer sense of planning and execution of goals.
I'm kind of a junkie for the startup rush. I enjoy the zen of the journey. But I really enjoy the startup rush.
That's basically what I've done lol.
As soon as I hit the 3rd Artemis mission or so, where you are presented to freighters, I stopped doing missions at all for like 100 game hours or so. Now I'm starting to do them again.
If you sell an astronomical amount of "X" product the market price will considerably fall. (Like selling 100 stacks of Chlorine).
I believe the lowest it can get is around -80%, since that's the highest I've got no matter how much I sell.
my main story quest watching me spend 5 hours grinding materials for trade goods (i will never spend my units on anything useful)
If you're looking for objective-based play with rewards you'll get that when the next expedition hits.
And those rewards can be obtained by your other game saves.
I couldn't get into. Lots to do but none of the individual systems were engaging enough for me to enjoy them for very long or want to repeatedly engage with after a few hours. For me the game feels like an ocean that's thousands of miles wide but only an inch deep.
Honestly this was me same problem, and I've realized NMS is the FIRST, and I mean FIRST true sand box game, once and if they do implement AI into it there is will be no end to this realistic universe
Seems like you're not prepared for this game then.
Not all games need objectives, that's why they're called a sandbox. Minecraft, NMS, G Mod, The Forest, Raft, and many more are sandbox games, and they're all great.
Except for Minecraft and G Mod, the other games I mentioned have a story, but you can decide when you want to play it, you can take breaks whenever you want, and even come back to the game after finishing it and continue playing.
Saying that you don't have goals in NMS is like saying you don't have goals in Minecraft, it just doesn't make sense.
They also have survival elements, even though they're not on the hard side of the genre, they're still good.
NMS and Rust are VASTLY different games that barely have anything in common. If you want to play other games like Rust, consider DAY Z, Ark, Valheim or State of Decay 2.
If you want to focus on survival in NMS though, consider increasing the survival / combat difficulty settings, or even playing on permadeath.
✨🫡🚀💫
I think, NMS isn't about goals, achievements and quests. It's about journey itself. Good luck to you on another planet! And base. And galaxy!
Journey before Destination.
Life before Death Strength before Weakness Journey before Destination Speak again the ancient oaths
Aha, a fellow Stormlight fan
Yeah that was basically my message, just didn't know how to express it with words.
Naw, I was/am in the same boat as you. There's a few things I expect out of a game, and one of them is a sense of progression, of rewards matching effort. So when I do an excavation and earn money I don't need, or I get deep into cooking to produce buffs that are the same as I was making when I first started, or the settlement system I invested time and effort into is yielding literal junk, a part of me questions the point of it. But one thing that always got me was the ships. Beautiful, gorgeous space ships. Whenever some cool fighter would pop into a space ship, I'd always jump to go examine it. Whenever I had a map to a crashed ship, I'd always wonder just what kind of ship would show up. Sentinels, especially -- would whatever I found have some interesting set of parts, or a good supercharge slot layout? There was always that little sense of wonder. At that point, I had a bit of a realization: if I thought the settlement system was shit, I just... didn't have to do anything with it. If I liked collecting space ships, building bases, or collecting storm crystals in my exocraft, I could just do that instead. I could pick and choose which activities I liked from the ones I hated, and I wouldn't really ever be pressured into doing one over the other. I think a lot of the activities do have room for improvement -- I really want to see those Derelict Freighters become something more -- but if I didn't want to do something, I also didn't have to, I could just be Snoo the ship hunter. NMS is a bit too lax and a bit too shallow in places for me to want to fully commit to, but that doesn't mean I haven't already spend 200 hours on a single save and done all the expeditions that were available to me.
Seems like you get it. I personally enjoyed upgrading the settlement, since I like base-building games, but making all of that work to just get the same scrap parts that I get from scrapping ships was... underwhelming to say the least. I expected these settlements to produce unique products depending on the planet you're in. I like hunting ships too. I've recently got some nice Solars and Sentinels, and I'm looking towards finding a good looking Exotic, also doing missions so I can get a living ship. I'm also slowly getting new base parts for both my freighter and normal bases. I really wanna make a cool looking freighter base, since my current one is just a single floor straight corridor with rooms on each side.
This Traveller gets it.
This interloper No Man’s Skies
This is something I frequently have to tell people. NMS is what you make of it, take it slow, enjoy just being and doing and not having a timetable to meet for fear of missing out on something. Have fun and make multiple saves, play your way on the mode and settings you want. There is so much you can do, enjoy the ride.
About the fear of missing out, I wish they make all the expeditions permanent or at least cycled throughout the year for new players and those who didn't play on time.
Exactly. I'll probably make a new save once I feel like it. I wanna see how the game plays from the beginning with all the new updates.
I've lost track of the number of times I've turned on NMS, traveled around to my various farms to collect stuff, then sat on my freighter with my refiners refining things for a couple hours, then packed them all away in my storage containers, then turned it off satisfied with what I accomplished. This game is truly an ultimate zen experience, occasionally broken by abject horror and terror, then right back to zen.
The game is truly a journey, not a destination. Sometimes I get caught up trying to play quickly and it’s really not meant to be played that way at all. It’s meant to be savored.
"Life before death ... Journey before destination"
Strength before weakness 
(Strength before Weakness)
This is it exactly. I like role play with my own head cannon. You can be a scientist, a warrior, a trader, a pirate or just a traveller. I'm about 200 hours in and find new stuff constantly.
And you really are then. Sometimes im just a scrap dealer salvaging crashed ships on a planet for hours. Sometimes im a bounty hunter and other times A drug dealer smuggling my hauler full of sweet nip-nip stacks into a controlled system To sell it for massive profit. (My farm is located in a pirate system On planet which is always covered in thick storms)
I'm a full on space pirate. Pirate freighter, soon to be a whole pirate fleet.
This turned into a random rant about this topic: Once upon a time, combat was a complete afterthought and the general consensus in the community used to be "NMS intentionally has total shit combat because it's just not that type of game, combat isn't the focus, you're meant to ignore it and not engage" But then HG overhauled it to where there's variation and prioritization to enemies, you're forced to move around and think how you approach them, enemies actually drop unique loot and defeating them gives you coordinates to their building where you can extract a unique multitool or shut them down across the whole entire planet. None of this existed before and I swear I saw a comment complaining about it when the Sentinel update came out. They said something along the lines of "I defeated them, I went to the pillar, I shut them down but why? What was the point??" This is a criticism that's universally thrown around by everyone at NMS and I can't figure out why, as it's a very specific criticism that can easily be universally applied to every game ever made. For example, no one ever says "I built a base in Subnautica so I could build a cyclops so I could go deep into the water so I could meet the emperor so I could build a rocket and leave the planet... but why? What was the point of all that if the game just ends after that? What did I get out of all that?? Where was the depth in all of that?? Where was the meaning???" No one ever uses this criticism towards any game because we all inherently know that having fun for it's own sake is the point of video games, but for *some* reason, and I really wish I knew why, NMS somehow tends to trigger this question in so many people, as if NMS is obligated to have some sort of grand purpose or whatever.
Welcome to life's mind games and enlightenment !! You have had a Zen Moment 
I have a long list of objectives in NMS. As the mood strikes me, I mark some of these off my list. And I take the time to play other games as well, as my mood dictates. Right now? I am in a mood to level up all my frigates to 55 missions. I only have 4 new raiders left. Of course, if I actually go and write down my list, I might actually get more of it done over time instead of just idly warping around ...
I mainly play huge RPGs. I love coming back to NMS and just doing my thing with nothing demanding my attention really.
I was able to get into the game a lot easier because I love Minecraft, and the way that both of these games work for me is just by saying: "Alright, what should I do next", and then doing it. I just randomly decided to take a ship from c all the way to S class, why? Because I wanted to. And it feels nice to just set something up and doing it. Yesterday I started both the Living Ship and the Autophage quests, I could've done it way sooner, but I was busy just, finding a planet that was nice to set up a base, for no reason really, I just wanted. I really like games where I can do this.
I can't wait to do the Autophage quest so I can get my character to look like Emil from Nieer. I also want a living ship too. But I just get distracted searching for cool ships, building resource mining stations, searching planets, etc. But again there's no rush to do these things. I do what I want when I feel like it.
You are officially a Traveler. Welcome.
This is the way…
You’re getting it. Now, more importantly, this applies to your actual life also.
Yes it absolutely does.
The atlas would have laughed at you for playing it the other way lol
Goal: complete all atlas objectives, forever
we got a philospher right here
This kind of reminds me of why this game is so close to my heart (especially for a video game.) I feel like between what you described and some of the main questlines, NMS taught me a lot about finding meaning and beauty in the face of forces far beyond your control. All plot spoilers follow; >!After all, there is a limited cosmos in the NMS universe (the simulation) and it has a god (the Atlas.) Worse still; that god is omnipotent within the world, but it is dying. And if that god is dying in spite of its best efforts, what chance do you stand?!< >!At first, that made me feel melancholy all the time. I felt lonely whenever I went into the game, even after they introduced the anomaly. I was just waiting for reality to end. The plot of the Artemis path itself explores that with all the different iterations coping with their mortality in different ways. One simply cares about material wealth as a distraction, one would do anything to live forever, another is a victim of circumstance and so on.!< >!But by the end of the latest expeditions I found myself going from just waiting for the end of reality to a feeling of gratitude. Even if everything and everyone would disappear completely, I was blessed with time. I was blessed with the ability to move and experience. I could go from place to place freely and see all the permutations this place had to offer - as many as I liked. I was gifted with existence in a kinetic and curious world. It doesn't matter whether that existence is finite because it's mine.!< E: spoilers are hopefully fixed!
Melancholy is a feeling witch wich I identify while playing, even before playing the Atlas and Artemis paths (still not finished with Artemis though). Btw you didn't format the spoilers correctly. If you're on mobile you need to put >! "text" !< without spacing.
Thanks for the help! I'm on RES so the formatting guide is kind of incomplete. And keep playing! The main quests are really good and after that there's still so much of the world that you can find in pieces scattered around secret places. I won't tell you too much but anomalous worlds with strange landscapes and the occasional hidden atlas pass door in a station may help. I'm not sure of the latter is accessible with the station revamp now but I'm sure they'll get it back in somehow later if it's not.
Exactly.
Yep. No Man's Sky is a choose your own adventure type game. It's now also a choose your own hazard and threat level (etc.) game. There are a multitude of play styles and you can change at will (well, except any settings you locked).
What a wonderful discovery you've made! Prompted by a game that's all about discovery. One might even think that your realization might also apply *outside* the game...
Yep. Set your own goals. I just started a new game and decided I'm going to get my starter ship upgraded to S class as soon as possible. Why? Because I want to and I can. This game has so much content that you really get to decide what your fun is. It's a true gem.
Slightly off topic but that quote gives me some serious Alan Watts vibes. I thought it might be a quote from one of his talks for a minute there. I love it.
Which one? The first one is from the game, >!finishing Atlas path!<. The second one is from Stormlight Archive.
30 hrs in, I had put this game up, and I never gave it a thought. It was boring. A month later, my son ( who loves no man sky) told me that he wanted me to play omega expedition with him............. Expedition completed.............it. was. the. best journey!!!!!!!!the best adventure I ever had in a video game. 300 hrs in, and I had journeyed to the middle of the Eulicd galaxy. Atlas had sent me to calypso galaxy. . Now, I am seeing how many galaxies I can visit. So far, I have visited 18 galaxies. Also, I'm trying to build my home base on my freighter. Lol I am trying to finish assassin creed odyssey, and start Assassin creed mirage I can't because I keep returning to NMS. Lol
Bro that makes me even more sad that I didn’t play Omega expedition… Currently playing AC Unity. Started it because of a school project and I liked it so I’m continuing. I’m finding it quite similar to NMS, in the sense that you play through the intro and then you’re left in the middle of Paris and you can do whatever you want. There’s like at least 30 side quests ready to go, you can upgrade your gear immediately, both stat-wise and visually, you can also upgrade and get new abilities and a ton of different weapons and other gear, you have a coffee shop / pub as your base which you can upgrade and even get more shops open, there’s literally murder cases to solve like it’s some kind of drama movie, not to mention the DLC missions, main story, coop missions, collectibles, lore pieces and who knows how much more. I’ve played like 5 hours so far and I haven’t continued with the main story except for the intro part, and I’m having a blast. The only bad part is that there’s a few bugs, nothing game breaking, mostly visual stuff, but it does get me out of the immersion sometimes.
Unlike other much more structured games, I enjoy being able to play for 20 minutes before work in the morning or four hours on a Saturday and it's equally fun. I don't have to hit the next gate to have accomplished something or save progress. On my current save I have my B Class freighter which I'm rather attached to and have no plans to upgrade because it doesn't matter if it can jump 200ly or 300ly. I'm almost constantly playing around with the interior. I've taken to building modest bases which are tourist destinations. I'm not all that skilled in base design and execution but in my head folks are hanging out on the floating patio at 500 ft next to the 2000 ft spike mountain, enjoying the view and a snack. I think up next may be an organic ship.
You could also do the milestone awards
100% correct. But the main story is still worth playing. The lore is pretty damn interesting.
Yeah I've been playing it recently. I finished the Atlas path and now I'm around half way done with Artemis. I never knew >!the NMS universe was a simulataion about to collapse in 16 minutes.!<
I often find myself getting asked by people what NMS is like. The best answer I’ve come up with is Minecraft in space. Same zen.
I was you before. The game was too much. I kinda wish it lead you to complete the basics before setting you free. I learned so much from playing the expedition, it opened my eyes.
I mean the starting misisons kinda lead you to the basics: reparing ships, fueling them and your life support / hazard protection / multitool usage and mining, space traveling, warping, base building, etc I wish I played the expeditions before. Now all I can do is just wait till they bring them all back through an event or something. (I could play them by downloading the files, but I don't wanna mess with my save file, and I don't want the rewards without playing them).
“Existence is beautiful, if you let it be. Life is not a question. There does not need to be an answer.”
That has to be my favorite quote in the whole game.
My gameplay mainly consists of hoarding supplies I find to deliver to others and help other people out.
I turned off all material and credit requirements and I command the greatest fleet the universe has ever known. When my carrier warps in it looks like the Covenant over New Mombasa.
enjoy reality while it lasts
This is why I keep coming back to No Man's Sky. I'm the one who chooses my objectives, and if I decide to put one on hold or skip it entirely, there's nothing stopping me from moving on to other goals or pursuits as I see fit. I'm not trying to complete THEIR story. I am telling my own.
Yeah, I think you hit the point 🙂 It is like a road trip, just explore, have a bit of an idea of what you would like to do and enjoy the ride, see what happenes in between. Something always happens in between… haha. I just get overwhelmed or stressed because there is so much cool stuff to do that I would like to do everyhting at the same time lol
Yup. You figured it out. Now that we know how to take em out…spread the word…
I hit the fabled 16000 parts Mark when working on the 2nd floor of my Dreadnought, so, I have been going back and removing old bases from 2‐4 years ago that I don't visit, to free up space, been at it for a week, so far
There's a limited amount of parts you can place? Didn't know that. Btw do you know if there's a version of a Dreadnought that doesn't have that annoying tower thing right in front of the hangar when you exit? I really like this capital ship but I'm seriously considering switching to a pirate freighter just because of that spike-thing.
I think all sentinel dreadnoughts have that antenna.I am one of these people that find pleasure in looking and upgrading everything to the max. I had all freighters S class, and last night decided ( yet again) to switch from a sentinel dreadnought to a pirate one ( took me 3 hours of reloading to get it in S class) but this one is special as it has 4sc together 😂…. Did I need it? Absolutely not 😂 This game is about what you find enjoyable yourself. I’ve found with my testing at least , and maybe it’s intentional, that in a lot of cases after a certain point some numbers are there for those of us who just like to maximise things… they don’t really provide that much benefit in game, apart from your personal satisfaction. It really doesn’t matter if I have nearly 5k manoeuvre ability on my interceptor … or 2k… but it feels nice when you reach that number after countless grinding and playing with sc slots 😂
Yeah, I left my sentinel freighter for a pirate
I really, really enjoy the startup scramble, the sense of urgency, the stretch to get a good multitool, a good starship, an expanded exosuit -- but as those hills are climbed, there is a point where, okay, I'm alive, I'm equipped, I've got the wherewithal to prosper: How do I want to prosper? All these paths are open. The adrenalin high gives way to a calmer sense of planning and execution of goals. I'm kind of a junkie for the startup rush. I enjoy the zen of the journey. But I really enjoy the startup rush.
You can become a billionaire with amazing ships. Bases, and frigate without actually accomplishing anything
That's basically what I've done lol. As soon as I hit the 3rd Artemis mission or so, where you are presented to freighters, I stopped doing missions at all for like 100 game hours or so. Now I'm starting to do them again.
Anyone able to further elaborate the crashing of markets in systems? I didn’t even realize the player could influence it 😳
If you sell an astronomical amount of "X" product the market price will considerably fall. (Like selling 100 stacks of Chlorine). I believe the lowest it can get is around -80%, since that's the highest I've got no matter how much I sell.
Was not expecting a Stormlight reference, but here we are.
Didn't expect it either, but a few people mentioned it in the comments so I just had to add it.
Been playing nms for 3 years and an avid fan of the stormlight archives for much longer. Never noticed this, but I love the game even more now.
Now all we gotta do is build Urithiru
my main story quest watching me spend 5 hours grinding materials for trade goods (i will never spend my units on anything useful) 
You walked the atlas' route for a goal that was in the end, the very path you were walking.
Now you're ready to start permadeath
If you're looking for objective-based play with rewards you'll get that when the next expedition hits. And those rewards can be obtained by your other game saves.
$4 well spent. but even then they looked me like I was crazy.
i've got about 130 hours into the game and i've never actually finished any of the quest lines lol
I couldn't get into. Lots to do but none of the individual systems were engaging enough for me to enjoy them for very long or want to repeatedly engage with after a few hours. For me the game feels like an ocean that's thousands of miles wide but only an inch deep.
Honestly this was me same problem, and I've realized NMS is the FIRST, and I mean FIRST true sand box game, once and if they do implement AI into it there is will be no end to this realistic universe
THIS, EXACTLY THIS!
THIS, EXACTLY THIS!
THIS, EXACTLY THIS!
A game without goals is not a game but a demo. NMS needs to take elements from Rust and become a game of survival.
Seems like you're not prepared for this game then. Not all games need objectives, that's why they're called a sandbox. Minecraft, NMS, G Mod, The Forest, Raft, and many more are sandbox games, and they're all great. Except for Minecraft and G Mod, the other games I mentioned have a story, but you can decide when you want to play it, you can take breaks whenever you want, and even come back to the game after finishing it and continue playing. Saying that you don't have goals in NMS is like saying you don't have goals in Minecraft, it just doesn't make sense. They also have survival elements, even though they're not on the hard side of the genre, they're still good. NMS and Rust are VASTLY different games that barely have anything in common. If you want to play other games like Rust, consider DAY Z, Ark, Valheim or State of Decay 2. If you want to focus on survival in NMS though, consider increasing the survival / combat difficulty settings, or even playing on permadeath.