4314

I’m one of those stuck not able to get the game to run now. Probably aggravating this is that I had to completely reload since I’d uninstalled a while back. I get the Hello Games screen and about 10 seconds of music, then POOF. Nothing.

I’ve set it for the experimental branch but can’t seem to get Steam to “patch” to that? How do I force it?

4315

The experimental branch version has been pushed to the public branch now so nothing to patch.

4316

Noted. I switched back. Still no change.

Thinking it might be tied to VR, I launched in VR mode and got just a bit further, passed the Havok screen flash, before crashing. Then retried normal mode and got to the same point. So, further along but still crashing, with no error popup.

EDIT 2: Just noticed I have a pending Nvidia driver update. I’ll apply and test again.

EDIT 3: SUCCESS!!! I’m in!

4317

What exactly is a “hotspot”? Is it just an arbitrary set of conditions you look for when planning a base or is it an actual thing you find on the planet?

I’ve got about 20 hours invested in the past couple weeks and have a small starter base right next to a trading post (at least I was smart enough to do that!) but I didn’t really assess the area for anything else.

As an aside, it seems the new inventory slot cap increase is only for Normal games, not Survival… I was really looking forward to this QoL improvement more than anything else.

4318

Used to be you had to be in space to communicate but the alert would still sound when on a planet.

4319

So much has changed in this game. It’s completely different so far. It’s also been so long that I only barely remember some of how to play.

So far so good, I’ve been stable for a couple of hours now, though I rolled new so I’m still stuck on the intro planet.

4320

But the basic game loop is the same, right?

4321

Did they add a map yet?
This game really REALLY needs some kind of map of where you’ve been.

I understand why you wouldn’t have a map of new planets… but you should have a map of the surface of planets that show you everywhere you’ve explored on foot, at least. It’d make it a lot easier to go back to places you’ve been interested in.

4322

Would a map in that way really even be possible, with how they do procedural generation? Seems like it’d result in a massive amount of stored data. Could be totally wrong, though.

EDIT: To clarify a bit, I mean that the game seems to remember certain things, like where a starport is or where your base is, but others are generated on the fly. It’s why you need to put down a beacon to save a location, and why you can’t just mentally remember where a crashed ship is, leave the planet, and then come back to find it.

To have a map detailing all these areas, they’d have to store/persist it, which I don’t think they’re doing right now? Again, I might be mistaken.

4323

Yes, it is. But it’s also a pretty amazing sand box if you approach it the right way. You do need to make your own fun.

I think they will get around to adding procedural stuff like dungeons under ruins, raider factions hiding in caves, space pirate bases that you can invade. I would love to pay money for more DLC at this point. Almost feel bad getting this stuff for free. I’m rooting for them to be successful enough to keep building on what they have.

4324

You know those lines connecting planets you see in space? They are trading lanes. Follow one to the planet side and there should be a trading post near. Tested last night with success.

Not far enough in new save to be sure this is the same: Once you can get the ship upgrade for “economy scanner” you can use that on a planet to get directed to a trading post.

4325

Personally, I don’t really enjoy sandbox games unless there’s also a strong narrative strand. When a game wants me to build something creatively, my innate reaction is, ‘well I could just go write a program, or paint a painting or something, and have it endure outside of the game’. So I’m still debating whether to get this.

I really wish they designed more real systems, like factions that are simulated at some level, or an economy that was being tracked, but the procedural massive galaxy kinda works against that – they can only do things procedurally at a local level, and when you arrive at a new system, it’s a new procedural seed determining things. They’re also skewing super heavily towards the minecraft stuff at this point, which just isn’t my thing (for the reason mentioned above), but perhaps would interest my kids. The basic idea of planets and space flight intrigues me, but it just seems like once you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen all there really is outside of creative stuff.

4326

Kinda where I’m at too. I’m somewhat enjoying NMS (bought it last week or so), but it basically feels like Subnautica in space, and I bounced off Subnautica with all its inv slots and “10x of this to make 1x of that.”

4327

Yes, and a little bit no. I’ll see if I can explain. I played very early (release.) So to me the game now is like comparing Minecraft in beta with Minecraft now, many, many patches in, with a lot more content, a lot of new directions, things, recipes, entire category of building, etc.

I’m just now leaving the first planet, but essentially the game loop at launch was, basic learning, collect, explore, move to new planet, repeat, move to new system, repeat. Now there is a lot of fill-in it seems for each part of that. Plus building, plus more story (haven’t seen it yet,) etc. Plus multiplayer. Plus VR.

If that sounds confusing, well, it’s a LOT of new for me, so I’m not even sure I’m including everything. It looks gorgeous now.

Hold off. I don’t think it’s what you need it to be at this point. Certainly monitor this thread, but you can get a pretty strong understanding of the majority of the gameplay watching a couple of different streamers on Twitch. Since the game is mostly pursue your own way/sandbox style, like @Gordon_Cameron mentioned, it leans more toward Minecraft in style, than something with long term strategy/goals, etc.

4328

@Timex What made me almost ragequit was finding out that even the stupid beacon is not available to use but must be found as blueprints as part of a mission. I was like 20 hours in and still hadn’t found it. Maybe that was due to an error on my part or due to poor early-game directions in earlier versions. Has this aspect of the game gotten better? I want smash something just thinking about it! (I jest, not actually that angry).

4329

Subnautica’s UI and inventory interface is about 9,000,000x more functional than NMS.

4330

It’s a blueprint that is part of the Builder quest line, from the Base Scientist. This info if from the HUD, note I haven’t started that and have no beacon. Not sure of the approximate timeline to reach that, however.

4331

So yeah you literally can’t go back to where you’ve been, except for maybe your base, until you have that quest which requires maybe 50 hours of game time?

I like sandbox games and this game, but they’ve designed it to suck time, which is not ideal for me.

4332

I actually liked the basic core gameplay of NMS on release, but felt there was plenty of room for improvement.

What I wanted was more diversity in planet generation. What we got were elaborate ways to grind the planets we had. Since grind is my Kryptonite, I bailed and have a hard time trying to get back in.

4333

I don’t think it took me long to get the beacon, but I might be misremembering. Didn’t have much use for it.

What are you trying to get back to? Anything in particular?