No Man's Sky - Exploring a 60s-Scifi-cover themed universe (post-release thread)

Couple tips… start a normal game, not a survival game. Survival is a lot harder and is also meant for those who know the game.

Don’t panic when the game starts you exposed on a toxic world, with warnings about life support failing etc. You should have plenty of time to read all the popups etc, and figure out what to do. It can all be a bit overwhelming at first!

I have mixed feelings about recommending Normal over Survival, even if it’s someone’s first time playing, as I personally find Survival to be more balanced and realistic. But definitely go with Normal if dying several times due to hazard conditions is something that might kill your interest in continuing.

Elaborating a bit on the hazards at the start of the game, the key to getting through it successfully (in any game mode) is to find shelter immediately after spawning in. This might feel cheaty, but you can use Photo Mode (quick menu) to essentially pause the game and take your time looking around the area. If you spot a nearby cave, run for it and mine materials to create at least a few batteries. Those will practically guarantee making it through the rest of the first few steps.

Have a good time, and don’t forget to update us on your adventures! I wish I could play NMS for the first time again.

I don’t know, you see a lot of people on Steam turned off the game from playing Survival as their first experience, and being under immediate death pressure without knowing any of the controls.

You don’t need to do that ‘cheat’ stuff in normal, or even really find shelter immediately, because I think it’s pretty lenient to a new player these days. I’m not sure you can even actually die at the start for at least a good 15 minutes!

Well, I’ve made some decent progress, or at least it feels that way! Started out in a freezing planet which kinda spooked me, but I spawned next to a cave so shelter was pretty much not a problem. Ventured out and found my spaceship, got it working and ended up on a radioactive planet! Built my first base, which to be honest is just a wooden box. Not very cool at all. But! I found a space station and ran into all these cool aliens! And we don’t speak the same language so I have to learn their words! I find this prospect exciting, I’ve got to learn how to communicate with all these aliens!

Anyway that’s pretty much where I am. Not spoiling because I’m only a couple hours in and already a lot has happened. Zero combat so far which I’m totally fine with. I’d be cool just wandering around scanning stuff and building stuff and exploring stuff. Farming for materials has (so far) been super easy, everything I need is either right there or craftable from stuff that’s right there. But it’s definitely a promising start, looking forward to digging deeper into it.

Regarding survival mode - the last game I played with one was Subnautica, which I definitely feel was improved with that mode. But it also had concerns like food and water, which don’t seem to exist in No Man’s Sky. So if it basically just makes things a little tougher, I’m ok with normal I think.

If you’ve flown already, you’re more than likely able to easily grasp the expeditions.

Cool. I’ll fire it up later today and see how I manage.

From last time I played survival, it makes planetary environments and weather conditions much more dangerous, reduces your inventory stack sizes, buffs enemy damage and health, and I think limits available resources more. And the death penalty is a bit harsher.

Awesome, because there’s a lot of that. :)

One thing to do is focus on improving your scanner, so you get more cash every time you scan something. It can be quite lucrative early game, especially for fauna.

And the other big thing most people like to do at first, is focus on increasing inventory slots. :)

This is the main reason I don’t play survival mode. I love the idea of working in a harsher environment, but only being able to carry 999 of any particular material really turns it into an inventory management sim for me. Going from a stack size of 999 to 9999 really increased my enjoyment of this game, which is one of my all-time favorites.

Yes that is excellent progress for your first session, and I’m really glad to hear you’re enjoying it! If you follow the storyline missions at whatever pace you like, you’ll be taught pretty much all you need to know. One thing NMS is very good at, in my opinion, is maintaining a strong sense of progression. Equally though, you’re always rewarded for going off the beaten track and exploring.

You should have been there at launch, where Normal mode had a suit stack limit of 250 (from memory)! Brutal… :)

I was. ;)

Ahhh memories. Yet I still loved the game back then too, for all the issues it had. :)

In Survival, iirc, resource stack sizes are 250 in general inventory, 500 in cargo, and 1000 in storage containers. Similar tiers but different numbers for other kinds of items.

And yeah, Survival absolutely isn’t for everyone. But NMS’ version of it seems to be less punishing (once you adjust) than what you see in other games.

In any event, glad you’re having a good time!

Well, I did intend to start the expeditions tonight but I was caught up in my regular playthrough and couldn’t find a good place to stop. I needed to build, power and fire up a hyperdrive on my ship, and I couldn’t very well leave that hanging, could I? But I also got lucky and found a random trading post - an alien there was trying to sell a multitool for something like 2 million, which I didn’t have anywhere close to. But then as I was leaving, he asked to see my multitool and out of pity offered to trade for a better one. Which I jumped at - even though it had some busted components it had way more slots than my old one, plus some better offensive capabilities.

So I did hop to the next system over once I got the hyperdrive up and running and started doing just the bare minimum of exploring. I don’t want to cut anything short so that’s where I’ll stop for now, I believe. I found a slightly more hospitable planet, in that it’s only bone-chillingly cold at night, so I may want to put a new base there maybe.

Had my first ‘oh shit’ moment earlier too. I was off to find antimatter for my hyperdrive, and tracked it to a building on some planet but when I landed, apparently I cut things a little too close and clipped the nose into the building. I didn’t think much of it, except that when I exited the ship I was also clipped into the building weirdly, and couldn’t move. I thought I was going to have to fallback to an earlier save but I noticed by turning the camera back to the ship I could re-enter and take off, finding a better landing spot. I got lucky there, need to be more careful.

In fairness that probably wasn’t your fault. The ship never lands exactly where you tell it to.

Quick tip: If you land on a designated landing pad (green circles in a cone shape marks these as you approach) it won’t cost you any launch fuel to take off again.

If you do start an expedition next, then remember to turn PvP off. It is a save-specific setting. So each time you start a new save you need to go into the menus and turn it off.

There aren’t many jerks in the community, but they do tend to cluster into the group activities. So you are unlikely to need this advice on a non-expedition save unless you go to any group events (then turn it off).

Also, if someone builds a building over something you need to interact with, another jerk move, highlight any part of the structure and report it. Once you report it, it vanishes on your client!

While you’re at it, you may also want to turn multiplayer off entirely, to prevent crashes and other oddities.

Thanks, that’s good advice. I didn’t even know PvP was a thing in this game.