Ah okay, must’ve missed that one.
PATCH NOTES
THIRD PERSON
- Third person camera for walking, jetpacking, swimming and in-ship flight
- New player models
- Completely reworked animation system
- New animations for players, as well as NPCs and creatures
- System and animations for gestures
- Character customisation
- Player character turns to look at points of interest
- New get in / out of vehicle effect
- Interactions show the player character where appropriate
- Warping in ship is in third person
- Resized various deployable tech to better fit third person mode
MISSIONS
- Real time missions
- Scheduled missions
- Multiplayer missions
- Completely overhauled tutorial
- New mission types – photography, feeding, freighter combat, archaeology, and specialised hunting missions
- Guild envoy missions
BASES
- Bases can be built anywhere
- Players can own multiple bases
- Hundreds of new base parts
- Increased base complexity / size limits
- Joint base building
- Improved teleporting and selection between teleport destinations
- Improved terrain editor modes and options to be more intuitive
- Toned down saturation intensity of palette choices for colouring base building parts
- Base terrain editing now stops when you hit the limit rather than overwriting old edits
- Bases can now be deleted
- Improved system for placing base building parts
- Increased base building radius and made it expandable
- Disabled base auto uploading, and added manual controls
- Enabled downloading more than one external base from other players
FREIGHTERS
- Frigate fleets feature – including missions, upgrade system, system combat and exploration assistance
- Overhauled base building inside player freighters
- Reworked and added procedural textures to freighter bridge hologram planet
- Redesigned path from freighter hangar to bridge
- Improved speed of airlock doors opening on freighters
CRAFTING AND RESOURCES
- Reworked and rebalanced all core substances and resources
- Deployable tech can now be picked up
- Added refiner based crafting system
- Added Craftable ammunition
- Improved damage falloff on mining beam
UI / UX
- Additional markers visible in analysis visor
- Points of interest can be tagged from analysis visor
- Latitude / longitude displayed on analysis visor
- Improved HUD layout
- HUD lines dynamically hidden with the corresponding UI elements
- Improved notification layout
- Improved build menu
- Improved quick menu
- Inventory stack splitting
- New repair interface
- All player owned ships can now be summoned
- Added system for repairing damaged inventory slots
- Backpack showing in your inventory will now match customised character backpack
- Backpack bars display hazard protection and life support
- In-ship map now highlights enemies
- Improved docking indicators when flying
- Completely reworked shop UI
- Nanites no longer take up inventory slots
- Scanning ships shows their slot count
- Save slots are now sorted by timestamp
- Galaxy map can show multiple markers for each system
- Added dynamic suit protection inventory icon
- Inventory full notifications now take into account cargo slots
- Fixed camera voxel to star voxel in Galactic map
- Can pin base building recipes on the HUD
- Added danger icons to tentacle plants
- Improved tech and product pinning, with more detailed guides to obtaining the build requirements
- Improved compass
- Improved HUD marker icons for objects of interest
- Added multiplayer text chat on PC
GRAPHICS AND PLANET GENERATION
- Improved fog and increased draw distance
- New terrain generation system for improved navigability and more varied earth-like and alien landscapes
- Reduced situations where cave props can be spawned above ground
- Improved particle systems fading out over distance
- Added support for extremely large biome props
- Improved and increased variety of clouds and cloud shadows seen from space
- Improved planet surface rendering from space
- Improved terrain lods and visuals when flying in from space
- Improved colour selection during planet generation
- Improved sky and fog colour selection
- Tightened triplanar texture blend areas
- New colour mapping system to create more varied and atmospheric visuals
- Improved tree density
- Tree size variation
- Added empty systems, with no current inhabitants
- Added abandoned systems, with derelict space stations
- Improved storm visuals
- Improved textures for ship, NPCs, and buildings
- Added planetary ring system
- Increased asteroids density in space
- Improved space visuals
- Added support for larger bodies of water
- Character shadows for first person gameplay
- Adjusted TAA settings to reduce shadow blurring on terrain
- Added particle effect when flying above water
- Splash particle effects
- Inventory and pause menu now uses depth of field to blur in-game camera
- Balanced intensity of lights in the Atlas station
- Updated model of hologram backpack in suit upgrade chamber
- Improved water surface and foam shaders
- Improved water reflections to better match terrain
- Improved imposter visuals and lighting to better match nearby objects
- Switched object and terrain fading to use Blue Noise to give smoother transitions
- Improved compression on some textures generated in-game
- Improved terrain texture blending and selection
- Improved sand and cave colour selection
- Improved beach blending and visuals
- Brightened cave interiors, especially at night
- Improved storm effect fading as you enter buildings
- Added gun model for ships
- New high quality tree models and textures
- Fixed an issue with landing pad UVs
- Improved drone, quad and walker models
- New drone texture effects
- Added more varied underwater and underground objects
- Improved appearance of Gravitino Balls
- Major improvements to biome object placement
- Improved crystal placement
- Improved marker distances for gameplay props
- Added terrain objects which cannot be destroyed by player ships
- Improved colours, brightness, saturation of creature textures
- Tweaked rock textures
- Improved scale of underground objects
- Tweaked poison blob particle effects
- Improved cave biome glowing plant lights
- Optimised cave biome prop performance
- Improved bushes and underwater plants
- Improved asteroid texture balance
- Improved abandoned slimey diffuse colours
- Improved under-foot dust effects
- Improved heavy air in caves
- Improved scale of gameplay plants
- Improved toxic grass diffuse texture
- Tweaked mountain fragments on certain biomes
- Improved vertex displacement on flags to make them wave nicer
- Improved smoke and damage effects on ships and distress beacons
- Modified frequency of wordstones, crates, underground props and damaged machinery
- Improved rare gem collection effect
- Improved ship trail effects
- New engine effect for ships
SPACE STATIONS AND BUILDINGS
- Overhauled space station interior
- New space station marketplace
- New style for stairs in space station
- Redesigned look of teleporter in space station
- Added variation to building interior layouts and props
- Added a small ramp to the drop pod for easier access
- Improved building frequency
- Added LOD system for base building parts to increase draw distances and complexities
EXPLORATION, FAUNA AND FLORA
- New underground ruins building type
- Buried technology modules and blueprint analysis
- Overhauled signal booster and navigation data input
- Procedurally generated technology
- Procedurally generated products
- Improved creature pathfinding
- Improved creature response to feeding
- Herd behaviour for creatures
- Improved scales and maximum sizes of creatures
- Improved sentinel drone behaviour, proximity indicator and escape gameplay
- Improved matching of creature body parts to their role
- Coprite improvements
- New hazardous fauna
- New hazardous flora
- Improved scan ranges for biome specific plants
- Added new armoured drone type
- Must use the terrain editor to mine resource deposits
- Improved Colossus speed and fuel tanks / consumption
- Different ship classes use different amounts of launch fuel
- New name generation system for planets / ships / weapons / creatures
- Increased variety in creature descriptions
- Nada + Polo’s tasks are now tracked in the Mission Log
- Fancier descriptions for planetary weather conditions
- Changed starting Exosuit inventory size
- Increased the number of Exosuit cargo slots available to purchase
- Increased crafted item stack size in the Exosuit to 5
CONTROLS AND COMBAT
- Climbing traversal more challenging and rewarding
- Added ability to slide down cliffs
- Player movement is more dynamic
- Air resistance simulation for jetpack navigation
- Multi-tool manual holstering / unholstering
- Ship weapons can be used against ground targets
- Splash damage added to ship weapons when used against ground targets
- Improved low level flight, with destruction of terrain objects with which you collide
- Fixed jitter on physics debris pieces
- Stopped player colliding with tiny rocks on scorched biomes
- Crit points on sentinel drones and quads
- Combat scope module for the Multi-Tool
- Personal forcefield module for the Multi-Tool
- New grenade types
- Improved weapon alternative mode, also with better HUD display
- Sentinel drones can repair quads and walkers in battle
- Improved sentinel quadruped behaviour, pouncing, evade
- Improved walker behaviour with different attack modes
- Extra armour plating added to sentinels arriving in combat
- Fixed placement of off-planet markers and improved pulse drive flight towards marked destinations
AUDIO
- Updated creature vocals
- New third person foley for player and NPCs
- Additional loading music and a new track when starting normal mode
- Revised ship engine sounds
- Added low flying ship sounds
- Revised underwater sounds
- Improved combat audio and overhauled Quad and Walker audio
- New NPC vocals
- New Frigate audio
STABILITY / BALANCING / FIXES
- Fixed a number of issues with atmospherics and water rendering on the horizon
- Fixed text clipping issues in some languages
- Fixed certain cases where opening the settings menu silently changed resolution
- Fixes for several uncommon out of memory crashes
- Fixed transition between lighting when flying to space
- Fixed and improved a number of situations for flattening terrain around buildings
- Fixed cases where terrain tiles could be missing or slow to appear while flying around or into planet
- Fixed crashed freighters having underground treasure too low to mine down to
- Prevented dead planets ever having atmospheres
- Prevented some story-critical buildings being placed underwater
- Fixed lighting issues with double sided leaf shaders
- Fixed repetitive tiling textures on some foliage leaves
- Fixed issues with loading some particularly large saves
- Fix for superconductive lock bug
- Voice chat quality and reliability improvements
- Fixed scan events for players who have managed to go off-grid
- Fix for edited terrain regions repeatedly regenerating themselves unnecessarily
- Fixed rocks showing up as the wrong colour on frozen biomes
- Fix occasional hang in asynchronous IO
- Fixes for non-instance LODs
- Added geometry streaming system
- Made numerous memory savings to improve overall stability
- Made the damaged machinery turn off the sparks and smoke effect when you have finished the interaction
- Rebalanced AI ship damage
- Balanced ship to ground target damage
- High performance(1440p) and High Quality(2160p) rendering modes added for Xbox One X
- Made numerous grass and foliage rendering optimisations
- Optimised per-frame renderer memory usage
- Optimised various engine components using async compute
- Various optimisations
- Various miscellaneous bug fixes
3 Likes
After seeing this latest patch, I’m getting tempted by this game… What do you guys think about it’s current state?
It is certainly worth the $30 now on sale, but expect to be grinding as you explore and build up your tech.
Yeah, set Phasors on Grind as the grind is real.
Played for a couple of hours with friends yesterday. It was fun. Grind is real, but you can split off when in a group and work together by mining different needed materials on different planets in different systems at the same time.
Bought it half price on Steam, about to give it a go…
Well that was interesting! My initial survival rate was 1 death per 4 minutes, largely because it dropped me on a planet that was very pretty… Apart from the continuous acid rain. Collecting was a nightmare, so I restarted.
Now, because I’m either hardcore or (more probably) stupid, I chose the permadeath option this time. Instead of acid-world, I landed on one that was a little hot but much more manageable. Even mamaged to get my ship off the ground!
I can massively see the appeal of this game, yet I am still glad I didn’t pay full price. I shall keep playing and see what adventures come next…
Pretty relevant:
2 Likes
This was an entertaining read, if nothing else because he seemed to get more angry as it went on, as if the very act of writing about it was making him mad!
As for myself (someone who is truly new to the game) I do agree that the complicated menus are an absolute shambles. I didn’t find the crafting too hard to understand (yet) but fiddling through all the buttons when your life support is literally burning away… mildly frustrating.
However, I am impressed at the sense of adventure. Even though I know I’m just running around collecting stuff, it feels like my own little sci-fi story. It helps that I’m playing the permadeath setting because it means I’m invested in my survival. I found myself creating little narratives in my head, such as when I had to take cover from a firestorm in a cave I chanced upon. Waiting out the extreme heat while poking around for extra resources was a nice change of pace, and not remotely scripted.
I feel like I could get into this, despite the idiotic controls…
1 Like
The UI was definitely built for controller. They are painful to navigate with M+K.
Even with a controller the UI is really slow and clunky to use. It’s like they are scared of players making a mistake so they slow everything down with a time delay or animation.
And thus ends my first proper foray into the game. 4 game-hours since I took my first, uneasy steps on a warm world, I breathed my last in the cold void of space.
Permadeath can be cruel (but I guess that’s why I chose it).
My shiny new warp drive deposited me in a system with some very nice resources and yet each planet was highly irradiated - my guess being the close proximity of the star, which bathed the entire system in orange light. I had learnt much in my travels and decided that one of the planets had a suitable mix of resources for my first proper base. If I could set up a shelter, I would be safe from the radiation and could steadily upgrade my equipment.
It was not to be.
After studying a very large, two-legged beastie that seemed rather friendly, I set about collecting resources. Plenty of Sodium around, so keeping the hazard protection topped up was a simple task. I even discovered some Uranium! Eureka! Extra fuel for my ship!
However, a single, sneaky drone would be the beginning of my downfall. It crept up behind me, then pounced when I collected some crystals for launch fuel. With the radiation levels growing, running was not an option, so I stood and fought… and won! Seconds remained while the reinforcements arrived. They caught up with me just as I jumped in my ship.
Safe.
But… what to do? The drones were still outside, taking pot-shots at my ship! They couldn’t get through the shield, but neither could I leave. So, I launched, forsaking that site as a suitable place for my base. I kept an eye on the detection indicators but, strangely, the drones seem to keep track of me no matter how far I fly.
“Ha!” I thought. “I’ll lose them in space!”
This was my second mistake. The minute I broke orbit, I exchanged two pesky drones for two, much more dangerous, system enforcement ships. Frantically, I tried to outrun them. Nothing. I tried my pulse drive. Disrupted. I continued running in the hope my pulse drive might come back. No luck. So… one thing to do, back to the planet! They followed me down and I shot them down easily in the atmospheric conditions. Yet now, there was no escaping my crimes. Sure enough, the moment I rose back up from the planet, 3 security ships were waiting. I managed to destroy two, but my shields were gone and my ship was barely holding together.
My last moments happened as if in slow motion…
We turned…
I launched a cluster of missiles… score!
He spun away…
I turned, to see him taking aim again…
Green lasers lanced out at me…
A moment…
Then my ship spun out of control and I found myself becoming spacedust.
3 Likes
I had a similar experience!
I left 2 or 3 bodies on random planets before I realized I could hide in caves to escape environmental effects.
I crash landed on a hellish desert world. Ambient Temp was 64.3 C.
Surface flora was mainly Hydrogen, Carbon, and Ferrite with no sodium to be found for my EPS and luckly found a cave before I died in the heat.
I spent quite a few hours stocking up on the sodium and oxygen I knew I would need to survive the surface. There was zero ferrite in these caves so I had to make short excursions to the surface to get the ferrite I needed for a scanner and plates for my ship.
Then came the journey. 900 units to my crashed ship. I could do it I told myself. I did. I made it, I found the nav data after many hops in and out of the ship to recharge my EPS. Where was it?
900 units away.
I began my journey. Now or never I told myself. I made it. I survived. I had to get that seal.
I passed a cave and asked myself if I should stop and recharge my EPS in there. “No, I’ll be fine.” I thought. Not 1 minute later, after it was lost and too late I received a weather alert: Heat Storm incoming. Temperatures quickly rose to over 114 C and my EPS was falling fast. I managed to get lucky and find the tiniest cave with just enough space to hide from the elements until the storm passed.
I made it. I found the seal. I returned to my ship without event and left that godforsaken planet.
I followed my nav beacon data to a crashed ship on another planet. While there I received a distress call from a player! “Hey, are you there.” We talked briefly about the hardships of this universe before he perished - still stranded on the desert planet. Rip space friend.
I went back to space and found a paradise planet. Everything was great except that the sentinels are aggressive by default. I found myself hiding in a cave yet again and began to build a base there in the safety of the underground. I decided to leave for a bit because I was having inventory problems and I needed to sell things when I caught their attention. Much like you, they followed me to space. I splashed one and didn’t warp out before reinforcements came. I ran for what seems like hours but probably only a few minutes. I decided to retreat to the surface. To my cave of safety and solitude. I landed quickly and hopped out to see the 3 sentinels trailing me just as I left them on the ground.
Unable to handle the stress and I was tired I logged off. I’m not sure what horrors await me in that universe today but I look forward to it.
Definitely had a hell of a lot of fun doing mundane grinding work. It scratches the survival itch that seems better this time around than it did the first time I played during release. Knowing that there are bases to build, vehicles and better ships: frigates and freighters to buy, I’m looking forward to the progression. All with the fear of permadeath in the back of my head haunting every decision making me wonder if it will be my last.
3 Likes
I think my next game might have to be the normal difficulty so I can really get the hang of things. Perhaps once I’ve got a good idea of how to survive, I will try permadeath mode again. I haven’t had time yet to decide if the higher danger levels make it more exciting or frustrating!
I have to say though, as pretty as the planets are, they are nothing compared to Battlescape’s @INovaeFlavien. I feel sure they cheat a little bit too. Also bad clouds. The one thing we definitely do need to revisit again in Battlescape is near-surface details though. Trees/rocks etc, even if it’s simple computer trickery rather than proper models. It needs to be high-ish density and perhaps a fade-in-and-grow as they become visible. If we’re having ground bases, we need the surrounding landscape to be more convincing.
But our planets here already completely outclass NMS in every way except the existence of clouds and details. 
2 Likes
1 Like
For the benefit of those who haven’t watched that video, Mac points out that on Greenman Gaming it’s 60% off. 50% + extra 10% using the code NEXT10.
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Non referral link: https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/no-mans-sky/
I’ve left it downloading. Looking forward to giving it a go when I get home from work.
4 Likes
First impression: The grind is real.
I chose survival mode. I normally like permadeath but after your stories I figured normal would be better to start with.
I started on a planet with radiation eating away at my hazard protection but soon found a cave to take shelter in and found that hazard protection recharges itself when in shelter.
I proceeded to build myself an analysis visor as bits of info text suggested that would be useful.
I repaired my ship and then spent some time collecting stuff from machinery debris.
I was and still am confused about how I learn new recipes. It seems I just magically got some as I completed the initial objectives.
Anyway, after using the beacon I made, I had a signal source on another planet to investigate, and I figured it’d be easier to explore and get to grips with things if I was on a planet without radiation so I took off and headed to space.
I killed a pirate ship and mined(shot) some asteroids then went over to another planet and landed.
Turns out the sentinels are aggressive on this planet but I managed to escape from one and avoid them since then.
I was out of launch fuel (why oh why is that a separate resource?!) so set out to find some (or uranium which is an alternate launch fuel)
I roamed the planet surface for a bit and learnt a few Gek words.
I found some launch fuel in a crate so I’m going to head back into space towards the signal source.
Without knowing how to unlock new recipes I’m not sure how to progress really. So I’ll just keep exploring.
1 Like
Sounds much like I was starting out! Interestingly, for my second round I tried the normal mode and it is indeed a lot more chilled for learning the game. You get resources a lot more quickly etc. I will see how it goes…
As for recipies, a lot of them are already there but a bit hard to find (the inventory system is a mess). But basically, if you try to craft something, it will prompt you to ‘pin’ the recipie and switch to your quest guide. That will then tell you what you need and put it as an active objective.
As for new equipment, those come from blueprints. Keep playing the introductory story through until it explains blueprints. I would advise keep going until you get the warp drive - it doesn’t take long. After that, you should have covered most of the fundamentals… But that’s as far as I’ve got so who knows what happens next!
Find a relatively peaceful planet and start building a base asap if you haven’t already (start with the circular room as I think that was the original base piece from the Atlas Rises update), that will kick off some missions which will give you more tech (not to mention chances to earn credits).
If this is quick, I hate to think how long it takes to do anything on permadeath mode!
Permadeath should really be an option that is independent of ‘difficulty’.
I discovered the pinning system but find it annoying that only one thing can be pinned at once.
I’ll keep going with the intro story.