No Man's Sky: Foundation Update (v1.1)

Or it's a bunch of features that have been flushed out and finished to be in a playable state that was meant to be in the game originally, and they pushed it out after the launch because it was meant to be in it.
This sounds uncontroversial. Would also be unsurprised if there was working multiplayer code in there at one point, that only worked on their LAN and fell to pieces in the face of the real internet. Because that's a thing that happens.
 
Maybe it's just me, but it was always felt like an annoyance.
If I'm flying over a planet and see something cool, I want to land on the planet without worrying about burning 1/4 of my fuel, or having to look around looking for the resource rather than looking at what I found interesting.

Creative mode
 
Or it's a bunch of features that have been flushed out and finished to be in a playable state that was meant to be in the game originally, and they pushed it out after the launch because it was meant to be in it.
But the two largest new features in this update--base building/freighters and new difficulty modes--weren't even hinted at until after the game was released. Given that Hello famously did talk pre-release about features that didn't make it, I think that's strong evidence bases and modes weren't ever meant for launch.

I'm sure some smaller improvements were on the boil leading up to release, though. We know for a fact the temporal AA was, since they specifically said that it just barely missed implementation. Visual and audio error squashes and enhancements of various other kinds are also likely in that list.

But much of the update is clearly reaction to player experience: quick menu, stackable products, UI changes, increased variation and tweaking of terrain and flora generation addressing common complaints, enhanced bounty system, clearer visualization of star system color, etc. etc.
 
Even normal is a bit harder, or at least more grinding. Thamium9 not being as prevalent in asteroids makes crafting warp cores a bit more obnoxious. Although, Low atmosphere planets tend to have a ton of thamium plants and plutonium on them. The two I have been on also didn't seem to have any buildings.

Zinc seems to be damn rare, and that is needed to craft antimatter.

Overall I like the update though. Even the planets look a bit better, and having less settlements(on most planets) is a nice change.

Still odd using iron on the pulse engine though, and it drains very fast unlike before.
 
I wonder if those portals are working now.

That was always the most intriguing thing about the game for me.

Well wraping from one point to another works , even from planet to another system .. so at least the tech for the portal should be there. Now what would they ( HG ) do with that, now ?
 
But the two largest new features in this update--base building/freighters and new difficulty modes--weren't even hinted at until after the game was released. Given that Hello famously did talk pre-release about features that didn't make it, I think that's strong evidence bases and modes weren't ever meant for launch.

I'm sure some smaller improvements were on the boil leading up to release, though. We know for a fact the temporal AA was, since they specifically said that it just barely missed implementation. Visual and audio error squashes and enhancements of various other kinds are also likely in that list.

FWIW, the "leave messages for other players" feature was talked about in at least one interview as part of what Sean wanted for the small multiplayer experience. So I guess we could say that Hello is making progress on fulfilling that feature.
 
Because of FFXV I won't have time to try this out, but I booted it up and it looked better visually to me. Noticeably so. On the basic PS4 here. On the other hand, my favourite planet is now totally different colours and no longer an earth-like.

Looking forward to trying Survival mode.

Did they make it any easier to get to the centre of the universe?
 
So I started survival mode on a nice planet. My only problem was some acidic rain, but the walk to my ship went fine, there was even plutonium around! I also managed to find all 6 species of the planet while doing this. So I fixed my ship and went off to the next planet thinking survival mode wasn't that hard.

Well I sure was wrong! Next planet had nice weather and red grass, lots of animals. And it was of course an extreme sentinel planet : ( Oh and did you think all those animals were nice? Nope! And who needs plutonium anyway?

Died lots of time, lost all my stuff, didn't have enough plutonium to take off again (200 to refill my launcher thing???). Spent like 2 hours dying and gathering enough plutonium by doing suicide runs. Those sentinels don't give up easily do they? Finally got enough plutonium, took off back to my starter planet and I'm not leaving until I have a few big stacks of plutonium in my ship:p

Oh and when I went back to my first planet I landed right next to a place I could build a base on. So now I have a little home going! I'm having a lot of fun with this patch so far. Just finding some red crystals feels like some sort of achievement right now :p

Since FFXV is right around the corner though, I wont have time to fully play NMS right now, but looking forward to playing it when I'm done with FFXV.
 
Played a bit more tonight and I'm only now starting to feel the relief of having storage containers make my life easier, but it's still a pain in the ass to transfer all of that stuff quickly, especially because your own backpack carries so little.

Thankfully they implemented some color schemes for the buildable elements, so here I placed various storage containers color coded to their corresponding resource types (green for trading commodities, blue for silicates, cyan for neutral, purple for rare etc.):
MCC5Glu.jpg

The major pain in the ass is that apparently you can't transfer items from the ship's inventory to the storage container(?), so you need to juggle items from your ship to your exosuit, and then from the suit to the container, which is insane, especially when you can't even stack items in your suit. Maybe I'm missing something, maybe the ship needs to be landed closer, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, there seems to be a bug with the storage container as it's occasionally showing me item descriptions from the multi-tool while the cursor is in some between space or just over your inventory items, it's like the game is also rendering another invisible inventory grid below the one you see. I'm reading on reddit that some people have a similar problem with the freighter inventory, as it looks like it's kinda overlaying over an invisible exosuit inventory, so if you quick transfer an item from your freighter to your ship, you're actually "transferring" whatever is in your exosuit on that same slot, so you can end up removing and bugging out your life support etc. Haven't bought a freighter yet so I can't check it out, but just throwing it out there for people that have one.
 
Played a bit more tonight and I'm only now starting to feel the relief of having storage containers make my life easier, but it's still a pain in the ass to transfer all of that stuff quickly, especially because your own backpack carries so little.

Thankfully they implemented some color schemes for the buildable elements, so here I placed various storage containers color coded to their corresponding resource types (green for trading commodities, blue for silicates, cyan for neutral, purple for rare etc.):

whoa.

I haven't figured out how to do square rooms yet so mine's out in the yard like a goddamn toolshed.
 
whoa.

I haven't figured out how to do square rooms yet so mine's out in the yard like a goddamn toolshed.

I think the Gek builder specialist unlocks like 50 new building templates (along with the square rooms, which you build block by block, each costing 100 iron) after finishing one of his quests.
 
As worthless as user reviews are, I guess it's good to see this update pull the game out of "overwhelmingly negative" on Steam (recent positive reviews are up by 8%).
 
Survival mode is kicking my ass. I can't even get to my ship. It seems fun once I get myself set up if I ever get there. I've reset a few times cause since resources are already used up when you die and you lose the ones collected I got myself into impossible situations. Honestly, I wonder if normal is harder cause I want something harder than the original game (more like how survival is) but maybe not quite as frustrating as survival (it's the right idea for what I want but I'm not sure I'm good enough for it).
 
One thing I wish they've fixed was the random irrelevant/ill-timed on-screen hints.

"Press direction down to open hyperdrive menu" while I'm walking on a planet is both useless and distracting.
 
One thing I wish they've fixed was the random irrelevant/ill-timed on-screen hints.

"Press direction down to open hyperdrive menu" while I'm walking on a planet is both useless and distracting.
I used to get frustrated with them, but coming back months away I kinda appreciate them. A toggle would be good tho

I've found the prompt to pick things up to be pretty finicky since the update. Especially when plants are in clusters
 
Anyone else having crashes? Game has froze up three times on me since the update. Two of the three were right after landing on a new planet and getting out of the ship for the first time.
 
Tried survival yesterday and got my ass handed to me. Restarted and played smarter today and managed to get to the space station. My problem now is that I can't travel to any planet at all. I'll be carrying nothing in my inventory, but it takes 20+ seconds of pulse drive to get somewhere and in that time I'll be pulled out by pirates who I stand no chance against. Any tips?
 
Tried survival yesterday and got my ass handed to me. Restarted and played smarter today and managed to get to the space station. My problem now is that I can't travel to any planet at all. I'll be carrying nothing in my inventory, but it takes 20+ seconds of pulse drive to get somewhere and in that time I'll be pulled out by pirates who I stand no chance against. Any tips?

I'm not sure if you need a blueprint or if you get it from go but if you have the first upgrade for the ships guns it makes a pretty big difference against pirates and was relatively easy to upgrade if I recall. Also don't forget that you can mine shitloads of iron and thanium9 from meteors. And iron can be used to restore your ships shield midbattle if you are quick about it.

And use the terminal in the space station to buy/sell what you can, if not already. Trying to just find what you need out in the wild isn't going to cut it. Trade everything.

Oh, and always buy plutonium if any is available. Check the terminal. Buy from alien ships that land. Doesn't matter if they only have 3 units, buy it! You can't have too much, trust me.

(Last tip, I swear) and don't forget that inventory loss switches if you are in or out of your ship. Wandering around on a planet and die? Exosuit inventory gone. Flying around in space and pirates blow you up? Ship inventory gone. Same is true of equipment damage. So store in the appropriate inventory so you don't lose the important shit like a 500 stack of plutonium.
 
Anyone else having crashes? Game has froze up three times on me since the update. Two of the three were right after landing on a new planet and getting out of the ship for the first time.
I am. The last one was a memory leak that made me reboot. I couldn't even close it with task manager, or get back to my desktop. It was sitting with 0% CPU usage and maxed memory.
 
Survival mode is kicking my ass. I can't even get to my ship. It seems fun once I get myself set up if I ever get there. I've reset a few times cause since resources are already used up when you die and you lose the ones collected I got myself into impossible situations. Honestly, I wonder if normal is harder cause I want something harder than the original game (more like how survival is) but maybe not quite as frustrating as survival (it's the right idea for what I want but I'm not sure I'm good enough for it).

Well, normal mode post-update is definitely harder than it used to be. Mostly because resources are more scarce on planets, and there aren't as many outposts. Also, some elements are now behind new crafting gates, such as Titanium and Chrysonite. I actually have one of my ship shield upgrades knocked out right now because I can't find any Titanium and I don't have the upgrade to mine it anyway. So yeah, it's definitely more challenging...which is a good thing.
 
How time consuming/difficult is it to build a decent base?

For Fallout 4 I couldn't be fucked to mess with that cumbersome building system, but I was always jealous of the things people could come up with.

Talking PS4 here.
 
Well, normal mode post-update is definitely harder than it used to be. Mostly because resources are more scarce on planets, and there aren't as many outposts. Also, some elements are now behind new crafting gates, such as Titanium and Chrysonite. I actually have one of my ship shield upgrades knocked out right now because I can't find any Titanium and I don't have the upgrade to mine it anyway. So yeah, it's definitely more challenging...which is a good thing.

I've been getting a bunch of titanium from helping freighters, and warp cells too.
 
Has anyone found new base parts anywhere yet? In the trailer it shows a bunch of options and items so I assume they need to either be found or crafted.
 
Who wants to bet that the next major update includes actual multiplayer? And it won't even be "you have a tiny chance of maybe seeing someone". I think we're going to see actual "log in with your friends and dick around" multiplayer as they try to pull the game back into the mainstream.
 
Played a bit more tonight and I'm only now starting to feel the relief of having storage containers make my life easier, but it's still a pain in the ass to transfer all of that stuff quickly, especially because your own backpack carries so little.

Thankfully they implemented some color schemes for the buildable elements, so here I placed various storage containers color coded to their corresponding resource types (green for trading commodities, blue for silicates, cyan for neutral, purple for rare etc.):


The major pain in the ass is that apparently you can't transfer items from the ship's inventory to the storage container(?), so you need to juggle items from your ship to your exosuit, and then from the suit to the container, which is insane, especially when you can't even stack items in your suit. Maybe I'm missing something, maybe the ship needs to be landed closer, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Also, there seems to be a bug with the storage container as it's occasionally showing me item descriptions from the multi-tool while the cursor is in some between space or just over your inventory items, it's like the game is also rendering another invisible inventory grid below the one you see. I'm reading on reddit that some people have a similar problem with the freighter inventory, as it looks like it's kinda overlaying over an invisible exosuit inventory, so if you quick transfer an item from your freighter to your ship, you're actually "transferring" whatever is in your exosuit on that same slot, so you can end up removing and bugging out your life support etc. Haven't bought a freighter yet so I can't check it out, but just throwing it out there for people that have one.
You should not, never have to worry about inventory
 
I've been getting a bunch of titanium from helping freighters, and warp cells too.

Well last time I tried to help a freighter it ended with my ship being blown apart by the Sentinels, but good to know. ;)

Who wants to bet that the next major update includes actual multiplayer? And it won't even be "you have a tiny chance of maybe seeing someone". I think we're going to see actual "log in with your friends and dick around" multiplayer as they try to pull the game back into the mainstream.

I'm going to go with No, unless Sean has had a total change of heart. He spent the last year being visibly annoyed by journalists asking about multiplayer, repeatedly saying it's not like Destiny, it's not a co-op game, it's just a little Journey / Dark Souls type of experience. Even if Sean did decide "okay, let's just do it", putting together a competent MP system in a procedural universe...would not be easy, so if that comes to pass I don't see it happening for a while.
 
Well last time I tried to help a freighter it ended with my ship being blown apart by the Sentinels, but good to know. ;)



I'm going to go with No, unless Sean has had a total change of heart. He spent the last year being visibly annoyed by journalists asking about multiplayer, repeatedly saying it's not like Destiny, it's not a co-op game, it's just a little Journey / Dark Souls type of experience. Even if Sean did decide "okay, let's just do it", putting together a competent MP system in a procedural universe...would not be easy, so if that comes to pass I don't see it happening for a while.

I think it's going to happen sooner rather than later. 1) if they're human they must be upset about this being one of the big hooks that people point to when it comes to lies about the game. (I only think he downplayed it more as release came closer because he knew it wasn't going to be in.) It would be like slaying a beast 2) base building and that kind of dicking around feels less significant if you can't share it with anyone, so it just seems like a logical next step
 
I mentioned this in the OT, but when pirates attacked me post-update, suddenly the NPC Korvax ships around me started attacking them. I've been in plenty of pirate fights with this game, but I'd never seen NPCs help me out before.

If this is indeed a new feature in the update, then it would be a small start towards fleshing out the Faction system into something that's actually significant and meaningful.
 
^^^I noticed this when I was attacked near a landable freighter (not mine). It was one too quickly but it for sure looked like the fighters engaged the pirates as well. I have good standing with all races so don't know if that's a factor.
I also like that there are non enemy fighters during battles at all and that they distinguish then well (blue vs red exhaust).


that definitely is a new one
The creature type I have seen pre patch but I'm pretty sure the animation is new.
 
Tried survival yesterday and got my ass handed to me. Restarted and played smarter today and managed to get to the space station. My problem now is that I can't travel to any planet at all. I'll be carrying nothing in my inventory, but it takes 20+ seconds of pulse drive to get somewhere and in that time I'll be pulled out by pirates who I stand no chance against. Any tips?

Don't know, as I'm not off the planet yet. But I haven't died yet and all I need now is a bit of Heridium and I'm good to go, and I'm making my way from cave to cave towards it avoiding the searing daytime temperatures :)

I imagine what I'll do is make sure I have the habitable base claimed before I leave. That way I can teleport back down if I want.

that definitely is a new one

not alot of discernible features that look recognizable, and I think the spin is there to show off the motion blur lol

I've seen that exact creature a bunch of times, including that animation. I don't think they've done anything to the flora and fauna in this patch except increase the size limit a little and allow for more creatures in herds.

How time consuming/difficult is it to build a decent base?

For Fallout 4 I couldn't be fucked to mess with that cumbersome building system, but I was always jealous of the things people could come up with.

Talking PS4 here.

Base building is super easy and quite fun.
 
Just remembered that when I was playing with the new update yesterday I ran into a 4-legged creature, but instead of having a normal neck/head, it had a weird plant-looking thing for a head. Pretty neat, I wonder if they added new stuff for the creatures.
 
I spent more time with the update and it's a good one overall. They give and they take, but on balance it is for the better. The resource management is simultaneously more complex and easier; you need to lug around more resources to make sure everything is topped off, but the quick refill command makes recharging easy, as long as you have the right resources. Inventory management is easier since you can now store stuff in your base (and freighter, when I get one) but the actual interface is clunky. But overall it's much better, with most of the crap that I don't want to sell in my base (like my 10 Atlas stones that I can't get myself to get rid of) I can keep my suit and ship mostly empty except for the resources I need to charge my gear.

Overall the result was that I spend more time exploring; I've spent more time on my home planet than the last ten planets I've been on, and it's the closest I've come to legitimately identifying all the species (just one to go). Looking for resources becomes a more of an exploration of the planet, and I kind of happen upon new species as I go. It is really a lot more fun.

How time consuming/difficult is it to build a decent base?

For Fallout 4 I couldn't be fucked to mess with that cumbersome building system, but I was always jealous of the things people could come up with.

Talking PS4 here.

Fallout 4 had a combo of a horrible resource system and a horrible building system. You're not picking up cans and scrap metal to get the resources, and you won't be spending time connecting wires to generators. I don't have all the plans yet but so far it is pretty easy, the menu is simple and you pick the module you want to attach and point it where you want to go. Most of the base buildings just require iron which is literally everywhere. Some of the special gear requires rarer resources.

We'll see what the more advanced buildings require (I really want a landing pad) but so far the base building is really easy.
 
So I really want to like Survival but Thanium 9 is so rare that I just keep dying over and over again... my planet has basically no caves near it nor any zinc so I basically if I have around a minute to find either a cave or Thanium 9 or I just die in a loop...


On the bright side the motion blur looks nice.
 
How time consuming/difficult is it to build a decent base?

For Fallout 4 I couldn't be fucked to mess with that cumbersome building system, but I was always jealous of the things people could come up with.

Talking PS4 here.

It's a lot easier than Fallout 4's. And a lot less annoying. You don't have to struggles for hours to try and make sure you don't have fences floating in the air.
 
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