Let's Talk: No Man's Sky

Whispering Egg harvesting is how I was able to finance my 24 slot multi tool rifle. 2.8 mill for that lovely.

The things can't climb, so you can jet pack onto the building (if there is one) and wait out the swarm. Repeat until full.

I wish that there was persistent mapping of buildings and trade stations on planet that you have explored.

I am on a lush moon and ran into subterranean mushroom creatures hopping about. I followed one and the asshole led me right into a toxic fungus.

the_jake_1973 wrote: I wish that there was persistent mapping of buildings and trade stations on planet that you have explored.

Oh man, THIS. I think it's intentional, but this game is dead set on not letting your return to things you see randomly once but don't have time or energy to get to. I get it, the game's procedural so it wants you to just go see the next thing, but for a mind like mine it's hard.

I have the same feeling. I'm going to have to make directional notes using the barely visible compass at the top of the HUD.


I did find that if I followed the ships flying around the sky on these planets, they generally led to trade outposts.

It’s one of those design choices that they want to make it shitty hard to grind

You almost never need to go back to a location. There's nothing you can't leave behind.

I came across a Drop pod with a exosuit upgrade. I didn't have the stuff to fix it. I wanted to hit the trader to get the goods, but couldn't find my way back.

There will be plenty more drop pods. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm trying to underscore that it's not the usual kind of thing.

My point is not specifically the drop pod issue, but the fact that you are flying an interstellar vehicle with no way to hold location coordinates. If this is a sandbox game, make it easy to explore the locations on the planet surface and play in the sandbox as I want to.

It has to hurt suspension of disbelief that you can go anywhere in the galaxy in short time spans but have no way to chart previous discoveries. Especially when maps have been around for millenia NOW, and whenever this game’s universe exists, many more by then.

My cellphone can map better. LOL

I shouldn't have to use graph paper in a space game. It's not Bard's Tale.

I wonder if the game experience would be enhanced a bit if you had to map things yourself. I was always very happy that Resident Evil 1 and 4 did it for me, but there was a very special feeling playing Wind Waker as I was making charts myself about where things were on the sea.

Playing TSR's Pool of Radiance with graph paper was probably too extreme, but there's a nice middle ground here somewhere. Having the map out beside my computer playing Sid Meier's Pirates in my teenage years was perhaps the absolute immersive height of my gaming experience in life so far.

I imagine it's hard to do this with a Z-axis but maybe it will enhance the No Man's Sky experience doing it ourselves.

I get what you're saying, but the scale of this game is way, way above even being able to map it yourself. It's really encouraging you to just move on, as Legomancer said. I actually think that's fine, it's part of the exploration ethos, I just have a really hard time shaking the "hoover up everything" and clear the map attitude to open world.

edit: especially because the tutorial is having you build a base and get rooted in one place, which is at odds (I think) with what you're supposed to be up to later.

That was actually a problem for me with Red Dead Redemption too. I couldn’t resist stopping and picking up flowers or killing animals anytime any were in my line of sight. So getting to places would take forever.

I would be happy if I could just get the coordinates of a point of interest.

the_jake_1973 wrote: I would be happy if I could just get the coordinates of a point of interest.

When you activate the scanner, there are X and Y coordinates displayed. I just noticed this last night and haven't tested to see if they're "real" or just flavor. It's over on the right side of the screen.