Hello Gammers, HelloGames … oh well.

Don’t worry, this is constructive. I have over 500h on Permadeath and countless others in other modes and I am soon restarting all over again, I love this game.

These days I was wondering what made me want to actualy play another “open world survival” game that is so much smaller, and I noticed something. That game has somethings very small, easy to implement, but that ends up creating a strange sense of novelty every time you replay. That game is Subnautica.

You see, in Subnautica you have a small dread of the unknown, of finding something … dangerous. Lurking around. So even when you are an experienced player who literally knows where every dangerous area/creature is, it is still thrilling to get near those areas, to enter and dare the big challenge.

I miss that on NMS. The game has none of that, the most danger you get is tame compared to that. And lets face it, in the vastness of the universe, you are just as likelly to find cute rideable unicorn-bears, as something that will eat you – whole.

So why not do this tiny bit change. Some planets can have something powerful, something sinister, either on the depths of the oceans or the high mountains. And they don’t need to be that big, but should be respectable, visible, loud.

The idea is not to put something that will scare users, that will make someone rage quit they lost their progress. The idea is to put something that has fair warning, that tells you “dude, you shouldn’t be here, I hope you know what you are doing”. And if you are up to it, you don’t need rewards, you only need the thrill of slaying that thing, of putting your foot down (because if you add unique rewards to very hard encounters, the more casual players won’t really like it a bit).

Something that I miss in Subnautica (and NMS), is the possibility of large creatures to actually damage your base. Sure, 99.99% of people wouldn’t build a base nowhere near these dangerous creatures, but what if I wanted? what if I want to dare? Build a base with redudancies and extra layers of protection to stand that sandwork, that winged demon? the treachearous boss abomination?

And same in space. From time to time you should bump into something that will scare you. The random encounters right now are silly, you chuckle and go away, mark down one more encounter you hadn’t experienced yet. But what if you encounter something that tells you …. no, not even going to scan it, I’m out of here.

So, a little sense of awe, of dread, not necessarily always leading to death and loss, but to get out of there, or maybe, let’s face this thing!

And its not even hard to do it. Get some big assets, put huge HP, some good damage (but not one-hit kill), and some rules on where it can spawn (planet type, star system type). Maybe even just tweak the already existing random encounters, and then add some 5 new mobs that could even look the same everywhere, but for that reason … you know what it is, and its time to run.

I submitted this request to Hello Games for settlement improvements (I include it merely for anyone who wishes to read it). What ideas do you all have to make settlements more relevant and fun?

I really love the idea of settlements. Even though this is technically an MMO it can get quite lonely in space. I like the idea of being in charge of something and helping it grow. Unfortunately, it feels too disconnected. Trying to interact with the citizens only gives you the option to leave. When there is a matter to be discussed, it is never in person. Any visitor, dispute, or proposal is done through the comms system. It would be great to have citizens show up at the office with their complaints, to go to the town hall and see everyone voting on proposals. To attend farewell and welcome events for missions. It would be great to be able to use things like the dance hall. That was another thing, inconsistency. It had me build a dance hall but dancing was still banned. It would be nice instead of waiting for options f we could inact them. I would love to make the active choice as overseer to unban dancing and not just wait for that option. I’d also love to be able to live at the settlement. I would love to have a place of residence that I can modify and expand (like a freighter). Having to cheat by building a base on the outskirts and moving inwards isn’t as fun. Making settlements a lot more dynamic would be a ton of fun. Being able to allow friends to buy homes there would also be cool.

Found out the hard way accidentally, thankfully I didn’t save before noticing what had happened.

Just finished this expedition. This one can be a real pain to get through. Here’s some tips to hopefully help.

1. This Expedition, more than the first 2 reduxs, is the definition of Do Milestones Out of Order. Seriously, you can do the later milestones early and it will definitely help with the first ones.

2. You’re on a hot planet, but you start with a heat shield. Aside from the normal basic stuff you always need for these, mine some Phosphorus when you get the opportunity; it’s probably the best option for recharging the heat shield. One patch/vein should be enough to get through the whole expedition.

3. You will get the Minotaur exocraft in this one. It has a few perks here. A) It protects you from the heat without the need for upgrades or charging. B) It can operate 100% underwater without the need for Oxygen. C) The jump pack gets you around MUCH faster than just you on foot.

4. You have one milestone that wants you to Chart Waypoints, or something close to that wording. You will get Plotting Charts (the items that tell you where certain buildings are). This milestone is NOT talking about these items. What it wants you to do is hit 4 different “Chart & Save” points that you find by buildings. IMO, it was not very clear this is what it was asking for.

5. The Climb a Mountain Milestone. Without cheesing it; the best way to get this one is to Track it in the Log (Objective) tab, then climb a “hill”. The tracker will tell you how high up you are & the target hight. If you’re not high enough, look across the horizon and find a spot higher than you and head for that location. Repeat until you get high enough. You can do this in the Minotaur, it will actually give you a little hight boost.

6. The Low Altitude Maneuvers: once you FINALLY get the ship airborne, what they want you to do is continually Boost in the lower atmosphere for 15 seconds. I found a decent sized lake near my ship. I skimmed the water and had no issues.

I think that’s all of the sticking points. Comment any questions and I’ll do my best to help.