OK, apologies if this is a worn topic; I’m fairly new to the game and still discovering things.

Early on when I was learning my way around space stations, I found that room off the side of the technology merchants’ area, with a little hallway leading to a locked door that said “AltasPass v3 Required”. My interest was piqued. I eventually found the recipe for an AtlasPass v3 and saw that it needed Emeril. So I looked up Emeril and found that it can only be found on planets around green stars, and that required a special update to my ship’s hyperdrive. Now I was really interested! Something that takes that much work must have an interesting reward, right?

So I eventually got my hyperdrive upgraded, visited a green star, found an Emeril deposit on a planet, and mined it. Crafted my pass, and I was good to go.

The next station I visited, I ran straight to that door, opened it, and… WTF? A hydroponics garden? That’s it?

I felt a bit like Ralphie in A Christmas Story when he finally decoded his Ovaltine message. Is that really all there is to this room? Does the AtlasPass v3 have other uses?

No complaints here, it pushed me to explore a little more which is part of the point of this game. I just thought it was a little weird to have to go to so much trouble for such a pointless room.

Nothing new to provide compared to others.

I heard about it when it was released in 2016, then of course followed how it had been receiving massive updates. I was on the fence about when to buy it. My brother made the decision for me and got it for my birthday.

I have a Valve Index so of course I played it in VR.

…. This game… is perfect in VR. As in, it works perfectly for a wide number of play styles. Motion controls work great so you could stand up while going through the game. And the motions controls are just perfect when walking across a planet collecting resources, when building a base… it just gives complete immersion, and they didn’t go the easy route with this. It’s as if they actually collected feedback from VR players to make it good.

It works great for a sitdown experience or a hybrid thereof, because you can constantly recalibrate the view.

Plug in and plug out using multiple inputs are supported, so if you’re like me and can’t really pilot the ship that well using the motion controllers, you can switch to a regular controller at any time.

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And… what an experience that is flying a ship in full 3d turning your head to look around as you’re entering orbit, or flying along the surface of a planet…. I have NEVER seen anything like this.

About the actual game:

-I cannot believe how seamless the game switches space, going into orbit, or going to the surface without ANY loading screens. entering a space station, similar… This adds more than one can possibly imagine to the experience.

-I didn’t realise how big a planet was in NMS. Seeing videos, I assumed they were much smaller. But no, you can fly to the other side of a planet from the waypoint you need, and find you would need over an hour to get there with boost on.

I look at this and imagine one day setting up a base somewhere on a planet I like, and just staying there, exploring things to do, building tall, building up resources… taking a break…. (curious if other players have done this and think its doable

-variety of planets so far: poisonous, another covered by mostly water (and you can go underwater, crazy), desolate world…. curious what others have in store

-the universe, never mind the planets, looks huge. One feels so small playing it, while learning the ropes, deciding what resources to gather

I’ve barely done anything past the tutorial and am currently at the point after you gain fuel for the warp drive and the game tells you to just explore what you want in the Awakenings questline. I assume I can break away from it whenever.

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