Hi,

Not a dig at the game, 100 hours for the price I paid for this game a few months after release is absolutely a bargain in terms of price per hour entertainment. I believe I paid £6 after the initial scathing reviews tanked nms sales, but I believed in the developers statement that they would bring the game closer to their vision, and they have exceeded that.

Now I have started and stopped playing nms over the years, a few weeks ago I finally gave it the focus it deserves, and by coincidence this was just after autophage expansion dropped.

So I’ve done most assigned quests (except call of the deep), I have a decent sentinel ship, an s class exotic, a living ship, and a couple of others.

I’ve built a functional base, I have a full squadron, a full frigate compliment, a decent super capital ship, a fully built settlement and around a billion space bucks that I can’t spend.

My modules allow me to survive anywhere and kill anything the game throws at me with little challenge, I’ve seen all planet types and have a few interesting pets.

Everything that has seemed interesting to me to do has been done, all that is left is to grind for slightly better things that don’t actually matter. And that isn’t fun.

I doubt it’s an especially hot take, but nms is a huge game with unlimited scope with very little to do. There is no end game, there is no reason to get 10% better to defeat a mission or quest. There is no actual depth to anything. Literally all of the available activities could be expanded upon to give a better sense of achievement and depth.

Why can’t my settlement grow into a city?

Why can’t ships be fully modular allowing my own designs? (within reason).

Why can’t I go on missions with my frigates?

Why can’t I engage other freighters / systems with my fleet?

Literally every activity is endless in scope but limited in its execution, there is no need for money, better mods, better shops or weapons. You don’t need a base for any reason, and exploration gains nothing.

But it does take 100 hours to get to this point and that is value for money, but anything further is grinding for the sake of grinding, which I acknowledge some people do still enjoy, but for people like me who have had their fill of grindy games, it’s not good enough.

So, nms, thank you for your time, and you have improved so much, I hope one day you become the game you should be, because you have the foundation already, you just need a little extra push, and I can’t wait for it.

A week or two back, I read a comment where someone said that if you finish The Purge by refusing Atlas, you can’t unlock the They Who Returned quest (Autophage content). I’ve never heard anyone else say anything about it one way or the other.

Yesterday, I made a test game and confirmed that They Who Returned works just fine after refusing Atlas. Obviously, this is just one data point, and I can’t guarantee that it applies in every single case.

For the record, here’s what I did:

• Started a new game in Creative mode, Switch NMS version 4.4.7 (equivalent to 4.47).
• Chased the Artemis path until after having made the big Artemis decision.
• Did the A Trace of Metal quest. On Switch, this is triggered by warping 25 times, so no settlement is necessary.
• Jumped to a dissonant system, obtained an Echo Locator, and lifted the lockdown on the harmonic camp.
• Returned to the Artemis path and completed it by refusing the Atlas.
• Took off in my ship and warped to a nearby Vy’keen yellow star system.
• A few seconds after arrival in that system, the hijack warnings began.

If anyone cares, that whole process took just under five hours of game time, according to the save file. Wall-clock time, however, might have been twice that.