I have played since launch. Every new save I create, I have the option to trade in the Radiant Pillar for the preorder Horizon Omega ship, Prime Vector.

TL;DR: Having only Inventory + “Cargo” slots was a limitation of a previous iteration of this game. It is a step backwards, and removes a component of the game from the very beginning: The choice to sacrifice an inventory slot for more Tech instead. This change was not fore-warned. There are better ways to balance the game than removing items/features players have spent hours upon hours improving.(I have played since vanilla, the screen-shot is my original ship from vanilla preserved through all the updates).

When NMS launched, the only inventory types available was General. There was no Tech slots. You increased your exosuit through finding Drop Pods and your ships by purchasing a different ship (you only had 1 ship). No matter the type of ship (Hauler, Fighter, Shuttle, etc.) a ship’s max slots was 48. Those were the “S” Class of that time. The screen shot is my 1st 48-slot fighter that I not only liked, but I found as a crashed ship in vanilla NMS. (The 2nd photo is what it looks like now). I have preserved it through every update.

Eventually, an update brought in Technology slots and new ways to increase the slots of your Exosuit and Ships. This was a significant QoL improvement. Even better was the more recent update that added a 3rd inventory slot: Cargo. It was at this point that I thought NMS was in a great place inventory management wise. However, it was still an annoying time investment to manage your inventory across all the sources (Exosuit, Ship, Freighter, Storage, Ships, etc.) I thought that these inventory QoL improvements would fix this aspect.

Instead, we have gone backwards by removing the General inventory type. We have essentially returned to the previous update about 4-5 years ago that had us at General & Tech. But this is a further step backwards because not only that, Tech is now limited to Tech only. Which means, you’ve lost a lot of potential tech space because you cant sacrifice inventory for it anymore, which has been a part of the game since launch.

The main defenses I hear about this new update is: Abandon your main save. Enjoy a new save file! You were in God-mode anyway, this is for game balance!

I have worked HARD to maintain my main save throughout all of these years. I have had to use a Save Editor to preserve my original ship all of these years. I have a lot of memories with my son. This main save is the only journey I care about in NMS. All the ships that I have, the freighter, character appearances, pets, upgrades, etc. have been hand-picked; searched for for many many hours; all bases have been carefully crafted over days and weeks at a time. I do not want to lose this save.

Further, there are better ways to balance difficulty than removing features the players have been using since the beginning of the game, or the earliest updates. Such as: a new mission that upon completion, releases harder sentinels/pirates/creatures to encounter. Make these encounters scale with your upgrades, so that more upgrades help but there is still a challenge. Also, it even hits the playerbase harder when there was no warning for many of these players who were excited for this new update, logged in, and lost upgrades or other items.

There were better ways to balance the game. It is my belief these inventory changes were made to streamline the game and make it easier for the Switch. This new UI scales better on a small portable screen. So, that is why we took a step backwards.

https://preview.redd.it/we2spd7qlcs91.png?width=1178&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6a9ee72a14c558c399503af20a06169a00cae15