So I downloaded this game on Saturday to try it out. See what all the fuss was about. Oh boy, I was not prepared for how much fun it is.

I started off in the middle of nowhere on a planet that seemed ok at first. As I’m coming to grips with the controls, and following the tutorial, learning to mine and gather resources … etc. I hear “Warning. Storm approaching”. Then my screen flashes that a “wall of fire” is happening, and I need to take shelter.

As far as I can tell, I’m not within 7 zip codes of one. As far as I can tell. I might be the only living soul on this burning rock. So I start running in a random direction while watching my environmental protection bar drop real fast.

Still fiddling with the camera I miss a trench the size of the grand canyon and fall. Thankfully, the Jumpjets allow me to land without breaking my kneecaps. Downside: No way in hell can I jump jet back up to the surface. Upside: My environmental protection is stabilizing.

As I’m stumbling in the dark getting farted on by poison sac plants, I find these things called “Humming Sac”s. They look like the face hugger eggs from Aliens. I was worried that I might have to go to the new character screen real soon, but figured “Eh. Let’s let it play out”. To my surprise, they had pearls in them. Me being the hoarder that I am (I’m the guy who ends up with 10,000 potions in my stockpiles due to not using them because “I might need it later”. There’s no later. The final boss and main quest were done months ago. Without a single potion being used.) I started gathering these. By the time I found my way out of that cave I had 25 of the darn things.

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To my pleasant shock, the cave exit lead me to a “Minor settlement”. It was a shack that had two dudes in it, and a landing pad. I breathe a sigh of relief and run inside. Soon as I walk in, this console on the wall opens up and it looks like it has a gun in it. I check it out. Oooh, it’s a multitool with a gun. I feel bad for dumping my current one after I had just put in the upgrades from the tutorial, but let’s see how much this will cost. It has a big “B” next to its description. It has the advanced scanner that the big crystals kept telling me I need. Costs 3.3 MILLION. At this point, I was worried the game was going to be abysmally grindy. I feared that I may be uninstalling it sooner than expected, if my FIRST tool upgrade was 3.3 million.

Oh hey, they have a Galactic Market hub thingy. Maybe I can sell some of the stuff I’ve been collecting there. Oh, most sells for pennies. Well I’m definitely not making 3.3 million anytime this decade off of this. Then I see the pearls. 25 selling for over a quarter of a million. You ever seen old cartoons when the guy’s eyes shoot out of his skull? That basically happened to me.

So I spent the next X amount of hours (this will become very relevant) cave diving for pearls. Ran into these weird knowledge stones. Hey, they help me figure out what the other aliens are saying, nice. I figured I’d farm the 3.3 million get the multitool and call it a night. Eventually I did. I then got my tool. Naturally, I wanted to test it out. So off I went to test it. Oh hey, it has another mode, plus a rifle mode, and a shotgun one. Neat. Looks like I can mess with the terrain and mine ore veins. Awesome. Let’s try that.

Next, I followed the tutorial to base building. I figured since this one shack is the only sign of civilization I’ve seen, I might as well claim it as my base. Nice. Built the base. Built a teleporter and powered it. I don’t like this reactor powering it. Let’s use solar panels. Farmed some resources and built those along with a battery. Ok. Good point to stop now. Oh hey, it’s 8 AM. IT’S EIGHT A.M.!!!!!! That was day one. That was my first day in this game.

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Day 2, I decided to finally check those burial sites, and discovered how much money can be made off of them. Especially those intact skeletons that are 2000+ years old. So I handed in my moral compass and started grave robbing right up until a very late hour in the night. By the time I want to bed the sun was closing to being up.

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Day 3, I’ve been exploring a lot now. Have multiple “bases” on a few planets across 3 solar systems. Been doing missions, and have gotten so many words out of aliens and stones that I can understand most Vy’keen I run into. Started doing some main quest missions and a few others things on the side. Been farming more bones and underwater relics to try and get a new ship instead of my starting one. A couple of bad sales (didn’t realize I had to manually move my cargo, so I had to rebuy my ship to get the cargo out of it before I scrapped it for a pittance). I’ve gotten more comfortable now. Even had a few pirate fights under my belt (Those were rough at first because the controls are clunky. Until I discovered the S key basically auto pilots for me better than I can maneuver with a mouse and keyboard).

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I’m system hopping having just finished some deliveries for the merchants guild, and as soon as I exit warp on my main system, I’m caught in the middle of a space battle. 6 pirates, and some traders. The traders hail me asking for help. I managed to kill the pirates, since they follow Hollywood rules and only attacked me in pairs. Photon cannon turns their shields to mush, missile launchers one-shot their hull. Nice one-two punch. Freighter captain hails me and tells me to come on board for my rewards.

“Neat!” I say to myself. Big ship like this, I hope he gives me something good. He gave me the WHOLE SHIP! Flabbergasted as I was, I expected (Upon checking the wiki this morning, I now realize this may have been, in fact, a mistake). So now I have a freighter with a frigate. I start getting acquainted with the layout. turn in some missions at the nearby station, and start moving things around in my inventories/storage/freighter to see the fastest way I can upgrade this one, or trade it in for good value and get a better one instead. I log out, and go to bed.

Thank you to anyone that read through this whole post, or even skimmed it. Seriously though, how do you guys stop playing this game. I’ve already spent 2 hours today looking up videos on how to turn the freighter into more money so I can trade it in for a better one.

Also, the wiki says that the freighter captain will off you the freighter if you have none. Does this mean if I sell my current one, I could get the next one for free too?

1. Multiplayer fleets/freighters. It’d be great if you and whatever friends you were playing with could all summon your freighters into the same system. This would add to the idea that a planet was a home planet for a group

2. Along the same lines but if I Jump into a system and a freighter battle is happening – let me summon my freighter to defend me and potentially the other freighter

3. Settlements are a start but let them expand to sprawling cities or where settlements are started allow cities to start to grow out of them.

4. Race homeworlds- we have 4 races and none of them have a home planet? Do they do all of their construction of the starships and freighters they pilot from other starships and freighters?

5. Along the same lines again but if a race is the dominant race in a system let them populate the planets in that system. Id love to explore AI citites/settlements populated by Gek.

6. Remnants left of the old racist geks who just want to destroy everything and take over everything. Now that we have freighter battles you could easily implement this but instead of pirates its the order of the first spawn intent on destroying the other races

7. Now that we have freighters intent on destroying freighters add orbital bombardment as a possibility for settlement issues

8. The high conflict systems should feel like high conflict systems whether that means you jump in and fleets are firing on each other or you jump in and all of a sudden fighters just fly overhead and are blasting each other

9. I know it’s probably never going to happen but ship/freighter building. I understand the ship hunting mechanic is huge in the game but adding an element for it would be pretty cool…especially now that we have been able to build a staff and a mechanical body.

10. Melee weapons because sometimes you just need to get up close and personal with the enemy or they just get too up close and personal with you. You could make this a sidearm of a multi tool or its own multitool.

11. Desert planets. We have scorched planets so why not desert?

12. Multiplayer cities/settlements – allow multiple player bases to be seen and allow multiple players to build cities together to make sprawling cities or even city worlds. I know this could cause rendering issues but there should be a way to do this right?

13. Space station ownership/construction – I know they added an element to this with the nexus but let us have our own space stations in planets and make money off of products bought/sold in them

14. Player run economies – I’m not saying the whole economy should be player run but allow players to buy and sell to each other through an exchange of some sort whether that means setting up their own shop or through the previously mentioned constructed space station

I love no mans sky as a game and I will continue to play it but I think adding some of these elements will make the game more immersive