I’ve kind of hit that point where I don’t need money anymore. The frigates are making their routes, I’ve made a couple Stasis Chambers and Fusion Igniters from gas I collected on various ventures, more money and nanites than I frankly think anyone should have, time to explore the stuff I missed.

One thing that bugged me is that refiners had up to three slots, but I never actually used more than 1. I kept it in the back of my mind, thinking the game would give me a recipe or something, but it never quite happened.

A few nights ago, I’m setting up gas farms — silly me, I’ve been getting my Radon from Atmosphere Harvesters instead of Gas Extractors, so I’m learning the ins and outs of getting gas. Here I thought the planet I was on just gave Oxygen, but nope, I can get others too. Whatever, it’s kind of nice having a fat stack of Oxygen, even if it’s kind of useless, so for a few days I go shove Oxygen in a refiner and turn it into Carbon. Neat, Carbon’s not rare, but with a stack of it coming in every day, I can fuel machines and build structures.

My Sulpherine farm is going well, great for producing Nitrogen Salt at 250 Sulpherine and 50 Condensed Carbon each (created from Oxygen), but I don’t have a proper Radon farm up. On a misclick, I put Sulpherine in the crafting menu and… cool, I can turn 3 Sulpherine into 1 Radon. I’m curious though, so I google Sulpherine for more info, and…

Neat! Sulpherine plus one Oxygen makes a Radon! I have too much Oxygen anyways, this is great, I don’t need to expand the Sulpherine farm by four, doubling it is enough and I’ll have my Radon supply. I follow the link, and it turns out I can do the same with Radon: One Radon plus one Oxygen into one Nitrogen. Neat! Maybe I can make more Nitrogen Salt now.

But I’m looking at the bottom of the page for Nitrogen Salt and there’s a new recipe I don’t recognize. It doesn’t say 250 Nitrogen and 50 Condensed Carbon, it says 100 Nitrogen, 10 Condensed Carbon, and 10 salt make a Nitrogen Salt. Wait, that’s not in the crafting menu — I mean it makes sense, Nitrogen Salt, but still, wow, I guess this is what those 3 refiner slots are for, improving the efficiency of making things like Nitrogen Salt. Well shoot, I better get my hands on some Salt.

I keep reading: I can make Salt from Chlorine, one Chlorine makes two Salt, so Chlorine is effectively my Salt supply. Oh but look, I can also make Chlorine from Chlorine and… Oxygen? Hold up, a Chlorine and an Oxygen makes two Chlorine? What?

Witchcraft.

So I go on an experimentation binge with Oxygen.

Carbon plus Carbon makes a condensed Carbon. Two Carbon plus Two Oxygen makes five condensed Carbon, a freebie pops out of nowhere.

Salt and Salt makes a Chlorine. Two Salt and Two Oxygen make five Chlorine. This is on top of Chlorine and Oxygen making two Chlorine.

I can duplicate materials with Oxygen!?

Okay, what about Pyrite? Pyrite plus Oxygen creates… Cactus Flesh? I figured since a Gold turns into a Pyrite I could turn it back into Gold, but that’s okay. On a whim though, I try Gold plus Oxygen and… yep, two Pyrite come out instead of one.

So Oxygen is basically witchcraft: in many cases it can duplicate another material or improve the exchange rate when you throw it in a refiner. Here I’ve been burning it to make Carbon when I can literally add it to Carbon to get more Carbon.

literally and virtually: it’s literally and literarily a universe beyond our universe, one that only exists virtually and one which can be actually experienced first hand with a virtual reality device. It’s really beyond awesome too.

You can make your journey alone, or with friends, discover amazing places, build there, terraform, voyage to friends own cities and outposts, pay a visit to places people you don’t know have built etc.

And all you need is a cheap of this game. And that’s why I laugh hard at cryptards buying Habbo Hotel-like “lands” around Snoop Dogg or any other famous people for thousands of dollars. Are people going crazy?

Anyway, my only wish for NMS is that the galactic map would show nearby systems discovered by players… or it does already have one such filter and I missed?