As much as I like cruising around the galaxy with my fully kitted-out main character, I really like the beginning stages of the game. I guess it was partly because of doing the achievements and expeditions, but I got addicted to the first few days of game time when your resources and abilities are limited, and I tend to start new characters and level them until I got bored and delete them.

But lately I’ve been setting challenges for myself. It started simple; get to an S-class multitool, ship, and freigter. Okay, that was fun. Full explorer run, maxing out the Explorer’s Guild rep? Cool.

So then I started getting a little more elaborate.

Neural Assembly
You are a stranded alien life form who’s managed to weld themselves to a robotic body, and you’re desperate to re-connect to your people. Put the Ares head on an Autophage body and get to the living ship as fast as possible.

Octopus’ Garden
You are a grumpy octopoid being who just wants to be left alone to make things and get wealthy. Build a base that includes a fully functional production line making fusion ignitors and stasis cores, deep underwater. Wear the Iteration: Gemini head. Use the bubble trail.

My next one’s going to be fun.

Rebel Scum
You are a robot, and that makes you mad. Full-on Autophage run. Get a sentinel S-class ship, an S-class autophage staff or sentinel weapon, and a pirate frigate. Make a seriously badass autophage getup. Max out pirate reputation.

Does anyone else do these little self-created kind-of story-like expeditions? Any other suggestions?

Hello Games is definetely listening to us when we say we want to be able to customize our own ships and I believe the Voltaic Staff was not only a new thing they wanted to add but also a way for them to test a system for us to actually customize something part-by-part and then by color.

I thought the system worked well except for having to create a whole new staff if you found a new part. There’s also the state of contention on whether or not it’s better to unlock parts permenantly like in the player customization system or if the parts should be as they are, cosumable. I know why they chose to make them consumable, HG doesn’t want to do anything to harm or discourage players from exploring No Man’s Sky. Their procedural, 18-quintillion planets is their top selling point and it needs to be explored and all things involved or added should not only encourage exploration but compliment it.

That being said, I think if ship customization is added, the parts should be found through missions and exploration, like the current voltaic staff customization, but due to the vast, growing types of ship and their parts and colors, they should be permenantly unlocked upon discovery.

There is also something I’ve been feeling that I may be alone in but the newer ship-types(sentinel, solar, living, and the new expedition ship) all have unique upgrades and animations that are beginning to overshadow the use and cool-factor of the original types. If ship customization is implemented should it only be for the original types or for all types and if for athe newer ones as well would that then make them less special or even lesser than the latter by way of not being able to customize them?

Food for thought. Penny for yours. I’d love to see what the community thinks about this.