OK, apologies if this is a worn topic; I’m fairly new to the game and still discovering things.

Early on when I was learning my way around space stations, I found that room off the side of the technology merchants’ area, with a little hallway leading to a locked door that said “AltasPass v3 Required”. My interest was piqued. I eventually found the recipe for an AtlasPass v3 and saw that it needed Emeril. So I looked up Emeril and found that it can only be found on planets around green stars, and that required a special update to my ship’s hyperdrive. Now I was really interested! Something that takes that much work must have an interesting reward, right?

So I eventually got my hyperdrive upgraded, visited a green star, found an Emeril deposit on a planet, and mined it. Crafted my pass, and I was good to go.

The next station I visited, I ran straight to that door, opened it, and… WTF? A hydroponics garden? That’s it?

I felt a bit like Ralphie in A Christmas Story when he finally decoded his Ovaltine message. Is that really all there is to this room? Does the AtlasPass v3 have other uses?

No complaints here, it pushed me to explore a little more which is part of the point of this game. I just thought it was a little weird to have to go to so much trouble for such a pointless room.

I heard people mentioning that a ship exchange scam is finally over.

I was told once by a traveller that people call me an NPC in NMS, don’t know what that means but that is who I am right now. I’ve forgotten my real name years ago.

I travelled the universe trying to make a living. I’ve done some really bad deeds to be able to provide for my family. Killed wildlife, smuggled goods, destroyed natural resources, colonized planets without managing them and many more that I dare not to mention. After all that I’ve done, I’ve decided to put everything on a Hauler. Brought my family with me and lived life through sweet and sour.

One day, a traveller came to me at a station, offered me a really good deal for my hauler. A trade in for his S class ship plus some extra money and in total it will be an amount that will set me up for life. I accepted under the interstellar guidelines and rules. Money was deposited into my E-Wallet. One second later, I saw the traveller putting my dear Hauler into recycling. All those memories, all those adventures, were all gone in a second. That traveller was a destroyer of ships and a destroyer of dreams. I swallowed my pain and tried to ignore his actions since he already paid me.

After that, I saw him coming back to me and somehow hacked into MY SHIP (the one that he owned before), got access into it and threw me out. I was left with NOTHING. And before I say anything, he flew away, leaving me and my family on that station without shelter, no money, and no way of going to a planet to get my life back together.

The station’s security were not joking, they told me that I need to leave. I explained, no one cared. After an hour, they threw my kid into space were I saw him explode into thousands of pieces and they told me that me and my wife are next if I don’t solve this.

I went into the station’s lobby, and saw a GEK named Snoopy Doggo. He looked rich and had something in his mouth that spreads some kind of aroma in the air that’s makes everyone around him vulnerable. I begged him to help me. He agreed on the terms that I give up everything I ever cherish for this. I accepted and he sent me to some dark alleys behind the station. I lost my honor and saw my wife do disgusting things thinking we will be out of this soon. The monsters took turns on both of us. I saw the money piling up in Doggo’s pockets, I thought I will get paid. That never happened. Even at this moment, I am still being used as a slave. A kind master accepted to let me use this device to spread my message before he spreads my “message”. There are thousands of us here in the alleys and no one is getting paid. WE ARE SLAVES FOREVER. I asked the others and it was the same traveller who did this to all of us. Some also were scammed by travellers using something called “steam” to gain access into our galaxy. Life will never be the same again but I am glad that we will not see more brothers and sister enter the dark alleys after the recent news. Intertellar E-crime can’t let this go by after all those missing entities’ claims. I hope that one day they will find us. Help us. NMS NPC, out.

So to preface, I’m very early game on my first run and still learning everything (In my 4th system after my 3rd was following up the Rebel Star quest). I’ve got stacks of navigation data taking up too much inventory space so I decide to to spend some at the cartographer and buy a settlement location map, thinking it would reveal one of those trade post minor settlements. Instead I am delightedly surprised to find myself the new overseer and be introduced to the settlement management mechanic. Cool. Unfortunately, I’m also constantly fighting off sentinels, which is odd because the settlement stats only list 22% next to what I assume is supposed to be sentinel aggro, but they seem pretty dang mad. Also why is the ground just lousy with gravitino balls? Eventually I figured out what that “Aggressive Sentinels” tag on the planet meant.

So yeah, it turn out these settlers thought it would be a great idea to set up shop on an irradiated hellscape of a planet that spends 98% of its time under a radiation storm AND also has aggressive attack on sight sentinels. Probably just so they can “In my day…” their future kids. Cut to me dodging fire in the blinding radiation storm just trying to drop off the materials to get the overseer office built. At least I can teleport in now for any decisions, but a single step out the door and it’s a warzone.

This can’t be the intended means of introducing the settlement mechanic, right? There was probably a much gentler tutorial quest line somewhere down the line that I have vaulted right past because I just wanted to spend the nav data taking up space.