So I was a day one supporter of NMS and I got possibly my best game yet going. On XBOX Series S, I was originally on PS4. Love the better graphics!

I’m in Euclid, in the Xicorr system on a paradise moon called Rawa. Contrary to the hellhole it “rotates around of”, Rawa is lush, peaceful, inhabitated only by three different species of birds, is in a Vykeen system and has an economy based around ore-processing. And that’s good, because I love mining. So after visiting every planet and moon in Xicorr, I made Rawa my home once I’m invited to build a base.

And then it gets better.

I find a nice Vykeen settlement. It has a trade terminal, a blueprints / component seller and a landing pad. AND, and what looks like a very promising cobalt mine within sight. Again, love that shit. So I build myself a nice little 3×3 wood shack with some basic amenities, use the Vykeen outpost’s landing pad as mine (Shouldn’t they have a problem with that?). Called it Ranesota, which is what the game called that region. And then I go mine. And mine and mine and mine. Deeper and deeper. No end to those caves, just chockfull of cobalt. I get around 5M units worth of Cobalt out of there in total, totally cleaned the place.

So I go back to my shack, and I build a teleporter because I’ll want to comeback here easilly right. I want to research Solar Panels to power my Teleporter or whatever you call that gate, so I go on the hunt for salvaged data. I find a very minor settlement with a grumpy Vykeen inside and nothing else about 500u East…. and i get the silly idea to build a TUNNEL to his place. So I lineup my ship’s icon and I start digging. And digging. And digging. A long-ass time. After popping out in the open a couple times and having to dig down to keep going, I finally pop out behind Ranesota. That’s my tunnel, that’s INFRASTRUCTURE. I build a path with boulders leading to the entrance and a gate around the hole.

Haven’t found the buried modules I wanted to, so I start walking west this time. And I catch many modules, many knowledge stones…….. and I keep going, I figure I should get a lot of these to build my stuff and understand what my neighbors are saying… then my scanner / analysis visor spots a “Minor Settlement”. Figured, might as well go check it out…. 1000u out. Heh, my planet has no weather to speak of, always sunny and nice… let’s go….

I find it….. Trade terminal, a blueprints / component seller and a landing pad. Nice, that means another base. And I realise I’m now 15 minutes away from Ranesota, so this works for me. Build another shack. Call it Haller after a nearby region that was called Haller’s Last Stand……. Call my ship to the landing pad for no apparent reason……. and I decide I’m hopping on it going home and building a tunnel between Ranesota and Haller. They are 15 minutes apart.

So I line up the Haller icon and I start digging. I pop out a bunch of time, keep digging down and then back up always lining up with Haller…. eventually I pop out, and I try to dig down….. and it won’t dig. I’m on the bedrock. So I look around where I am… this is ANOTHER magnificient COBALT MINE just like I love em. I’m 5 minutes away from Ranesota and 9 minutes away from Haller in this closed pocket with no other (apparent, so far) entry point than my tunnel.

I’ve already hauled for a million units’ worth of Cobalt from it back to my ore-loving neighbors in Ranesota and it’s still pretty full. I’ve made another HUGE gate around the entry point to this tunnel…………

I mean.. the SCOPE of this game. You can start doing your own thing outside the narrative of the game completely and it just feeds you and keeps you going. This is amazing!

Now my fear is of course, Frontiers comes and buries all my digging and changes my paradise to a toxic hell, I hope not.

So…I finally got the nudge I needed from one-too-many people saying “but the wall of text is just TL;DR!”

So…I made my first Tutorial video instead.

https://youtu.be/BZtf1BujkgY

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Including the original Wall-o’-Text for posterity.

Step 1: Get both the Economy & Conflict scanners from the Anomaly’s Ship-Tech vendor. You’ll need a Walker-Brain for the Conflict Scanner.

Step2: In GalaxyMap, sort by Conflict, and choose the red stars. THEN you’re looking for the stars with the pirate symbol (that’s the skull). Travel to that system. You’ll want a bunch of those systems (15-20).

Go to Pirate Systems.

Buy Banned Goods from the vendor on the far-left if you’re looking at it from the Teleporter (under the yellow junked ship).

Buy tech & weapons packages from same dealer (not the next dealer over that sells ‘em for nanites).

Go to a NON pirate system by cycling through one of your bases (you can’t go directly to a Non-Pirate space station from a Pirate system or vise/versa). Sell off the Banned Goods immediately, don’t just fly around with that stuff (a system Scan will get you popped & chased by sentinel ships).

Open all the tech & weapon packages. Sell those to one of the Tech Dealers across on the other platform for nanites.

Lather/rinse/repeat.

Hit a few Freighters IN THE PIRATE SYSTEMS ONLY for more banned goods to sell, to keep your $$$ headed north…so you can keep buying those tech packages. Don’t hit the free-floating Cargo Pods or you lose Standing with whatever Race is dominant in that system.

Develop a LIST of Pirate systems & hit them regularly, they’ll regenerate their inventory for you to buy again about every 30 minutes to an hour. I’ve got 20 in my list. It takes me 30-45 minutes to go through the whole list & nets me about 50k Nanites per rotation.

I keep track of which ones I’ve done by going through the whole list of pirate systems (while in pirate systems, ONLY Non-Pirate systems will say “unavailable” something to that effect), then cycling back to sell off.

That keeps them in order so I can go back for another run later.