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.

I came back after 5 years because I got excited seeing all of the content they had. After 2 days…. I’ve fell through my freighter to my death in space, running into walls that aren’t even there, friends walking through my freighter walls, my starship completely disappeared from my list (lost the starship, inventory, and all of my s class upgrades, also a unique the Crystal Wing), friends can land on my freighter but can’t see me. Game shows that my brother is currently hosting multi-player but he is asleep and clearly isn’t, i found a broken s class sentinel ship but couldnt interact with it and could walk through it like it wasnt there (i actually reloaded my autosave and was able to get the ship WITHOUT repairing it, was just automatically added to my list and when i clicked transfer my items, my ship just disappeared like houdini. I am EXTREMELY thankful they give all of these updates for free but what good is additional content if it’s so buggy you can’t enjoy it? I wish they would focus more on performance for once instead of content. I feel like it’s the equivalent of focusing on graphics rather than gameplay. They are focusing on content rather than performance it seems.

I play on pc with a ryzen 7 5800k and 24gb ram and a Gtx 1050 on the lowest settings nearly (i know its a super old card, just dont have funds to get a new one) and still get 10fps on planets and 25fps if I’m in space. At first I thought it was my pc but then my 2 friends whom use xbox one and ps4 have similar issues. They couldn’t explore my freighter because of invisible walls blocking them. I’ve also had my starship dock in the same spot as my friends so the were clipping through eachother. I freaking love this game but I’m so destroyed inside because it’s almost unplayable. I don’t mind bugs, I actually expect them, no game is perfect but when game breaking bugs occur, then that’s when I have an issue.

To anyone who plays on permadeath, mad respect because I died by falling through the floor of my freighter. If I was playing permadeath, I would have broken my keyboard and punched a hole through my monitor.

Sorry about the rant. I really REALLY love this game but it’s borderline unplayable because I keep losing stuff and can’t get it back. Yes I have also had to reload autosaves just so I don’t lose stuff but it’s hard to tell when a bug will occur.