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.

So I just finished my first pirate fight, and I realized that I could get a free C class freighter. This got me excited, so I accepted without looking it up. Unfortunately, I’ve just now realized that this typically isn’t a good thing to do – certainly not for a C class freighter. It would be better to wait for the 2nd or future freighters.

So I just gave up my first free freighter. The next one will cost me more than what I have (probably). How can I recover from this error? I guess by making money, yeah, but what are some good ways to do that? I’m still sort of in the early game by the way. No industrial things built (coming soon) or base expansion (also coming soon).

With Light No Fire on the horizon, a repeatedly huge game that will probably get a lot of content updates like NMS has, what do you think will come next for NMS?

Of course, my worry is that they will phase out continued support. But, they have added so much at this point that maybe ceasing continued development will be forgiven. We don’t know when the next game is coming out. Maybe we will see a huge final content update with a gameplay overhaul. Something like fully customizable and buildable ships and freighters, a more in-depth reputation system with the ability to engage in combat with NPC’s, on-foot pirate combat, and world’s with multiple biomes.

Then again, maybe the engine just can’t do these things, so perhaps they will eventually come out with a proper sequel?

I don’t know. But what would you folks like to see from NMS or what do you think Hello Games will add moving forward?

I kept statistic on my crash rate with the game for the past month and it was a very consisted crash every 3.6 hours on average. I have now played more than 20 hours between yesterday and today and seen one crash that just came at the very end of my play session. Including leaving the game running during breaks it went for nearly 14 straight hours, and passed through several “crash zones” that were literally certain to cause crashes just a couple days ago, like dogfighting right next to a planet. It finally crashed as I entered the bridge of my freighter, which I had done several times already without issue. This was maybe the 7th or 8th and it finally went, and I could feel the frames dropping so I expected it.

Whatever they did it’s a miracle improvement.