I remember when following the atlas I was presented with other galaxy types, iirc that’d dictate where I’d go to next.

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Also do I have to go through the whole new galaxy cutscene thing every time I go? Thinking of going as far as Teyaypilny.

After using primarily fighters for hundreds upon hundreds of hours of my main save, I had finally found an Explorer that I knew had to be my new main. Helped that a natural S-Class just kinda fell into my lap. Transferred all my tech and cargo over, but decided to ditch the positron and phase beam in favour of just a dual-weapon loadout with infraknife and rockets (my fav combo anyway).

After optimizing the layouts with the given SC slots, I was resigned to the overall damage potential being 20% that of my fighter, and the infraknife achieving only 50% of the DPS. I thought I’d give it a try anyway.

Holy shit.

In the next pirate freighter encounter, I finished off the freighter in half the time. I was still skeptical, so I took on a host of combat missions, including solo pirate missions from the Nexus, sentinel freighter battles, and various random encounters. The results were all the same – the Explorer eviscerated enemies with a terrifying efficiency and brutality that my maxed-out S-class fighters could only dream of.

I had read similar stories of such performances, but hadn’t experienced it first hand. But now I know and I can hardly go back to my fighters.

Now if they can only fix that bug so both of my outboard engines are lit up.

Money and resources are rolling in. I have bases set up in almost every biome. I have a few pets. I’ve got an A class sentinel ship that I really like, an A class staff that I really like. I do the missions from space stations and autophage but there are really only a few quest. What are some goals you set for yourself?

Saw this on Sean’s Twitter. https://x.com/NoMansSky/status/1727054991746068828?s=20

Am fairly new to NMS, but I heard folks say whenever he only posts an emoji that a new update will be revealed soon.

So other day I decided it was time to grow my fleet of living frigates. After using up my small supply of two (2) anomaly detectors, I realized that I actually had no idea where they came from. A little digging on the wiki told me that they “occasionally” drop from destroying asteroids. Well… that’s vague. So I shot out into my local system’s deep space and began blasting some asteroid fields. One hour later, no Anomaly Detectors. After a little more research around Reddit and the Steam forums, I realized that nobody really does know how to efficiently farm these things, just that they “occasionally” drop from asteroids. I saw some theories here and there, but none with some good, solid evidence- so I took it upon myself to produce some.

To test, I decided to spend 15 minutes in various system types destroying asteroid fields. The timer starts the moment I find an adequate asteroid field, and paused if there are any interruptions (hostile ships, cargo scans, etc.).

Before I get on with the results, let’s establish what we do know about Anomaly Detector drops. Their wiki page says they drop from asteroids, but looking into the page on “asteroids” gives us another vital piece of information: they only drop from “small” type asteroids. Not the large ones that break piece by piece, and NOT the crystal type asteroids (which is the primary asteroid type in my initial system).

So without further ado, here are the actual numbers for the 13 systems I tested in order of most Anomaly Detectors to least, including their star color, primary lifeform (if any), and whether or not they are dissonant:

• Blue “abandoned” system (Gek), dissonant- 10 Anomaly Detectors

• Red “uncharted” system, dissonant- 8 Anomaly Detectors

• Red “uncharted” system- 7 Anomaly Detectors

• Red Gek system, dissonant- 7 Anomaly Detectors

• Red Korvax system- 7 Anomaly Detectors

• Green Gek system- 7 Anomaly Detectors

• Green “uncharted” system, dissonant- 6 Anomaly Detectors

• Yellow Gek system- 5 Anomaly Detectors

• Blue Vy’keen system, dissonant- 4 Anomaly Detectors

• Blue Korvax system- 4 Anomaly Detectors

• Blue “uncharted” system, dissonant- 3 Anomaly Detectors

• Blue “uncharted” system- 2 Anomaly Detectors

• Blue “abandoned” system (Vy’keen), dissonant- 2 Anomaly Detectors

So, what do our most successful systems have in common?

… basically nothing. In fact, the #1 system has more in common with the bottom 3 than any of the other top 3. Between 1st, 2nd, and the 4-way tie for 3rd place, we have red, green, and blue systems; uninhabited, abandoned, and populated systems; dissonant and non-dissonant systems- a little bit of everything. With the information gathered, I’m very comfortable in saying that the system you search in does not matter at all. It’s all RNG.

So that’s it? All that time wasted to find out it doesn’t matter?

Well, not exactly. Knowing that the drop rate is unaffected by the system type allows us to focus on other areas to maximize our collection: Not all of those 15 minute testing periods were built the same. Multiple times, I accidentally hit NPC ships mining asteroids as well. System freighters would warp in, despawning the chunk of asteroid field I was currently harvesting. I even had a freighter distress signal interrupt me without warping. Of course, I stopped my timer for the sake of testing fairly, but it did add to the actual time spent mining. So while they may not drop more Anomaly Detectors, uncharted and abandoned systems wind up being more efficient for farming Anomaly Detectors, as you’ll experience fewer interruptions.

So after over 3 hours of mindless asteroid blasting, I can definitively provide the most efficient way to farm Anomaly Detectors:

• Step 1: Warp to an uncharted or abandoned system. Any system color will do.

• Step 2: Locate an asteroid field and verify that it does not contain any of the “crystal” type asteroids. If it does, repeat step 1.

• Step 3: Blast to your heart’s content! If you install a Cargo Scan Deflector, you should have next to no interruptions whatsoever!

Hopefully somebody out there finds this post useful. I know it was a lot of text for a rather underwhelming conclusion, but at this point I was too far in to not post my results. And even if it wasn’t super productive, it was fun doing some actual research on a relatively undocumented topic in the game.

Anyway, now I gotta go figure out what to do with 72 Anomaly Detectors.

Happy hunting, travellers!

Firstly I just want to make it clear I am *not* accusing Hello Games of any devious intent here, I consider them absolutely one of the good guys of the gaming industry with the level of support they have given the game over the years!

However…. there is something about this game that I just cannot put my finger on. I will mindlessly grind for hours on end achieving absolutely nothing, feel angry with myself about it (to the extent I have deleted the game multiple times) then go back for more the very next day.

It’s like I have the desire to find the perfect ship, but then there is nothing to do with it other than the few random encounters that are the same wherever you might encounter them. Or I will look for the perfect Capital ship and accumulate a fleet of 30 living frigates only to then send them on missions to retrieve a trivial amount of resources that I didn’t need in the first place. Or I will system jump for hours at a time looking for a perfect planet, convincing myself that it’s not a waste of time because I can also check the Space Station for multitools while I am at it (see, killing 2 birds with 1 stone, totally not a waste of time!).

Seriously I don’t want to sound like I am hating on the game, I think they have done a fantastic job – but something about it has triggered an extremely bitter-sweet response in me. Maybe I have some type of undiagnosed condition like OCD or something that this game taps into…

Anyone else feel the same way?