Good lord this one is the best out there. The feeling of discovery, always something new around the corner, the freedom of being who you wanna be, so much to explore, to see, breath taking views, etc. Its just awesome. Ever since Hello Games did NMS right and actually gave it the promised features, I’ve been hooked. After a bad day at work, I just log in and enjoy the atmosphere, the beautiful planet landscapes and you know….it just goes away. Its peaceful, awesome and I can revel in its beauty. I might not be the most min maxing player out there (because I feel this game doesn’t need that level of optimization but to each his own) but you know….this game helps. When I feel down, its beauty and the feeling it inspires always do good. Just my 2 cents.

Some methods that you might have overlooked. The most fun to be had is to discover these methods for yourself, but still, I share these ideas as spoilers so you can unlock them as you need.

Some of these tips are so obvious you’ll wonder why I posted them, but then I bet even some veterans will learn something.

Basics

While mining deposits with your terrain manipulator you can press T to enlarge the area to mine much faster.

You may need to have the correct quest selected from the log menu to advance it. This applies to the base computer research, check it with the right quest log selected as often as you can.

Ship

For your first ship upgrade it might be tempting to fix a busted old ship that you find in distress. These usually need a lot of work to get going, and are not worth the trouble. You might be better off saving up 3-5 Million credits and waiting at a Spaceport for a nice ship in your budget to arrive. If you wait at a Colossal archive in a system with a good economy you will see some nicer ships.

Exploration

If you find an outpost or a settlement with a technology vendor you should set up a teleporter nearby – just a base computer, biofuel reactor and the teleporter is all you need there. You can teleport TO an unpowered teleporter, but to teleport back out you may need to add 5-6 carbon to the reactor. If you have the Teleporter menu open and it runs out of power you can still teleport.

Anomaly

If you need to quickly return to your base to grab something you can just fly up to space. Press X while in spaceflight to summon the Anomaly, go in and use the teleporter to go wherever you need to go, when you are done press X again and select teleport back to the Anomaly.

Economy

You can easily smuggle contraband and avoid the authorities by teleporting directly from the pirate station to a planetary teleporter, avoiding space stations.

Exosuit

Increasing your exosuit inventory space makes things much easier. Each systems space station has an exosuit upgrade console where you can buy an extra slot. You can toggle between inventory, tech and cargo slots to decide where to put it. Adding exosuit slots to cargo by buying them quickly gets expensive – it is better to use drop-pod upgrades to expand cargo slots. You can buy drop-pod coordinate data for about 100k each from a technology merchant (or find them in other places) and then use a signal booster to find them. Drop-pod slot upgrades should go mostly into Cargo first to save cost. (perhaps use credits to buy the first few cargo slots, but when it gets expensive, then only use drop-pod method)

Combat

Holding S while in flight combat will help you to keep a target on the enemy once you have them in sights. Blasting enemy shields down and then switching to a more destructive weapon is a good early flight combat strategy. While in space flight you can press X to select recharge then hover over Deflector shield and press Ctrl-1 to set it as a quick bind, It is much easier to recharge in combat with quick binds.

Base

Choosing the perfect spot for your main base is tricky. You might want to build a temporary base early on to get things started until you find that perfect spot. For your first big base you might want a paradise planet with no sentinel activity that has a good variety of resources, but also consider the amount of planets in that system – once you have access to the Exocraft Summoning station you will be able to summon all exocraft you have to anywhere in that system. It’s nice to have a wide range of planets. Electrical wiring is free to build and can clip through structures. Take some time to lay out your wiring nicely so you don’t end up with a big mess. If your base runs out of power you can just throw more batteries and solar panels at it – or have a proximity switch from your battery bank so things only power up when you are near them. You can put a base computer inside of an existing colossal archive (spaceport) and build on to it. This way you will have a trade terminal and a technology merchant at your home base. This is also a handy way to see high class ships arrive that you may want to purchase. It’s also fun that your base will always be buzzing with activity.

Well, I thought about it for a few days and these are the tips I would give to newish players that don’t give everything away. If you can think of anything else early game that is a good tip, but doesn’t give the whole game away then post it up, use >! Spoiler!< (but without the spaces) to create a spoiler.

Spoilers ahead please be aware.

So I started this expedition a few days ago, it is also my first one. Once I got the hang of it I enjoyed the challenges of “permadeath”

Tonight I stayed up till 2:30 am est (at the time I’m writing this) much MUCH later than I should, I usually go to bed at 10pm est. I stayed awake wanting to finish this expedition since my time to play over the coming weeks will be bar none.

Don’t read further if you don’t want spoilers please.

So as I summon the leviathan in space and initiate the conversation, it eventually says it will close the loop, screen goes black and the quotes appear. Man the wave of emotions that washed over me thinking I made a mistake and at the very end I had to restart.. I was angry sad miserable dismayed and heart broken all at once, I’m pretty sure I heard the controller cracking as I squeezed it. But to my joy and surprise as the screen lit up on another world and the notification appeared on my screen my emotions took a roller coaster spiral to happiness relief joy and excitement as I claimed my leviathan frigate.

I hope to hear your reactions to the end as well. Thanks for reading!