No Man's Sky - Interceptor

[Not Thread Owner]

Where are the play stats? As in, how long you've played, number of things shot, etc?

[macosx]

Have you noticed any change in the planets as you get nearer the centre?

[Fury4k]

Has anyone completed the game that is willing to post up some impressions about that, whether in spoilers or not.

[Tailfly]

I've come across my first Sac Venom Planet today, something tells me i'll be hanging around here for a while. On the same planet i've come across a large lifeform that i caught out the corner of my eye a couple times but would disappear when i tried to find it, went to leave and as i was approaching my ship it rushed past me and for the life of me couldn't find it, gone, proper shat me up. Also came across a heard of VERY weird grazing animals on the same planet that were occupying a very small space, probably a bug but it was so alien it kind of fitted into the landscape well.

[Not Thread Owner]

I found a fucking awesome underground cave system with neon plants in it. Subterranean waterways too. Was so big when I came out the other end it told me I was an hour from my ship!

[hereticboy]

Has anyone finished any of the lore plaques for any of the races? 

 

I finished the Vy'Keen one and liked how the end fed into the beginning. Seems like everything is just cycles. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

[Davros sock drawer]

Steam tells me I've played the PC version for 9 hours so far. Don't know how many I've pumped into the PS4 version, but I had the house to myself this afternoon so I played from 1pm until 7pm, non-stop. I would guess I'm maybe at 60 hours or more.

 

This is a long post full of pix and Youtube links, so I've spoilered it for those who might have had enough of my gushing, and also for actual spoilers:

 

 

I don't know why I find this game so moreish. I mean, I can see the workings (or as @Unofficial Who said, the shadow of the man behind the curtain) but I just can't seem to stop. The "just one more planet" pull is just so strong for me, because even the most bland of planets has some unique feature that makes it worth popping down, just for a look. I'm still seeing plenty of new stuff as well, which helps.

I mean, this planet had very little to recommend it, but my God was it red:



It also had mental sunsets:



And when I landed on this barren rock I would have taken straight off again had I not immediately stumbled across the largest Monolith I've seen yet:













No doubt you guys have all seen this already, but there was a fun interactive element lying around too:

 

 

 

 

 
Next planet was full of cocks:



And on another I met this crazy character:



I mean...I'm all for creature variety, but that's just...well I don't know what it is.

Talking of creatures, my obsession with finding sea life finally paid off when I got munched by this scary fucker:



Shat myself when it came looming out of the murky depths. 

I also had a run of about 10 planets which were either barren, or full of angry Sentinels, I was rather relieved therefore to arrive on this planet, which was so nice that I could only think of calling it...Nice.



 


 


Everything about the place was just right. In fact I think the game even described the weather type as "pleasant". I spent a good few hours here just admiring the topography, and perfecting my diving skills:
 

 
Eventually I tore myself away and ended the session on a wonderful snowy mountain-scape, which I named Winter Wonderland:
 

 
Which was like a more pleasant version of this freezing planet I found yesterday. One of the more convincing animal types lived there:
 

 
I think I made about 8 warp jumps in all, and visited every moon and planet I found. What I found interesting today and last night is that I went ages without finding any interesting planets (I find them all "interesting", but you know what I mean). I think I must have been very lucky with my starting planets, as you could very easily start the game on a run of really quite barren planets and wonder whether you'll ever see a blade of grass, never mind a purple one.

In amongst all this I fought quite a few space battles, and finally met these guys in one of the most lovely sequences in the game so far:



 


 


 


 

tl;dr version - game is still amazing, in fact it's getting better the more I play it. And the Korvax rule!

 

 

 

[robdood]

Ha, someone made a mod which removes the restrictions on looking down while flying / flying too low

 

 

[Pat Mustard]

9 hours ago, Captain LeChuck said:

Whoa, never fought Sentinel fighters in space before. Capital ships jumped in and I thought they were sentinel cap ships too, but they weren't, and so I had a fleet of ships and squadrons of sentinels all over me.  Had to retreat to the nearest planet.

 

Gonna call it a night before making repairs and refuelling my hyperdrive.  My progress slowed a little as I had to dick around one or two systems searching for Nickel and/or Iridium.   But as it stands, I'm 64845.0 light years from the centre.

 

Whats that about 30k in one sitting? Hesus! 

 

You just jumping or a combo or jumps and blackholes? I can manage maybe 3-5k an hour although I do get distracted easily......

[robdood]

How do you know where the black holes are? 

[Pat Mustard]

Same, I've had a couple of annoying failures. like you it cost me time and then I chased a white dot across a, later to be discovered, barren plane.

[Pat Mustard]

You have to calculate the gravitational distortions created by a black hole within the dark matter space between star systems with a deflector array 

[robdood]

Thanks @Captain LeChuck 

 

BTW Side-effect of the low flying mod -  I can now fly my ship underwater..! Now I have an idea as to why they put the low flying restriction in to begin with...  

[PeteJ]

The flying mechanic is my biggest disappointment in the game, flying and shooting while flying just isn't fun.

 

Got my first bounty last night, I didn't even know that was a thing until then, it was pretty cool having loads of capital ships and 20 odd pirates flying about while a big atlas station was in the background. Unfortunately after I killed the first five pirates I got a bit bored and did something else. The combat just isn't engaging at all.

I would love them to patch in that mod to the PS4 version, and also allow space combat to be taken to planet level.

[robdood]

1 hour ago, Captain LeChuck said:

 

My parents were pilgrims. I can just feel time and space in my mind, and it's like my hands have a mind of their own when inputting coordinates. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

They appear on the galaxy map. You don't need to rely on those two muppets.   When you're on the galaxy map, go to free look (I'm a master of that now) and roughly follow the path until you see one of these:

 

 

Those will always be black holes, highlighted in dark grey.   Find one you you can jump to, then go through.  Repair any damage, refuel of you have to, then carry on.

 

 

Btw do you have to

Spoiler

manually select each system until you see the grey marker, here? 

 

[Davros sock drawer]

1 hour ago, PeteJ said:

allow space combat to be taken to planet level.

 

You can do this. It was one of the first things I did in the game. Fighters can, and will, follow you from space onto a planet's surface.

 

[PeteJ]

6 minutes ago, Davros sock drawer said:

 

You can do this. It was one of the first things I did in the game. Fighters can, and will, follow you from space onto a planet's surface.

 

Hmm I remember you saying actually. I've tried several times and nobody follows

[robdood]

9 minutes ago, Davros sock drawer said:

 

You can do this. It was one of the first things I did in the game. Fighters can, and will, follow you from space onto a planet's surface.

 

Yeah I've never successfully managed to do this either, despite trying to make it happen! 

[robdood]

20 minutes ago, Captain LeChuck said:

No.

  Reveal hidden contents

Just use free look to float roughly along the path, or just toward the centre, and if you're lucky a system with those grey indicators should appear. If not, track back to the system your in, and the have a look a bit off the path, you should find one, even one that's only 50ly nearer is fine.

 

Hmm OK, I wonder if zoom distance affects it? I tried exactly as you described but found nothing.  Will try again later. 

[Rowan Morrison]

58 minutes ago, PeteJ said:

Unfortunately after I killed the first five pirates I got a bit bored and did something else. The combat just isn't engaging at all.

 

I was commenting to someone the other day that the combat should really be bought up to at least the level of the original 8-bit Elite, with its missiles and ECMs and different types of lasers. Getting a hostile scan warning is really just a big plastic hassle - the combat needs to be broader, and the threat and rewards need to be better.

 

I think the core problem NMS has is that none of the incidental features scale to match the limitless exploration potential at the heart of the game. That's a tough job, for sure, but in many cases - ship combat, puzzles, crafting, upgrades - they're so limited and underdeveloped that I suspect they'd be disappointing whatever the game.

 

Still loving the planetary exploration, just getting frustrated by all the stuff that gets in the way and is nowhere near as compelling or rewarding.

[Davros sock drawer]

10 minutes ago, PeteJ said:

Hmm I remember you saying actually. I've tried several times and nobody follows

 

Yeah, I did a video as well:

 

 

Of course, if you really wanted to try to ship to ship combat at planetary level, you could always accidentally fire on some ships that just happen to be passing...

[robdood]

So satisfying

 

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FatAdventurousFox-size_restricted.gif

[siread]

I've had pirates follow me too, and it looks super cool when you destroy them at ground level. In typical hand-holding fashion though, you only have to land to get rid of them.

 

Also if you attack innocent ships you get the rozzers (sentinels) on to you, so you can instigate ground level battles if you like.

 

[Davros sock drawer]

14 minutes ago, dood said:

So satisfying

 

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FatAdventurousFox-size_restricted.gif

 

Have to say, the low level flying does look pretty exhilerating.

 

 

[Thread Astaire]

I'm hoping they include low flying in an update on ps4.

 

Also hover.

[siread]

Just did a bit of low flying myself (dead easy to install) and it's hugely exciting. Such a shame it's not the default flight mode but I imagine it's quite possible to get yourself wedged in the scenery as you can collide with every rock and plant (didn't try animals yet!). I guess HG didn't have time to iron out all the flight issues so stuck the height restriction in there which is very annoying. Underwater flying is very cool too but there needs to be a change in flight physics for it to feel right.

 

 

[scottcr]

looks like the ebay prices on this are taking a bit of a dip - reckon I'll be able to get it for my 20-25 quid sweet spot now.

[PeteJ]

13 minutes ago, siread said:

Just did a bit of low flying myself (dead easy to install) and it's hugely exciting. Such a shame it's not the default flight mode but I imagine it's quite possible to get yourself wedged in the scenery as you can collide with every rock and plant (didn't try animals yet!). I guess HG didn't have time to iron out all the flight issues so stuck the height restriction in there which is very annoying. Underwater flying is very cool too but there needs to be a change in flight physics for it to feel right.

 

 

That looks SO much better! I agree it's probably a bit buggy but it looks really fun, especially skimming the water like that. I can be a flying space dolphin at last! 

 

Annoying (as a PS4 owner) that modders are doing so much to improve the game in a small amount of time on PC, hope Hello Games can bring some of this stuff in to all versions. 

[robdood]

The low flying is ace, if only for the fact that I don't sometimes get autocorrected the wrong way when approaching an outpost from directly above.

 

I also tried out some other mods.. 

 

Quick selection is good, means you dont have to hold the button &  fill the little circle each time you use and item / change a setting / get in your ship / etc.  Doesn't quite work on everything when  using a controller, but it's good enough! Great little quality of life upgrade. 

 

Sped up text / dialogues kind of worked and was awesome, but I disabled it as sometimes it meant conversation options wouldnt appear.

 

There's a combined graphic mod which removes the vignette / scanlines and also removes the 'rim light' on the edges of objects.  This mod is super good imo, means the caves / shadows at night are actual properly Dark, the lighting engine really shines with this mod imo.  I actually have to use the torch now!

 

Might stream a bit tonight to show off the loveliness.  Shame I don't quite have the bandwidth for 60fps

 

 

[SteveH]

Has anyone with that mod tried flying low when there is a storm? One thing that is annoying on the PS4 is that a storm can come in and you get the rain, clouds and plants blowing around in the wind. But jump into your ship and go 50 feet off the ground and all signs of the storms vanish until you land again.