@adequatelyprepared said:

These old man eyes have seen some kind of difference in the terrain - not just that, but planets look like they have richer shaders too. Feels like there's more subtle colour changes to planets.

Today I flew into a freighter and enjoyed the experience - it's nice to have fresh, new things in the game and the interior of the freighter was pretty impressive. Surprised at how cheap it was when I talked to the admiral of the freighter, but I think it's the same deal with inventory slots for ships as it is with freighters - mo' slots, mo' money.

Also feels like there's a lot more freighters warping into space. I spied a whole bunch warp in while I was in the middle of a denser bunch of asteroids and I think the game feels that bit more alive and rich from something as simple as that.

Ended up flying into a system and finding a huge space battle with lots of little fighters and freighters.

Did those always happen or are they new to this patch?

@jordost: That could happen before. Although the freighters are more common now I think, seen sometimes 2 or 3 groups of them jumping in. And flying around them could activate the space battles.

I think the base building is quite impressive, but I still miss a real purpose in the game. I found some mineral on a planet where I needed an 'advanced mining laser' for. Where can I find this recipe and why would I need to mine that mineral? I often find myself drifting in space and I don't have a clue what I need to do. I guess I could make some money by mining stuff and sell it. Probably takes me about 6 hours of farming to get a new ship or a freighter. Boring.

This game has so much potential, it just needs some exciting gameplay systems. Some good old questgivers maybe. Aliens want you to craft a rare item (go scan the space map and jump around systems to get the materials) or kill a space pirate group (again, scan the universe to find traces of them and hunt them down) and as a reward they either give you a shitload of units or a handy recipe.
I feel this game could be awesome in a year or so from now.

@dussck: The base building gives you the quests for the advanced mining laser and uses for all the (new) minerals. If you want purpose, do the base building.

The patch is neat. Still not there, but if the future content is like this patch, it could shape into a actual good game. (I already liked playing the game before the patch btw, but recognized there wasn't much to it)

@gundogan: That's a good tip, I'll look into the base building more.

How about the freighters, what do they add to it? Is it just extra storage space?

They could go places with this game for sure. How about this: players could set up bases on planets that mine minerals and give them an hourly income. Then other players could scan the systems for player activity (already in there) and within those systems scan for 'alien buildings'. Those buildings could be player bases as well. Then they could try and reach the main terminal, but the other player can set up defenses on that base to try and stop the player (maybe even catch dangerous alien species from other planets and set them loose into the halls).
It would become a first person shooter, with levels designed by other players. The reward getting to the end is capturing the base for yourself and getting the income. Then you obviously have to set up defenses again and you would be sure to do a better job then the last owner, because you know the flaws it had.

@dussck: I think you have the wrong idea of what this game is.

Yea it's not a game right now. I'm trying to add some gameplay to it. :)

Come on, man

@scientificpizza: What?

I've 'played' 20+ hours of it. It could use some more gameplay. Or is everyone suddenly satisfied with this product?
We might even see it getting some Game of the Year's at this rate...

@dourin: Haha, yes. That is exactly what I mean. The non-jrpg one.

I wonder if this required some serious backend rejigging of how planets work and how information is saved about them. As far as I know previously to this patch every time you visited a planet again after leaving it completely the algorithm would regenerate it from the same base, meaning that landscapes and locations got shuffled around.

I do also wonder what their endgame is for all this stuff. I don't think the game will ever have synchronous multiplayer, where you can see other player avatars and the such. I do think you will be able to to visit the bases of other people if you happen to land on the same planet.

Considering the fact that I have yet to see any angry threads about this patch anywhere I'm just going to assume that it did what is actually advertised to do. If this keeps up maybe I'll buy the game in a year or two. What's there is still just not enough. There are also very simple things that Hello Games could say/do that would make me more comfortable with giving them my money, but that's been covered to death already.

That is indeed the case. I think I got a warning of some sort when loading my savegame saying that I might end up in a very different place then when I saved it.

@adequatelyprepared: Yes the patch screws with the current planets. My discovered systems have several planets replaced by completely new (as in changed landscape, theme and such) undiscovered ones. Funny thing is that the old ones are still in my discover list, so most systems are now twice as large on the list.

I’ve been playing No Man’s Sky pretty consistently since release. I sorta play it “couch co-op” with my roommate. We just trade the controller back and forth, watching each other discover planets. This social interaction helps with the very leisurely pace of the game. So I generally like the game a lot more than most. It ain’t perfect. Hell it has a lot of problems. But I don’t consider it a rip off at all. Anyway, here are my impressions of the new patch.

1: Game looks MUCH better. The entire game has gotten a graphics bump. (I’m on PS4). The game featured some great views, but now it looks good in motion too thanks to some cool motion blur effects. Flying through space looks extra surreal now. And everything seems to have a high fidelity. Plus some of the pop-in of planets looks good too.

2: Base build introduces new gameplay. I wasn’t into the idea of bases because you don’t stay on any one planet very long. Plus I don’t care about making a base just for the heck of it like Fallout 4. But I’m liking it so far in this game. First of all, you can teleport from a station to your home base and back again, so leaving your base behind isn’t a problem.

Second off, you need to pour tons of minerals into your base, so suddenly there is an actual reason to go around mining for iron and stuff. Where as before, you would need it sometimes but honestly not often.

Lastly, you have quest givers INSIDE your base. NMS desperately needed this. There were some real amazing locations in this game… and no reason to really explore except for it’s own sake. Again, not perfect. But it’s a start.

I’m happy I stuck with it because this patch seems like an improvement across the board.

Interesting that if you warp to another system to look for stuff for your base in a previous system, you can teleport back there again. Strange things go on a bit with your ship though - I've had my ship spawn inside the base. The nice thing about this is that you have a genuine point of reference to return back to. I always hated the fact that once you left a system, it was hard to navigate back to it if you needed to.

This patch is blatant evidence than the game launched in an Early Access state. I wish they were just upfront about it, it would have went down much better for them especially.

@dussck said:

Are you playing? You must be playing! It already has! No Man's Sky is Time Magazine's #10 GOTY :P

So... what do you want to happen today? Or is this just a groan post lol.

Eh I'm not bothered, just saying they should have released it differently. It's obvious it wasn't ready.

@wynnduffy: ah yeah, fair enough. Little doubt about that. Cat's outta the bag now though. They need to make the best of it.

Or... well.. or I guess they just go home.

@wynnduffy: I think the point @geraltitude is making is that we are three months deep in having only and exactly this conversation, to no end.

If they release a patch that makes the creature interactions and the space combat a bit more meaningful and fun I'll redownload.

@kcin: lol right, thanks. Exactly. Just feel there isn't much interesting to say in that regard anymore... beating a dead horse and all that jazz.

I'm kind of impressed with the patch. I haven't actually dabbled with the base building stuff yet, just watched my roommates play it, but there's a lot too it. I'm still playing normally, trying to beef up my inventory and upgrade my ships. I will say though, this game now looks gorgeous. They added shaders, lighting, textures, more variation in environments, more atmospheric elements, new and improved animations all around...a TON of new stuff. I think the game looks much closer to that original trailer now. Flying around in space looks especially nice now. There are also some much needed quality-of-life improvements to the UI with the quick menu options. The basic gameplay loop is quicker and less tedious to deal with. It was enough to get me to come back to the game for a bit. I'm actually excited to see what else they add.

Spending some time with the new patch has made me a whole lot more optimistic about this games future. If they continue to put this kind of effort into the game, I could see it becoming what everyone wants it to become. Its kind of amazing what they have pulled off with such a small team. Their broken promises shouldn't be excused, but I still think they are very talented developers that care deeply about making this game what it deserves to be.

Also, this might have the best implementation of motion blur I've ever seen in a game. It makes everything that moves look so much better. Even the crappy animal animations look a whole lot more fluid.

@rongalaxy: Fully agree. I'm building a base now and it truly gives you some purpose as a player. I bet 2 or 3 more patches like this and this becomes actually a really good game. Seeing how much they can change for the good in a relative short time makes me pretty positive about NMS.

I've got over 100 hours in NMS and I'm loving it even more with the new patch! I think the base building is completely serviceable and actually impresses me for just 3 months in after release. Just for the record I was out there saying this game should have been early access, but it's not, so I paid full price for it. At this point, I have put plenty of hours into it, I don't feel ripped off at all, and I'm sick of so many whiney people out there continuing to complain about a game that I like.

Being able to teleport back and forth to your base is great for getting out there and exploring, going through wormholes isn't such a daunting thing anymore when you know you can get right back to your home base, or your home cluster of multiple systems without losing progress toward the center of the galaxy. The freighters feel massive and I like how you can summon them. Their fighters have actually come to my rescue to help fend off pirates.

I braved the survival mode and I have to say I don't usually go for a challenge like this but I'm all about it here. My first save I was on a cold planet and it puts your ship 10+min walk away so its hard just to get the ship and you figure out the health system, shield system and how to use resources most efficiently. I failed miserably and died like 5-6 times and never even arrived at the ship because of the weather of the planet and the animals that chased me down to eat me. I deleted that save and my new save was a toxic rain planet that was a bit more forgiving but still challenging to get to the ship. When I finally got to the ship and got it repaired and blasted off it was much more meaningful and I've been way more careful and methodical with how I play now even on my save that isn't as difficult.

The challenge and the scarcity of resources in Survival mode really makes you consider when and where you land, how far you travel on foot to discover things and I think it totally changes the game in a lot of cool ways. I've had moments where I felt like I was an astronaut similar to what I've seen in movies like The Martian or Interstellar where I'm crossing a desert on foot to find resources for my ship or encountering weird animals or giant mountain ranges or valleys the size of the grand canyon simply because I'm spending more time on foot. The predators legitimately scare the shit out of me sometimes because they are more prevalent in Survival mode and sometimes I'm so far from a save point and I know they can kill me in just a few hits.

Had a rather lovely moment just now where I saved a rather gigantic freighter from space pirates and got invited on board for a reward. Nice thing is that there was a moment when it felt a teeny bit like what we were sold on from all those trailers though obviously on a much smaller scale. Best thing is I already scouted a smaller freighter and this much larger freighter? Same price to purchase. Stepping onto a freighter and having a nose about is still a nice feeling; ships dock and the view from the control room looking out along the bow of the freighter itself is still deeply impressive.

Also getting stuck into the base building stuff. It is a bit glitchy - I've had components which were once free to move between suddenly blocked off (solved by going into build mode and back out again) as well as my ship spawning into the base itself. I think the new quests from the NPCs you recruit give the game some much-needed purpose. They could improve visibility of what race are inhabiting what star system via the map as you have to recruit specific races for specific jobs.

It's sad to think that Hello Games will probably continue the radio silence due to the abuse and roll out these updates without too much fanfare.

@zombie2011: It could fit if building a base was relatively cheap and, one hopes from what we see in the trailer, not that time consuming. So you land on a planet, set up a base pretty quickly and then use it as a point to explore that planet from. When you are ready to move on you can just abandoned the base since it wasn't that huge of an investment in the first place. In something like Survival mode I would assume that a base gives you a much needed reprieve from the dangers of the atmosphere and drain on your oxygen.