No Man’s Sky Patch 1.30 Released

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A New Story

  • In the Atlas Rises story, the fabric of existence is starting to falter.
  • A mysterious new interdimensional race have appeared.
  • Glitches are causing ancient portals to activate.
  • Our story brings a new context, quest system and branching narrative to No Man’s Sky.
  • 30 hours of new story content.
  • Double the lore and interactions of the existing game.
  • Discover the truth behind the Abandoned Building logs, the World of Glass, the Sentinels, the Redemption of the Gek, and the meaning of sixteen…

Galactic regeneration

  • A regenerated system adds wealth, economy and conflict levels to star systems.
  • To control this the Galaxy Map has been overhauled, improving navigation and providing access to key information.
  • Install galactic technology to be able to filter the map by lifeform, wealth and economy.
  • Improved waypointing, and navigation allows you to see your journey so far, from beginning to end.

New worlds

  • The variety and visual quality of planetary biomes has been improved.
  • Explore rare new exotic planet types as you journey toward the galactic core.

Crashed Freighters

  • Discover and scavenge lost cargo from gigantic crashed Freighters on planetary surfaces.
  • Use the terrain manipulator to excavate buried resources in the region.
  • Complete Salvage missions for Guild rewards.

Mission System

  • Visit the new Mission Agent in Space Stations to pick up unique and rewarding new tasks.
  • Missions are constantly generated, and cater to all play styles (scanning, trading, combat and exploration).
  • New NPC guilds have been introduced, each with standing and objectives.
  • Build your standing with numerous NPC guilds and unlock more difficult, more rewarding missions.

Interstellar Trading

  • New economic variables bring new depth to trading between star systems.
  • Star systems are now classed based on their economic strengths and weaknesses.
  • New trade goods have been added. Meet supply and demand by purchasing goods at a low price, and hauling them to economically favourable systems.
  • A tiered crafting system allows increasingly valuable products to be crafted by combining harvestable materials.
  • Gas harvesters have been introduced, allowing explorers to extract valuable elements from a planet’s atmosphere to use in crafting.
  • Combine crafted products to create increasingly valuable items that can be sold on the Galactic Marketplace.
  • New maintenance interactions have been introduced for all harvesting equipment, bringing more depth to farming, mining and harvesting.

Analysis Visor

  • Analysis Visors have been re-calibrated to show more information and offer better rewards for scanning.
  • Analyse resources before harvesting for to gain alternative resources from mining.
  • See more information about each discovery.
  • Scanning Flora and Fauna now yields increased rewards.
  • Specialised analysis visor upgrades can be equipped to further improve effectiveness.

User interface

  • A new mission log allows you to view your pending missions, and to decide which to track.
  • The discovery page gives a clearer and visually improved view of your journey.
  • An in-game guide has been added, offering numerous gameplay explanations and tips, for new and returning explorers.
  • Journey milestone page has been updated to show progress toward guild specific milestones.

Visual improvements

  • Depth of field has been added as an option in photo mode, as well as NPC interactions.
  • Numerous environmental props and assets have been improved with high resolution textures, making environments seem more high fidelity.

Terrain Editing

  • Transform the ground beneath your feet using the new terrain editing Multi-Tool enhancement.
  • Add or remove terrain to mould the landscape as you see fit, anywhere on any planet.
  • Choose from a number of materials, shapes and sizes to sculpt your unique creations.
  • Form terrain around your base to make it feel like part of the environment.

Portals

  • Ancient portals can now be activated. Revisit previous planets, others bases or jump randomly to new worlds.
  • Learn the language of portals by unlocking mysterious glyphs as you journey through the universe.
  • Interact with a portal and input a specific combination of glyphs to quick travel to a specific planet.
  • Share glyph combinations with the community to help others travel quickly to specific planets and points of interest.

Space Combat

  • A number of improvements have been made to space flight and combat.
  • Enemy artificial intelligence has been overhauled, and new difficulties have been added.
  • Ship manoeuvrability has been improved, bringing more skill to dog-fighting.
  • Devastating rockets can be equipped to ships and upgraded for even greater firepower.
  • A new HUD has been introduced to improve the experience of space combat. This includes a communicator, which can be used to advance mission steps, or even to hail pirates before they attack.

Low Flight

  • Atmospheric low flight assist now allows players to cruise above the terrain.
  • Low flight and improved flight control make in-atmosphere dog fighting more lively and exciting.
  • Warning: crashing into obstacles will cause damage to your ship. If your ship is destroyed, you’ll need to repair it before leaving the planet.

Joint Exploration

  • Glitches in the simulation have begun to appear.
  • Visualised by strange floating orbs, up to 16 players can see and communicate with one another, and explore the universe together.
  • While interaction with others is currently very limited, this is an important first step into the world of synchronous co-op in No Man’s Sky.
  • While interaction is very limited, VOIP (Voice over IP) allows proximity based voice chat with other nearby explorers.
  • Use portals to quickly travel to more populated planets, or to meet up with friends.

New Ships

  • New Class S ship designs have been introduced, and can be found roaming the galaxy. Interact with their owners to view, and offer to buy their ship.
  • Wealthier systems have more expensive, higher class ships.

Quality of Life

  • Temperature measurement has been converted from Celsius to Fahrenheit based on locale.
  • Summon your ship from anywhere on a planet’s surface using your quick menu.
  • Specific Technology and Cargo inventories have been added to improve inventory management.
  • Playstation 4 players can now adjust their field of view via the options menu.
  • Jump between systems from the comfort of your Freighter. Just interact with the hologram on your bridge, and select a location to travel to.
  • Landing your ship no longer auto-ejects you from the cockpit. Take time to survey the planet before exiting.

 

Thoughts…

Josh Headshot I made the mistake of buying this game when it came out. I may have been drunk. It seemed too good to be true. I played a bunch, enjoyed the exploration, but everything was so…bland and boring. Not a lot to do. I downloaded this update and played for a few hours on a new save, and it seems to have alleviated a lot of the issues. More varied worlds, a lot more NPCs to interact with (though it’s still not much outside of talking to them, then learning a new word, or bartering, or giving them a gift to raise the standing with that race), more actual story to follow, and the inclusion of quests. This is something that definitely should have been there from the outset, and it’s actually a lot more pleasant to play.

Now if I can just find a planet that isn’t trying to murder me, I’ll be golden.

Don’t get me wrong, if you haven’t paid money for this game I’m not sure it’s finally worth a purchase, but if you’re like me and already own it, it does seem to at least fix a bunch of the problems that were originally present.

Elliot Headshot I, like many others, really hoped this game would be great.  But I held off after initial reviews.  It’s great to see the devs still supporting the game and working to improve it, but it hasn’t quite crossed that threshold into ‘buy now’ yet for me. I enjoy killing time in an open world as much as the next guy if my time in Zelda is any indication, but I’ll need something more here.

It was the broken promises that killed the original release more than anything, and while we’re seeing some nice attempts at amends from the devs lately, there’s still some ground to cover and forgiveness to earn before I give it my money or time.  I’ll be happy to do just that when the time comes.  In the meantime, I’ll keep watching reviews and reactions as the game grows to fill in the ambitious shape that its devs drew out for us in the years before its release.

Stevo Headshot I’ve never really been a fan of sandbox games and, though the concept of procedurally generated galaxies sounded impressive, No Mans Sky never seemed like a game I would enjoy spending time with. Guess I’ll hold out for the patch which introduces an epic story to rival KOTOR…

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