No Man's Sky

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there's a frog in my snake oil
My Survival toolkit is ready!

My living room might not be though, as have to convince Leela that me talking and giggling is more important than her watching tele. Will shout if looking likely
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



there's a frog in my snake oil
So did you find out what that was? Walking Grass?
I've got it scanned so will have a look at the data tonight

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I'm having to just do hit and run sessions at the moment, but the game works really well for that too . It's great escapism to just drop in on some weird new landscape. I'm getting really lucky with spotting sights while descending at the moment too. Tues night it was this chill desert wreck on my home planet:



Last night it was that portal location (first one I've seen).

And prior to that an insane sentinel planet, where I had to grab that blue crystal crack just to get back off the ground again, dodging their scan cones all the way. When not getting distracted by the ludicrous number of animals chasing each-other's tails through the long grass.

Simple loops, but fun. Throw in some quick fleet management and the odd pirate battle on the way and it's all a sweet little 'get something done' half hour. The main problem is stopping

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(Makes me wonder about Elite Dangerous a lot, and whether they can ever turn a corner the way NMS has. They're kinda aiming for a similar set of loops in many ways. But muchhhh more languorous. NMS really works because they contracted the 'empty', so you're never far away from a loop or a diversion. ED kinda went the opposite direction )



there's a frog in my snake oil
Trip Report: One Step Ahead of the Glitch

So my dedication to the Survival save is bedding in. I got tied up in an Active Indium hotspot hunt. The twist being this time that I've got so little shielding (due to the legacy tech getting trashed), that I last literally 4 seconds in an extreme electrical storm before taking hits!

This made for a lot of rushing back to the ship initially:




(All cool though, even the cartoony slipstream effects above my head looked classy )


I've now got a proto base up though, and a whole network of caves that lead me to useful foraging locations . And thankfully the stalagmites are full of coltan, so I can make the batteries to buy me at least a minute+ of storm foraging without a recharge.

Quite a pretty 'glitch' world to nuzzle around in. First one I've seen with proper biome variation.



Unfortunately I then hit the energy hotspot glitch. (It doesn't display the location to zone in on. I tried doing it by audio alone for a bit, but that was like finding Henry the VIII's metal codpiece in the entirety of Shropshire, so gave up). So have just left it as a money-maker for later.

And all of this happened just because I moved one system across to try and unglitch my freighter. Which had stopped letting me build, and so prevented more fleet management modules being added. But that felt like a healthy intervention . (I've got nearly 15 frigates already. Opted for matching sets of ships this time, so now doing 3* trade missions and that, which seem to snag rares worth 4m+ most times, on top of the usual capital-isms).



So many little busy work tasks out there that are pleasing to cruise through though. I needed carbon crystal to re-install the grenade launcher on my new A rifle. Which you can only learn in manufacturing plants. Which you can only break into with the.... Yeahhhh. (Unless you use the giant photon cannon on your ship of course. Several glitchy fly bys later, I'm another step close to survival competence )

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Oh and Aus, the plank-life was this




A system of cells interlinked
I am still on break from NMS for a bit, as I sneak around in Ancient Greece for awhile! Back soon!
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



there's a frog in my snake oil
I am still on break from NMS for a bit, as I sneak around in Ancient Greece for awhile! Back soon!
If they ever port one of the better AC games to VR I will be totally lost



there's a frog in my snake oil
Oo, so a big-ish QoL update has appeared:

Synthesis Update

Including animal riding for VR-heads, yay



And 1st person vehicles for classic view. Wins all round

Other additions include, brazenly ripping off Elite's radar screen



Coz why wouldn't you to be honest, it's a classic. (And works great in VR in ED, hopefully the same here )


But amongst all the welcome tinkering in there (no more planetary cloud halos overlapping with freighters, whoop ), save your hallelujah chorus for this bit...

The capacity of the Storage Containers has been significantly increased.
Thank goddddd

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Minor optimisation stuff in there too. Not sure if it's gonna be enough to get me back in, but will probably swing by when I've got some more processing power under the hood by xmas



there's a frog in my snake oil
So NMS is finally working smoothly for me in VR!

All it took was a ruinously expensive CPU... :/



It definitely was the proc gen surfaces that were the issue. Much heavier on the processor than the GPU. I can finally jink over the undulating terrain freely . Any sudden stops are because I've hit a mountain, which is fine

Thought I'd do a quick showcase vid now I can actually get smooth footage of a bit of everything



there's a frog in my snake oil
So, growable alien ships then...



With an origin story path, and bonus space encounters and QoL.

HG keep on trucking



A system of cells interlinked
It's been a while!

Alas, I am back in the 'verse buildin' and explorin'. I've coaxed a friend in, and he is cutting his No Man's Teeth. With all the knowledge I had gained from my first play, I have a slick base/farm going and even managed to luck out and randomly find an S-Class fighter that had landed on a space station, which I was able to purchase for a cool 3 mil. Will post pics if I get a chance.



there's a frog in my snake oil
It's been a while!

Alas, I am back in the 'verse buildin' and explorin'. I've coaxed a friend in, and he is cutting his No Man's Teeth. With all the knowledge I had gained from my first play, I have a slick base/farm going and even managed to luck out and randomly find an S-Class fighter that had landed on a space station, which I was able to purchase for a cool 3 mil. Will post pics if I get a chance.

Hah cool. I had a play with the mech, but didn't quite find the magnet pull to get me back in.

I think at some point I'm gonna nose around and find a lush planet to build an absurd folly on. Could see that working for me. (I just built very pragmatic boxy builds last time).

That's if I can wrestle my kidling off it . He's taken to having a mooch around the universe of a weekend....



A system of cells interlinked
The wee lass isn't old enough to play anything yet, but she has gotten to the point where she loves anything space related, so she will watch NMS for a few minutes before running off to climb on the furniture! No daft builds for me yet on the base front, but my current base in on a nice cliff with a stellar view in more ways than one! Maybe a pic later? We shall see...



A system of cells interlinked
Heads up on the new Desolation update. Some cool feature introduced in this one. Excellent upgrades to the inventory/storage system on your freighter, and a fun new mission set that is sort of a System Shock-esque set of horror missions that has you (and friends if you wish) exploring derelict ships that are abandoned in space. I ran through one last night, and it was really good! They have also revamped the lighting effects, and everything is looking really nice.




there's a frog in my snake oil
Noice...



Trailer doesn't really show it off, but there seems to be a fair bit in there. Volcanoes, fire storms (and more hazards & boons attached to extreme conditions). New behaviours amongst the new fauna, like giant burrowing worms. General location revamps with swampiness and other such things. (Just not to discovered planets etc), Better clouds and that, synched up to the space view. Giant alien buildings and 'literary histories'.

Think might drop in now, 3 updates is the charm



there's a frog in my snake oil
Grabbed some of the vids of the site, just coz



Devastatingly huge worm creatures now lurk beneath the planet’s surface. Tread carefully.


Powerful tornadoes now spiral across planets during the strongest storms, scooping up any unfortunate fauna or explorers who cross their path.


Meteoroids can be observed crashing through the atmosphere of planets. Witness brilliant meteor showers, or lone shooting stars streaking across the sky – but be careful not to get too close.


Cloud coverage and colour now varies over time, and the clouds seen from space now match the current atmospheric conditions of the planet below.

(Can see some of this being pretty ace in VR )