LadyCrimson

I got a new Star Destroyer Freighter on my main save. Seemingly you must have space combat active (maybe also on Standard, not Minimal) so every 5 system warps or so you get a rescue-freighter when you drop out of warp, which is when these bigger ones may show up. I lucked out and got the biggest version of this Capital style after four reloads/retries, but once again it's only an A-class, not S, but since I suck at the ship combat, I'll take it. Mostly more starting cargo space so less work to max that out (33 vs. 19 starting, in my case) + looks, altho stats/combat abilities do go up a little too. I wish you weren't limited to only having one/your previous goes poof (can't collect them). I suppose you could try to get a different style in multiple saves. Anyhoo, I can now go back to ignoring space combat on this save.

Since Paramount put up the first episode on YT for free viewing, I watched the new Fraiser premiere. It was cool to see Kelsey Grammer in the role again, and he slid into it like a comfy old glove. But I laughed not once, although I probably smiled several times. The new chrs - well, let's say they didn't engage me. I'd have serious doubts whether it'll stick around for more than one season but who knows. The best thing about the first episode was the dedication to John Mahoney.

My main save in No Man's Sky, I think is close to the end of the story questline. Which became maybe 5% more interesting as the end nears, but it's still very "arrgh." But some oddball graphic glitches are starting to occur once in a while, like falling through map/wall cracks, UI white washing away. The game has only CTD once, no other performance issues so far, no clue why it's happening. Maybe I need to clear a game cache, too much info after so many hours. Anyway I started a new chr again (3rd one). I skipped the tutorial this time, and at least the settings I used = that Anomaly station was freely available regardless. Thus, I am free of the tutorial shackle re: restarts. This save is going to ignore all the story, base, settlement etc. quests like the plague and only focus on galaxy and planet exploration. I find what I find when I find it, upgrade whatever when I feel like it, avoid all npc's. I enjoy NMS much much more that way. I still see, on planets, stuff I've never seen before. Not to mention learning game stuff I didn't know before, still. That's the best thing.

If Melt was the black and white melting face cover, yes, that one. I haven't listened to it in a long time tbh. Which is true of most of the stuff I bought on vinyl/cassette tape and never bought CD/digital versions of later. Heh.

^ I played Gabriel's "So", so many times. My fav album of his is still the self-titled one tho. --------- I still casual-dance like this. Plus the song is tops, of course. Every time I get a bit worn out by the current music styles I go back to this stuff. Thanks, parents.

Ok, I've put in about 200 hrs of No Man's Sky now, although I still have not finished the story line although I have progressed it farther. The TLDR would be: The game as it currently is in 2023, is a fun sandbox, but gameplay value - especially if not on a sale - is going to mostly appeal to a certain type of player. Even if you are the type of player it would appeal to, over a lengthy interval it might start to feel a bit shallow vs. some other more concise/specialized sandboxy games. Overall for sandbox genre I'd give NMS something like ... 6.5/10. Maybe 7/10 at most. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the game quite a lot, and it's great for mindless chill, exploring, self-goals/long semi-mindless mental distraction. The level of freedom is great. But outside of freedom to explore/look at quintrillions of procedural generated planets, everything else - bases, pets, settlements/fleets, all of that, feel more at an afterthought level. Probably a consequence of trying to please those who wanted more than system/planet exploration, but still make everything in the game not required. ------------------------------- Re: Questing ---The quest side of the game for me is maybe a 3/10 at best. The quests are extremely repetitive - not surprising or anything - and generally consist of perform scans on planet or check galaxy map for markers, go to a new system, land on a planet, find/click something, repeat endlessly, pattern. All the main and larger side quests I've done still feel like tutorials, with rewards mostly being access to new structure/crafting blueprints or maybe some tech mods and maybe making you build/use the new thing as part of the quest. So if you've already bought/upgraded a lot on your own, they are an especially pointless/annoying grind. ---being someone not hugely into strong narrative arc games, I'm often fairly tolerant of shallow quest systems as long as they're short/quick. My tolerance for the ones in NMS is really low. One or two of them, so far, have made me want to turn the game off for the session, in annoyance/boredom. They are more dull - and at times, RNG-irritating - than killing 30 rats in the basement. Just me tho. ---if one is the type who wants to finish the story, I would recommend brand new players to follow it almost exclusively. Save the sandbox or side lore hunting, if you like the game enough, for after. At least then they wouldn't feel as pointless as putting them off until later. ---there are a lot of nitpicky UI, controls, npc menu, inventory menu complaints I could make but eh.

I cleaned up my large base. It's 99% for looks/fun of building ... the npc pilots still visit. You can go multi-story with the room modules but the auto-mount a ladder when you get close to them mechanic drives me nuts - and you must put those ladders in the center of the claustrophobic rooms - so I don't do that and instead "game the system" to spread a base over more territory then initially allowed. I have a few pets but I forget about them since they're auto-put away every time you get in/out of your ship. Plus per usual, they're just deco or the silly riding. Or you can try to breed new ones re:colors/size/shape I think. Some are cute tho. The brown one on the right tries to track/find POI's for me but isn't very good at it. Not all worlds are grassy biospheres. There's a non-organic lifeform in the below pic - in the game it's obvious because it's rolling around like a boulder. Pretty cool. This planet matched my ship pretty well I thought.

I may have finally found the "forever home" Paradise planet! All I need now is to make a bit of a base. Maybe I'll let this one be the one where I hire an Overseer, so I'll make it a bit bigger. ....maybe I went a little overboard, and not in the best way. I'll clean it up later. The funny thing is while I kept trying to place all those landing platforms (I had a temp-display-ships for screenshot idea - sadly 9 platforms is max per base), the random-encounter npc pilot/traders kept landing on them! That red ship below isn't mine, get off my stuff! So I then had to wait for them to fly off before I could move pieces again...I had no idea they'd use player-made platforms. Guess you need more than one, lol

Apparently there's a hard limit of something like 450ish "claimed bases" you can create in NMS - the base list won't show/activate the base-computers after that. If you delete some, then go back to that base computer you can active them, but... .....noooooo, my plans for multiple universe/all solar systems conquest are thwarted! ....just kidding. I have no desire to make 13 quintillion bases or whatever. I have been trying to fly toward the center of the current Universe, although from all I've read, moving Galaxies doesn't seem particularly worthwhile/not a reason. Still, I wanna manually (vs. being warped there via quest or something) reach the Center just once.

I was told if I did hire max frigates, all those msg's etc. would stop. So I did. Turns out max is 30. I now have a fleet. Plus once again I was delighted that I could "board" every single frigate, walk all over on the outsides, look inside. There isn't much point to it but virtual tourism (if they come back damaged from an expedition, there *is* a go-there and click stuff to repair them element) but it's impressive/fun and grand tourism. I've decided this game is an amusement park, with sandbox elements.

So, I got that freighter, deco'd it a bit, then left, fully intending to ignore it. But now every time I warp anywhere and fleets pop into the system, I'm bombarded with "hey don't you want to hire my frigate" messages if I get anywhere near them. Which I could ignore, but it's annoying. There's a whole mini-game re: freighters/fleets/expeditions (expeditions mostly make you items/money passively), which I'm not ready/willing for. Should I copy back/reload the save folder just before I bought it? Hmm...maybe if I just delete that command room module? Or hire max frigates no matter the type and maybe they'll shut up then and leave me in peace? Haha. Game dilemmas!

NMS Sky - along with not really needing complex bases for functionality (not yet anyway), another reason it doesn't appeal to my personal obsessive nature is ... I've become so used to 7 Day's structural integrity building rule concepts that the whole modular room building stuff just isn't very engaging even if you can make kewl things visually. I suppose it's a little bit like FO4 style. I've been wanting to put mini-bases above ground now, because if you don't, eventually you may find rocks/bushes growing in the middle of it as stuff like that respawns close to, but not exactly, the same spots. There are pole foundation pieces, but I can't figure out how to place them at height, they always start at ground level if you try to place one first. But I was able to place the "square room" module ... in mid-air. Just floating in space. Then the foundation would "snap" underneath it and spawn legs. Ok then.

"There are many like it, but this one is mine." ...finding a system that had the right fleets pop, and then the reload-grind to get the specific freighter to be actually offered, plus as over a B class was long. I got impatient re: an "S" class and settled on an "A" class. ...there are some much more unique/kewl freighters in the game I think, but I would guess they are hard to find/get. ...looks like you can build a huge modular-room base on the thing (red-lined squares in pic below are player-placed). To the point it would get annoying to run around in. But I hear getting the freighter modules/currency to unlock more/all the modular rooms/thingies for it are a serious PITA. I probably won't bother. In fact, I probably won't use it, since I'm not interested in quests/combat etc, altho who knows. But I had to have the ST/SW combo one. And now I know what they're like.

I was sifting thru Steam Library and noticed something. I had full-reinstalled the entire game. Apparently I got free Achievements just for that? They're the only two that Steam lists I have for the game and I "achieved" them same day I reinstalled it. Not that I care, but did achievement borking/resetting happen to many or anything? lol

I will turn 54 soon.

NMS ----the way I play, big bases are largely pointless. Game keeps prompting me to set up something re: an overseer or some such. I'm happy with just teleporters, landing pad, storage boxes, and a room or area filled with resource refiners. I also read that there's a parts limit (all objects. not just walls/floors), across all bases you make in a save. After that you can't place anything else. Not that most would ever reach the limit, just the fancy mega builder types or those wanting a big base on multiple planets. ----did a few more main quests. I find them utterly boring and went back to making my own fun. ----started a new separate save. The tutorial is even more annoying/feels too long (for my impatience...) the 2nd time. It does give you some early things for "free" doing it all tho, and I don't know if you can access the Anomaly station initially if you skip it entirely. Actually, all the main missions after the first tutorial mission line ends, so far, still feel like tutorial in a way.

*drops put of warp* ... "You're not a trading ship." ... "wtf is happening."

I may have a ship collecting addiction. I keep seeing ones that make me go "oh, I like visual." Dangit, it's not like I can seriously use/alternate more than maybe a couple. Going to have to confine myself to just screenshots of all of them soon. Trying to find a freighter I like. No luck so far. But it's cool they let you walk around on top of one. For a second I thought I was going to be able to tread the whole length of it, but no - the "you are about to die" health drop started at some point. I also like how you can jump/stand on all the player-vehicles, unlike some games where if you try you just bounce off. "Star Wars" theme. Yeah, I hear there's one that looks even more like a Destroyer. I want the Star Trek one, where do I get that.

No Man's Sky: I wanted to keep buying/trying (a lot of) different ships, for funsies but also function - cost doing that is high. Even my grinding self was finding it overly taxing re: grind 30-40 million, buy/try one or three, grind, etc. I noticed a difficulty setting that makes buying ships "Discounted." I was expecting ship prices to be lower for less grind, but also that the scrap/sell value would be scaled to the same ratio (a small to moderate loss). But the sell value actually remains the same so you buy at half price but scrap for full price = 100% profit. So I stood in a few space stations waiting for ships, bought only the "A" class ones (because they give you inventory augments when scrapped), scrapped, bought, scrapped. I now have 600million units, a lot of Nanites from selling the scrap-modules, and an Exotic ship with 70 storage and 43 Tech slots. Oh sure, you don't have to take advantage of this but I wonder if the profit ratio re: that setting is intentional or a long oversight. It would've been enough help just for the buy price to be halved. That said, I finally got to try a bunch of ships. The variation of visual styles between the several "class type" is high. If you want a Fighter, Hauler, Explorer, Shuttle, Solar, Exotic etc in a certain style/color scheme, you're gonna have to stand in space stations for a long time hoping for RNG. I know there's some "special" ones to get too but in general. EDIT: this is a game where once you've gotten far enough to have "learned a lot", it kinda makes you want to start over.

Also: There are "solar" ships. Using photomode - looks really cool, right? But this is what it's like trying to fly it in space. Just no. I scrapped it. TBF, those only come out/block view in space, planetside they stay closed.

Meet Chicken McNugget.

Ok, time to try feeding/taming pets. ------------------------------------------------- "Nah....nah....nah...." "Too ticklish, made riding difficult." "Too delicate." "I want that one! ... what? I can't? Game sucks, 1/10" ...sadly, you can't control animal companions directly at all, even riding - they aren't true mounts. Mostly for fun and ingredient farming.

I still don't know if I "love" NMS, but I will say this: if you like endless free roam exploration it's definitely a great time sink. Sure all the planets are vaguely the same after a while, but it still feels rewarding because suddenly you find a huge cave to get lost in, see a landscape formation, islands, sunken holes that you've never see. You're unlikely to ever explore even 5% of a given planet tho ... just take off and go to another one, or a new solar system. Saw one video where a guy land-ran the circumference of a planet and it took 25+ real time hours. ---if you have a quest or icon mark that's kinda far away, better off time-wise going to space and warping back to it vs. surface flying. ---tried the "car" that is basically a mech suit. Could be handy in some cases but overall, still don't like mechsuits. ---too many markers etc. can = a cluttered solar system icon skyscape. Makes me not want to place many beacons or even a teleporter-only base computer. At any rate, I think NMS is going to get paired with 7 Days to Die in terms of sandbox games that I can return to/waste multiple 100/s or even 1000's of hours on over several years.

How NMS suddenly makes you want something you didn't originally want. Or: "I have got to get me one of these!" Or: "HEY, where'd you get yur pilots license?? I'm walkin' here!" Some planets defy gravity. I wonder if it would be "safe" to make a base on one of these floating rocks. They're like .... ant-squids? If you can tame one, do you need a giant aquarium?

But at least the one mag is a cat one. They got taste.