List of changes NMS needs. (in my opinion) Will update with other suggestions.

[Holy Athena]

Note: Some may be impossible or too big of a scope. I don't know, but they are here to discuss, or for devs to take note in the faint chance it does anything.

1) More "uncolonized" systems.. The galaxy is massive, yet it feels like everything's been "explored".. I want to feel like an explorer.. (Note I'm obviously talking about NPCs here, not players).

2) Going off of the above point. I'd like to see "tiers" of how colonized a system is, with things that properly reflect this.

Example: Tiers to the habitations. Systems have a status of what type of colonization period its in. "Outposts" "towns" "Cities". Outposts are what you have now.. Just a few randomly sparse buildings on planets, with very few trade ports, and few trade goods.

Towns, would be a bit bigger. Maybe 3-4 buildings with sleeping area's, and consoles npc's stand at, and wander around. A medium level of trade goods, and even some trade hubs on planets.

Cities: 5-10 buildings in an area, with landing pads, trade hubs, stores to buy/sell stuff (like on the space stations). Basically these systems are where you wanna go if you want to buy, sell, trade, at a larger level.. The trade goods you can find here are more numerous as well.

Freighters, and pirates are always properly adjusted.. uncolonized to outposts are more pirate chances with them being stronger, town level colonization is mid range for both, while city colonization has much higher chance of freighter fleets showing up and much lower chance of pirates.

Someone mentioned in another post how the sentinels don't allow for bigger than a few buildings, but I have a good work around for that.

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

The lore states that small outposts are everything that exists, sentinels won't allow anything bigger.

Yes, so your first playthrough on your first galaxy perhaps is just small outposts.. but what about when you finish the story, and "Reset" the galaxy?

Even lorically it can be fit in, and they've changed the story about 100 times since the initial release anyway...

Plus.. the whole point of Multiplayer was "build big towns and outposts with your friends!" was a selling point.. seems silly if that directly contends with the lore of the game doesn't it?

3) Deeper, more expansive oceans, and underwater caves. (This is something I've been wanting for a very long time.

4) Just more variety when it comes to many planets, and planet types.. Nearly every "desert" like planet is exactly the same... and I know there are a TON of specific categorizations of planets... but they all can easily be summed up into 5 categories you can fit on your finger, and you'll be unable to tell the difference..

Water Planet, Desert Planet, Temperate Planet, Artifact Planet, Snow Planet.

Pretty much sums up all the variety, and they all look nearly identical to each other..

(Of course there are some planets that are drastically different, and these are pretty cool and keep the game refreshing, but I'd still like to see more variety amongst the common planets).

Example: Desert planets being the biggest problem of them all looking exactly alike.. The tall Red bulbous plants with red saturated overlay to the planet, and ground texture being exactly the same, making it look like you just landed for the 100th time on the same planet just somewhere else that you did for the last 40 jumps in a row...

Why not have planets that's more like "dunes". Like the Sahara desert.. not much mountains, and lots of sand. (The sand can even use the same materials, and mechanics as snow for footprints, etc.)

5) More variety of weathers...

You got rain, snow... and... uhh.. wind...

Where are the sand storms? Hail even? hell, fire storms for super heated planets, maybe even water overhaul to make waves more of a variety. Some planets have big waves, others are more tranquil like we have now. (I know water and waves are very difficult to program and make happen, like I said. Some of these are more wishes than reality in what might be able to be done.)

6) This is more of a wish because I feel like NMS is a little too.. passive and forgiving..

But if you choose to build a base on a planet with wildly violent weathers, super heated rain (or even super cold), or very violent aggressive sentinels.. that this should be a challenge to make and upkeep a functional base.

Solar panels, doors, or even base components being damaged, and needing repairs. (Never outright destroyed, because that's not fun, unless its a toggleable in the options). Or even walkers, and other sentinels attacking your base.

(Would even like to see some sort of perimeter defenses like turret guns which are powered by electricity, etc.). It would really make building, maintaining, and defending a base in a violent planet interesting.

7) I'd also like to see the factories and manufacturing plants actually have some habitable buildings around them, and npcs moving in and out...

Makes you attacking and stealing stuff from them a bit more of a moral decision past "bust down door of a neglected factory".

Would like to see said NPCs even turn hostile, rather than sentinels defending them.

(Bonus point if said NPC's have vehicles as well, vehicle combat ftw!).

8) Which brings me to my next suggestion.

You have space ships flying in the atmosphere which is cool.. but never a convoy of traders, or adventurers driving around on the surface... Would love to see that, just to add even more life to the colonized systems and planets.

9) Vehicle ports at outposts, trade ports, and habitats at planets..

For the habitats, buildings that allow you to land space ships, these should also have ground vehicle stations where you can call your ground vehicles too.. It would help minimize the annoyance of having to build one on every single planet.. even ones with plenty of NPCs and life going around. (It's like NPCs are allergic to ground vehicles).



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THe exo suit update was the first update that didn't bring me back to NMS. THe reason.. changing your vehicle doens't change what you see and come across..

It's the same old same old grind and repetitive things after awhile... Continiously adding new vehicles isn't adding to the longevity, or main purpose of the game, which is exploring and finding new things.

Even grinding out the alien ships I quickly stopped playing when I realized I'm literally grinding for a ship that in the end I'll sit as a hood ornament in my freighter never to be used, because nothiing else of note has really changed..

(Despite some peoples dislike, I actually liked the power requirements, electriicy, and other additions to the base building.. That very much kept me interested and intrigued to actually build a base.)

[ExplorerNMS]

There are "Fire Storms" on super heated planets. There are planets where you suffer from heat during the day and Freeze during the night. There are planets with Nuclear storms. and Planets with toxic storms. There are planets with Super-heated rain storms.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by ExplorerNMS:

There are "Fire Storms" on super heated planets. There are planets where you suffer from heat during the day and Freeze during the night. There are planets with Nuclear storms. and Planets with toxic storms. There are planets with Super-heated rain storms.

You missed my point..

My point is they all LOOK the same.. just a different color pallete on them.. White color overlay for snow, red for desert planet, red again for "fire storms".. It's all the exact same.. (Hell the clouds don't even change..)

[Lindy Bomber]

1) I’d like to see population level as a second variable in galaxy type with a high, medium, and low value. High would be about the same as now, low would have 10-20% inhabited, 20-30% abandoned, and the rest uncharted. “Medium” would split the different. This would allow players to choose a high population lush galaxy, or a low population hard galaxy, or a medium population balanced galaxy or some other combination.

1b) Some abandon systems should be systems once controlled by one of the extinct races-lore mentions sentinels destroy entire races and the First Spawn probably destroyed a few was well . They would have their one architecture style, language, and tragic tale of how they died told via Plaques & Ruins.

2) “Cities” are a hot button for some, best avoid that term. I think a better solution would be to rework small settlements and trade post (see next post). Density of Points of interest is already a planetary variable, but it is not visible to the player.

3 & 4) more variety is good, but this will require a re-roll

5) Your arguing semantics, each biome has several different types of storms, but they are basically flavor text.

6) Maybe in survival mode. A lot of players will not like this.

7) Manufacturing and command centers are controlled by the sentinels; they are what is left of the old cities. Maybe more ruins, but hard NO on “moral decisions”

8) In theory an interesting idea, in practice a lot of development time for little benefit.

9) The freighter tech for summoning exo-craft already solves the “building a pad on every planet problem”

[Lindy Bomber]

(copied from a post I made in another thread)

I would like to see small settlements reworked and trade platforms replaced with “large settlements”.

Small settlements would keep the current trade building, but the abandon “trailers” would be replace by 2 to 4 “houses” and NPC randomly moving between them. There would also be one of the following resources; fenced in area with plants, pen with animals, or mineral/gas extract. Players would not be able to directly interact with the resource location, but by interacting with one of the NPC would be given a list of barter options.

Animal pens would have 4-5 animals from a species less than 3 meters tall that native to the planet, players cannot shoot or feed them, but can scan them. Players can barter for the animal product (milk, eggs, ect) produced by that species. Planet areas could have 10-15 of any food plant native to the planet, or the biome specific plant, or oxygen/sodium plant.

Settlements with food related resource areas will want to barter minerals and trade goods for the food items they produce. Settlements that produce minerals or farming products will barter for advanced food items and trade goods. The more times you barter with the settlement the less favorable the exchange will be.

Large settlements would be centered on a modified trade platform and industrial building and have 4 to 6 houses with NPCs. Here you will be able to exchange a set combination of resources for certain type trade good. There will be a limited to the number of goods you can exchange for per day. Both will have trade terminals with a supply of basic items. The other NPC interactions that you can have at these locations would still exist.

The houses would be a little larger than the base building square room, for each race there would be a few base models each with several color schemes and randomly decorations. They would all have locked doors and no rendered interior (Do you go snooping around other people’s houses?)

The overall objective would settlements a sense of purpose and sense that people actually live and work here.

[Mustangh]

I couldn’t tell what it needs so i will list what I would like.

-Better combat system. More action, gun fights and maybe classes.

-Complex cave systems. (Update similar to the underwater one?)

-Dangerous wildlife and plants.

-More horror sections, like exploring inside of crashed freighters.

-Bioengineering(?) fauna and flora. Let us play with the assets.

-Starships with co pilot seats. One fly and uses a secondary gun and a buddy have the main gun and navigation, scan, something cool to do all the time.

-Build/Recolor ships? Not sure about this one because I enjoy how the community exchange coordinates. Maybe bind a creation to the system it was created?

-Variety, variety and variety seems the most important.

I will think more about this
Cheers!

[NerdonaHarley]

How about some things that we have on our own planets, volcano's, large meteors with rare elements, smaller meteor showers, comets that roam the galaxy and can destroy a planet or at least change the planets biome. Rivers, waterfalls, ..........

[Oakshadow]

Personally, I'd like to see planets have poles and climates. I mean it's fine to have a primarily tropical world, or toxic or what not, but I'd like things ot change based on how far north or south you go.

I'd also like to see volcanic or molten worlds. Places where the ocean might be molten death. I think having meteor showers and hail is a good idea too. Basically not only might the storms lower /heat up temperatures but they could also do light damage to your shields unless you're in an exo-vehicle.

Over all though I don't think we'll get too many graphical overhauls or massive changes to the Random generator regarding planets. That sort of thing could force people to restart their games. And HG has stated they will no longer do anything that would force a universe reset.

That said to the OP there are a lot of uninhabited systems. Most of them aren't yellow stars though. You have to go to red / green / blue stars to consistently find uninhabited or abandoned systems. In Euclid yellow stars dominate.... but in the other universes, not so much. So technically this request already exists in the game.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by Jay:

That said to the OP there are a lot of uninhabited systems. Most of them aren't yellow stars though. You have to go to red / green / blue stars to consistently find uninhabited or abandoned systems. In Euclid yellow stars dominate.... but in the other universes, not so much. So technically this request already exists in the game.

That's fair enough.

Since having this game from literally day 1 of release, I've actually only finished the game (got to the center of the galaxy and reset everything to a different galaxy) only once..

The reason being is I keep restarting for various reasons, but ultimately comes down too how shallow and boring mid/late game get as there's nothing to do, and the early game is the most fun and exciting (Where you feel like a real explorer with challenges).