what is the purpose of settlements?

[nineCavalry]

new to NMS here, thinking of buying it because of settlements. Is it like fallout 4 where it get attacked by bad guys sometimes? does it help the player in any way? also, do the settlers matter or do they die?

[Mr. Bufferlow]

No, the settlements are a very simple mini-game where you oversee (provide mats)some buildings for the settlement and make daily decisions and resolve citizen complaints. There are a couple of minor benefits but mostly just a graphical text adventure located in what appears to be a village. About every two or three days you have to go there and kills some rogue sentinels.

It is not bad and appears to be HG's response to many players wanting "cities" in the game. There are some gauges that show the "health" of you settlement and you want to make decisions that move them all toward green. It is set up so a five year old could be successful making the required decisions.

Settlers can die when they go on missions or during sentinel attacks. I have never had any die so far after months so it is pretty random when citizens die.

[Dirak2012]

You have absolutely no control over what building will be constructed, you can't even talk to the people in the settlement.
As stated above is a very simple and shallow mini game.

[nineCavalry]

oh ok thanks

[Lindy Bomber]

For five years certain players had asked for cities because the game was "empty and lonely". Settlements were created to fill that request.

Moral of the story, be very careful what you wish more, it might not work out the way you think.

[Know Won]

Perhaps they will continue to build on the settlements , as they are now i have little to no interest in them.

[Dr.Abscondus]

This game is about exploration. We don't need no settlers. Next thing there'll be lawyers and sheriffs.

[wkitty42]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

You have absolutely no control over what building will be constructed

sure you do... you can choose between the two that are being offered... you cannot select from a larger list, though... in some case, you might be offered the same building to choose from... it is understandable in some cases...

like one of my settlements has four landing pads and two retail buildings... one retail building (the ones with the galactic sales terminal) would seem to be enough since you don't recoup any profit share from them but i didn't mind, really... with four settlement landing pads and two more within the settlement bounds from my nearby base, this settlement has a lot of fly-in traffic so two retail buildings kinda makes sense...

i agree that it is a bit of a mini-game... at least we do get something from it on a regular basis... whether the products we get are worthwhile is another question, though... but overall it gives another something to do instead of having only the few existing things that so many complain about getting/being boring over time ;)

i mean, gathering mould from Curious Deposits is fun for a while... until you are making your 50th base teleport loop to the base you're at to respawn the deposits... this while all the refiners have been running non-stop for the last hour with at least that long to go to finish refining the nanites... but sometimes one just needs some time so they can read/write messages here and in the reddit community

[Lindy Bomber]

Originally posted by wkitty42:

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

You have absolutely no control over what building will be constructed

sure you do... you can choose between the two that are being offered... you cannot select from a larger list, though... in some case, you might be offered the same building to choose from... it is understandable in some cases...

All building sites are predetermined, the only thing you control is the order things are build. When you have a choose between A & B, what is actually happening is you have a choose between building on site A or site B. No matter how many times you reject B it will always come back and will always be the same building.

Buildings themselves do not matter much, most just generate X amount of production, a few will effect happiness or population; the only thing happiness and population do is slightly increase production. Markets will have a trade terminal, but they do not sell anything that can not be obtained from a normal trade terminal. Landing pads will attract traders, but these are no different the ones you would find at a trade platform or space station.

[BigGrayGolem]

It's just an in-game minigame. When you view it like that, it's nice. Mine is on a god-awful planet, though, so it's a challenge (super toxic environment.)

[Kobs]

It's just a new way to get peoples like you to buy a copy, all the devs do is find new way to sell more copies, they don't listen to what the long time players have to suggest, they don't fix bugs that were pointed out since the start, threy don't finish the VR mode so you can do everything you're supposed to do in this game, This is a golden goose for them and they feed the bird for it to lay golden eggs

[periurban]

Settlements suck.

[wkitty42]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

All building sites are predetermined, the only thing you control is the order things are build. When you have a choose between A & B, what is actually happening is you have a choose between building on site A or site B. No matter how many times you reject B it will always come back and will always be the same building.

are you saying that every settlement will always have four landing pads, two retail buildings, a processing tower, etc? only one of mine is like that... another one has two processing towers instead of two retail buildings... i've not taken a 3rd settlement, yet, and i have four more saves that i can get one in...