Afraid to finish the main story prematurely

[Kira Wroth]

I just started playing NMS but have already arrived at Atlas. I don't know if I should continue with the story line as I had planned on playing this game for hundreds of hours and am afraid if I finish the story prematurely it might ruin the game for me. Do most people get to this point in the storyline early on? Are there any things I should do before I finish it?

[conejeitor]

It´s long and there are many other storylines. Just do it.

[AmberAnvil]

The Atlas quest is a side quest that's repeatable. The Artemis quest is the main storyline. And it's really just a tutorial that gives you all the tools you need to explore. I generally finish all the quests within the first hundred hours and then continue to play for another thousand hours or so. : )

[Wile E Coyote, Super Genius]

I've played 300+ hours and only recently started on the Artemis storyline to get all the glyphs. Now that I got all of them, I don't plan to finish the Atlas route unless required.

[Know Won]

/sings 'This is a game that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends, some people started playing it not knowing what it was , and now they will keep on playing it forever just because'
/repeat

[WarnerCK]

I'm at something like 1,000 hours, and I got the glyphs by chatting to Travellers about where their graves are.

[Know Won]

Imagine Lost in Space(original) mixed with Forbidden Planet with a touch of Mars Attacks.

[Kira Wroth]

Thank you, will continue on!

[Dirak2012]

One would say that finishing the story is just the beginning.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Technically, the Atlas Path should probably be finished before the Artemis series to keep all the dialogs square but it really doesn't matter how or when you choose to do either. The story is not really super cohesive in any case so unless you are really paying attention you won't notice anything odd. They may have even fixed the part where the Atlas acts like it has never met you before which used to be the odd thing I noted when I did it after the Artemis series.

The main advantage of the Artemis series is you get all the glyphs so that opens up using portals to get around when needed.

[DthBlayde]

Also if you only just started playing..... you've got quite a few Atlas visits lined ahead of you. It's not just... find the first Atlas station and bam.. done. It's a bit of a rabbit hole :D

[Dr.Abscondus]

There isn't really much of a story. The game isn't designed for it. The story just gives you some motivation to explore strange new worlds and observe strange new lifeforms, then kill them. If you run the expeditions then you'll get the entire game in a very compressed form.

[taniwhat]

I have around 30 hours on my current save. Did both ATLAS quests, Artemis etc and had all the glyphs before I'd done ATLAS - travellers as someone else mentioned.

They are just things you do along the way, the game really doesn't have a conclusion. That's just something to do which shows you things you might otherwise never find.

[dawnppelganger]

I was afraid the Atlas quest would restart my game and I'd loose everything, so I put off doing it for a long time. But don't worry, you won't loose a single thing. You only gain from it. But be prepared because it will break all your stuff and you'll have to make repairs and struggle to survive like when you first started the game.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Kira Wroth:

Thank you, will continue on!

You can continue after either of the main quest lines (Artemis/Atlas) and you will get a very clear warning before the "point of no return**" in each of them.

**It's no longer a point of no return, so take the warning with a grain of salt :)

Originally posted by dawnppelganger:

I was afraid the Atlas quest would restart my game and I'd loose everything, so I put off doing it for a long time. But don't worry, you won't loose a single thing. You only gain from it. But be prepared because it will break all your stuff and you'll have to make repairs and struggle to survive like when you first started the game.

You can save yourself a headache by either swapping to an unused ship prior to finishing, or just horde repair kits that pop up all over the place now.

[Jaggid Edje]

I like to get the Atlas path done quickly in a new game, so that I can see black holes on the galaxy map. If there's another way to get this ability (other than asking Polo where a black hole is), I am not familiar with it.

And I like to get Artemis path out of the way just so it's no longer in the log hijacking active missions any longer. And to get the glyphs, but you can get those other ways, so it's mostly just to get it out of the log.

I don't see finishing those two quest lines as reaching the end of the game...I see them more as a precursor to the start of it.