Milestones and Sentinels

[Daklathen]

After years of looking at this game and wanting to play, I finally dove in this last week. I enjoy a lot of elements in the game but there are 3 things that just really, really bother me:

Milestones - These pop-ups are probably the most annoying "feature" I've experienced in a game before. Who in the world thought this was a good idea? I have these popping up in combat, or when I am trying to land my ship, or just doing ANYTHING. It completely stops my gameplay to show me some pointless information. I can't toggle it off, it isn't a small window in the corner. It directly stops gameplay.

The only way to get rid of these is through mods that aren't supported through steam's workshop? I don't want to download some random mod and hope it fixes this issue without hurting my gameplay experience.

Sentinels - I've encountered them a few times and every time I feel like I am fighting for my life to survive. Hiding in caves doesn't work, flying away doesn't work. There is practically no time to avoid combat once they scan you and you can't pay to have them F off. There is practically no warning for when you will get accosted by these robot ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. My slightly upgraded multi-tool with a bolt caster takes 4-5 bursts to bring down just the spheroid ones, but the 4-legged sentinel with the laser beam eyes rips through my shields. Then even bigger ones spawn if you do happen to work through the waves.

I was able to defeat 5 waves of sentinels once, and I thought that was it, but they just kept spawning in. I thought the sentinels were an option for combat focused gameplay, but that they were just that: optional. Not spawning in your first couple of systems when you are still trying to figure out how to even play the game.

Multiplayer - My buddy also bought the game around the same time I did and had similar issues (and more). We tried to play together and it was an incredibly frustrating experience. We both play on steam.

FIrst, we couldn't join each others games despite being steam friends. So we added each other through the NMS friend code feature (which you have to do manually). Neither of us showed up on each others friend list in NMS. Eventually we set it up where my friend opened his session to everyone, I clicked it, then when it showed I had joined, he switched it back to friends only.

I landed on the planet he was on and started helping him figure out how to mine something when a sentinel scanned me and got us locked into combat. I died and my game crashed. All for about 5 minutes of actually playing together.

So this is the state of the game after nearly 7 years? I'm glad I held off for as long as I did, and honestly kind of wish I had waited longer.

[ICities]

Frustrating about Sentinels? Try changing your difficulty in-game. Also this game co-op mechanic works differently as other game, like single player game but accompany with friends.

[tkwoods]

Best thing with sentinels is not to get them in agro mode. You HUD tell you when they are to close, when it does stop mining.

[Daklathen]

Originally posted by ICities:

Frustrating about Sentinels? Try changing your difficulty in-game. Also this game co-op mechanic works differently as other game, like single player game but accompany with friends.

Yes, but the problem was that neither of us could invite each other to our sessions. We couldn't do it through steam friends, and even after we did the friend-code swap through NMS we weren't showing up on each others NMS friend list.

I understand how the game functions online, it's not that complicated, but actually getting to that step barely works.

I'll check difficulty settings, but I thought choosing the normal gameplay would set it at the lowest.

[Daklathen]

Originally posted by tkwoods:

Best thing with sentinels is not to get them in agro mode. You HUD tell you when they are to close, when it does stop mining.

I just found a cloaking module for my multi-tool. Hopefully that helps!

[Guyver8]

milestones aren't pointless
1) you get nanites for achieving them (at the anomaly)
2) you need to get increasing levels of them to be able to do the 'atlas path' quest
as to when they pop up...they tend to come AFTER you've done something not during...still whether they bother you or not is going be an personal thing to me it's trivial but to you maybe not

regarding sentinels, unless you are on an 'aggressive sentinels' planet, sentinels do not attack unless provoked i.e. you attack them, or fauna or mine resources in front of them
if sentinels are alerted to your mining (and they have to be near you to spot it) just stop...you get a warning and they will eventually wander off.
there is still work for HG to do as far as the AI for sentinels...but your problem as described is simply not knowing wot you're doing...have you by chance not done the tutorial?

can't help with the MP problem as i don't use it much and the last time i did i had a heck of of time meeting up (wassup Geldric )

[Daklathen]

Originally posted by Guyver8:

milestones aren't pointless
1) you get nanites for achieving them (at the anomaly)
2) you need to get increasing levels of them to be able to do the 'atlas path' quest
as to when they pop up...they tend to come AFTER you've done something not during...still whether they bother you or not is going be an personal thing to me it's trivial but to you maybe not

I get the purpose of the milestones, what I am complaining about is them interrupting play with a full screen notification.

I was being attacked in space by sentinels after running from them attacking me on the ground. As I was killing the sentinel ships, I was getting milestones mid-combat for every 5 ships I destroyed.

Interrupting play with a full screen "milestone" alert is unfathomably silly. Or when I am trying to get back to my ship during a storm and I get a milestone notification for traveling 75k ums and I can't access my ships' cockpit until I hold TAB to dismiss the notification.

It's not game breaking but in high-stress environments it's just added frustration.

Originally posted by Guyver8:

regarding sentinels, unless you are on an 'aggressive sentinels' planet, sentinels do not attack unless provoked i.e. you attack them, or fauna or mine resources in front of them
if sentinels are alerted to your mining (and they have to be near you to spot it) just stop...you get a warning and they will eventually wander off.
there is still work for HG to do as far as the AI for sentinels...but your problem as described is simply not knowing wot you're doing...have you by chance not done the tutorial?

I did complete the tutorial... I think. I discovered the nexus, I've been to about 10 star systems, I have a freighter and a couple of ships.

The sentinel's, as you described, have not been my experience. I did get a cloaking device for my multi-tool that I can pop when I do get the scanned notification, which helped earlier today.

My buddy whose game I joined started out on a planet with high sentinel activity which may explain why we were attacked when I landed. I was showing him how to mine copper and when we got scanned a timer popped up counting down from 6 seconds. We tried to run and hide but 6 seconds wasn't enough time before the sentinels aggro'd.

This seems so arbitrary and punishing, especially for a new player to encounter. He was already frustrated enough with being spawn on a super high toxic planet and having his exosuit constantly reminding him that he was losing toxic protection.

Regardless, why are they so strong for such an early part of the game?

I did check my difficulty settings, per another posters recommendation, and it's all set to normal, so I turned down the frequency of sentinels. Space combat isn't nearly as challenging as on foot, mainly because of the repair sentinels that spawn with each wave.

I guess just combo dig a hole and pop cloaking is the best solution to escape until I have a better multi-tool.

Thanks for your comments though! Appreciate the insight.