Question(s)

[Rich]

1. Me and a couple of mates are thinking of picking this up. 3 of us play on steam, 1 on xbox. Does crossplay work?

2. We want to play a private co-op game, with no other players present, and where the world is persistent (bases we build, areas we explore etc..) is this doable in an easy way? Does it require any 3rd party sw to setup dedicated servers etc?

[Dirak2012]

Yes there is cross play.
No, there are no private servers, and the co-op is extremely basic, as you can't share bases or inventories. Also the terrain tends to go back, the game is still basically a solo experience with a barebones coop tacked on.

[Guyver8]

1. yes
2. yes-ish, you and your mates will be fine and everything is persistent... but it is a shared universe so although it's not likely... someone might either spawn into the system you're in (if you are staying in the spawn ring approx 700000 lyrs from galaxy core)
or
some could just warp to 'your' system

either way b4 playing make sure to all correctly adjust your network settings i.e. join, PvP, build permissions appropriately for you and your friends only

[askew1]

Crossplay does work. I've played mostly pc-ps5 crossplay but I've seen xbox players in my sessions, Be aware that your console friend will need to have a way to voice chat with you because the in game typing chat is limited to PC only. Otherwise emotes are the only way to communicate.

As others have already said it's a shared universe, however you can set network options so that only you and your friends can join your group, edit your bases, edit your terrain etc. And you can turn off pvp so so one else can bother you, even if they join your session.

All that said, I've not done base building with friends but I expect it to be extremely janky. It might still be a good time with friends though.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Originally posted by Rich:

1. Me and a couple of mates are thinking of picking this up. 3 of us play on steam, 1 on xbox. Does crossplay work?

2. We want to play a private co-op game, with no other players present, and where the world is persistent (bases we build, areas we explore etc..) is this doable in an easy way? Does it require any 3rd party sw to setup dedicated servers etc?

Yeah cross-play works. Playing with my friends is a lot of fun. We just group up and join our mate whos is 'leader' and already in game. If we ever have connection glitches like in any game, we just leave and rejoin or reload directly into the group from the multiplayer menu.
We all have shared our Hello Games friends codes with each other. Once that is done it all works fine.

The unique Hello Games friend codes is the technology that connects the cross play platforms which all have different connections. Though it is possible to select friends from a steam list in game, it is more predictable to share Hello Games friend codes from any platform.


We play online too and the universe and number of galaxies are basically infinite so it is easy to find a region of space where no one else is. We just join our mates already in a group, by entering and exiting the Anomaly Space station and on leaving select the friend we want to travel to.

Building is a lot of fun but make sure all of you have the same option and graphics complexity setting for the best experience. If any one in the group has a slower PC try using settings that suit them so walls and rooms will appear at the same time for the older PC or slower console machine. And reload once set.

[Lindy Bomber]

2. There are I we a trillion star systems in each galaxy. Generally you won't see another player untill you go looking for them. Bases are single player owned but you can allow your friends to help you build your base, there changes will be persistent if you are online and save your game. They can also access your bases while you are offline and collect resources from them.

[Zigamus Wizard]

Let me see if I can help here without a wall of text.

Building in a coop group is the hardest and here is why.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In order for you to see things that others have placed you BOTH need to be online at the same time, this way what happens gets saved into your save file, otherwise you won't see what they did if you login at a different time trying to share a build site.

If there is more than 2 people in the group this expands, ALL need to be online at the same time in order for any building to be seen and shared by all.

Hope this helps settle any confusion in this aspect of multi-player mode.

[Rich]

I appreciate your answers. This all sounds absolutely terrible though and i'm not sure I'm that interested in NMS anymore..

[Zak]

Originally posted by Rich:

I appreciate your answers. This all sounds absolutely terrible though and i'm not sure I'm that interested in NMS anymore..

Indeed. Not the game you want if you want a smooth, satisfying co-op experience. It's a singleplayer game really.

[Geldric™]

And yet my wife and I have been playing the Expedition together all afternoon. We completed it on the first save and now we're on to our second save and about 2/3rds done.

The only issue we've seen is that one poor Diplo that either has a broken back leg or is tripping his ass off on wat too much Nip-Nip and he thinks he's climbing over rocks that aren't there.... but, to be honest I've seen him while playing solo too.

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Bottoml line: Multiplayer can work fine however that is not the normal experience

[Zak]

Originally posted by Geldric:

And yet my wife and I have been playing the Expedition together all afternoon. We completed it on the first save and now we're on to our second save and about 2/3rds done.

The only issue we've seen is that one poor Diplo that either has a broken back leg or is tripping his ass off on wat too much Nip-Nip and he thinks he's climbing over rocks that aren't there.... but, to be honest I've seen him while playing solo too.

----------------
Bottoml line: Multiplayer can work fine however that is not the normal experience

Both at home, on the same network? Then yeah, it might work better.

[Geldric™]

Originally posted by Zak:

Both at home, on the same network? Then yeah, it might work better.

Yes... both PC's are Ethernet into a Deco WiFi which is connected to the living room Deco via WiFi6 and then that one is connected to the internet. Works great for all our networked/online/multiplayer games

[Zak]

Originally posted by Stomper™ Geldric:

Originally posted by Zak:

Both at home, on the same network? Then yeah, it might work better.

Yes... both PC's are Ethernet into a Deco WiFi which is connected to the living room Deco via WiFi6 and then that one is connected to the internet. Works great for all our networked/online/multiplayer games

So your latency is negligible. Playing over internet is where the difficulty is, when latency is often an order of magnitude higher than on local network.

[Geldric™]

It played the same months ago when I played w/wkitty42 for nearly 5 hours - def Internet traffic.

Regardless, my point was it does work, it is just not very robust and frequently does not work for many