Can I pause one expedition to start another, and later finish the first one?

[prince_of_arfon]

I was part way through Aquarius when life got crazy, and I haven't been able to play for a month. I have a little more time now, and would like to try out the new Cursed expedition. But I see that Cursed is only running for two weeks, and I'm concerned that I won't have time to finish Aquarius before Cursed is over. Do I have to finish Aquarius first, or can I start the new one now and then finish both of them at my leisure?

Thanks.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by prince_of_arfon:

I was part way through Aquarius when life got crazy, and I haven't been able to play for a month. I have a little more time now, and would like to try out the new Cursed expedition. But I see that Cursed is only running for two weeks, and I'm concerned that I won't have time to finish Aquarius before Cursed is over. Do I have to finish Aquarius first, or can I start the new one now and then finish both of them at my leisure?

Thanks.

That depends, if you want to do them from within a regular playthrough save slot, then you need to finish Aquarius before you do the Cursed if you're going to do them on the same main playthrough save slot. (You also will need to finish Aquarius in offline mode, with a modified JSON file, because officially it is over, but I assume you already know that.)

If you're doing them on completely different save slots though, it doesn't matter what order you pick. Either way though, you cannot finish Aquarius without using the modified-JSON-and-offline method.

[lordoftheapes79]

Your Aquarius save would have become a normal save yesterday.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by lordoftheapes79:

Your Aquarius save would have become a normal save yesterday.

Only if he actually loaded it. If he stays offline and modifies the JSON before he loads it, he could still finish it.

[prince_of_arfon]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by lordoftheapes79:

Your Aquarius save would have become a normal save yesterday.

Only if he actually loaded it. If he stays offline and modifies the JSON before he loads it, he could still finish it.

Ooh, that's good to know. I haven't loaded the game yet, so it sounds like I still have a chance. (I'd thought that as long as I'd started Aquarius within its timeframe, I could finish it whenever, but I guess that's not the case. I was already pretty far along though.)

How do I modify the JSON?

P.S. Aquarius was started at the Space Anomaly terminal with my main save, if that makes any difference. It's the first expedition I've ever done.

[Jaggid Edje]

Aquarius ended on the 21st. So yah, if you load it now, it will force you out.

You have several options to cheese it to let you finish. Both require you to play the game offline. Which means either putting steam offline before you launch NMS, disconnecting your PC from the internet or adding NMS to your Firewall rules to block its internet access.

Once you've done one of those things, you can either change your PC's clock back to a date prior to the 21st in order to finish the expedition. This will only work if you have NOT launched No Man's Sky since Aquarius ended.

The other way would be to download the modified JSON file from this site[cwmonkey.github.io]. Instructions are on that page for where to put it.

You could also just edit the JSON yourself (in a text editor), and again, where to find the file is on the page at the link where you can download it. You'd only need to edit the "EndTimeUTC" field, which is very near the start of the file, changing it to a date in the future instead of one in the past. The date format uses Epoch Time.[www.epochconverter.com]

[prince_of_arfon]

Thank you! Luckily I have not launched the game at all since Aquarius ended. I'll check out those links and try to figure it out. Much appreciated.

[FaythsRequiem]

Generally expeditions only run for 8 weeks, with the exceptions being the end of year redux expeditions, which only run for 2 weeks (basically the redux's are a simplified/streamlined recap of the years expeditions). As far as I know The Cursed is the anomaly being only 2 weeks and not a redux. So basically if you don't finish expeditions within that time then you're outta luck (unless playing offline with modified files).

[prince_of_arfon]

Thanks everyone, it worked! I finished Aquarius a few days ago. What I did was, I took Steam offline, downloaded the NMS save editor, and used it to edit the raw JSON data to change the ending date of the expedition (using the Epoch Time format from the link Jagged Edje provided). It worked flawlessly. I'm back online and doing the Cursed Expedition now. Hopefully I can finish this one in time!