How do these translator modules work ?

[starman01]

Hi all,

i do not count the hours i spent in this game, but somehow i never ever actually seen these strange modules do anything. It says "it overhears conversations", but i never see it giving me a new word, let alone 3 for the superior....

Knowledge stones continue to give only 1, and when talking to NPC's for dialect help, i also only receive 1 word.

So i guess i miss something. Any help would be appreciated. :)

[Hykril Tynyx]

https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Automatic_translation_device
TL;DR - they randomly translate some of the words.

[AmberAnvil]

The translators randomly translate individual words on-the-fly to help you understand a conversation. You do not "learn" a word from using them, however. Learning words is done the old-fashioned way, as you noted.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Hykril Tynyx:

https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Automatic_translation_device
TL;DR - they randomly translate some of the words.

^^
This. It randomly chooses X number of untranslated words and translates them as if you knew the words.

So if an alien says 10 words to you and you know 2 of them, and you have a translator that can translate 2, it will choose 2 words from the remaining 8 to randomly translate, meaning that 4 of the words will be readable.

Translator units can also be supercharged as I found out in the expedition; you start with a 3 unit in a SC slot which makes it 4 words, and the translator units also stack (something else the expedition shows you). Getting 7 words translated per interaction with an alien makes things way easier to understand lol.

[starman01]

Ah, thank you guys.... I totally misunderstood the function of the module then.... Definitly not worth a tech slot for me in the beginning... :)

[maestro]

Originally posted by starman01:

Ah, thank you guys.... I totally misunderstood the function of the module then.... Definitly not worth a tech slot for me in the beginning... :)

Definitely recommend it later when you open up some suit tech inventory slots, though!

There's plenty of times where knowing what the aliens are babbling to you helps, and you can get more than enough slots to fit every single tech imaginable onto your suit.

But yes, in the beginning... might want to hold off on it, 'cept for the one Artemis gives you (because that's required for the quest). You can uninstall it after.

[AmberAnvil]

Fwiw, I've learned every word of all 5 languages and I have one S-Class translator installed (3 words) and there are still some words that just won't translate.

[taniwhat]

Originally posted by AmberAnvil:

Fwiw, I've learned every word of all 5 languages and I have one S-Class translator installed (3 words) and there are still some words that just won't translate.

Profanity filter kicks in ;)

[Lystent]

Originally posted by AmberAnvil:

Fwiw, I've learned every word of all 5 languages and I have one S-Class translator installed (3 words) and there are still some words that just won't translate.

I am often checking knowledge stones for languages I've completed after content updates to see if they added more words to unlock, but I've only ever gotten that far with gek and korvax.

[Ozwald]

Originally posted by AmberAnvil:

Fwiw, I've learned every word of all 5 languages and I have one S-Class translator installed (3 words) and there are still some words that just won't translate.

Because they stack. There are fewer with all the modules, but there still are missing words.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

A lot of NMS is based on granularity. The ship scanner mainly finds sites that are a fair bit away. The on foot scanner find things that are generally walking distance. They could have made the ship scanner perfect for all distances...but that would have ruined the exploring concept.

So the translators help, but they are still not perfect. if you know a significant number of words, they are likely to give you the gist of any communications...but not always.

The game is built on equations, if they made everything work top notch, it was steal a lot of the exploring fun out of the game.

[mystikmind2005]

So whatever words the translators give you are forgotten the moment you close the dialog?

[Hykril Tynyx]

Originally posted by mystikmind2005:

So whatever words the translators give you are forgotten the moment you close the dialog?

Yes.

[mystikmind2005]

Originally posted by Hykril Tynyx:

Originally posted by mystikmind2005:

So whatever words the translators give you are forgotten the moment you close the dialog?

Yes.

Ok, that makes them substantially more useless than i had guessed.

I suppose text is way to complex for a computerized device to permanently record, so that makes perfect sense (sarcasm).