What's the point? Am I missing something?

[Darkkhelmet]

I have a fair amount of time invested in the game and I'm starting to wonder what the point is. There is little change from system to system. Essentially the same quests are offered with the same mechanics and little to be gained from it. The B class ship I have I found at the end of a quest line. The C class one it replaced I discovered as a crashed ship from a puzzle I solved. I can barely gather enough credits to fix all the slots in my ship much less the almost 400 million required for a freighter. I know people have freighters but how long does it take to get enough credits and by what means?

I tried using the crafted mining tool but it takes forever and needs to be recharged after it gathers about 150 ore. It's more effeciant and faster for me to just stand there and blast the crap out of what I'm mining. Is this repetition all there is throughout the game?

So, I ask again, what am I missing?

[tkwoods]

This will sound crass... Sorry... But what missing is imagination.... Explore the game and don't worry about the little stuff... NMS is about exploring... Exploring leads to rewards.

[Darkkhelmet]

I'm on 4 of 16 in the 16/16 story line and I do a lot of exploring. I also have a base and farm everything there is to farm. I have all 3 ground vehicles and the B class ship I found had 46 slots. With 100+ hours in the game I don't see much of a difference in discoveries from exploring and what there is to explore. And there's the money thing too. So it looks like the answer to my question is I'm not missing much of what the game has to offer. It just seems to me that with a billion trillion (or whatever) systems to explore there would be more variety.

[BaneBlackGuard]

To explore is the purpose of existence. Life is a means to that end. All other ends are conjunctive. End of line.

If exploration isn't your thing, have you tried merchanteering, piracy. NEXT will likely introduce other aspects you might be interested in. The game as it is, is pretty squarely centered on exploration, with trade and combat as connective tissue tieing the exploration to the storyline. I expect this to change, at least somewhat, when NEXT arrives. primarily because both combat and trade will become more important in a multiplayer environment.

[tkwoods]

Well I went back and played a little Fallout 4.... Talk about grind.... Funny thing the mutant is still at the crossroads by the drive in. That's what is different about NMS... You never follow a script like most other games for the most part. But the map is a complete unknown. You don't know what is there until you see it. And don't start talkung about load screens....

[Darkkhelmet]

I agree with the comments here but to me exploration should yield findings that are at least marginally different from previously explored areas. Huge buildings with one small room and doors that can't be opened without an elusive Atlas 3 pass; smaller buildings that are all the same; plant and animal life with little differentiating characteristics; all animal noises the same; all space stations the same internally; and so on. I have a powerful gaming computer I built but the planetside rendering can't keep up with the speed of my ship many times.

Traveling 100's of light years only to find the same items, inhabitants, plants, and animals kind of lowers expectations for the next system to be explored. Even with all this though I still get enjoyment out of the game. If I play enough perhaps I will get enough credits to buy a freighter and do some of the more advanced things in the game. Unless I am earning credits the wrong way though that will take many months.

[Bladehelm]

Originally posted by Darkkhelmet:

Traveling 100's of light years only to find the same items, inhabitants, plants, and animals kind of lowers expectations for the next system to be explored. Even with all this though I still get enjoyment out of the game. If I play enough perhaps I will get enough credits to buy a freighter and do some of the more advanced things in the game. Unless I am earning credits the wrong way though that will take many months.

Ultimately, this is what killed my interest in the game too. I'm all for exploration for exploration sake, but every planet is the a jumble of the same small number of elements that can only come together so many ways that it doesn't take very long before you've basically seen every type of planet there can be. There might be small variations from place to place, but these just stop being compelling after a short time. Same goes for the animals. You can only mix and match the same few dozen body parts so many ways.

Where are the massive aquatic beasts? What about insects? Why are there no Grand Canyons, Mariana Trenches, no Mt. Everests? How come there's these three alien races that have been everywhere in the universe leaving identical buildings at regular intervals over the surface of every planet there is, but the universe is so empty? Where do these people live? Where are their cities? It's an entire galaxy made up of individual aliens in spaceships who only occasionally gather in very small groups in mostly empty identical space stations...

Maybe once they introduce true multiplayer it'll be fun again. Hell, some spaceship PVP with awesome dogfights would be cool... Too bad the ships fly like marshmallows through pudding!

[Darkkhelmet]

Bladehelm: Exactly.

[BaneBlackGuard]

Originally posted by Bladehelm:

Originally posted by Darkkhelmet:

Traveling 100's of light years only to find the same items, inhabitants, plants, and animals kind of lowers expectations for the next system to be explored. Even with all this though I still get enjoyment out of the game. If I play enough perhaps I will get enough credits to buy a freighter and do some of the more advanced things in the game. Unless I am earning credits the wrong way though that will take many months.

Ultimately, this is what killed my interest in the game too. I'm all for exploration for exploration sake, but every planet is the a jumble of the same small number of elements that can only come together so many ways that it doesn't take very long before you've basically seen every type of planet there can be. There might be small variations from place to place, but these just stop being compelling after a short time. Same goes for the animals. You can only mix and match the same few dozen body parts so many ways.

Where are the massive aquatic beasts? What about insects? Why are there no Grand Canyons, Mariana Trenches, no Mt. Everests? How come there's these three alien races that have been everywhere in the universe leaving identical buildings at regular intervals over the surface of every planet there is, but the universe is so empty? Where do these people live? Where are their cities? It's an entire galaxy made up of individual aliens in spaceships who only occasionally gather in very small groups in mostly empty identical space stations...

Maybe once they introduce true multiplayer it'll be fun again. Hell, some spaceship PVP with awesome dogfights would be cool... Too bad the ships fly like marshmallows through pudding!

The sentinels drove the 3 sentient races off of worlds for the most part except for outposts. even most of the outposts have been ransacked and it's occupants forced to abandon them relatively recently, likely an ongoing process. they build too much and the sentinels react, that would explain why we see so many 1 and two trailer outposts that have been abandoned.

i'm guessing you haven't been following the bits of story in the game or you'd know the Sentinels have been keeping the races in check.

as for why there are only 3... well there are 4, now. we know there was at least one other race that was utterly wiped out by the sentinels. The sentinels have been there since before any of the current races, so perhaps there have been many other races in the past and the sentinels just wiped them out for whatever reason.

there are no cities because the sentinels haven't permitted them, at least not on planets. think we are supposed to assume space stations house far more than we meet or there would be no need for all the materials constantly being traded at them.

[dashiichi]

Originally posted by Bladehelm:

Where are the massive aquatic beasts? What about insects? Why are there no Grand Canyons, Mariana Trenches, no Mt. Everests?

@BaneBlackGuard explains the lore and backstory pretty well for the races and planetary structures.

As far as the critters, I've seen some pretty big carnivorous fish, at least ship-sized. Also tiny flying butterfly-looking creatures that were small enough that all you'd see was the colored "creature locator dot" until really close up.

Some big canyons, some tall mountains, but maybe not that dramatic. On the other hand, Earth doesn't have anything comparable to Olympus Mons or Valles Marineris, so there's that.

[jonnin]

Making money is a steep curve; it seems almost impossible to get a few million for a ship in the early game but by the time you have done the base quests and gathered some blueprints and played for a bit you can suddenly make millions per hour ... it just goes up and up at a fast pace once you unlock some of the advanced things. Mods to your mining tool let it go longer between recharges. Yes, standing still is the best mining, but exocraft mining is probably more efficient for common materials. Iron (and only iron) used to be grenade farm-able in caves for large quantities.

Mining isnt good money, but if you insist, go for rarer stuff.... emeril is solid to sell early game.
If truly desperate starting out, sell bypass chips.

[Darkkhelmet]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Making money is a steep curve; it seems almost impossible to get a few million for a ship in the early game but by the time you have done the base quests and gathered some blueprints and played for a bit you can suddenly make millions per hour ... it just goes up and up at a fast pace once you unlock some of the advanced things. Mods to your mining tool let it go longer between recharges. Yes, standing still is the best mining, but exocraft mining is probably more efficient for common materials. Iron (and only iron) used to be grenade farm-able in caves for large quantities.

Mining isnt good money, but if you insist, go for rarer stuff.... emeril is solid to sell early game.
If truly desperate starting out, sell bypass chips.

I can make millions per hour with a LOT of time invested but the most I have ever accumulated is around 8 million. There has to be more than just farming and mining. I mine gold, emeril, and aluminum but it's very time consuming with only marginal earnings. I do exocraft mining when I can find large deposits relatively close together.

[tkwoods]

Once you get the high value blue prints you can get 18m per single item crafted.

[Legendary]

The Space Station quests are a great way to play the game.

Not only do they give you rewards directly, they send you off to explore where you can do other money making activities such as mining or scanning flora and fauna, or 'harvesting' Pirates, and Sentinels of various types.

At high levels the quest rewards can be things like Quantum Processors ( 5 million ), and Freighter Fuel ( 5.2 million ). Even lower level quests will give large quantities of Nanites, and blueprints, and thousands of credits.

[BaneBlackGuard]

Originally posted by Darkkhelmet:

Originally posted by jonnin:

Making money is a steep curve; it seems almost impossible to get a few million for a ship in the early game but by the time you have done the base quests and gathered some blueprints and played for a bit you can suddenly make millions per hour ... it just goes up and up at a fast pace once you unlock some of the advanced things. Mods to your mining tool let it go longer between recharges. Yes, standing still is the best mining, but exocraft mining is probably more efficient for common materials. Iron (and only iron) used to be grenade farm-able in caves for large quantities.

Mining isnt good money, but if you insist, go for rarer stuff.... emeril is solid to sell early game.
If truly desperate starting out, sell bypass chips.

I can make millions per hour with a LOT of time invested but the most I have ever accumulated is around 8 million. There has to be more than just farming and mining. I mine gold, emeril, and aluminum but it's very time consuming with only marginal earnings. I do exocraft mining when I can find large deposits relatively close together.

you can do missions from space stations, or you can try your hand at trading. buy low in one system sell high in another. you can also earn quite a bit just from scanning creatures and plants on planets. I make money almost exclusively from exploring planets and trading.

[jonnin]

Of course.

farming & crafting, including gathering gas and searching out rare recipes, can net you the big items that sell for many million per item. Its a lot of work.

scanning... just having a tool with all the scanners will net you a ton more or less just from playing, assuming you scan stuff as you play.

missions can net you money and stuff to sell

shooting pirates nets a bounty

trading as stated

piracy is rather profitable if you can handle the heat. Kills get you stuff to sell including rare materials that can be combined into pricey stuff.

there is also the concept of non-cash value... eg buy a 100k crap ship, find a good crashed ship, swap, trade in, knock millions off the bought ship with trade in value for 100k invested... very useful when filling your freighter with ships.