Tuesday, December 29, 2020

NMS: Starting a Survival Adventure

I've been playing No Man's Sky for about a month now and I love it! I love exploring new planets (especially exotic worlds), building bases, hunting for cool looking ships and multi-tools and trying to make money and unlock all the upgrades and blueprints. I've been mostly playing on Normal mode. I had a couple of Permadeath games that ended suddenly due to issues beyond my control, but I liked how they were more challenging. So I decided to try a new Survival Mode adventure - it has increased challenge, but if my Traveller dies due to going AFK on a toxic planet while providing first aid for a real life medical emergency or a bug that causes my starship to fly upside down through the earth causing catastrophic damage, at least it's not game over.

Part 1: Initialisation

Starting planet: Nagfortuynet Nobe

I find myself on a green planet with blue skies, lots of giant mushrooms, rain and something that looks a bit like a kangaroo hopping around. A red turtle-like creature shuffles past my feet. My first thought is: "this place looks great," then I see my hazard protection levels are dropping like a rock: "uh oh! This place is toxic!" An announcement from my exosuit warns me of extreme toxicity. Yeah, I noticed.

I need to stay alive. First, find some sodium plants. Done. Recharge the hazard protection. Done.  My exosuit AI starts telling me the scanner is broken: I'll need ferrite dust to fix it. I just want to get out of the toxicity. I don't see any buildings for shelter so I run towards the mountains, looking for a cave. I finally find a little cave and the welcome message about toxic protection stabilising. Phew! I look around the cave for any resources. I find some rocks with cobalt, some plants with carbon, some toxic plants that give sodium or oxygen and some humming sacs with albumen pearls. No ferrite dust. I make sure my hazard protection is full then leave the cave. 

I mine some rocks for ferrite dust and fix my scanner. Next, I receive a distress signal and when I follow the signal I find a crashed starship. Shelter! I hop in the cockpit and listen while they tell me the ship is broken. OK, so I'll fix it. The distress beacon contains a map to a building where I should be able to find a hermetic seal to fix the pulse engine. It's almost 1000 units away. I'll need to find more sodium and oxygen ASAP.

 

Distress beacon leads to a crashed ship

As I'm running through the valley, a toxic storm arrives. My hazard protection drops. I recharge and it recovers a little. It starts dropping immediately though. I soon run out of sodium and my life support starts taking damage so I recharge that with oxygen. I find a sodium plant. A few seconds respite. I keep running. I can't find the cave I used before. I find another sodium plant. Nearly there. As I come over a small hill, I see the building. My hazard protection runs out again. Life support is nearly down to 50% by the time I reach safety. I find the hermetic seal. Now I have to run back to the ship, and I already scavenged all the sodium and oxygen I could find on the journey here. Big breath. I can do this. I have to do this.

I'm about to head out into the toxic rain when my exosuit AI tells me to fix my Analysis Visor so I can find my starship. Getting lost out here would be deadly. I need carbon. Fortunately I found some in that cave earlier. I do my repairs inside then use the visor to locate the ship.

I start running back to the ship. I run out of sodium. I find another cave. I hide and wait for my hazard protection to slowly stabilise. I'm not even half-way yet. I use the jet-pack to get out of the cave and that depletes my life support so I have to recharge that. I'm afraid I'm not going to make it. I scan for sodium and oxygen ... nothing. I keep going, ignoring the warnings from my exosuit. Somehow, I make it to the ship. I get in the cockpit and let out the breath I had been holding since leaving the cave. I place the hermetic seal and fix the pulse engine. Hooray!

Now I have to fix the Launch Thruster. I need dihydrogen jelly (I can make that, I found some dihydrogen crystals on my journey). I also need to build a portable refiner so I can turn some ferrite dust into pure ferrite. Finally, everything is fixed and I can take off and leave this planet. I launch into space.

Hopefully more hospitable planets and moons

Once I get out of the atmosphere, I can see the other planets in this star system. I see a blue planet - my scanner says it is frozen. Then I see a red planet - apparently it is grassy and temperate. The red planet has two moons, both grey. One is an abandoned moon with cacti, while the other is a hexagon moon with rare metals. Finally, there is also a orange rainy planet. It is also temperate, but with aggressive sentinels. I head for the red planet, but first I am interrupted by a transmission telling me I am not alone, and a set of coordinates telling to me find out more ... on the red planet. OK, sure. I start towards the red planet again and get attacked by pirates. They move fast! I finally shoot them down and I gain some chromatic material from their ship wreckage. At last, I land on the red planet. What will that be like?