NMS Discoveries, Hints and Tips Thread

[MesopithecusUK]

Figured it would be cool to have a thread for those who are enjoying the game to share their experiences, discoveries and any hints/tips of things they have encountered.

 

I've done a bit of a mixture of planet hopping and then sticking to one planet to explore.  Currently I'm on an extreme conditions planet as I like the survival challenge

 

Found a lot of interesting creatures - there was one planet I stayed on for most of the day exploring that had the best mix.  I've not renamed anything yet though as I'm somewhat of a purist.  The one thing I've had an issue with is scanning birds....I can't for the life of me get them to register

[Farhad_S]

I haven't been able to leave my starting planet yet. Grown too fond of it. You're right about the flying creatures, even zooming in doesn't help. And I really don't want to shoot at anything that doesn't attack me first. Maybe there's upgrades later that'll make it possible. By the way, what are you doing with all the 'junk?' Charms, daggers etc? Selling it off immediately? Inventory's the biggest pain so far

[MesopithecusUK]

I haven't been able to leave my starting planet yet. Grown too fond of it. You're right about the flying creatures, even zooming in doesn't help. And I really don't want to shoot at anything that doesn't attack me first. Maybe there's upgrades later that'll make it possible. By the way, what are you doing with all the 'junk?' Charms, daggers etc? Selling it off immediately? Inventory's the biggest pain so far

 

I've been selling them off, but inventory does improve.  I've got a few upgrades to my exosuit (up to 21 slots at the moment) but not upgraded the ship yet so just have the basic number of inventory slots.

 

Your starting planet sounds nicer than mine...I had a lot of hostile bugs along with rocky terrain

[damon8r351]

Some things:

• Yellow plants are a source of zinc. You need this to recharge your exosuit's hazard protection. Best lay in a good supply early on.
• All other plants (and animals, you monster) yield carbon. This is used for recharging your multi-tool and your life support.
• Plain rocks give you iron. The huge square, bluish mineral towers yield heridium. These are for fixing things.
• Red crystals yield plutonium. This is used for fueling the engine that lets your spacecraft take off. It can also be used for recharging life support and your multitool.  Messing around with these crystals really gets the attention of the Sentinels though.
• Speaking of the Sentinels, when they head your way and start scanning you and things around you with blue light, stop blasting whatever it was you were blasting until they lose interest and wander off. Killing more of those things causes even bigger ones to come after you.
• Thamium9 fuel for your pulse drive can be gotten by blasting asteroids in space. This can also recharge the same things plutonium can.
• You won't be able to understand anyone you talk to at first. You learn the language by interacting with alien artifacts and talking to any alien that's willing to be patient with you.
• When you start off, most of your equipment needs to be fixed. If you start out on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, or one with an extreme temperature range, this makes fixing your stuff time sensitive. Fix your scanning equipment and analysis visor first, find the stuff you need to recharge your hazard protections, life support, and multitool, then worry about your ship.

Edited August 10, 2016 by damon8r351

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Great thread idea, was thinking about doing this too.

I'll post something larger when I'm home, typing with one hand, bags in the other, walking after the missus in the supermarket :-)

Just checking if I can add pictures from my phone...

Edit: had to compromise a bit but now I can make images small enough to upload. This is on Danger Zone Zeta, home of the Scorpion Flower, Spitting Jellyspider, Giralion and Rhinocephalosaurus... yeah it's not really a holiday location. In the sky you can see a large planet (Radiant Krypton, an irradiated wasteland with some warhorse-sized herbivores and Borderlands-like winged creatures), a small planet (actually smaller but also just a lot farther away, this is Frozen Grounds, my first planet with floating rocks, Brain Spiders, Space Cows and, you guessed it, low temperatures) and what looks like a small moon but actually is a space station. I actually thought it was a moon, and yes I uttered the phrase "that's no moon..."

And yes that is the pre-order special spaceship. Cool stuff.

Is the image viewable for everyone or is it too small if you view it on a pc?

Edit: removed picture as I now have a large link in a later post and apparently you only have 500kb acros the whole forum ever, that does not reset.

Edited August 11, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[damon8r351]

The last planet I visited in my starting system was a planet named Pocamark Shve. Everywhere else had fallen in either temperature extreme, but this planet had a livable temperature, minimal atmosphere toxicity, no radiation problems, and friendly natives. It was a near perfect forest planet and some tantalizing oceans to explore. I probably would've stayed longer had it not been the place I was sent to to pick up antimatter for my hyperspace drive.

Edited August 10, 2016 by damon8r351

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

The last planet I visited in my starting system was a planet named Pocamark Shve.

This made me think, what are you all doing with renaming?

I'm renaming planets, systems and creatures. I let plants keep their latin names (with the exception of something I just had to call the Whipping Plant), and unless I have thought of something already it does not feel right to rename waypoints because they have already been placed.

For planets and creatures (and the occasional other), I try to come up with fitting and if possible witty names. The Rhinocephalosaurus looks like a Pachycephalosaurus with rhino horns, and the Brain Spider - well, you can guess. Radiant Krypton is a dark green planet with bright green veins, and it's rad levels are through the roof. My last planet had toxic rain. It's just called Toxic Rain now, Toxicon was somehow blocked by the profanity filter and it was late, I couldn't think of anything clever. Keeping in mind that bland empty planets get bland names, my one planet without life is called Desert Alpha. No points for guessing the biome.

And the planet with the Scorpion Flower, Mynock, Spitting Jellyspider, Giralion and other hazards is called "Danger Zone Zeta: ACCESS RESTRICTED".

Edit: Ooh! Ooh! Also, has anyone else seen those buildings that I can only call "experimentation labs"? I think they are super weird, wondering what the story is behind those...

Edited August 10, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[Farhad_S]

I've developed a decent relationship with the Geks, in fact I have attained 'Best Friend' status with them pretty easily (wonder if that means I'm on some other alien race's hitlist). I've also learned 6-7 words from their language. Also interesting is you can feed the animals (press Square when near), and they'll be happy to point out valuable minerals in return.

[Willstown]

went through my session without knowing how to scan animals and plants to identify them, I am assuming I am being super stupid and it's just the L2 button to use the viewer thing.

 

I've leant towards learning new words and heading towards alien artifacts as my preferred initial destinations.  I've lucked out meeting aliens so far and been given a multitool upgrade for guessing the right replies.

 

Star systems are getting named with the 1st thing I can think of, the 3 planets I've been on have been given my cats names thus far.......

 

Now I've got a warp drive sorted I think I'll try to map out one whole planets flora, fauna and landmarks before moving on.  though my current planet seems infested with angry crab monsters and I've had to resort to hiding on top of the nearby rocks.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

So I'm still in my own solar system... did a bit more monolith hunting on Radiant Krypton and then some gold mining on Danger Zone Zeta. Gold goes well in trade and I'm trying to go for a larger ship. My ship has 16 slots, max 25, and I've seen a few with 24 slots, max 35.

I do like the look of my first starship though, so choices, choices...

Edited August 10, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[Asvinia]

Well, I spawned on a desert.

A cold desert.

Full of cactuses, cacti?

It is now called Cactusopolis.

It's about 4 degrees during the day and -40 at night. So far there was something that looked like a crippled bee/horse with toothpick legs and some weird monkey/armadillo thing. I haven't renamed anything but my planet yet because I'm not that inventive. I spent most of my first night sat in my ship thinking I would freeze if I got out.

I didn't.

Something is making very loud, creepy noises though. Sounds like a whale.

[Romanus1]

So I just started the game spawned on a planet with toxic rain and 8 legged spider crabs that were not liking me one bit lol

 

my question is when i leave this planet as I named it if someone else were to land on it do you know about it like if they start naming animals you missed will they pop up in your records for that planet or would you have to go back there

[SirShavesALot]

My first planet was not very friendly at all.  Radioactive, heavy Sentinel security, and some creatures that realllllly didn't want me there.  However, after I spent a couple of hours on my first planet I took off and started some space exploring.  After visiting a space station and meeting some traders I found some other planets to explore.  Of course I then landed on one that was freezing cold followed by a planet that had 1 life form and no plant life.  I finally found a really cool planet that has multiple "objectives" on it, friendly and adversarial life forms, plenty of plant life, an amazing mix of oceans, deserts, and forests, and a very nice climate.  I think I'm going to be spending a while on this planet.

 

So far I've only got one trophy, "Contact", but my guess is the trophies just come as you play the game.  It doesn't really seem like you have to go out of your way to do anything.  The only other thing I really want to experience are some space battles.  The exploring is so addicting.  At one point you'll be saying, "Ok, just one more discovery.  Hey, what's that question mark on the horizon?  Hey, what's that structure over there?"  A couple of hours later and you forgot where you left your ship.  They need to make an app for that.  

 

Forgot to add how cool it is when you find a new planet and you're entering the atmosphere.  I just can't wait to find out what awaits when I break through the atmosphere and finally land.  The feeling is so awesome.  

Edited August 10, 2016 by SirShavesALot

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

I'm still at Danger Zone Zeta. Just found the last missing animal, or rather it found me while I was trying to mine some gold. It's a bison with a Tyrannosaurus face, because of course it is.

Almost rich enough to go looking for a new starship... just a bit more gold and I'm there.

Found a few really cool monoliths as well by the way. Some of them are so weird... last one improved my standing with Atlas it seems.

So I just started the game spawned on a planet with toxic rain and 8 legged spider crabs that were not liking me one bit lol

 

my question is when i leave this planet as I named it if someone else were to land on it do you know about it like if they start naming animals you missed will they pop up in your records for that planet or would you have to go back there

You won't know someone else named them until you scan them for yourself.

[damon8r351]

This made me think, what are you all doing with renaming?

 

I was going to come up with a fictional catalogue for astronomical objects, like the Messier Object Catalogue or the New General Catalogue, and precede the names given in the game with it, but it's too much of a pain to retype some of these.

Edited August 10, 2016 by damon8r351

[Romanus1]

Because I am so crap at naming things I am bouncing between sci fi stuff I like there so many different universe you can use or stuff form a random name generator I found online been trying some latin names also like animals have here

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

Not sure if it's right place to ask, but I have a question: I "100%" completed one planet (i.e. found all the animal species), which gave me the first milestone in the "planet zoology" tab. However, after I did that, it lists my completion on ALL planets in all star systems as 100%, even though that obviously isn't the case. I went on to find 8 out of 8 animal species on another planet, but my milestone hasn't progressed, even though it's been marked as "next milestone in: 1" since my first progression.

 

Is this a glitch? Or am I just doing something wrong here?

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Not sure if it's right place to ask, but I have a question: I "100%" completed one planet (i.e. found all the animal species), which gave me the first milestone in the "planet zoology" tab. However, after I did that, it lists my completion on ALL planets in all star systems as 100%, even though that obviously isn't the case. I went on to find 8 out of 8 animal species on another planet, but my milestone hasn't progressed, even though it's been marked as "next milestone in: 1" since my first progression.

Is this a glitch? Or am I just doing something wrong here?

I'm seeing the same thing but I have not looked at a different planet since uploading the 100% one.

Edit: yeah it does not change. I was about to warp anyway, going to see if it resets in a new system.

Did you have to lock onto the "100%" bit before the milestone was counted?

Second edit: the first planet in my second system was devoid of life. I uploaded that planet (pressing X on the 100% bit) and I now have 2 planets in my milestone stat. Doesn't explain why I can't do this for the empty planet I already knew...

Edited August 10, 2016 by BillyHorrible

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

I'm seeing the same thing but I have not looked at a different planet since uploading the 100% one.

Edit: yeah it does not change. I was about to warp anyway, going to see if it resets in a new system.

Did you have to lock onto the "100%" bit before the milestone was counted?

Second edit: the first planet in my second system was devoid of life. I uploaded that planet (pressing X on the 100% bit) and I now have 2 planets in my milestone stat. Doesn't explain why I can't do this for the empty planet I already knew...

 

Yeah, I had to upload my 100% progress before it counted. I can't do that with the other planets now, they're all marked as "100%" by default and I don't seem to have any way to upload them, even though I've 100% completed one more planet since my first one, as aforementioned. I've tried uploading each species individually as well, since that still works, but it doesn't seem to unlock the milestone.

 

Not really sure what to do at this point, it seems like a glitch. I've tried restarting the game and PS4 to no avail.

 

Edit: On another note, since yesterday, I notice the game will keep randomly going off and online. On the pause/discoveries menu, it'll sometimes say "you have lost connection to online services" at the bottom. There's no notification of knowing when I'm offline other than that, as I remained signed into PSN. It usually comes online again by itself at some point, but the servers definitely seem unstable right now. Not sure if that has anything to do with my current issue.

Edited August 10, 2016 by SuperSmexy500

[hsishi]

This game rocks! I started out on some freezing cold place with toxic rain. When I realized how plentiful the materials for life support were after fixing my scanner, I could start exploring. I had been jumping in my ship every five minutes for fear of dying. I've learned to avoid the sentinels after having a scuffle with about four of them early on. I fixed my ship, but I landed again as i want to complete the planet. I've just started cave hopping to avoid being out in the toxic rain too long. I've found and renamed four species and found several waypoints. I still don't know how everything works, but learning is part of the fun. Besides, I'm just a simple man trying to make my way in the galaxy. I've not encountered any aliens, but I've learned one word from a native artifact that initially made me hallucinate spiders as a "test". I was up till 3 am last night, FYI.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Well, in my second system I finally found planets with water that didn't look like blood pools.

The second planet I'm on has a red-yellow glow, and in all my wittiness I named it Tequila Sunrise. Now we have to hope it's got only friendly creatures...

Edit: DUDES! I was chatting with Velvet earlier today (or was it yesterday? What a blur) about the dificulties of scanning flying creatures.

Well, guess what? If you switch from mining to gun (triangle button), you can aim at them and the scan works, even at a distance! I was about to shoot one down, they were too far for the mining beam so I switched to gun and it just locmed on...

Also, found a few different animals and they are all friendly. Super weird, but friendly. I also now notice that multiple different scannable animals can hold the same name and record if they are variations. Didn't pay enough attention before I guess.

Edited January 14, 2017 by BillyHorrible
Removed attachment to clear file space

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Yeah, I had to upload my 100% progress before it counted. I can't do that with the other planets now, they're all marked as "100%" by default and I don't seem to have any way to upload them, even though I've 100% completed one more planet since my first one, as aforementioned. I've tried uploading each species individually as well, since that still works, but it doesn't seem to unlock the milestone.

 

Not really sure what to do at this point, it seems like a glitch. I've tried restarting the game and PS4 to no avail.

 

Edit: On another note, since yesterday, I notice the game will keep randomly going off and online. On the pause/discoveries menu, it'll sometimes say "you have lost connection to online services" at the bottom. There's no notification of knowing when I'm offline other than that, as I remained signed into PSN. It usually comes online again by itself at some point, but the servers definitely seem unstable right now. Not sure if that has anything to do with my current issue.

I'm on the second planet in my second solar system, this has wildlife and I'm at 30%. The planets from my previous system are still at 100%. I think if you do the 100% lock on, it locks all your other planets somehow. Just go to an undiscovered planet and you should be fine. Let me know if it helps.

Yeah connection was all off yesterday and is on/off today. Should not matter much though, it mostly means that you can't spot solar systems discovered by others.

"hallucinate spiders"... that made me laugh. I love the weird things monoliths tell you. I have seen a couple of weird things but nothing as hilarious as imaginary spiders

[MesopithecusUK]

Survived 8 Sols on an extreme environment planet.  It's been pretty tough as it's extreme heat and during storms the temperature inflates to over 328 degrees C.  Having a large supply of zinc is essential as is staying pretty close to your ship for when the storms hit as your bars drain pretty fast even with upgrades for heat resistance.

 

Resources are pretty low too, which seems to make the sentinels a bit antsy when you start blasting stuff, I've had to be pretty cautious.  I have found a very rare exotic resource on this planet though so I've been making the most of farming it where I can.  The terrain is incredibly rocky so it's made landing particular difficult and all the outposts I've found so far have been relatively small and abandoned.

 

As we are sharing screen shots, I thought I'd pop one of my favorite ones here (as I've not really taken all that many yet)  

 

[Asvinia]

So I only just realised, thanks to this thread that you can '100%' a planet.

Guess it's to Cactusopolis I go.

 

All the planets around me seem to be cold. One was heavily covered in water which was fun, even though it was -61 degrees.

Pro tip: If you're desperate for air use your jetpack to boost yourself out of the water.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

That screenshot is awesome!

I'm on my seventh planet, second in this new star system, no repetition in biomes yet. No extreme weather found yet.

I'm sinking so many hours into this game but it is awesome!

I'll try to upload a few large size pics tonight, have to see where I can do that without having an account., or if I remember a password from one of those other sites.