I Return to No Man's Sky After a Long Break!

Greetings, spacefarers and terrestrials! For the past few days I've been sucked back into the No Man's Sky universe. Having had the game since it was fairly new around 2016, I think I've seen pretty much everything the game has to offer (with almost 400 hours logged into the game). The development team is constantly churning out new updates and they even won the "Best Ongoing Game" Award. It's a cycle: spring to life when updates are released, go into cryo-sleep in between updates.

The last update I remember checking out was Companions. That allowed you to tame wild animals and even ride them. I befriended a few alien teddy bears. Then I must have misunderstood the Next Generation Update; I thought that moving forward, only next gen consoles would keep receiving updates. Boy, was I wrong! That's when I discovered the Frontiers Update!

After travelling many hundreds of thousands of lightyears (with the assistance of black holes), I decided to settle down in a wealthy solar system predominantly inhabited by the Gek near the galactic core. I receive a jarbled distress call coming from the surface of a small irradiated moon, which I named Belén.

I parked my freighter in a low stationary orbit above the planet and made my approach in a small, one-manned fighter.

When I reached the source of the signal, I found a small village being attacked by sentinels. After saving them, I found out that their overseer was either missing or dead. As the inhabitants' new hero, I was unanimously elected as their overseer.

The first order of business was building myself a proper office. Construction drones do the work while the citizens do their day to day activities, which seems to be nothing.

The town is growing. I have been ordering the construction of new buildings mostly based on what the citizens vote for in the proposals they send me. Sometimes I choose otherwise if it is for the greater good of the settlement. Like that time I decided to erect a production facility instead of a dance lounge. That's why we're not in debt anymmore.

Apparently, some citizens weren't so happy with the decision I made. What are you going do then, Underling Iservice? Leave? Yeah, right. No one leaves this place. Except for those two people who died during the expedition. They're not coming back. We get some visitors though who pass through occasionally, sometimes bearing gifts. It's my job to greet them and potentially buy what they offer. Another one of my tasks as overseer involves resolving disputes. This feels more like I'm a judge at a small-claims dispute. Conflicts vary from unsolicited advances, to theft, to even alleged hiring of professional assassins to take out neighbors! The nerve! I swear... I have noticed that all my disputes so far have only been between members of the Gek species, which make up the bulk of the population.

As far as I'm concerned, there's only 2 non-Gek residents. One is a Korvax and the other is a Vy'keen.

Here is our well-behaved Korvax citizen, toiling away in one of the farming modules. I guess we eat...algae? Perhaps they are more productive and less violent because they are silicon-based.

Our town is frequently hit by radioactive storms and, to be honest, it's kind of cute seeing all the villagers scrambling, running for their lives outside.

That's me with the old-fashioned scuba style helmet. I kind of like when there's storms because then we all hunker down together inside waiting it out and telling stories. Alright, that's enough! Everyone out of my office!

I've spent countless galactic standard hours at my desk glued my settlement interface. I have already improved the town from Class C to Class B. Next is A and finally, S. Thanks to a useful settlement feature I purchased from a travelling salesgek, there are no more localized gas leaks, which makes everyone happier. Though some citizens will likely still be upset that, as a result, we are now in a bit of debt.

I still think I'm the best thing that happened to this town. Don't let what others say fool you. I certainly don't let people like either of these two bother me.

Not for you!

Overall I'm pretty happy with this update. I think it's the team's best one yet! I'm biased though of course because I like colony management type games like Surviving Mars and Aven Colony (and eXode). There are a few things that can be tweaked I think though. I found a staircase in one building that was procedurally generated in a way that it was blocking a door. We can live without that door though. Hopefully more refinement and depth are yet to come!

Thank you for visiting Segura City!

Now you must pay the toll!

All screenshots by yours truly