Day One: The First Three Hours

Day One: The First Three Hours

Komputerheng, Leuzentenz System

I won't lie. This game is not going to be for everyone. It isn't because it isn't good. It just depends on what floats your gamer boat. If you are like me, fascinated by the idea of exploring, discovering planets and all of the flora and fauna and mysterious secrets they hold, and you don't mind quiet wandering, then this game is definitely for you.

My desire is to keep this blog going alongside my play sessions, documenting what I find in words and pictures, like a sort of explorer's journal. This is especially exciting to me because No Man's Sky is procedurally generated and, for all intents and purposes, infinite. As big as the actual Milky Way. My experience will be different from everyone else's. I will set foot on planets no one else in game has seen. If another soul does find my planet, they will see that I discovered it, see the names that I have given it and everything on it. I want to keep a record of my discoveries for the sake of sharing what is different, to let others in the vast reaches of our galaxy see what I have found in case they never make it to my particular corner.

My journey begins with me literally hurtling through the stars. As the points of light rush past, I see that some are tagged with names. These, I realize, are worlds that have already been explored and claimed by others. For every tagged star I see go past, there are dozens of others on the screen with no name at all, each a system that no one has seen yet. More and more of them come into view as others are left behind me. I feel a rush of excitement as I think about visiting these places and claiming their discovery for myself.

The screen fades to brilliant white for a few moments. When the blinding white screen finally subsides, I find myself coming to on an as yet undiscovered planet. My minimal HUD tells me that the survey name of this particular ball of rock hurtling through the vastness of space is 'Komputerheng'. That is as far as I get before the training wheels are off and my HUD completely fades from view. I have a few moments of panic, as I am unused to being set free in a game without having my hand held for at least a minimal tutorial. But darn if that sprawling landscape before me, stretching under a deep emerald sky, isn't compelling. All of it waiting for me to explore...if I can just figure out how things work.

There is my tiny ship, and a tattered flag of some unknown affiliation sticking up above a pile of debris. My ship is sparking and smoking lightly...in need of repair. I need to get the ship working. I see a prompt on my HUD to interact with the debris as I get closer to it, a distress beacon according to the HUD tag. Inside the beacon housing is a strange red spherical...thing, seemingly floating inside the beacon housing. I press the command to interact and the red sphere floats up out of the beacon housing! A message follows:

Atlas, eh? I choose to accept it's guidance. As much as I like to putter, I prefer puttering with a bit of guidance in case I get lost. And I am intrigued. Who or what is Atlas? Where will its path lead? What is it's motivation? There will be time for those answers later.

What followed was a lot of WTF, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, and how to do it all. I could examine things with the E key, and TAB brings up inventory. I also have a multi tool that includes a laser for mining resources like the materials that will charge my suit functions. I need to replenish my suit life support with materials every so often to keep it charged. Ok. Keep suit life support charged or die. I also find an upgrade for the mining laser in the debris. It requires resource materials to upgrade and to recharge. How do I find resources? How do I know where to look?

I wander a few steps from my 'camp'. As I near some trees, I see a HUD tag that indicates I will get carbon if I destroy the tree using my multi tool's mining laser. I mine some more carbon from trees. It appears things with carbon are plentiful. I hear a mechanical thrum approaching and see a small floating robot coming toward me. It directs a blue scanner beam at the area where the last tree I mined had been and then directs its beam at me before eventually floating off. Interesting.

I experience a magic moment of wonder when I see some little creatures scurrying around on the ground. What are they? How do I catalog them? I know I am supposed to be able to scan and identify things but I don't know how.

I haven't tried interacting with my ship yet, so I walk over to it. Interacting puts me inside the cockpit and...progress. I now have an objective list for repairing my takeoff thrusters and regular propulsion engines. I need to craft carite sheets from iron, 5 in total to get my engines back in working order. Luckily there are big boulders all around my camp that are rich in iron. My life support is getting low. I am able to successfully recharge my suit life support with the carbon I gathered before walking over to a big boulder full of iron.It takes more effort to mine the iron than the carbon I got from the plants. I note that the robots come back whenever I am using my mining laser. They seem to be attracted by the activity.

I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden one of the robots is attacking me. Its shooting at me with energy beams, following me as I try to run away. I panic, searching for somewhere to hide out of sight but there is nowhere that it can't find me. It isn't enough to hide in a small ravine or behind a rock. And now there are three more of them. It seems to have called for back up. I try shooting at them with my mining laser, but while I focus on one, the others are still firing. My health is almost depleted. I do the only thing I can think of – run for my ship, and pray that I can get inside before I am killed. My health is nothing more than a sliver as I hit the button to board...and then I am safely inside. The robots take a few potshots at my ship's canopy and then stop firing, but they can see me, and they are not going away. I try not to panic. I am safe as long as I am inside my ship, though not forever. My life support will eventually run out. I will have to fight the robots.

The solution ended up being very simple. Hop out and shoot, then retreat back inside my ship when my health gets too low. It was still a bit close for comfort, but eventually all of the robots are destroyed, and I see a message on my HUD that the 'sentinel system' has been deactivated. I haven't even gotten off the first planet, and already I almost died. Hooray for exploring the unknown!

On the plus side, the sentinels as I now know to call them, dropped some valuable resources when I destroyed them which I quickly gather up, and I have gotten a journey milestone for destroying a sentinel. I have also learned a valuable lesson, albeit by almost paying the ultimate price. Too much mining attracts the sentinels. Keep doing it in front of them, and they will attack. They are protecting this world, it seems.

I still need more materials for my ship's engines. I find an enormous iron rich boulder that gives me the rest of what I need for my iron quota. I proceed to craft the carite sheets for my engine and get the launch thrusters repaired. The pulse engines are a different story. I need a lot of a certain silicate material to finish the job in addition to the carite sheets I have already crafted. How do I find the material? There is nothing on my HUD...wait. I still need to repair my scanner and visor. As it turns out I have plenty of the materials needed already in my inventory.

With my scanner successfully repaired, I initiate a scan as instructed by the prompt on my HUD. In the distance, I see a waypoint icon for the silicate material. I will have to get there on foot. I am excited by the trek more than anything else. I have clarity of purpose, and I get to see what undiscovered things await me along the way. I take a moment to repair my visor as well, and follow the instructions on my HUD for how to zoom and scan. I can now catalog my discoveries. As I set out, I look for the tiny creatures I saw earlier, but they aren't here. Perhaps when I return.

I hear a roar overhead. Its not the first time I have heard it. I look up and see what looks like 3 ships doing a flyby overhead. This happens at pretty regular intervals as I make my way through a shallow ravine, moving steadily closer to the waypoint marker for the silicate I need. I wonder what these ships are, who they belong to, why they keep making passes overhead.

Coming up out of the ravine, I make an interesting, and mysterious, discovery. There is a small, squat cylinder protruding out of the slope of the ravine in front of me. It is made out of something that looks like stone. Carved in the cylinder is a circle, with a line extending down all the way to where the cylinder meets the ground. When I get a little closer, the tag that appears on my HUD identifies it as a 'knowledge stone' that I can interact with. I feel my hair stand on end and a wave of goosebumps ripple over my skin. Someone or something intelligent built this.

When I interact with the stone, the carving flares to life, lit somehow from within. My HUD tells me that I “have learned the Korvax word for 'rare'.” Korvax...? Do these knowledge stones belong to them? Who are they? How did this stone teach me a word from their language in a mere instant? Why do I need to know their language? I still need to mine the material for my engines, so I leave the knowledge stone behind me. My questions remain unanswered for now.

Finally out of the ravine, I finally spot more animal life! I find myself looking down into a grassy basin that would be like a plain but for the uneven rocky ground it was growing on. I've found at least 3 different new lifeforms! I take a moment to catalog them and watch quietly. All are docile so I do not take the time to walk around them. One reminds me of a lioness but with a thick armor plate on its back. My visor data indicates that it is a docile grazing creature rather than a predator. I watch for a few more moments, fascinated, before pressing on. As I am leaving the animals behind, my HUD tells me I have reached a journey milestone of 5000u travelled.

I am almost to the silicate material that I need. I can see it now, a giant roughly square pillar of the stuff rising out of the ground. I also notice a new marker on my HUD after I make another scan. It is green, with a question mark, showing me an estimated arrival time, but that is all. I am instantly curious, but first thing is first.

The mining is slower work than I would like, in part because I need a lot of it. I have to take breaks to let my laser cool down, and also to dodge the sentinels that come around to see what I am up to. I get the sense that they are unhappy about the big chunks I am carving out of the pillar to gather the Heridium I need.

Material in hand, I can head back to my ship and complete the repair of my ship's engines. But I have not forgotten the green question mark on my HUD. It is not far, and I want to see what it is before I head back. It isn't long at all before what my HUD marker was indicating comes into view. It is a small structure – actually, 2 small structures. Shelters of some kind, from the look of them. When I get closer, a message pops up saying that I have reached the 'Itnevs Flats' waypoint.

I take some time to walk around the outside of the structures. Behind them is what my HUD tells me is a signal beacon. I can apparently craft a bypass chip to access information stored in the beacon. How do I get a bypass chip? I decide to leave it for later, and instead try to enter the shelters. The door to the first shelter opens as soon as I get close. It appears abandoned.

Finding nothing of use in the first shelter, I try the second. This one is also empty, though not in disarray like the first. This shelter is also abandoned, but I do find an upgrade for my multi tool in the station on the wall.

Going back outside, I notice some caves in the rocky hills behind the shelters. There is an intriguing blue glow coming from inside, and I am very tempted to go inside and have a look. However...I still need to repair my ship, and I do not know how far the caves go. I have a waypoint marker for this shelter that will allow me to find my way back here after completing repairs. I decide to return to my ship for now.

Heading back, I forgo the ravine path that I took here and instead opt to take a different, more direct path up over the rocky hills, guiding myself by the HUD marker for my ship. Maybe I will find something new taking this route. My choice pays off – coming up over a rocky hill, I hear a large animal up ahead. In my visor I see the red dot indicating it is something I haven't cataloged yet. I can't actually see it just yet, but I have the dot to follow. Flush with excitement, I finally spot it in the crags up ahead. Its huge, reminding me of something like Parasaurolophus. My visor indicates that it is not aggressive, and in fact a herbivore, but considering it's size, I keep my distance while I watch it, and give it a wide berth as I make my way past.

My altered route turns out to be fortunate. Coming down off of the rocky hill where I found the big dino-creature, I come across another knowledge stone. Activating this one teaches me the Korvax word for 'warning'. I guess that could be a good thing eh? I wonder again about the purpose behind learning the Korvax language. 



A short walk later I come across an enormous deposit of gold. A huge mound of it, solid all the way through, which I harvest all of without angering sentinels. I also find a plant that, during the night time looks like it has a floodlight bulb in the middle of its petals, very bright like a flashlight. I think of it as a light bulb flower.

Approaching camp, I get a journey milestone for traveling 7,500u. I complete the repairs on my ship with no problems and get another journey milestone for starship repair. I am next tasked with refueling my ship, which I already have the material for. The prompt on my HUD is now telling me to liftoff and head into orbit. There will be a time to leave this world, but I'm not quite ready yet. There is still a lot left to explore – the caves behind the shelter at Itnevs flats, more wildlife and plants...No. I am not ready to go just yet.

My last task for the night is to upload my discoveries. I take a moment to name a few things after friends and loved ones. I also rename the system “Aeryn”. Tomorrow I will go back to Itnevs Flats and see what I find in the caves, and see what the signal beacon will tell me, if anything. I hope that the little creatures that were near my camp before show up again, too.