No Man’s Sky is still steadily receiving updates to the game years and years after it’s launch. Some players may not know, but a lot has changed, especially since many original players quit No Man's Sky following the barren state of its launch.
Recently, No Man’s Sky received another update focusing on the horror elements of space, titled Desolation. Now, the full patch notes for the Desolation have been released and there are quite a few changes.
For those who may be unaware, the Desolation update for No Man’s Sky takes a different turn from the many content updates that have come before. The Desolation update focuses on the horror elements that come with being a lone astronaut exploring the wider reaches of space in isolation.
One of the biggest elements of the Desolation update adds ghost ships that players can find and explore. While many updates before focuses on different elements like player customization, building, and exploration, this new update adds content unlike any other update the game has seen before.
Alongside major gameplay changes and elements that have been introduced in the Desolation update, many bug fixes and quality of life changes have been introduced which will be detailed fully down below. Some of the fixes include correcting a bug that involved a player’s freighters changing colors, correcting torchlight stuttering, and some console-specific optimization changes. The full patch notes are quite extensive, and hopefully, the rest of the ambitious No Man's Sky updates slated for 2020 follow suit.
While many of the patch notes address console-specific issues with optimization, one patch note, in particular, focuses on Xbox-specific optimization changes. This is most likely because of the influx of over a million new players on Xbox thanks to No Man’s Sky being included in the Xbox Game Pass last month. It’s refreshing to see the game getting so many new players, and the development team keeping the game optimized for consoles through various updates.
The various optimizations across platforms will also make it much smoother for players who have been using No Man’s Sky’s new cross-play functionality. While PC is no doubt the best place to play the game in terms of graphical fidelity and performance, the game still looks and runs great on consoles. Thankfully, fans still have plenty of updates to look forward to in No Man’s Sky throughout the rest of 2020.
The full 2.61 Desolation patch notes are detailed below:
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Added a new category of space encounter, the Derelict Freighter. These can be landed on and explored.
- Derelict freighters are procedurally generated, with an infinite array of potential layouts.
- Derelict freighters contain large volumes of valuable salvage, as well as special new rewards.
- Each star system has one derelict freighter style, allowing Travellers to share the portal address of systems with particularly interesting wrecks.
- Derelict freighters are home to several new hostile entities, including security turrets, aggressive drones, and a new variety of biological horror.
- Derelict freighters contain procedurally generated stories, with data logs to be found and the crew’s fate to be unravelled.
- New lore and story content can be found when retrieving the captain’s log.
- Derelict freighters are occasionally detected by the starships’ subspace radar while using Pulse Drive. However, they can be specifically sought out by purchasing an Emergency Broadcast Receiver from the Space Station’s new Scrap Dealer.
- Emergency Broadcast Receivers are expensive and may escalate in accordance with demand. Prices reset each day.
- Each week, Iteration Helios offers a free Emergency Broadcast Receiver.
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Derelict freighters offer many lucrative rewards:
- Valuable items and a large number of nanites.
- The opportunity to sell the data logs for nanites or standing.
- The ability to use the derelict freighter’s engineering system to extract a piece of the freighter’s technology to fit into your own capital ship.
- The ability to use the derelict freighter’s engineering system to generate new inventory slots for your capital ship. Take new expandable bulkheads to the Upgrade Station on your freighter bridge to apply them.
- The Upgrade Station on the freighter bridge can be used to recolour your freighter. Unlock new available colours with nanites. Unlocked colours are permanently available and can be reapplied for free.
- Storage Containers built upon a freighter base now add tabs to the freighter’s inventory page, allowing quick management of freighter inventory contents.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the installation of technology within a freighter’s general inventory.
- Improved the display and clarity of the stats displayed on the freighter inventory screen.
- Teleporters can now be built aboard Freighter Bases. These variants do not require power. They can be used to teleport to other teleporters, or to the Space Station.
- Capital ships now contribute stats to the success of fleet expeditions. Different freighters have different base levels of Fleet Coordination. This stat can be improved with new procedural technologies salvaged from derelict or abandoned freighters.
- The expedition UI now shows the difference between stats contributed by the fleet and stats contributed by temporary frigate upgrades or any capital ship technologies.
- Fixed an issue that could cause an expedition to be started while adding or browsing available temporary frigate upgrades.
- Added hover text to all colour, texture and armour style options to the buttons in the customiser, allowing players to know ahead of time what option they are selecting.
- Added a new item, the Anomaly Detector, occasionally found when mining asteroids. This strange device will help locate an anomalous space object.
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Added the ability to add a custom Title to your player name.
- Titles can be selected at the Customiser.
- Titles are earned for a large variety in in-game achievements.
- Sentinel health has been lowered, but once alerted and hunting the player, they now spawn in larger groups.
- Sentinel weapon speeds have been adjusted to improve the feel of combat.
- Player projectiles and aiming have been adjusted to improve the feel of combat.
- In general, player weapon reload speeds have been reduced and clip sizes increased.
- The base damage of the Boltcaster has been increased.
- Ricochet is no longer in the pool of procedural upgrades. Specific technologies have been added to the research tree on the Space Anomaly that will add ricochet functionality to weapons if desired.
- The Boltcaster and the Scatter Blaster now fire in bursts. Holding down fire will trigger short gaps between salvos. These can be adjusted with new technologies.
- Increased the speed of Boltcaster and Scatter Blaster projectiles, making it easier to hit targets.
- Added tracer lines to the Boltcaster projectiles.
- Increased the minimum damage of the Blaze Javelin if firing without charging.
- Decreased the cooldown time for the Blaze Javelin.
- Tightened the FOV while in combat.
- Added custom reticles for each weapon mode.
- Impact effects and targeting status is now shown on the reticle.
- The Blaze Javelin charge status is now shown on the reticle.
- Increased the speed of the FOV zoom when using the combat scope.
- Improved the impact effects and muzzle flashes of all weapons.
- Improved the camera shake and pad vibration during combat.
- Improved the clarity of the incoming damage indicator on the player HUD.
- Fixed an issue that caused the secondary weapon mode to be deselected when loading a save.
- Added a new style of Nexus multiplayer mission focused on exploration.
- Added a new style of Nexus multiplayer mission focused on rescuing stranded Travellers.
- Reworked the digsite Nexus multiplayer missions to allow progress from any type of bone, rather than requiring only very rare bones.
- Summoning the Space Anomaly while in Pulse Drive will now correctly disengage the Pulse Engine.
- Added a new item, the Repair Kit. This can be used to repair any damaged subcomponent, in place of its required materials. The kit is consumed upon use.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when using a shop in multiplayer.
- Introduced a minor optimisation to terrain generation.
- Introduced a new implementation for bloom post-processing effects.
- Improved lighting for bright and/or emissive props.
- Improved the quality and brightness levels of lens flare effects.
- Selected spotlights, such as the player torch, now make use of textured light patterns.
- Selected spotlights now display volumetric properties.
- When joining a multiplayer game from the frontend, if the player you are joining is on the Space Anomaly then you will spawn directly aboard the Anomaly with them.
- Fixed an issue that could cause flickering text on the Galaxy Map.
- Multiplayer player names are now shown when hovering over systems in the Galaxy Map.
- Fixed an issue that could cause players to start in an unsafe system when starting a new game in multiplayer.
- Fixed a number of network stability issues.
- Fixed an issue where player marker names would clash with their interaction prompt.
- Fixed a number of cases of chat message spam when entering or leaving the Space Anomaly.
- Fixed a number of issues that could cause missions to find incorrect targets when undertaking multiplayer missions from the Nexus.
- Fixed an issue that prevented photo missions working correctly on Xbox.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent players from summoning their freighter to RGB systems.
- Fixed a number of issues that could occur if players deleted the Void Egg before speaking to the Living Ship for the first time.
- Fixed a number of resolution scaling problems, including the discovery information popup, and damage and nearby Sentinel indicators.
- The HUD now correctly shows a damage indicator when the jetpack is broken.
- Fixed an issue with VR camera positioning when the player body is enabled.
- Added an option for VR head bob when the player body is enabled.
- Fixed an issue where VR weapon shadows would display outside of VR.
- Fixed an issue that could cause a moon to be labelled ‘of an unknown planet’ even after discovery.
- Fixed a number of incorrect or missing icons in the Guide.
- Asteroid placement is now deterministic.
No Man's Sky is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: No Man’s Sky