With multiplayer colonies confirmed as part of the next update (still 2 months away) what do you think it will involve?
Do you think shared base space stations, freighter shuttle ports or asteroid mining bases are likely? What are these new ships & how might they fit in?
Put on your tinfoil hat and speculate on what this might be & what it might mean for NMS, hub community development, CO-OP multiplayer & anything that isn’t PVP.
4 Likes
I hope they bring back those structures from the Infinite Worlds video, the space stations from the artbook
3 Likes
I get the feeling that by “colonies” they just mean that more than one base will be visible for a given planet/system. Although the idea of an increase to build limit does sound awesome. Or perhaps co-op base building?
The new craft look promising. I’d guess it’s either the submarines people have been asking for, or possibly a multiplayer craft designed for 4 people. I have a phobia of deep water 
, so I’m hoping it’s a multiplayer vehicle.
5 Likes
The official blurb does say “complex colonies you can build with a team”.
Would this suggest a specific multiplayer mode which is likely server based? This would allow synchronicity between players which we have not had yet.
The idea of ‘team’ suggests to me that a party of 4 can band together to create a base share experience that includes access to each others infrastructure that until now has been partially restricted: ie warp fuel drums & harvesters.
4 Likes
If they just made it so multiple player bases can be in the same star system, I would be happy. It would be nice to have actual neighbors.
8 Likes
I think its one of two things.
- SM meant a solo Traveller can have more than one base, or at least 1 base per planet, unlike now where u may only have 1 base, period. Perhaps there’s a limit on bases,etc.
And/or
- He meant you and your party, group, what have you, can each individually build a single base, and since there’s multiple of you, it will be spread across multiple planets. And will be shared of course.
I really hope its the former, having multiple bases would be so cool i think.
4 Likes
My interpretation is the latter.
Players can build in a system together and can somewhere build a shared structure (like monuments) that can be built by members of the team and further utilized via base sharing. What this shared structure might be is something I’m very curious about.
I’m further wondering if there is something in the game’s Boundary Failure ring structure lore/playthrough that will open up this level of base sharing…much like the glyphs had to be earned to get portals working.
5 Likes
I’ve always been a loner in this game, but would check out certain bases after Mac would visit them. Being able to be a part of a small city and build your own base within it would be a aspect of multiplayer I would actually be excited for.
4 Likes
Similar for me.
Didn’t even turn on base share for ages, as I was so used to the big empty & didn’t feel the need.
After the portals came online, then I visited a few bases & met orbs & it was kinda fun.
I think it would be great to visit civilised systems & hubs (hopefully marked in the Galactic Map) & do the rounds before setting off once again on deep space travels.
4 Likes
I want they bring back all those E3 Footage (I know it’s a lot of things) But they grow up, and of course they made a big update for their engine to support multiplayer, so why not E3 footage can be into this update? (I don’t say those specifics planets, i say, those estilized graphics, structures, mechanics that we never saw, best animals AI, better biomes. I like the current biomes, but they are very poor if we measure with that they shared with us earlier the game launch). Wow a big parentheses 
i’m sorry hehe.
5 Likes
The only thing I really want it to involve is each player being allowed to have multiple bases and/or have a far greater building cap…even if for example we were limited to something like one planet. Opening up to allowing each player something like five bases all on one planet or maybe even in the same system…or in different systems would be amazing…maybe even with a slightly improved building cap…that would be so awesome. Since a team can only be four people, limiting us to four bases under the current building cap wouldn’t be much of a colony.
4 Likes
My take is single-system per player, no boundaries… You can build as much as you want, within the new limits, at any of the planets, anywhere. You may invite up to other three players to the party and they get building/destruction privileges.
While claimed, any player that goes there, will see the changes and be able to harvest, but the building will be limited to “survival gear” and it won’t be shared.
The PvP player to player, unrestricted up to four players based on distance to each other, and the rest, orbs.
The caveat; Once the original claimer leaves for other system and makes a claim there, the previous one resets.
This is the best way I can think of, so that it feels expansive and that it won’t bloat the simulation.
I think we’ll get NPC colonies, too, so that we might get to explore “cities” even if we never come across an “active” player-made colony.
With this… I hope it comes a new layer of “galactic diplomacy”, like Spore had… And it’s maybe material for another update, but I’d love those space frontiers and system information to be dynamic… systems at war with each other, or in commercial relationship… with ships and goods going places.
5 Likes
If they go for stuff like systems being at war with each other like NPC systems being at war with a player system then I hope that we’ll be able to do something to end that war…or maybe be able to do something to reduce the level of hostility in a system. PvP I don’t care for…I hope that mode is locked off somewhere I never have to see it like its own game mode or locked to certain types of galaxies like raging or whatever. Being able to build all we want in one system would be amazing.
3 Likes
Cant wait to start raiding some bases in NMS ; )
1 Like
I’d like to see some more in-system traffic other than just little starships buzzing to predictable locations. Things like:
The odd freighter underway, moving slowly or with little shuttles jetting back and forth to the local trader.
Little dog fights between NPC rivals.
Haulers being with suspiciously valuable cargo being escorted by fighters.
NPC ships mining in asteroid clusters.
The odd NPC ship landed on the ground while its pilot is nearby doing some task. General life going on in a way that is related to the system’s economy and industry.
I hope each system has a more dynamic life, with different systems offering different lifestyles: Mining, smuggling, piracy, mechantile, freighter construction, industrial, opulant etc. with all the different behaviours that go with that.
I hope the system you choose to build your colony or base in is actually biased towards a sort of culture and industry each with its own perks.
With multiple colonies in hubs, travel between systems would be a neccessity yet a way of enjoying multiplayer interaction.
I also hope that inhabited systems show on the galactic map to help navigation.
If you are a solo player then I’m hoping the system dynamics described above are just as noticable as they are in co-op, with each system presenting its own benifits and faults as you travel across the galaxy.
7 Likes
NPC dogfights are quite common…if you float around in space for a bit you’ll see freighters jump in the system and then not too long after that one of them will get attacked and friendly ships are usually around too trying to help but mostly getting in the way and then the sentinels come after you because of a stray shot. 
Beyond that Atlas Rises sort of brought in specialized economies and industry to systems…so that’s something. But in terms of having very visual stuff to make these systems look more real and more lived in that would be nice and all but I’d rather they gave us features…stuff that gives us the players more to do…more tech, more story, maybe revamp underwater and give us like a submarine exocraft, revamped space stations, quest types, maybe asteroid bases or gas giant bases etc…that sort of stuff.
Don’t get me wrong it would be nice and amazing to look at a giant freighter being put together in space and so on but if we can’t interact with it or if it doesn’t do much then I feel like it wouldn’t add much to the game vs the effort that the developers put into implementing it.
3 Likes
Yes, much of what I spoke of is eye-candy but if the interaction in that system (selling specific components) adds to the experience, then it would be good fun and worth it in my opinion.
Plus most sci-fi fans love a bit of ship watching.
Many players enjoy using the photo mode of the game which extra visuals will add to.
4 Likes
Multiple players’ bases on one planet would be tremendous, why have one neighbour when you could have four? Then in a system with 5-6 planets, all those planets could have say four players on. This would truly redesign the nature of our own Hub and we’d all be a lot closer together. (@Xion4012 If it all goes pear-shaped, there’s always “Site B” 
)
With the new vehicles teased, IF they are submersibles, which would be great, it would surely follow that they need somewhere to be ‘docked’ a Geobay would work and you’ll just have to beacon where you built it unless you have a base near the water, but if not, hopefully you can decide where you want to put that Base module.
For landlocked worlds, choosing where to place that Base module would be insanely good, and if you put your Base module in sight of someone else’s Base module… 
Top of a mountain? In a cave? Under water? Some Terra-forming may be required beforehand but this would be great, (I mean who actually uses the Terrain Editor?)
As much as I would love to see a joint base, the game nearly stands still when you approach your near max base, doubling this would be tough on the hardware. Hopefully they’ve done some incredible optimisation work for this, again I’m sure this is something they’ve thought of.
The only thing to point out is if it’s a submersible, why do we need three of them? Which would give more weight to them being new ships.
Just give me a ship say twice, three times the size of a Hauler so I can store an exocraft in and explore with impunity, oh and multiple-multi-tools so I can have an exploration Tool, and a combat Tool.
5 Likes
It will be interesting to see if there is a limit to how many different player bases can remain visible to all in one system…right now the cap is one base…so if a 2nd player moves in their base becomes visible but the original inhabitant’s will no longer be. I mean surely it’s not completely uncapped…I seriously doubt it will be uncapped. In a system with six planets if each had four different players on it that would be 24 different player bases…I don’t think the game will go that extreme.
3 Likes
Given the load screen for a base when aproaching by ship is a reasonably short distance away & that multiple players can already inhabit a system, (but only one is visible), then I suspect that its possible that multiplayer could possibly allow 4 players to share a planet. Each time you approched another base it would pop in and possibly present lag but other than that it stands to reason that the game can handle that.
Probably though, they’ll limit it to one base per planet to reduce lag and data for each planet. I think it will depend heavily on whether they are shifting to serverbased multiplayer as obviously that will change lots of things.
1 Like