Hey there…It’s been a minute, or several. I’ve been meaning to gather data regarding No Man’s Sky’s Online Discovery Services, or multiplayer in other words, for awhile now once it became more elaborate, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.
As I’ve tried to research the subject I was kind of surprised to find that the community doesn’t appear to have any clear resources on the subject. The wiki’s woefully out of date, and where it isn’t, it’s just overly basic, so I thought I’d reach out to see if folks here might be able to help.
Here’s some of what I’ve been able to gather thus far, with some questions on points I’m unclear on:
No Man’s Sky Multiplayer Basics
- Console multiplayer requires Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus. Nintendo Switch will likely require Nintendo Switch Online if multiplayer is made available on Switch.
- No Man’s Sky is cross-play. This enables you to play with friends from any other platform that supports online multiplayer.
- Player groups are limited to 4 members, but you may add others as friends in-game to easily reconnect with one another. (Do we know what the max number of friends one can add is?)
- When beginning a new game with the tutorial enabled, after a certain point you will be directed to visit the Space Anomaly. The Space Anomaly serves as the multiplayer hub of the game, and is often referred to in the community as the Nexus. It holds up to 16 players across all platforms.
- The Nexus itself is the Space Anomaly’s mission board. By picking a mission through the Nexus, you may be joined by other players to help you complete your chosen mission.
- The Nexus also offers what are known as “Quicksilver missions”, these are missions exclusive to the Nexus and provide a currency called Quicksilver which is used to unlock a variety of rewards from the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion nearby.
- Quicksilver missions appear daily, in real-time, rewarding a lower amount of Quicksilver and may be queued up to 3, so you may technically complete 4 total in one day (that day’s mission, plus the 3 queued). On weekends, specifically Saturday & Sunday(?) these missions provide a higher amount of Quicksilver.
- Outside the Space Anomaly, you may rarely encounter other players in what’s called Ambient Multiplayer throughout the universe. The max number of players you may see this way at one time is 8 players on console, and 32 players on PC.
- On console, communication methods are limited to proximity voice chat, or nonverbal player emotes. On PC you have the additional option of text chat by hitting the enter key and typing messages, as you would in other online PC games.
- Additional settings for customizing your multiplayer experience may be found in the Network Menu, including the ability to disable multiplayer completely, disable or limit PVP (which is enabled with anyone by default), among other various details.
NMS Multiplayer Intermediate Details
- Player built bases are not immediately shared and visible to others. To share & display your base to others, you must upload the base after construction. (This also applies even if people are starting together & in the same instance, yeah?)
- However, some structures you can build outside of a base may be uploaded automatically upon construction, e.g. Communications Stations. These tend to have a strict limit per player per planet, though.
- For collaborative basebuilding with other players, the builder’s network settings must be set to allow you to build on to their base, and the builder must be online (I’ve seen this mentioned, but has it been confirmed the base owner/builder has to be online?).
- For base-related missions, you must be sure to construct mission-related parts, such as specialist terminals, within your own base. Building these structures within another player’s base will not be recognized for your own mission progression.
- You may gather resources from other players’ bases’ extractors, silos, and hydroponics without fear of stealing from them. These base collected/grown resources are instanced to each player. (Can the same be said outside of bases? Presumably yes, but I’m uncertain on this.)
- Storage containers or rooms in other player bases will only display the contents of your storage containers/rooms, if you’ve constructed them & stored anything there. They do not display other players’ stored contents.
NMS Multiplayer Advanced Details
- Players appear to be able to build up to 450 bases, give or take parts used per base, given a limit of 16,000 base parts total across platforms.
- Star systems appear to be capable of supporting around 30 concurrent player bases. Additional bases beyond this amount may cause older bases to disappear until they are reuploaded.
- Player bases’ boundaries may overlap and you may build in the overlapping regions, presumably so long as network settings are adjusted accordingly. (Do we know what would happen if the network settings were restricted? Would the overlapping region spottily deny another player’s build attempts?)
Additional details I’m unclear on:
- How many discoveries can one have saved/uploaded before the old ones are kicked out?
- How many bases may one player have uploaded per planet/system? Is it simply the same as the approximate 30 base limit if uploaded, but possibly hundreds otherwise?
- What non-base structures placed outside of bases, besides Communications Stations, get uploaded upon construction, if any?
- Can other players assist you on non-Nexus missions that involve, say, killing animals or Sentinels, or do their actions not register for you with standard station missions?
Besides all of this, what else might you add to this big ol’ primer on NMS multiplayer? I just know I’m forgetting some other really stupidly obvious stuff. Thanks in advance!
