NEXT Patch notes - Steam Experimental [POTENTIAL SPOILERS!]

Regarding the next update, if you look at the development patterns of indy developers, once they learn or implement a gaming mechanic, they usually like to try to apply that new mechanic multiple times in different areas to maximize added content before moving on to another mechanic. It makes sence to work this way as it saves development time(although not every game developer does this).

Anyways, so they now have tinkered with the mechanic to alter land vehicle’s colors and driving mechanics, that’s cool…
they also updated the land and the sea… thats cool too.
You can have multiple ships too now and that was also great…

But space has pretty much not been touched too much. The space stations have pretty strait forward designs and simple interiors, so do the freighters and all buildings on land as well as nada and polo’s anomaly ship. However, they did also higher a guy who specializes in procedural city and room generation) we also cant have multiple multitools yet or backpack types.

So…

What seems to need an upgrade, or atleast an overdue change, and hasn’t realy been touched too much yet(and is also most easy to work on as they now have the skills and mechanics set up) is:

*interior rework (Procedual rooms, buildings, space starions, freighters, etc.)
*Changing color and mechanics of ships
*have multiple multitools
*3rd person view HUD on ships

Things they can add too, but might need more time to do is:

*procedual cities

  • more varied procedural space stations and freighters
    *modifying ships and vehicles(such as changing the wings, cockpit, boosters, wheels, etc)

And the most obvious things they will likely do on the next update:

*more quicksilver items
*more base building parts
*more character customization parts

This is just a list of “reasonably possible” things but it is by no means a certainty. I mean, they can focus on the planets and animals on them if they wanted to instead.

I’m cool with whatever they do, I know they know what they are doing enough and I can’t wait till the next update.

Has there been any new experimental updates?

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Nothing on experimental…but I have not been able to play the last 2 days.

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I didn’t read everything since this was written but from the get-go , or at least since I’ve known the game was about a simulation trying to predict the future, I thought the game would try to simulate reality to some degree. Maybe I was making excuses for the game as to why things looked ‘samey’ but I told myself that the simulation started simple and was made to evolve into more and more complex things. I thought more variation and things of a more realistic nature would become more and more a part of the game as time went on and with NEXT,blue waters and greener grasses appeared to confirm this to me to some degree. But I don’t understand why some planets couldn’t stay wild as in the early days of NMS.

With all that I guess i’ve tried to figure out the big picture of what HG wants the complete picture of NMS to look like. Is it evolution based? is it sci-fi based? Is it just a knee jerk “Hey, that’s be cool to be in the game!” kind of thing? Is it turning from one thing into “People didn’t receive this well so let’s just do what’s on this ‘missing feature’ list to try and smooth things over” thing? I like the game but it’s confusing and mysterious to me and I guess what bothers me is that I’m not sure if it’s confusing and mysterious by design or not. lol

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It’s been pretty much established in interviews with SM and others that HG started out with a very definite vision and plan of what they wanted the game universe and story to be.

However, during the development of NEXT, this strategy changed, and HG decided to incorporate more of the features players were saying they wanted. This was particularly driven by emergent gameplay, with players forming groups, and making the game do things it wasn’t intended to. These changes have inevitably affected the original concept. The game we’re seeing now is somewhat different from the one first intended.

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You’re not kidding…interestingly enough something happened after I wrote the original reply to Jedidia but before I read your reply to me. I ran into my first random player in the game. That is other than during the community events. The encounter was welcome at first but quickly declined into a cluster when I eventually sadly realized I would have to turn all the network play stuff off. I intentionally left network settings on but my first encounter turned out to be … regrettable.

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Yes, I’ve had a couple of those :grin:. There are an awful lot of people out there I wouldn’t choose to spend my time with. Indiscriminate multiplayer can try one’s patience. Fortunately, you can turn it off.

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Just tweeted
And he retweeted this


Some of the replies

Podcast with @CobraTV in about an hour

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Hopefully with the group here on the ETARC forums, you will be able to find someone to explore some of these option without issues. @Aldibar

I am on PS4. If you want to test things, let me know.

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Wait the game was using OpenGL under the hood all this time?
Why on earth is it only officially supported on windows, then? I just accepted that as a sure-fire way to tell that they were using DirectX. If you use OpenGL, Havoc and Wwise, what the hell do you need any windows APIs for? Just for input handling? :smile:
Seriously HG, there’s a few more sales to be had by supporting Linux and Mac out of the box!

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How do you think all us Linux users have been playing? ; ) The game runs better in Linux so I am excited for this update and so happy to see them using more of the engine. This is what NMS has needed for a while now.

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I assumed through Vine, obviously…

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SteamPlay
Lubuntu
Mesa drivers
OpenGL

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I love you HG!

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3xperimental in Windows…a definite improvement in fps. Running planet side I am seeing a fairly steady 57-60 fps. Tess now works but I have some stuttering when running around. I am having some really ugly effects on graphics though.


Stuff is all covered in shiny…stuff
Space Station is 60fps with some quick drops to as low as 35fps as ships come and go while I am running around.
My heavily decorated base is still sluggish at about 27-42fps but definitely feels better. It was more like 19fps before.
My Freighter feels much better as well. I am staying near 60fps even when entering the bridge area which used to drop significantly. A few quick frame drops as I run around on my Freighter.
All in all, this update has really improved the fps for me on a Radeon RX 580. The quick rate drops still leave the game feeling a bit choppy.
As for the shiny stuff…I have not updated my drivers because the latest was causing an oil slick…I wonder if I should try updating them now?

Interesting thing about Linux…I am only getting 20-30fps but it is consistent and the game is still much, much smoother than windows due to the consistency of frames. But, tess is no longer working. This however, could be due to running on a developement version of Proton. May try switching that.

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Check and see if HDR got turned on.

Either the planet matches colors the broken HDR colors on my Monitor.

Or your monitor has bad support for HDR like mines does. Disabling it brought my colors back.

XDragon

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HDR is off for me. In Linux, I actually purged some unused files and let the system rebuild them. No good. Same problem. It happens in both Windows and Linux. I have reported it to HG.

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Not sure what this latest patch just did but…the rendering in the distance couldn’t be much worse.