I just started a permadeath play, and saw in various comments that I am not the only one. In my experience, permadeath plays always end as advertised; in a very abrupt death. This is usually accompanied by a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth because the death was either:
a) absurdly unfair and unavoidable
b) the result of an incredibly careless moment that I cannot believe I let happen
c) both
Inevitably though, they make for stories that everyone but the actual player thinks are hilarious.
So share!
Iâll start, using my last permadeath play which ended a while back but not long enough to have stopped stinging.
I was about eighty hours in and doing great. Had the galaxy by the tail. For reasons that I immediately blanked out I took it into my head that in systems where I had a base I should at least be able to look at the other planets and not see âunexplored,â so I was just blasting around doing land claim launch exercises. There were eight systems, with somewhere around twenty planets I had never been interested enough in to land on them.
About three quarters through this pointless errand I had forgotten why it ever seemed necessary, and had reconnected with why they had never seemed that interesting in the first place. I was committed, though and continued pouring good time after bad.
Ultimately, I landed on some unremarkable iceball of a planet. I actually saw big tyrannasaurus looking things as I was plummeting through the atmosphere and thought âhuh, those look more interesting than anything I have seen in seemingly forever.â So I landed right in the middle of them and jumped out of my ship, because, of course I did.
In my experience, this doesnât happen in NMS except maybe during the first hour in a new game or so.
Yeah, thatâs usually what gets you, and the problem is that NMS is quite conducive to that sort of thing.
I play a good amount of games that have permadeath, but NMS isnât one of them. Permadeath and long-form play are not worth it in most cases in my oppinion, I just donât have that kind of time.
On the other hand, permadeath as a mechanic needs to be used to make decisions meaningful, i.e. a game must impress a constent sense of gravity or urgency on the player to get them into a mindset where permadeath actually enhances the experience. NMS doesnât do that, itâs just its normal casual self, letting you forget about any dangers in the universe. Without being constantly reminded of mortality, youâre bound to do something ridiculously stupid after playing for 30+ hours without ever having been in any actual danger.
Itâs quite close to real life in that respect, Iâll admit, but itâs not what I play permadeath games for. So despite me never having played the game in normal mode since survival mode was a thing (except on expeditions), and despite me constantly complaining that the game is still way too unchallenging in survival, I donât actually play permadeath. I know that Iâm stupid, I donât need a game to remind me of thatâŚ
I had just woken to a new reality. This was not my well-stocked and protected Normal Traveller. Heat Sheild failingâŚLife Support failingâŚcrap! What do I need? Carbon, oxygen, ferrite, noâŚsodium! ScanâŚDang! broken. What do I need for that? CarbonâŚFerrite, I need Ferrite. Rocks? Rocks? Where the heck are the rocks? I canât find anyâŚoh god! Thereâs one. Thereâs one. Scanner fixedâŚok sodium, sodium, sodium? But, thatâs like 300u away! Melee/boostâŚoh dang! It doesnât
take me 10uâŚrunâŚrunâŚrunâŚlife support failingâŚrun faster⌠hufffâŚhufffâŚhuffff⌠âŚcanât breathâŚgoing dark⌠âŚgoodbye cruel worldâŚ
Permadeath was a new thing and I had put 2 months of regular fanatic play into this new mode. I was solidly built with S-Class everything and thought I had this all the way to the center trophy.
I had to quickly put down my controller to attend to a minor emergency, and forgetting to pause the game. My 2 year daughter (at that time) picked up the controller and killed me within the 30 seconds it took to get back.
running and boosting are definitely the best ways to kill yourself in an early survival game. You get a lot more distance out of your life support by walking. Provided your hazard protection holds up for long enough, obviouslyâŚ
My current PD save us over 200hrs so Iâve become quite protective of it. Was my second (recent) attempt, after an ill conceived boost off a Trading Post resulted in
Started it back around NEXT & my play style is very protective, living a low key merchants lifestyle.
1st person view 99% of the time.
No explosive weapons.
Ship & suit maxed out âSâ (but only my favourite weapons for simplicity).
Freighter is the same âCâ I acquired early on with maxed out bulkhead expansions.
I own a modest fleet of 6 âSâ frigates & one control room. (Normandy wasnât part of the plan).
I visit safe planets to acquire essentials, (if I canât buy them) with my only risk taking being missions of all sorts as Iâm determined to eventually acquire top level in all milestones & have all tech & QS items.
While planetside, I make an effort to fully explore, scavenge, acquire language & dig up tech to make my visit worthwhile as other planets may prove too risky.
My 2 bases are very basic functional installations;
1 being an exocraft & storage vault base with a few refiners & not much else.
The other is an underwater tower of growing domes for making circuit boards. Again purely functional.
I do intend to make a âprettyâ base soon with all the new goodies but Iâm holding out for just the right biome.
I own 3 ships: my main ship, a small Royal, a basic equipped big capacity Hauler (for trading) & a fully equipped, top spec, living ship, (my only one in any save), which I rarely use.
Itâs a very different approach to my regular 1200+hr Legacy Save which is anything goes playstyle, lots of outlandish decorations on my few bases & freighter, as I consider it âancientâ so a few collectables & lavish decor fit the long established theme.
Well, I am still alive but today, I managed to get my Freighter. So I was thinking how much safer I would feel with my base onboardâŚthen I rounded a corner and found thisâŚ
Some updates back as part of the freighter upgrade, there was a glitch that caused dangerous gaps in the Command Ship hull where storage boxes were built. (A very dangerous feature for a PD game).
This issue could only be âfixedâ by spacing out the boxes so there was a gap between them.
Even though a later update sorted this problem & the boxes became rooms, I still have the huge central chamber with spaced out storage rooms.
With materials being harder to acquire in PD, I never redesigned the area afterwards so it is now sort of like the architectural remains of a bygone era.
The Atlas called me to Judgement Day. I landed at its feet with no O2 in my tanks and trembled as I approached its majestic throne. 16 was the sentence. 16 what, I wondered. Then I screamed and submitted to the will of the Atlas and accepted the realization that nothing is real. At that point, I resupplied my tanks just in case I was mistaken.
Well, Dreams of the Deep brought me to my endâŚbetween the toxic water and the inexcusable lack of access to my aerator thru the quick menu when there are 3 chargers in play, I was overcomeâŚmere inches from the NautilonâŚthe worst part of it is that I lost my starter ship. It was not the normal red and white starter.
Well frack. Would you like me to set aside of my frantically hectic day sometime in which I do little but fuss with fanfiction and struggle with art⌠breath⌠to transfer over some resources and tech which is fairly expensive?
This is the main reason I donât want to deal with survival mode or permadeath games.
I am gonna take a break from PD for a few days and then try again.
