That’s a rare ‘wild’ base computer: a leftover feature from the ‘Foundation Update’ I believe.
(Initially bases were built off a round module (Inhabitatable Building) but after the ‘Next’ update they changed to a base computer.
In the early days of NMS base building, you needed to find one of these areas to be able to build a base, as you couldn’t just build where you wanted & you could only have one base.
They are good locations if you wish to avoid the slightly glitchy Terrain Manipulation ‘Flattening’ as the ground is already level so can’t grow back.
As far as I understand it, claiming one works exactly the same as a post-Next base computer.
Cool find 
cool, it’s like 300u from an archive. i’ll claim it. thanks!
In the days before you could summon freighters and build bases after taking a portal, people used to hunt for these to get around the portal restrictions!
Welcome to the form @RRCF !
I am always surprised these things are still around. Have not seen one in a long time. Having a nice flat spot will also keep terrain creep from filling your base over time.
Yeah, I’ve happened over one of these lately, I was like “oh right, you’re still around, long time no see!”
Does anybody know if there’s still a way to find these intentionally? I don’t even remember how we used to find them back in pathfinder…
As @Mad-Hatter has pointed out, before Foundation you could only have one base, and you chose one from a number of pre-built bases. Every planet had lots of them.
As far as I remember, only the bases that were actually allocated to players at the time of the Foundation change were retained as “wild” bases.
The thing is, whilst each player could only have one base per game, they could have a number of saved games. There were also a lot of people who played NMS for a short while, built some bases, then stopped playing. At the time of the Foundation change, there were a lot of abandoned player bases recorded on the server - and they still exist.
As I understood it at the time, not all planets had wild bases. Only the ones that had been previously occupied.
That was introduced with foundation. Before foundation, there were no bases at all.
Am I misremembering? In my mind, the circular metal bases always existed - you just couldn’t add to them to start with.
Didn’t we have a vendor in our round bases way back when…prior to the time we began to see each other as floating round orbs… I can’t keep track.
Yeah, a sort of NPC concierge. And there was a machine that stored the contents of your previous base, and a computer that told you which real-life players (if any) had visited the base.
I know exactly what you mean!
Ahh yes and about that time you left a comm on the hill near my base and it was cool! 
Then an admirer moved onto my planet and built a base on a nearby hill. That caused my base to look like an earthquake hit it and all the pieces had gaps between them. I finally had to abandon it but I never deleted it…then we had a glactic reset and it got buried under a mountain. The tales we could all tell.
Huh… I guess that’s possible? I’ve spent about 400 hours with the launch version, I think I would’ve noticed, but it’s possible that I didn’t… Went through the foundation patchnotes, but they are inconclusive on the matter. 
I honestly can’t be certain either. I pre-ordered the game, so I was getting patches and updates from day one. I don’t honesly remember exactly what came when.
My recollection is that in the very begining we had just our ship & suit. No base. No freighter. No ability to shuffle anything in our inventory. You could transfer your possessions when you changed ship, but that was about it.
Just a vulnerable little traveller in a basic & MASSIVE universe with all our possessions with us.
At some point, (about a year after release), the Foundation Update dropped, giving us modular bases to be built off cylindrical ‘Inhabitatable Buildings’ & I think we got our freighters about then too, (although initially I don’t think we could build on them).
After that there was other updates that increased the building options for terrestrial & freighter bases.
I may be incorrect but thats how I remember it anyway…
Freighters arrived in the NEXT update, as did expansion of bases.
Oooo. I just noticed that this post is “16/16”
Nope, ownable freighters arrived with foundation, and you could build bases on them right away. That’s how I remember it, and this one is unambiguously supported by the patch notes. We just didn’t have any specialised parts for freighter bases at the time.
This is hilarious. We were all there, and we all remember different games.
Imagine if we were ever called to give evidence against someone in court?
That’s right! I remember now. The freighter bases were accessed via a catwalk above the docking bay via a pair of airlock doors.
After the Atlas Rises update, I could access my ‘new’ tall-wing exotic straight from up on the catwalk.
I think I skipped building on my freighter due to glitchy problems until later on.
I wonder sometimes if even HG remembers…
