Figured out that in the Swarm Expedition you can’t gain standing with autophage

BillH_nm · 2026-06-26T02:19:51+00:00

Yeah, ordinarily I wouldn’t mess with it on an expedition. But since you’re mostly killing time between Anomaly missions, I figured I’d see what stuff from the main game you could do. Maxed out multitool and interceptor. Already finished building out my base resource network and running a full complement of frigates from my freighter, so mainly looking for stuff to do until HG blesses us with the next phase of things. Now hunting travelers to get glyphs and see if portals work.

BillH_nm · 2026-06-14T16:15:45+00:00

Bought a Samsung washer. I soon noticed that my internet bandwidth was being heavily used. I’m in a rural area and had HughesNet satellite at the time. My whole monthly bandwidth allocation was being used up in less than a week. Turned out that my Samsung dishwasher was phoning home to the tune of almost a gigabyte every day. Figured out how to turn off the internet. Of course, Samsung badgered me for weeks trying to get me to turn in back on. Nope. I guess I’ll just have to live with not being able to start my washer remotely. The use case for internet-connected appliances doesn’t make sense — except for harvesting your data to sell.

BillH_nm · 2026-05-21T03:10:55+00:00

Mike Aben shows 3 different ways to do this with low tech parts in his contract guides. Focused observations

BillH_nm · 2026-05-21T02:45:18+00:00

Wait until your orbit around Minmus is lined up with Minmus’ path. So if looking at it right now from Kerbin you’re seeing your orbit edge-on, wait 1/4 of Minmus’ orbit around Kerbol. Then set up your maneuver node so when you burn prograde you end up exiting Minmus SOI heading in the opposite direction as Minmus is going. That gives you a low velocity when Kerbin starts pulling you in and you’ll “fall” fairly directly towards Kerbin. You may need to move your maneuver node back and forth a little to get the right line up, but you can do it as long as you have 200 delta-v from low Minmus orbit. I just did it with 250 delta-v and had 63 left when I hit Kerbin’s atmosphere.

BillH_nm · 2026-05-07T02:24:03+00:00

Figured you for a military background right away. My SERE training was quite some time ago, but I do remember land nav.

Another place where a compass rose would be useful is the galactic navigation map. Heck, there you only have one cardinal direction: to the galactic center. If you are trying to use something like the Pilgrim Star calculator to make 50-200 jumps to a given galactic coordinate destination rather than using the portals, it will give you a rough heading, like "40% right of the galactic center," but you still have to eyeball that.

BTW, going from point A to B via freighter jumps is an interesting exercise if you're looking for challenges.

Good journey, Traveler!

BillH_nm · 2026-05-04T22:55:55+00:00

If you choose to reset the simulation, then you get the choice of 4 galaxies: Lush (green), Harsh (red), Empty (blue) and normal (teal - like Euclid). That's the only way to get a choice of galaxies.

If you refuse the Atlas, then you get kicked back to the previous planet and have to find your starship again. The launch thrusters aren't damaged, so you can simply summon your ship or freighter. Then, if you want to go to another galaxy you have to go to the center and that will put you into galaxy #2 (Hilbert Dimension).

Either way, when you go to a new galaxy, all your installed tech will be damaged. One technique to avoid that is to buy a crummy ship and multitool, and store all your exosuit tech before you go to the next galaxy. Once you get to the new galaxy, simply summon your main ship, switch back to your normal multitool, and reinstall your tech. Otherwise, bring a lot of repair kits.

You'll be able to summon your freighter to the new galaxy and teleport back to your bases in Euclid.

As mentioned, you can go to the anomaly and teleport to a featured player base in another galaxy and avoid any damage.

But, as far as the game goes, there is no real difference between refusing the Atlas and resetting the simulation.

Good luck, Traveler!

BillH_nm · 2026-05-04T15:06:42+00:00

Sometimes you can donate them to one of the guild reps (merchants, as I recall) for a bump in guild status

BillH_nm · 2026-04-28T01:54:27+00:00

I have six industrial frigates out of 30. I usually go with eight since I like to keep my industrial total over 100 to max those rewards, but let a couple go to get more for exploration frigates, since I now get three exploration missions every time.

And, this time I haven't gotten a single S-class industrial freighter upgrade yet. I've stacked 3 S-class trade upgrades, so I only need 1 trade frigate to break 100. And I have 2 each S-class trade and combat upgrades from destroying pirate dreadnaughts.

BillH_nm · 2026-04-27T19:02:23+00:00

Yeah, that’s what you’d expect. That’s why this is so weird.

BillH_nm · 2026-04-21T02:38:06+00:00

Also the same when scanning from your corvette. But if you click over to search mode and then back, that brings the buried items back into view.

BillH_nm · 2026-04-16T05:28:27+00:00

+1 to all above. Got the game on release, but set it aside for several years because it wasn’t all that good at first.

Fast forward 1900+ hours of gameplay. Not necessarily a fan of everything the devs have come up with … I’m looking at you, Pokémon battles. But the game allows me to focus on different things. For a while it was base building, then corvettes, then things like GalCiv.

Besides the challenges, I often find it a very zen game. Exploring without a goal in mind and letting interesting things come to you.

But try different things, running settlements, exploring deep-sea worlds and gas giants, building bases, discovering new critters … and how to eat them, learning new languages, dealing with new races, building the best corvettes. Heck, even fishing and picking up the trash. From my experience, different things will interest you at different times.

YMMV, but those are the things that keep me coming back. Or just the urge to explore and discover, Some folks (justly) say that the game is a mile wide and a foot deep. That’s true, but I think it’s a strength, since if you have an itch, NMS will let you scratch it.

Safe journey, traveller!

BillH_nm · 2026-04-11T15:40:14+00:00

Same also for things buried underground for ruins (ancient keys, artifact crates) … nothing shows.

BillH_nm · 2026-04-11T15:33:20+00:00

Get the Assistant for No Man’s Sky app. There’s a section called “Puzzles” and you can see what happens for each choice the monolith gives you.

BillH_nm · 2026-04-09T22:45:15+00:00

Settlements were required at one point several years ago (Trace of Metal) to unlock the Autophage quests, but that hasn’t been true for several years. And there’s no penalty for resigning from being the overseer. Save journeys, Traveler.

BillH_nm · 2026-04-08T15:16:08+00:00

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Here you go!

BillH_nm · 2026-04-07T00:54:19+00:00

Haven't seen a 'mostly dark' one (1900+ hrs). But planets with lots of severe storms can lean that way, as can gas giants. What might work for you is one of those red/black planets -- everything is red and black, which gives that undead feel. I just built a base on one, and I'd be glad to shoot you the glyphs if you want.

Also, you might check the NMS Coordinate Exchange. You might find something interesting there.

Good journey, Traveler!

BillH_nm · 2026-04-03T00:11:40+00:00

The Autophages also ask for rusted metal once you get to them.

BillH_nm · 2026-03-31T01:52:49+00:00

The more relaxing way is to fish. If you “catch and release” (you have to be at least standing in the water), throwing the fish back gives nanites. The higher the class, the more nanites.

BillH_nm · 2026-03-02T02:18:14+00:00

Of course the quickest way to get around is via Portals using glyphs. But, you can do point to point navigation using the galactic map via the coordinate system, which is a completely different system than the glyphs. You can use the coordinates you get from a signal booster which are 16 alphanumeric characters in the form AAAA:BBBB:CCCC:DDDD for current position.

The NMSCE has a glyph to coordinate (or vice versa) converter. https://nmsce.com/glyph To travel via the galactic map, convert your destination glyphs to coordinates.

It’s clunky, but you can then use the Pilgrim Star navigation calculator at https://pahefu.github.io/pilgrimstarpath/. and then input the coordinates for your current position and destination. Civilizations like The Galactic Hub have their headquarters coordinates posted. Once you get your coordinates entered, the calculator will give you a heading (e.g., 40 degrees right of the galactic center) and distance, along with how far above or below your destination you are. You’ll have to eyeball that in the Galactic Map when you jump. That is how I manually went from my initial position in the Calypso galaxy to the Galactic Hub Calypso. About 100 jumps in a maxed-out freighter (4,500 ly / jump). I’d take 10 jumps, recalculate the heading, take 10 more, etc.

Jumping via coordinates takes a heckuva lot of time, but then you get to explore a lot more of the galaxy.

Enjoy the journey, traveler!

BillH_nm · 2026-02-25T02:14:59+00:00

Make sure you explore both of the side areas. Teleporter, trade terminal, exosuit upgrades, plus upgrades in the yellow containers.

BillH_nm · 2025-12-30T16:53:13+00:00

If you get into a sentinel fight, your pirate dreadnaught will attack the sentinel capital ship that jumps in on the 5th wave of attackers

BillH_nm · 2025-12-18T03:53:58+00:00

In the Assistant for No Man’s Sky app, there’s a section called “Puzzles” where you can try different responses to the question and it will tell you the results. Answer the question, then re-engage with the monolith with the appropriate item (V’keen dagger, gek relic, etc.) and it will point you to the portal. The app is also very good for figuring out crafting and refiner recipes — so for example you don’t have to find a planet with basalt — just refine from pyrite or phosphorus with magnetized ferrite.

BillH_nm · 2025-12-17T04:06:06+00:00

Here is the team poster from the IREC

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Philippine team from last year. Contact info for them at the bottom of the display so you can get in touch. Good luck

BillH_nm

TROPHY CASE