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No Man's Sky save overhaul headlines a new PC and PS4 update

Ariesonable improvement.

The work to improve No Man's Sky continues with an overhaul of the save system in patch 1.38 released on PC and PS4 today.

You are now given five save slots and existing saves will be mapped to them. Each slot represents a new game and choice of mode, and has two sub-slots within it, one for auto saving (triggered when exiting your ship, dying, and buying a Freighter or claiming a base) and one for saving manually, via a save point or beacon.

The aim is to make managing saves between game modes "much easier", Hello Games said.

There are many other alterations and improvements besides, like dead planets having more varied weather and storms on humid/lush planets no longer being being toxic - though there's a chance for "very hot" rain to come splashing down, a bit like a slightly unpleasant shower.

There's also a chance for pesky pirates to spawn earlier when warping into certain systems, which reflects an effort to make your exploration a little more unpredictable and varied. And targeting different ships should be better now too, meaning fewer unintended space brawls.

A number of bugs have been fixed as well. Full 1.38 patch notes are below.

No Man's Sky arrived last summer amid a whole maelstrom of reaction, which sent Hello Games underground. But the developer appears determined to wrest No Man's Sky into a place of happier memory by releasing major updates with features like base building. Oli warped back in a year after reviewing No Man's Sky to see what had changed.

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Improvements & changes

  • Made the temperature range of dead planets more varied
  • In-flight weather effects now vary in strength based on height
  • The Analysis Visor can now be used to scan farm plants and see the remaining growth time
  • Analysis Visor can scan ships to determine their class, type and value at a distance
  • The Analysis Visor can be used to see the approximate distance of resources discovered with the Scanner
  • Added error message when no outpost is found by the economy scanner
  • Added the ability to skip black bars when discovering a planet or solar system
  • Prevented the cursor being reset to the center of the page as you switch between pause menus
  • Trade outposts now provide hazard protection
  • Added a chance for pirates to spawn earlier than usual when a player warps into a certain systems, to add more variety to exploration and trading
  • Galactic map now respects user mouse sensitivity settings
  • Galactic map now respects user control inversion settings
  • Prevented trade terminals having a negative quantity of stock
  • Made trading terminal stock values replenish over time
  • Separated stock levels for trading posts and space stations in the same system
  • Lush biomes in survival mode now occasionally exist without an aggressive sentinel presence
  • Reduced cursor UI slowdown when using a pad
  • Improved NPC ship target selection in space battles, prevented them reacting to accidental player fire
  • Added exotic ship audio for AI and NPC ships
  • Added ability to transfer items to and from containers in your base or freighter
  • Added tooltip text to explain the planet icons on the discovery page
  • Added ability to sell items from ship cargo slots at terminals
  • Storms on humid/lush planets are no longer toxic; humid/lush planets now have a chance of their rain being very hot. Note: no new storms have been added, and the frequency of storms has not been adjusted. Humid planets that previously had freezing rain storms in 1.3 have had that storm type changes to heated rain.
  • Added ability to transfer items from cargo slots during maintenance interactions
  • Improved trading by giving NPCs independent stock levels
  • Made NPCs who give directions refer to a wider spread of locations
  • Added ability to rebind the discard key

Bug fixes

  • Fixed an issue where some delivery missions would continuously tell players to visit other systems
  • Fixed an issue where the requirements to complete some missions could change as you spoke to NPCs
  • Fixed scaling issues with creature feeding icons
  • Fixed an issue where mining units would occasionally incorrectly produce Heridium
  • Prevented mining units being placed inside each other
  • Fixed an issue where base parts, including storage containers, built outside the base building radius in unlimited building mode would not be transferred when the player moved to a new base
  • Fixed an issue where storm-prone planets could be labelled as 'Mild'. Storm frequency has not been adjusted - the text should now more accurately describe weather conditions.
  • Fixed an issue where the terrain manipulator audio would occasionally continue after terrain editing completed
  • Fixed an issue where the terrain manipulator hologram would remain in one location after subtracting from the terrain
  • Fixed an issue where the terrain manipulator would occasionally create longer lines than intended
  • Fixed an issue where the ship crosshair would appear at incorrect times
  • Fixed the Upload All button on the discovery page not deactivating after being used
  • Corrected button prompts in the ship combat wiki
  • Restored Spectral Class to the galaxy map text
  • Prevented users occasionally falling outside the trading post platform when exiting their ship
  • Prevented traders from attacking pirates which are far out of their range
  • Fixed an issue where NPC ships would stop outside the entrance of freighters and space stations in systems with no trade routes
  • Fixed an issue where smaller freighters and containers could not be destroyed
  • Corrected Roamer and Rover inventories appearing incorrectly in the transfer window
  • Added protection to allow the Mind Arc step of the Artemis story to be completed even if a player deletes their base
  • Fixed issue where a blue eye icon would occasionally appear over the crosshair
  • Fixed an issue where the Space Anomaly could remain in the player's home system indefinitely
  • Fixed an issue with dismantling tech on ship compare screens not correctly destroying the tech
  • Fixed an issue where unbinding a key would exit the control menu
  • Fixed an issue where selecting a new key binding could accidentally result in it being set to a mouse button
  • Fixed an issue where the Space Anomaly mission had no objective text in the log.
  • Fixed an issue where some players who should have been able to restart distant missions were unable to do so
  • Fixed an issue which could cause excess stacked inventory items to be lost

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