{"id":951,"date":"2016-09-12T20:47:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T20:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/?p=951"},"modified":"2016-09-14T21:08:02","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T21:08:02","slug":"no-mans-sky-and-the-explorers-mod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/?p=951","title":{"rendered":"No Man’s Sky and the “Explorer’s Mod”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first heard about No Man’s Sky<\/strong>, my initial reaction was “Cool, an exploration game! I really enjoyed the exploration in Mass Effect; I just hope there isn’t too much combat in this game. Combat is so boring”.<\/p>\n

Unlike so many other people, I was not disappointed in No Man’s Sky. I was hoping for hours of exploration and very little combat — so the game has greatly exceeded my expectations.<\/p>\n

HOWEVER, I do have a special mod to my game, let’s call it the Explorer’s Mod<\/strong>, which improves the game a lot — makes it much less “grindy”.<\/p>\n

To get the “Explorer’s Mod”, all you have to do is edit the memory of your game (in my case, I asked my son to do it) and add two billion credits<\/strong> to your account.<\/p>\n

\"billion\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Think of it as a research grant.<\/p>\n

No more mining for resources while hiding from sentinels! No more shuffling items in my inventory! Now I can focus on what’s really important —\u00a0 to explore, take photographs of landscapes and lifeforms, and to catalog new species. Along with this scientific mission there are responsibilities. I have to find blueprints for the best technology, and learn how to use them.\u00a0 I have to figure out how to use the navigation system…try to avoid getting lost…again.<\/p>\n

Part of the Explorer’s Mod Research Grant<\/strong> is the constraint “DO NOT KILL ANY CREATURES”.\u00a0 Not even in self-defense. And ever since the time I saw a clump of “mushrooms” get up and run away, I haven’t killed any “plants” either.<\/p>\n

It’s great not having to worry about money, but there are still many challenges. Here I am trying to take one more picture<\/em> of a new species before my shields fail.<\/p>\n

\"critical-damage-taken\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In that case, it was not a good decision.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"i-died\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another challenge is the calculation “Do I have enough resources with me to go to that area over there on foot, or should I run back to my ship before I freeze to death?”<\/p>\n

And, I have had to bargain with dozens of aliens in order to find the ship that had the technology I wanted. This was a slow process that took endless patience. Although, I have to admit, it was great to be able to afford whatever caught my eye. (Don’t you just love that new starship smell?)<\/p>\n

Wealth does not solve all my problems — it appears that some resources are not for sale. I need Emeril to construct a shield upgrade — but I couldn’t find it in any of the space stations; no fellow travelers had any for sale either. My research grant doesn’t help me here. I really will have to brave the Sentinels and mine for Emeril myself.<\/p>\n

Another challenge is Space Pirates. In this case, I have broken the rule “do not kill any creatures”.<\/p>\n

\"destroy-starships\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m hoping it’s possible to improve my shields so much that shooting pirates is no longer necessary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first heard about No Man’s Sky, my initial reaction was “Cool, an exploration game! I really enjoyed the exploration in Mass Effect; I just hope there isn’t too much combat in this game. Combat is so boring”. Unlike … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-no-mans-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.horsetailnebula.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}