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No Man's Sky - Joint Exploration Questions & Answers

paulogy

Member
The free v1.3 update to No Man's Sky is out today, bringing with it many new features including "Joint Exploration". The Atlas Rises patch notes describe it as:

JOINT EXPLORATION
Glitches in the simulation have begun to appear.
Visualised by strange floating orbs, up to 16 players can see and communicate with one another, and explore the universe together.
While interaction with others is currently very limited, this is an important first step into the world of synchronous co-op in No Man's Sky.
While interaction is very limited, VOIP (Voice over IP) allows proximity based voice chat with other nearby explorers.
Use portals to quickly travel to more populated planets, or to meet up with friends.

Example: https://nmswp.azureedge.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/AtlasRises_MP-nored_min.mp4

So while it is not a full cooperative multiplayer mode, it certainly seems like a step toward one!

From live gameplay today we're getting some early impressions of how Joint Exploration works. But I still have so many questions:

No Man's Sky - Joint Exploration Q & A
  1. Can you see each other? Yes, as orbs. Player position is tracked in three dimensions.
  2. Can you see the other's ship? No, but their orb glows green when they are in their ship.
  3. Can you interact? You can use in-game voice chat (VOIP) with up to 16 people nearby
  4. Can you mute / disable? Yes, can mute people, or turn off network play entirely
  5. Do you need PS+ to use JE? No.
  6. Can you modify the terrain and impact the other person? Seems no with the multitool grenade. Not sure about the new terrain deformer tool.
  7. If you fight an animal, can the other person see it? No.
  8. If you build a base can the other person see it being built? __________
  9. If you activate a monolith can the other person see it? __________
  10. If you break down a door to a Manufacturing Facility can the other person see it (and enter after)? __________
  11. What can you do? You can create a monument together to memorialize your meeting. (seems there can only be one monument per system?)

If people have answers to these, or more questions and/or anecdotes about Joint Exploration, perhaps we can discuss here :)

(Note: I posted this in the main update thread but it got buried under all the other excitement)

Mute my orb if old.
 

Jeremy

Member
So exactly a year later, we get the feature that was promised, and it's an Orb.

Lol. Highway robbery, if old.

It would have never been more than something similar to an orb. This sounds like exactly what they were hinting at or implying was supposed to be there at launch, it wouldn't have been custom characters or anything super personalized or even really any interaction.

It honestly sounds like this is the foundation for more involved multiplayer or at least co-op play more fleshed out than the original plans as well.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
Since you can only see an orb and the other person can't see you fighting creatures or impacting the terrain, I'm guessing the answer to all the other questions is "no".

It's great that they're adding at least some form of interaction based on the coordinates though.
 

Prophane33

Member
Worst first post I've seen in a while, gg

It wouldn't be a NMS thread without someone being woefully unfunny/trolling.

More on topic, I'm looking forward to going back to the game with the new update. I already put around 60 hours into it, but I think it's time to go back after skipping the last update.
 
So exactly a year later, we get the feature that was promised (EDIT: AT LAUNCH), and it's an Orb.

Lol. Highway robbery, if old.
Sigh. Seriously? You'd think that we've seem to forgotten what happened before. Some of us though have moved on.

Either way the good thing is that this game is ripe for a replay now.

Plus we're getting closer now.
 

SoulUnison

Banned
Worst first post I've seen in a while, gg

He's got a point.

This sounds like a technical step in the right direction, but from its presentation and lack of integration to most of the game's systems it feels like something you'd expect from the Alpha/Beta of a game.
It sounds like the game is extremely tightly instanced in everything except player coordinates, and that could lead to some really funky inconsistencies.

I would have waited until they were a bit farther along with it before releasing it to the general audience.
At least until you could also view other player's ships rather than some sort of state-dependent color change.
 

paulogy

Member
Since you can only see an orb and the other person can't see you fighting creatures or impacting the terrain, I'm guessing the answer to all the other questions is "no".

Maybe, maybe not? The way it seems to handle the creatures is procedurally instanced, so if you exited the planet and returned they would be in different places. So if two people entered the planet at the same time it would be different for them - makes sense.

Similarly, the terrain generation is seeded procedural, while the deformations (at least prior to this point) seem to be somewhat temporary. You would make changes, strip mine resources, and return at a later point and they would have been restored - so it would make sense that your companion might not see those changes either.

The user-created bases however are more permanent, and can't be handled procedurally since they are so custom, so they must be stored differently. If not live then periodically the others in your party should be able to see the building evolve eventually.

And more simply it should be relatively easy to convey that the state of an NPC building (door open/closed) and synchronize it across a group of people in near proximity.
 

Giolon

Member
So it's unclear to me how this works. Does it just work automatically if you're online? If you and another player happen to be on the same planet at the same spot you can see each other's light orbs? Nothing else special has to be done to enable this?
 
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