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[craigrushforth]

Quick question about the atlas path and where the ending of the game is.

Spoiler

I collected 10 atlas stones took them to the anomaly and birthed a new star. This then pointed me towards a black hole. Went through that thinking this would take me close to the center of the galaxy. Nope, landed somewhere else in the same Elucid galaxy still 170k light years away from the center. I reloaded an old save so I have all my atlas stones back but don't know what to do.

How do I see some sort of conclusion so I can trade it in and pick it back up once they add in more things to do.

 

[Venom Fox]

So there's literally no centre of the Universe? You could potentially travel hundreds of Galaxies and that's it lol.

 

[Syder]

I realised probably about 30-40 hours into my experience that I was done with the core gameplay loop (coming from someone with about a hundred hours in Starbound, 200 hours in Rust, hundreds more in Minecraft, I love other games in this genre like Subnautica too) and the journey to get to the centre of the galaxy was going to take way longer than I had the patience for, so a friend of mine who was approaching the centre streamed the final hour of his journey to me on Steam.

Wow... I've said it probably a dozen times in the last week and a half, I am so fucking glad I didn't buy into the hype for this. I kinda feel second-hand disappointment for people that were putting this on a pedestal as their one big hype purchase of the year.

 

[mokeyjoe]

Maybe I didn't follow the pre-release stuff closley enough, but did people expect this to be some kind of linear story based game? I always thought it was just a 'ramble around planets looking at stuff' kind of game, based on the footage and stuff.

I mean as far as I recall from the old Elite games, there was never really an ending to that. Some kind of flavour, side quest story stuff in the background, but that's all. Mostly it was just goofing around in space. I haven't played the new one.

 

[Glass Shark]

.

 

[Wok]

Eventually there'd have to be an end to the galaxies, right?

There might just be a cycle there.

 

[Glass Shark]

Just realized something... when you complete the Atlas path it says you're birthing a new star, right? I've done it myself and the game seems completely literal about it, not talking as if it's just a conceptual or theoretical thing. But how is this actually possible? According to Hello Games, the math needed for the universe simulation is completely contained on the disc. So in order for you to actually make a new star in the game, and in order for a new player to spawn on that star, server calls would have to be made on both sides of the equation to "add" your new star to the galactic map.

I know people have done network captures of the game to determine that "multiplayer" is really just uploading discoveries to the Atlas dictionary. But if someone did a capture of the network when you "birth" a new star, that should show whether or not it's a thing that is actually happening.

Am I making sense?

 

[N° 2048]

Just realized something... when you complete the Atlas path it says you're birthing a new star, right? I've done it myself and the game seems completely literal about it, not talking as if it's just a conceptual or theoretical thing. But how is this actually possible? According to Hello Games, the math needed for the universe simulation is completely contained on the disc. So in order for you to actually make a new star in the game, and in order for a new player to spawn on that star, server calls would have to be made on both sides of the equation to "add" your new star to the galactic map.

I know people have done network captures of the game to determine that "multiplayer" is really just uploading discoveries to the Atlas dictionary. But if someone did a capture of the network when you "birth" a new star, that should show whether or not it's a thing that is actually happening.

Am I making sense?

It's probably nothing. I also thought, what if the next person to play the game for the first time loads into my birthed star?

 

[Klyka]

Just realized something... when you complete the Atlas path it says you're birthing a new star, right? I've done it myself and the game seems completely literal about it, not talking as if it's just a conceptual or theoretical thing. But how is this actually possible? According to Hello Games, the math needed for the universe simulation is completely contained on the disc. So in order for you to actually make a new star in the game, and in order for a new player to spawn on that star, server calls would have to be made on both sides of the equation to "add" your new star to the galactic map.

I know people have done network captures of the game to determine that "multiplayer" is really just uploading discoveries to the Atlas dictionary. But if someone did a capture of the network when you "birth" a new star, that should show whether or not it's a thing that is actually happening.

Am I making sense?

There is no way for you to ever, in any way, be able to find you if you really birthed a star or not and if someone really spawns on it or not.
So as with many things in this game: Just believe in your own truth.

 

[Septimius]

Just realized something... when you complete the Atlas path it says you're birthing a new star, right? I've done it myself and the game seems completely literal about it, not talking as if it's just a conceptual or theoretical thing. But how is this actually possible? According to Hello Games, the math needed for the universe simulation is completely contained on the disc. So in order for you to actually make a new star in the game, and in order for a new player to spawn on that star, server calls would have to be made on both sides of the equation to "add" your new star to the galactic map.

I know people have done network captures of the game to determine that "multiplayer" is really just uploading discoveries to the Atlas dictionary. But if someone did a capture of the network when you "birth" a new star, that should show whether or not it's a thing that is actually happening.

Am I making sense?

Spoiler

It's a lie

 

[N° 2048]

lol @ people still looking for "super secrets" or thinking the ending is not actually the real ending.

 

[The Elite]

lol @ people still looking for "super secrets" or thinking the ending is not actually the real ending.

It's like searching for the meaning of life or god.

You never know. It's a big universe.

lol

 

[Corronchilejano]

lol @ people still looking for "super secrets" or thinking the ending is not actually the real ending.

Maybe there's something else to do somewhere in the Universe?

Spoiler

Coming soon, to a DLC near you

 

[Tezzeractor]

It's like searching for the meaning of life or god.

You never know. It's a big universe.

lol

Damn that's meta.

 

[xam3l]

lol @ people still looking for "super secrets" or thinking the ending is not actually the real ending.

The Search for Chapter 3.

 

[UncleSporky]

Just realized something... when you complete the Atlas path it says you're birthing a new star, right? I've done it myself and the game seems completely literal about it, not talking as if it's just a conceptual or theoretical thing. But how is this actually possible? According to Hello Games, the math needed for the universe simulation is completely contained on the disc. So in order for you to actually make a new star in the game, and in order for a new player to spawn on that star, server calls would have to be made on both sides of the equation to "add" your new star to the galactic map.

I know people have done network captures of the game to determine that "multiplayer" is really just uploading discoveries to the Atlas dictionary. But if someone did a capture of the network when you "birth" a new star, that should show whether or not it's a thing that is actually happening.

Am I making sense?

Personally I believe that it's just BS and not doing anything at all.

However.

One possible implementation could be something like - on disc set aside 1 billion stars (which is nothing in the grand scheme) and designate them as "do not generate," nothing is there. For simplicity consider them "the last" billion stars out of the 18 quadrillion. So whenever the math does its thing and comes up with star #xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and it turns out that star is one of those last billion, then you generate nothing there instead.

Whenever a player completes the Atlas path, send data to the server that says "hey, decrement that blocked-off number by one, an extra star can be generated now." Then every player booting up the game connects briefly online and calls up that same number, and now it's 999,999,999, so every game has had a new star added to it, essentially (one less star that's not being generated). They don't have to name it or come up with a specific location for it or anything, it's just filling a pre-existing hole. Just by changing one single variable.

Probably a pretty safe bet that the Atlas path is not going to get beaten a billion times. Or they could even set aside a trillion, if they want to be safe.

 

[Glass Shark]

Personally I believe that it's just BS and not doing anything at all.

However.

One possible implementation could be something like - on disc set aside 1 billion stars (which is nothing in the grand scheme) and designate them as "do not generate," nothing is there. For simplicity consider them "the last" billion stars out of the 18 quadrillion. So whenever the math does its thing and comes up with star #xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and it turns out that star is one of those last billion, then you generate nothing there instead.

Whenever a player completes the Atlas path, send data to the server that says "hey, decrement that blocked-off number by one, an extra star can be generated now." Then every player booting up the game connects briefly online and calls up that same number, and now it's 999,999,999, so every game has had a new star added to it, essentially (one less star that's not being generated). They don't have to name it or come up with a specific location for it or anything, it's just filling a pre-existing hole. Just by changing one single variable.

Probably a pretty safe bet that the Atlas path is not going to get beaten a billion times. Or they could even set aside a trillion, if they want to be safe.

I also believe it's BS. When I get a chance I'm going to do another Atlas run and do a network capture to see what's going on. My guess is nothing.

 

[UncleSporky]

I also believe it's BS. When I get a chance I'm going to do another Atlas run and do a network capture to see what's going on. My guess is nothing.

Well what about this...if you're on PC, can you back up your save file? I mean I heard there are trainers that can grant you a million credits etc., why wouldn't you be able to mess with your save?

If you can back up your save, then players would be able to complete the Atlas path over and over rapidly by restoring the same save file, and generate tons of stars...

But anyway, if you can back it up, first beat it and don't turn in the 10 stones, then do it and turn them in, and compare the resulting network traffic.

Remember to keep checking until the next time it does send data, in case it just waits until the next relevant moment, like uploading name data. Sending the "new star" data alongside it, maybe.

 

[mokeyjoe]

Was going to head to the centre after completing the Atlas path, but decided to turn round and head the other way for the hell of it.

How far have people managed to travel out? Can't find any numbers anywhere. I'm only about 10k LY past my starting distance as yet.

 

[KeRaSh]

Spent around 30 to 40 minutes of fast travelling to the center with the camera yesterday. I was a little bummed that I couldn't click on it but at least I've seen it up close now. Won't bother with actually travelling there so I watched a video of someone reaching it. It's pretty much what I've expected it to be but holy crap, the music at the end was phenomenal. A perfect fit for the atmosphere.

 

[nynt9]

I also believe it's BS. When I get a chance I'm going to do another Atlas run and do a network capture to see what's going on. My guess is nothing.

Considering the "your discoveries get erased after a while" thing and how the opening crawl shows system names from a text file instead of things players discovered, I'm sure the atlas path thing is just more smoke and mirrors like everything else in the game.

 

[Seiniyta]

Considering the "your discoveries get erased after a while" thing and how the opening crawl shows system names from a text file instead of things players discovered, I'm sure the atlas path thing is just more smoke and mirrors like everything else in the game.

The discoveries being erased thing ended up being just a bug which the person originally affected by it could fix it on his own. It's nothing.

 

[Z3M0G]

Well this thread is dead... nothing more worth discussing / discovering I guess.

But I have a question (please do not spoil center for me, I am not reading this entire thread!):

When you finish the Atlas path and cash in your 10 Atlas Stones, you "Birth a new star". Does this actually do anything for you? Do benefit from it?

It seemed that after this I could detect black holes on my own in the galactic map... was that the benefit?

 

[Z3M0G]

Well I decided officially that I am done. No where near the center. So I went ahead and watched the ending on the Angry Joe review.

So you click to warp to center, but you don't see the warp actually happen and it immediately zooms out from the current galaxy and throws you into a new Galaxy.

I know everyone said "it's nothing", but this is somehow even less than I ever imagined. I would have at least expected you would see the warp, then see you fly into something cool... prior to throwing you into the next galaxy... but instead we have here the absolute most empty non-implementation of the event...

Imagine not having the Atlas Path at all... that at least felt like a little bit of a "game" that had an "ending", as empty as that also felt... it was at least far less empty than reaching the actual center...

I was blown away that someone hit 11th galaxy already... then I check and the same guy hit 20th galaxy over a month ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3MqbTGMZk

sweet Jesus... I assume this must have been when he said he was done...

Has anyone gone further?

Edit: It's crazy how he started his next galaxy on an extreme sentinel planet and was almost dead before he even got control...

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Well I decided officially that I am done. No where near the center. So I went ahead and watched the ending on the Angry Joe review.

So you click to warp to center, but you don't see the warp actually happen and it immediately zooms out from the current galaxy and throws you into a new Galaxy.

I know everyone said "it's nothing", but this is somehow even less than I ever imagined. I would have at least expected you would see the warp, then see you fly into something cool... prior to throwing you into the next galaxy... but instead we have here the absolute most empty non-implementation of the event...

I'm just doing the same thing right now... is that seriously the 'ending'?! Jesus holy fuck; you would expect a little payoff for putting all that time into the game. I've only played a couple of hours, but was planning to go back to it this weekend.

 

[BouncyFrag]

I remember the first time I saw this thread and avoided it like the plague fearful of exposing any of the incredible secrets that I knew NMS would deliver. I couldn't have been any more wrong, lol.

 

[Z3M0G]

I remember the first time I saw this thread and avoided it like the plague fearful of exposing any of the incredible secrets that I knew NMS would deliver. I couldn't have been any more wrong, lol.

Everyone suggested spoiling it for myself... this is the one time I whole-heartedly agree that someone should watch the ending of this game before buying it. It is the less of a spoiler than seeing what random planets look like. It is literally less than nothing.

I wanted to play it so I got it. The Atlas path is the only thing that feels like it has a beginning / middle / end. That was enough game for me. The journey to center is a waste.

No wonder they delayed it to add Atlas... I couldn't imagine the center being all there is to work towards, just to have it conclude with that...

 

[Triggerhappytel]

So that diamond-shaped black monument on the cover art - does that actually feature in the game? I always thought it would be the thing at the centre of the universe, causing some kind of corruption.

 

[Zomba13]

So that diamond-shaped black monument on the cover art - does that actually feature in the game? I always thought it would be the thing at the centre of the universe, causing some kind of corruption.

Maybe it's supposed to be the Atlus? Or something? One of the Atlus things is a red ball that looks like the red ball in the logo thing, and the stations are diamond shaped. I think it's just supposed to be a representation of the Atlus.

I thought it'd be at the centre too. Like, this Atlus thing maybe made the galaxy/universe but needed people to catalogue it and if you got the the center it'd be this grand, unprecedented event. And then the stuff with the abandoned bases and the same stuff growing in every one, I thought would be related to it in some way instead of just "nah, this is what we use for abandoned buildings".

 

[Fushichou187]

So that diamond-shaped black monument on the cover art - does that actually feature in the game?

It's an Atlas space station.