Archaeogaming

[UPDATED 2 Oct. 2017: See end of this post.]

1 October 2017 was quite a day for discovery for the No Man’s Sky Archaeological Survey. In addition to the buried settlement found on planet Pr in the Legacy Hub, NMSAS also located an abandoned base that had been beautifully built out by its owner. NMS allows for base-sharing, which means that player-modifications to the base they own can be viewed by visitors.

As with the buried settlement, I found the shared base by calculated accident. I had been visiting systems in the Legacy Hub flagged with “Contact”, meaning that someone had visited before. On occasion these human travelers would put down roots or leave a Communications Station behind.

I warped into the HUB-G-2D (PPAP) System in the Rentocnii Conflux, and immediately noticed a moon flagged with a gold star, the symbol for a shared base. Never having seen one before in the wild, I throttled over to Stifterv Dezumey, moon of DumplingsNDragons (Turok), discovered by . . . NMS Archaeology. There is a bug in NMS, because clearly someone had been here before, and constructed a base. I might be the first visitor after the Atlas Rises v1.3 update, however, which might be why I was flagged as the moon’s discoverer.

The base, “Dandy Don’s base in the Hub”, was created by player dwshort, and consists of three levels, a landing pad, three vehicle bays, a trade terminal, and is stuffed with hydroponic gear for growing NipNip, which is basically marijuana for the Gek race and sells for a lot of units on the open market. As per NMSAS ethics guidelines, I did not touch or take anything, but did register as a guest at the base’s terminal.

Below is a slideshow of images I snapped of the base and its immediate surroundings. This is human-made material culture crafted within a procedurally generated universe. I look forward to finding similar structures in the future.

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The abandonment of the base remains questionable. One can see another player as an illuminated orb, but I did not meet anyone during the visit. The base was still present on the planet and still had dwshort as its owner, meaning that the player had not yet claimed another base in the new Galactic Hub. If that happens, the player can opt to import materials from the old base to the new one, meaning that today’s discovery might disappear overnight, reverting to a standard, circular unclaimed foundation. If the base is not abandoned, I am interested to see if the owner continues to make additions to it. I’ve taken an overhead shot, so I can come back each month to see what, if anything, has changed.

Below is a 7-minute video of the initial arrival and exploration of the base, which contains unintended audio of my daughter and I being totally gobsmacked at the discovery.

UPDATE (2 October): I returned to this base on the evening of 2 Oct. 2017, and instead of the “Welcome to my home in the Hub” message, it had been replaced with the following NMS-generated message:

Did dwshort remove the message, or is this a glitch? I’ll check again tomorrow to see if anything has changed.

UPDATE (3 October): I went back to the base again this evening after logging in (my kid had been playing Overwatch), and the welcome message was back in place. I’m wondering if this was glitched yesterday for some reason.

—Andrew Reinhard, Archaeogaming