Archaeogaming

The Bez-Harr Embassy is the first ruin in the Legacy Hub that I have visited twice, separated by a period of eight months. I wanted to see if anything had changed with the base, communication stations, and landscape between then and now. My first visit was on October 3, 2017, when I was given a guided tour of the place by KingJamesHova. I blogged about it the following day, recalling discussions about communication stations, disappearing bases, and the need to excavate this one in order to get inside. Below is a composite image of the two times I visited the base:

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Already there is strange behavior. In the first image (top-left), we see the base as it was on October 3, 2017, with KingJamesHova’s icon on the screen. The monument he built earlier that day with THEKINGSNAKE is present on the south corner of the Embassy. The picture on the top-right was taken by me on May 15, 2018. The monument remains, but there is also a giant plant growing through the base. When I approached the base on foot, however, the plant disappeared (see bottom-left photo). Adding insult to injury, severe thunderstorms cause my house to lose power on the 15th, thus reverting to my previous save when I logged back in, and has been seen before, this caused another base to move for me (but it will appear in its original location for you, dear readers). The photo on the bottom-right shows the monument, but the base is gone, relocated a 9-hour walk to the northwest.

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The four images above show art-nik’s relocated base. As with other relocated Legacy bases, it is fully restored and placed at a suitable point in the landscape for access. The image at the beginning of this post shows the base as it was on the planet prior to Atlas Rises, and it’s a clear match.

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One difference, however, is the name of the Trade Terminal inside. The image on the left from October 3, 2017, shows a partially excavated terminal, Exchange 6/I69. The terminal on the right is the same one, but fully restored, yet is named W46/9 Log. I’ve seen this renaming phenomenon before with monoliths and plaques that remain in the same location but have their names changed when revisiting them after saving the game (or logging out and back in again). The names are procedurally generated, and I’m curious if the names are either random or are tied to the terminal’s location somehow.

I revisited the questions KingJamesHova and I discussed back in October to see if I was able to answer them now based on the archaeology of NMS and the collective knowledge of the Hub players:

Q1: Are the comm balls still in place?

A1: Yes. KingJamesHova’s is there in its original location near the base (in a cave). He recalled being shocked when he returned to see it after Atlas Rises, finding the ruins instead. Art-nik originally thought this was something intentionally done by Hello Games to commemorate the Harsh Buds War, not knowing that other ruins through the universe suffered similar fates. Art-nik in a message to me also noted that the landscape seemed to remain unchanged, even though the climate, vegetation, and animal populations were wildly different after Atlas Rises. I was able to prove this when investigating hollyworks pearl farm.

Q2: From KingJamesHova: Art-nik originally built those ruins. But the base he designed was fully realized (it had interior designs and furnishing (a lot of plants). Art-nik left the base many months ago, before the Atlas Rises update. The mystery is not where the base came from, but how it is still there? It’s all very odd to me. Why this base? And how is it still semi-functional (landing pad, trade terminal) but has no habitable base attached?

A2: We know now that all abandoned bases remain even after a player builds a new base elsewhere. Base elements are still functional for some of these Legacy sites, and a few still have their base units attached (like this one, but we had to dig to find it).

Q3: Can the original builder of a base see the base after building a new base someplace else?

A3: Art-nik reported returning to the base-site, but not being able to see the base itself, whereas both KingJamesHova and I could. This phenomenon was confirmed by other payers later, most recently by Zaz Ariins at the site of his original base on Newariins.

Q4: At what stage of construction (or deconstruction) player bases cached by the server?

A4: In speaking with Zaz Ariins about this recently, he noted that various bases appear to be preserved in various build-states depending on time as well as mode (creative v. normal). Art-nik’s base use to have decoration as well as plants in the greenhouse, but the base is quite spartan. It would seem that the servers locked on to whatever existed just prior to Atlas Rises, but that (for now) is just a hypothesis. I find it interesting that the restored base in its new location is still without plants inside. It’s yet another mystery of how the game works. Each site continues to provide another strange phenomenon to the laws of this synthetic universe.

Planet: Hova Rises
(Player who discovered the planet: art-nik)
Legacy Hub
System: Bez-Harr
Base Name: Bez-Harr Concern Space Embassy
Player: art-nik

Type: “Boiling” planet
Weather: Parched
Sentinels: Relaxed
Flora: Frequent. According to the Discoveries log, 25 plant species (all “common”) were discovered, 4 by KingJamesHova, and 21 by Evilalthalus.
Fauna: Occasional. Also based on the Discoveries log, 14 animal species either exit or once existed on the planet. Six were discovered by KingJamesHova and eight by Evilalthalus. Note that the log says 10/10 animals were discovered, but the real number is 14, so it is possible that the 10 were from pre-v1.3 and the other four are more recent arrivals to Hova Rises.

Economy: Ore extraction // Medium supply
Dominant Lifeform: Korvax
Conflict Level: Stable

Planet Base Coordinates: THFU:046A:0080:0D6C:009F
Portal Coordinates: pie pie galaxy triangle pie bird balloon ship shuttle tent ship whale

Resources (according to the log): Star Bulb, Emeril, Nickel, Heridium

Exterior Temp: Range between 125.3 F, 0.2 Rad, 17.2 Tox (day) and 168.6 F, 0.9 Rad, 4.8 Tox (night)
Interior Temp (relocated base): 66.2 F, 0 Rad, 0 Tox
Storms: none
Length of Day: 1 real-time minute = 45 minutes on Hova Rises. 32 real-time minutes = 1 day on Hova Rises.
Sunrise: 0400
Sunset: 2000

NOTE: It seems that all planets have the same sunrise, sunset, and length of day.

Circumference: ca. 8 minutes (480 seconds) at 4756u/s = 2,282,880u or ca. 2,282ku (exactly the same as Drogradur)
Diameter: ca. 726ku
Volume: 2 x 10⁸ u = 200,358,829u

Landscape:

Toxicity combined with near-extreme heat makes for an unpleasant walk on Hova Rises. Thankfully there are no storms. The landscape is crenelated desert littered with plants, some up to 8m tall. The crust is quite thin, and it seems that the desert might fall in to a planet-wide series of caves at any moment. Cave entrances are never further than a few seconds away no matter where one stands on the planet. Hova Rises is lush with desert vegetation, some of which is quite (8m) tall. Upon arrival at the base’s old position, one massive plant had grown through the entire structure and out the top. The plant disappeared, however, upon approach by foot.

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Waypoints: 3 Waypoints were discovered by a total of two players, dates ranging from April 18, 2017 to October 3, 2017.

2 on April 18, 2017 by Evilalthalus.
1 on October 3, 2017 by KingJamesHova. Renamed “Dig Site”, it is a 45-second walk downhill to the southwest from the embassy.

[NOTE: There is supposed to be an embedded MP4 video in the space above, but for some reason my videos are not appearing in WordPress. I’m trying to get Support to help with this issue.]

Base Description

The base as seen from the ground resembles an inverted, glass stepped pyramid that is four levels high with a mostly square base at its top. As I discovered in October 2017, the tip of the pyramid must be excavated in order to enter the structure. The base contains no fewer that four doors, and all are completely buried in the desert and mountainside.

A monument between KingJamesHova and THEKINGSNAKE dated 10/03/2017 (21:15) was positioned on the ground exactly at the south corner of the Embassy.

The console crashed. Upon reboot, the base had moved 9 hours to the northwest of its original location. The comm stations vanished, too. I put one of my own up so I could find the monument again, then went to a space station, teleported to my base and back again, and then returned to Hova Rises. The comm stations were restored, and I recorded them. Flying to the relocated base, it was completely restored above ground, but the greenhouse remained empty.

The relocated base shows a landing pad attached to the base unit, which opens into a short corridor featuring an active trade terminal along one wall. One must jetpack from there into the pyramid-greenhouse. There are no graphical embellishments, terminals, or furniture in the rest of the base.

While I visited the relocated base, several NPC ships visited the landing pad. At the original location, I did see one ship land through the mountain, but was unable to record that phenomenon. No other ships arrived or departed there, but the new location proved quite popular.

Comm Stations

There are only six communication stations on Hova Rises, all within less than a one-minute walk from the Embassy. One is on a peak overlooking the base, and one is perched on a nearby rock. The other four are buried.

1. art-nik. Never free until free from the Divine. On peak overlooking Embassy.
2. SmeeMont. It was an honour. –Rento Trade Company. In another cave, requiring minimal excavation to get to.
3. timtom1. Nice greenhouse dude. Farther along in other cave near no. 2.
4. yellow w black trim. Evilalthalus. Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain. In cave near no. 5.
5. KingJamesHova. Swear fealty to Hov or be buried here. In cave.
6. orange w blue trim. GalacticHeritage. This is an official Galactic Heritage site. On rock near Embassy.

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I placed a seventh as “NMS Archaeology”, but upon returning to that comm station’s placement, it had disappeared. Note that the six comm stations temporarily disappeared once the base relocated; however, I returned to the space station and then flew back to the planet, and the stations had returned.

—Andrew Reinhard, Archaeogaming