Hello Citizen Scientists,

It’s been a year since No Man’s Sky first released, and it’s been an exciting, intense and emotional year for us at Hello Games. We have been quiet, but we have been listening intently.

We've spent that year working hard on free updates for this game our team cares about so much.

Update 1.3 will release this week and will be available for free to all No Man’s Sky players. We're calling it Atlas Rises. It focuses on improving the central story of No Man’s Sky and adds the ability to quick travel between locations using portals. Patch notes will be made available shortly before the update goes live.

What we do is much more important than what we say, but since launch we have sometimes focused too much on that.

We wanted to reach out and celebrate the devoted community that means so much to us. We launched Waking Titan to try to do that.

When we posted those cassettes we didn't know what to expect. In the last eight weeks a quarter of a million players from across the globe (174 countries, to be precise!) have come together - united by a shared love of mystery and science fiction - to form the Citizen Science Division. You’ve travelled great distances both real and virtual, undertaken complex tasks, and explored the depths of simulation theory. New friendships have been forged, and a tight-knit community has been created. Most importantly a cute hamster has a new home.

You've become part of the No Man's Sky origin story.

It's been an honour to watch, but this is just the beginning. Whether you’ve followed Waking Titan or not, we welcome anyone to sign up to the Citizen Science Division, and to join us on the official CSD forums.

Our journey continues.

Thank you for this year. We hope you enjoy what comes next.

Sean

GENERATION
Increased variety in weather, planet and structure names
More base building parts have unique names
Prevented trees spawning on sheer cliffs
Improved object placement on slopes
Improved grass placement and density
Changed the default starting ship model
Regenerated galaxy to remove differences between survival, normal and creative game modes
Improved building distribution
Increased distribution of heridium deposits
Improved generation of beaches along shorelines
Repositioned player bases to accommodate generation changes

EXPLORATION
Improved balance of hazards between planets
Improved settings for hazard damage and strength
Reduce cave hazard recharge times
Added Shielding Shard to the starting player inventory
Limited the depth at which buildings can spawn underwater

GAMEPLAY
More tech available in tech shops
Balanced tech shop standing requirements
Standing lights have a proper name when you interact with them
Increased robustness of systems for locating buildings
Increased number and types of objects which can be scanned
Increased information available about scanned foliage and creatures
Improved planet resource lists
Craftable products now sorted by most recent use
Improved differentiation of weapons
Fixed pinning product recipes and technology guides
Continued story unlocked through abandoned buildings
Added interactions and dialogue options for many structures and characters
Overhauled secondary character interactions
Joint exploration has been introduced allowing 16 players to see visual representations of each other in game. Joint exploration does not require PS Plus, and is not currently available on GOG Galaxy.

TRADE AND FARMING
Alloys, farm products and new gas products now form separate branches of a larger craft tree
Added new valuable higher tier craft products
Added new harvester to harvest atmospheric gases
Added new trade specific products
Added new farmable “Star Bramble” plant
Added larger 4 plant hydroponic tray
Increased contrast between picked and unpicked resource plants to more easily tell them apart
Balanced priced of alloys, farm products and gases
Improved distributions of resources on planets
Improved scan ranges for resources on planets
Added scan markers on more smaller plutonium crystals to aid resource gathering

FREIGHTERS
Balanced freighter prices
Fixed collision on freighter bridge
Added freighter classes
Added ability to warp in your freighter
Fixed floating turrets on capital freighters

SPACE
Improved space heavy air
Added requirement to scan planets in order to reveal their names
Improved planet name display as you enter orbit
Fix for massive carve radius when mining asteroids
GALACTIC MAP

Updated galactic map UI
Improved galactic map controls
Improved star names gathered in galaxy map flythrough
Improved distribution of different coloured stars
Added interstellar scan events

STARSHIPS
Added ability to summon your ship from the quick menu
Refined ship reticules
Added new holographic cockpit HUD elements: mini map, pulse drive warning and target ship
Added new ship technology
Balanced space combat
Balanced ship weapons and technology
Updated ship weapon projectile effects
Updated ship hit direction markers
Improved flare graphics on ships
Improved loot containers dropped by AI ships
Improved effects on damaged AI ships
Balanced crashed ships broken slots and repair costs
Added a more convenient swap inventory button for moving items between new/crashed ships and storage units
Updated design of Atlas pass icons
Added ability to look around the cockpit when landed
Allowed player to remain in ship cockpit after landing
Improved spawning and distribution of AI ships
Improved ship altimeter
Added in-ship communicator
Added button prompt for ship zoom
Fixed a bug where your ship could become invisible by visiting the galactic map
Improved Pirate systems including the ability to negotiate or call in support
Added low flight mode
Improved landing code

UI
Divided options menu into several pages
Revised Journey page
New Gek, Korvax and Vy’keen medals
New medals for the merchant, mercenary and explorer guilds
Revised log page
Fixed animation on markers as they are removed
Improved binocular UI
Updated journey milestone icons
Overhauled discovery log
Added cardinal directions to compass
Added distance markers to compass
Fix for “redeem content” showing twice on Steam menu
New trade and product icons
Revised combat ship markers
Improved ship tracking arrows when flying away from targets
Overhauled conversation interface

GRAPHICS
Improved HBAO filtering around edges
Improved TAA handling of grass blade edges
Introduced depth of field effect during interactions
Added LOD meshes and imposters to various props
Fixed texturing on the buildable door
Reduced HBAO shimmer
Reduced shadow acne
Fixed artifacts with imposter shadows
Improved double-sided normals for foliage
Improved terrain texturing and texture blending
Improved grass colour blending and integration with terrain
Improved grass and leaf materials
Improved colour palettes across several biomes
Improved planet night skies
Fixed z-fighting on small glowing plants
Various graphics optimisations and fixes
Visual improvements to Atlas stations
Replaced all terrain textures with higher detail and quality variants
Added new higher detail foliage variants to several biomes
Upgraded textures on several cave props

AUDIO
Four new sets of soundscapes by 65 Days of Static
Reworked space combat audio
Reworked space explosions
Added new ship weapon sounds
Added weird biome soundscape
Added new music and sound effects for story mode
Lots of new UI sounds
Minor mix changes and optimisations

LANGUAGE
Various minor language fixes and improvements