PINNED: Experimental Branch 18/02

Hello Everyone,

First of all, thanks so much to everyone who has already spent time playing No Man's Sky and letting us know about any issues you've experienced.

To play in Experimental, right-click on No Man's Sky from the Steam library page and select "Properties". Among the available tabs will be the "BETAS" tab. Enter "3xperimental" in the textbox and press "CHECK CODE", then select it from the dropdown menu.

The patch notes are as follows:

Experimental Branch 20/02

• Fixed an issue that could cause Sentinel Walkers to fail to spawn.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the base building hologram to fail to collide correctly with the planet surface.
  
• Players can now archive their current starship or Multi-Tool, as long as it is not the only one left.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Minotaur to sink into its geobay.
  
• Fixed a number of rare issues related to the Atlas Station.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from recolouring Solar ships in the starship customiser.
  
• Fixed a number of issues that could occur after exchanging ships with an NPC.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause players to pop to the surface while swimming on moons.
  
• If players die in midair while on a planet, their grave will now spawn on the planet's surface.
  
• Fixed a text issue with the S-Wing Megalith Engine ship part.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that prevent completion of the Chronicle expedition milestones if the Rendezvous milestones autocomplete.
  
• Fixed a rare blocker in In Stellar Multitiudes where Polo would offer the incorrect dialogue.
  
• Fixed a rare mission blocker in They Who Returned.
  
  
• Fixed a specific performance issue on PlayStation 5.
  
• Fixed a rare crash.
  
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause a crash followed by an infinite load after claiming abandoned ships on water worlds.

Experimental Branch 18/02

• Fixed an issue that could cause players not to know the Terrain Manipulator recipe in the Titan Expedition.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused misleading mission text when locating storm crystals for an expedition.
  
  
• Fixed a rare mission blocker in In Stellar Multitudes.
  
• Fixed a number of rare mission blockers that could cause players to have the wrong crafting recipes during In Stellar Multitudes.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause a second mission marker to persist when not needed during In Stellar Multitudes.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Under a Rebel Star mission to get stuck after fleeing sentinels.
  
• Fixed a number of minor mission text issues that could occur when switching to a new settlement.
  
• Fixed a rare mission blocker that could prevent players from acquiring a replacement radiant brain from Tethys in A Trace of Metal.
  
  
• Reloading a save made inside an Exocraft will no longer place you outside it.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Quick Menu from being accessible in Exocraft when using the swap Quick/Build Menu option.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented the full range of terrain manipulator modes being accessible in while in an Exocraft.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented hotkeys that were set for the Minotaur AI from saving correctly.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Nautilon to dive slightly when using the keyboard to navigate the Quick Menu.
  
• Made a number of improvements to buoyancy and control when piloting the Nautilon on the surface of the water.
  
• Made a significant number of improvements to the Nautilon's visual effects.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where an expedition reward Multi-Tool with a custom name would overwrite the primary Multi-Tool's name.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some inventory sort hover tips to clip off the edge of the screen.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused expanded tech or cargo inventories not to reset properly when switching inventory pages.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some backpacks to appear very small in the inventory.
  
• Localised weather anomalies are now tracked in the Analysis Visor.
  
• Crabs can now be adopted as player companions.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the "New Planet Discovered" UI to be squashed by the saving UI.
  
• Fixed a number of audio issues in the loading starfield.
  
• Fixed a minor animation glitch when using the Analysis Visor.
  
• Fixed a number of clipping issues when wearing a cape and another cloth item at the same time.
  
  
• Fixed a minor visual glitch with some specific barren trees.
  
• Fixed a minor visual glitch with some specific lush trees.
  
• Fixed a number of rare visual glitches with water rendering.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some large planetary objects to vanish shortly after spawning.
  
• Fixed a number of visual issues with foam when in Photo Mode.
  
• Fixed a number of minor visual issues with planet atmosphere rendering.
  
• Fixed a number of minor visual issues with metal surface rendering.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause water effects to appear above the surface.
  
• Fixed a visual glitch that could occur when loading into game on PC while alt-tabbed to a different window.
  
• Fixed an issue that could caused the loading starfield to appear jittery.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause some starship trails to appear in front of the ship while moving at high speed.
  
• Fixed a number of minor visual glitches with the display of moons in the Discovery Page.
  
  
• Improved the quality of GTAO in PC VR.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused flickering when rendering water in VR.
  
  
• Fixed a number of ghosting issues on Xbox.
  
• Introduced a significant memory optimisation for PlayStation 4.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevent foliage being pushed properly by nearby objects on Mac.
  
• Fixed a number of visual issues on Mac.
  
  
• Improved indexing in arrays of data, to help mod authors more easily merge in modded data. The index ID is also now clearly highlighted in the output of the SaveOutModdedMetadata option.
  
  
• Fixed a crash that occurs when playing the PlayStation 4 version of NMS on PlayStation 5.
  
• Introduced a significant memory optimisation for all platforms.
  
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause a softlock when opening the galaxy map after landing on a derelict freighter.
  
• Fixed a number of rare crashes.

As always, thank you to all players who use Experimental and take the time to report any issues you encounter.

Please note there is the possibility that experimental builds may introduce new issues that haven't been caught in test. We'd like to recommend that all players back up their save files, by making a local copy of the st_[userid] folder found here on PC: %appdata%\HelloGames\NMS\ and here on mac: ~/Library/Application Support/HelloGames/NMS/

Note that we don't anticipate any issues here. However, performing your own backups could mean the difference between resuming play immediately, or waiting for the next patch.

If you decide to opt out of experimental and return to the main branch, we strongly recommend resuming from a backed-up save from the main branch, rather than taking an experimental branch save back to main, which may cause unexpected behaviour.

Feedback and reports of new bugs/issues being found on Experimental are welcome, so please reply to this thread or submit a ticket to https://hellogames.zendesk.com/ with the phrase "Steam Experimental" in the ticket title. If you are running any mods for the game, please list them along with your bug report.