A while back, NMS had a bit of a resurgence in our gaming crew. We all hopped on and fucked about the stars, building bases and using terrain manipulators to make dirt-dick-monuments. I can't recall who it was that discovered it in our group, but we were soon following these simple instructions: 1. Go to a space station. 2. Swap your ship with an NPC in the landing pad area. 3. Immediately scrap your new ship for parts, and sell those parts for mad profit. 4. Sprint back to the NPC. 5. CLAIM YOUR SHIP BACK FOR FREE. 6. Rinse and repeat. The devs might have since patched it out, but at the end of it all I tapped out at a little over $4 billion which appears to be bang on for the in-game limit. I wonder if the money is still there or if they recognised people were abusing the absolute shit out of this and reset. Might login and find out. Anyway I feel the same, I've restarted a few times now and the allure has long gone. I'm pleased they turned the game around from such an awful launch, but it ain't for me these days.
That number has changed because the second time they fucked with the economy, the setup was to find a really hostile planet, find an activated indium deposit, find a strong magnetic field, and set up a farm. I had one that was making me $12b a day. I had another farm where I cooked circuit boards. Took a little longer but made like $60b a day. Which was a much more cheese-dick way to make money than salvaging busted ships, because you used to be able to look around for ships, swap them and sell them, basically shade-tree-mechanicing your way to success. The problem is? They crashed both of these options abruptly rather than tapering them off or whatever so you get the impression that whatever you're doing in one moment won't last until the next one. My wife stopped playing when she couldn't salvage ships any longer. As far as Farmville goes, Surviving Mars is more fun. No Man's Sky has a real pointlessness problem.
That was probably the best gameplay loop in the whole game. If I could play a game where I could just capture and salvage ships forever till I finally got so powerful I took over the galaxy that would be all I do. If they got rid of that gameplay I don’t think I would go back that was the most fun part of the game. Honestly wish you could fight enemies and then salvage ships that would be even better. The only games that really scratch that itch for me are endless sky and escape velocity nova. X3 had ok salvaging but it really needed mods to make it a more viable gameplay loop.