Galaxy has a roll back feature, but I don't know how far back it goes. You could check that out and see what's available.

Failing that, e-mail Support and see if they'll send you the files you need. Often they'll do things like this, although it could be slow given the current situation with a big sale and the coronavirus making work more difficult for them.

Hmm maybe i'll give galaxy a try first and see what it can offer me here, if not the support route might be the most certain way to get the stand-alone version i'm after. Thanks :)

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So from those like me that care less than zero percent for the multi-player stuff what is the last 'good' version of NMS you (all) prefer to play? Toccatta mentions v2.24 (is that the Mech one)?

Currently i'm on a nicely modded Pathfinder, but i do remember that still had lots of little QoL things missing (like being able to use your torch in a cave in daytime etc), but i think a couple of updates later were still decent for the single-player game (Abyss maybe?)

I warned of this when the first "multiplayer bubbles" arrived. I said a very vocal MINORITY of multiplayer NMS
players was going to change the game and that one day you wouldn't be able to play it as single player. This forum seems to show I was right all that time ago. Now we have an upfront "some other players may join" as the only option. And yes, you can go into Options/Network and say "invite only" followed by "no one: for the rest, but if it is true that some mission cannot be completed without being online, then unless you know what missions, you are forced to have multiplayer on!

I am going to send a support email to Hello Games asking them to categorically say whether you can play the whole game without going online. If they can't tell me that, that's NO man Sky over for me! Well done Hello Games, and well done all you loud-mouthed multiplayer gamers!

There's a difference between forced multiplayer and on-line. You do NOT have to have multiplayer enabled for anything. I don't and I am not barred from anything in the game: no items, no missions, nothing. I am on-line though.

In general, never forward enforcement of restrictions to the persons or systems the restriction applies to. If you tell a prisoner, that it's his duty to keep him locked up, well... you know where I'm heading.

So trusting in a software not to phone home, not sharing information, keeping others out of your game etc by ticking a box is the wrong way to go, as is using the windows firewall to prevent windows and related software of doing things you don't want to happen.

For this, you use an application- or IP-table-based firewall and restrict access of that software to the internet. If you check in the log files, how many programs, even after telling them to not use online connections still connecting online, you understand why having trust-issues in 2020 is recommended.

There are a lot of free firewalls out there, which can be used. Just don't fall for the "you are in danger, quickly upgrade to pro-version" look and feel. They want to sell their products too.

The point is still that some people, who just play single player simple can't or don't want to be 'always online'. It's basically the reason why I buy my stuff here at not at steam. If I could life with always being connected and sending my profile, all my behavior, preferences, hard- and software setup and more to any No-Matters-Why Company, I could also just and simply buy at steam sales.

That wasn't his point. He was saying you're forced to play multiplayer if you want to be able to experience all the content, which is total bullshit.

Some people use the term 'multiplayer' rather equal to as 'always-online'. He states in is second last sentence to ask Hello Games "whether you can play the whole game without going online". So here, as I understand it, he concretizes his concern to not only having other players (and/or their discoveries) in his game but to have to be online at all to get all the content.
Besides, the fact that you have to start and load a game first before you can disable multiplayer/online-content in the menu and you have to do it with every new game is a kind of no-go and unprofessional in my opinion.

100% i will not play any game if i'm forced to be on-line just to be able to play. That is DRM in effect.

So IF NMS is now that game, i will indeed need to find some way to see when this became part of the game, and stop at the expansion prior to this being introduced. I can then set up my mods as best i can and get on with enjoying the game (which i have put off for years now, waiting for QoL fixes etc), and forget about the future additions to NMS :(

Well, seriously, no need to be this radical. The game is playable 99.8% without any online. I play it this way by blocking it with a firewall and I don't miss any important features.
What you don't get is of course any interaction with other players. Also, the amount of quicksilver is rather limited, but beside those (imho ugly) visuals, you can't get anything else for this.
The cooperative missions in the anomaly sound pretty much like the single player missions from the guild/faction representative inside the space stations, just for a group of players. Even the Living Ships can be obtained through purchasing a Void Egg (req. quicksilver) and following its questline or by buying it like any other ship. So also no requirement for online - just luck to find one.

With every update, they also fix a couple of bugs, and there are more than enough of them, so I wouldn't recommend to stop updating. You still get more additional feature with the update ( and some only available online) than you would have with an earlier version. At least at the moment.

Nobody has played the story portion from start to finish to see what the crossplay patch affect is, so I don't know how you can say it's BS! And it's people in this and other forums saying they couldn't complete certain missions unless online. Are you calling all them liars?!

First of all, I'm no NMS fan-boy. If you see my rating and review of this game, you'll see that I'm fare away of liking Hello Games. But that doesn't mean, that I'm riding on any shit-storm just for the cause.
I'm not calling anyone a liar, and I haven't tested everything (which also isn't my job), but so far, I experienced, beside the described restrictions, no further problems by playing offline. There are a lot of people claiming a lot of things, Corona being a hoax, the earth being flat, ... just because "some people" claiming "some stuff", I'm not taking their side. If you name an explicit feature that should work offline and doesn't and I can replicate the issue, I will reconsider. Unless than, I stick with version.
Sure, with crossplay, things may have changed in a part of a game I wasn't yet or passed already, so I can't tell for sure. But we GoG customers have a contract with GoG (by buying the game), including the sentence "No activation or online connection required to play". And Hello Games is by contract with GoG required to uphold their part. As we say "In dubio pro reo" (when in doubt, for the accused), I currently expect these issues to be just not well thought through implementations of the game design.

In offline mode, is it even possible to get the amount of quicksilver needed to start the living ship questline?

So far, the only option seems to be using a save editor, unless there is another way.

This is not possible for users not using GOG Galaxy, unless you have at some time allowed the game to run via GOG Galaxy, and then made a save while GOG Galaxy was running, which opens up all the items in the exotic items store.

You can use the save editor by someone on Github (which persoanlly I dont trust to handle my save games and all the time put into them), but the game itself does not allow all items to show.

In a completely offline game not using GOG Galaxy at all...

https://i.imgur.com/QFZFOsJ.png

.. and completing every story line mission, you do not get :

The Void Egg appearing in the Exotic items shop (along with a huge list of items which are also not available)

Nor do you see any Living ships anywhere to be purchased.

Living ships have to be kick started by being able to purchase a Void egg and nurturing it.

I have started a new game a few months ago with the objective of proving this case.

I have also tried to see if Hellogames may have allowed GOG Manual Offline Installer users to be able to randomly find a void egg from space encounters .. I have found every one of them multiple times and none produce a void egg

See screenshots of the only items available in the exotic shop for completely offline players ..

https://i.imgur.com/j4MTSNK.png

https://i.imgur.com/6tXRHCA.png

For us day 1 players who pre-ordered the game on GOG, supporting this upcoming games company and their promises, we are kind of feeling a bit left behind these days.

Not forgetting also that the game was initially advertised to us on the GOG No Mans Sky page as Single player only.

https://i.imgur.com/W5nSLaY.png

Yes I know all about the videos Sean was in saying you could kind of come across other players, and eventually they were pressured into making it multiplayer. But the thing is, to me, at point of sale, the game was advertised as Single Player. Thats why I bought it. We have every reasonable expectation to be able to play the games content as anyone else can, minus the multiplayer aspects of course.

There is an argument to say that if we dont wish to play multiplayer, then why should we get the results of the weekend missions in the exotic items store .. But by that reasoning, why do we get the (somewhat limited) amount of items that we can without being online?. At one time there was an update which did "expand" the amount of items available to us, but since then each update has not added anymore. Living ships being a major update and story line, you would think that Hellogames would at least add the Void Egg to offline players list of available items so that we too can participate in enjoying the Living ships quest, which (apart from acquiring the Void Egg currently) does not need to be online at all.

Thank-you for your due diligence. I now know that No Man's Sky has left us solo players behind. It is such a shame. I will earnestly wait to see if Hello Games replies to my support question, asking them to publicly state that all of NMS can be played in Solo Player mode. But somehow, due to that opening menu now saying "other players may join you", it shows us where Hello Games are coming from. Yet they must know the % of players that play online versus offline, so why aren't they saying anything?