Reference your crash with 2.60 - See this topic :
https://www.gog.com/forum/no_mans_sky/game_crashes_when_choosing_difficulty_level

The game can be played completely offline, the crash is just a problem with version 2.60 which Hellogames have already fixed .. It just needs publicly releasing.

Edit 1 : I just had a test run with the Beta of the next version of the game, alt tabbed out to have a look at my router logs, and my machine was not trying to connect with amazon aws in any way. No phoning home as far as I can see, and I doubt Hellogames (english company) have any reason to make their game connect to a cloud service. They have their own servers for the online / multiplayer connectivity, but none of that works without either GOG Galaxy client running or in the case of Steam users, the Steam client running.

Have a look in task manager and see if there is a service GalaxyCommunicationService still running.
If it is, you are not running the game fully offline.
Or maybe you have something else connecting with amazon, an amazon Echo or similar.

Edit 2 : O_o - Disregard what I said in Edit 1 :, just monitored the NMS.exe with NetMon and it is trying to connect with amazon aws .. WTH!

I never downloaded or installed Galaxy. So I can rule that out 100%.

The attempt to connect is clearly logged (see attachment). It might be the error-reporting service. Only because HG is British doesn't mean they don't use an international cloud service. Zendesk's HQ is also in San Francisco. You can install alot more than just a user database on AWS.

Betrayal! Betrayal everywhere :)

Yep, see also the attachment to this post

I guess we need to switch off WIFI / Ethernet when launching the game.

I Just sent a query reference this to Hellogames Zendesk.

Bloody hell, is nothing safe from friggin third party agreements and selling your data / behaviour!. You cant buy a Single player Offline game that doesn't try to connect to some crap now, even if you dont run the Galaxy client!.

Well it seems i might be stuck back in that 'eternal wait for Hello Games to 'fix' the game so i can play offline/without game breaking bugs' issue again.

GOG did get back to my support ticket (and during lockdown so well done on that guys) but basically it was:

"You can play offline by selecting to turn off the networking in the menu once you are playing"

So they completely missed the concerns a few posters have mentioned here. The Zen Desk request to Hello Games did not even get an email response.

So i will carry on waiting and hope they fix the game for all the single player gamers that want to be able to do most of the missions and complete the journey like you can when playing multi-player.

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EDIT:
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Well that was awesome of GOG!! I did get an email this afternoon that gave a link to download the Synthesis version:

setup_no_mans_sky_2.27_synthesis_56499_(35873).exe (879KB)
setup_no_mans_sky_2.27_synthesis_56499_(35873)-1 (4,193,433KB)
setup_no_mans_sky_2.27_synthesis_56499_(35873)-2 (4,194,304KB)
setup_no_mans_sky_2.27_synthesis_56499_(35873)-3 (996,794KB)

So i hope that is the latest version of the Synthesis build? It all worked perfect and i can see a whole bunch of changes and GUI improvements have been made over the last build (Pathfinder) i had been playing.

So thanks again GOG for digging into the detail of this thread and some of our concerns over the single player only functionality of the later versions of NMS. Thanks for doing this in a pandemic and thanks from a new father that has a great game to pay single player and show his son one day (assuming Hello Games leave the single player game base behind?). You guys are awesome :D

Sythesis (2.27) installs fine on the standalone installers (listed above) and Galaxy is never required (you will get a Galaxy error when the installation has finished). No internet connection was present during the whole process and now i know the game version works fine in single player non-connected mode i can build my mod list out. The game will never connect online (as the PC it is on never does) and it seems to work fine unlike later versions.

Honestly, handing out a years old version while discriminating offline players by cutting them off of content which has no technical reason to be only-online while diligently advertising "no online connection required" slogans is far away of what I understand about "taking care of our concerns". As I wrote in the Origins thread, I'll wait for that update now (and the first 2 patches until it becomes playable again) before considering to escalate this issue to the legal department.
The problem is, if you let one company get away with this, all others will follow. And we really don't need just another Steam.

@ andreas.scholz

I have zero complaints with GOG here!

Just so that is clear. ALL the fault is with Hello Games and the way they have taken to use Steam Intergration while building the latest versions of No Man's Sky in their pursuit of appeasing the MP fps fan boys that screamed and cried when multiplayer in NMS was weak/absent. Using Steam's tools here creates a problem for us GOG NMS gamers (as we saw, and still see every update!).

It is also ALL Hello Games fault that a single player no-internet connected NMS gamer can no longer advance far into the game play due to the now integrated requirements of having an online game.

THEY are the ones that tell GOG what type of game it is, and they carry on to call it single player as well as multiplayer.

NONE of this is any fault of GOG or GOG's online platform.

GOG did not have to help me here, Hello Games should have (did not even get a response to my zendesk entry for this!).

GOG however DID help me, so now i can actually move on from Pathfinder (finally) and have the latest version (Synthesis) that is possible to fully play in offline (always) single player mode. GOG were beyond excellent here, with fantastic customer support, doing Hello Games job for them.


Edit: And key 'K' now is auto-move! How long have i wanted that after hours of pressing the 'W' key!! I wonder what update bought that essential QoL feature?

Ok so after some emailing back and forth and some mod searching on the Nexus i have my near 'perfect' mod list for Synthesis 2.27. So if other gamers are using this version (to avoid the introduced MP issues for SP gamers etc) like i am, you can still get a nice game improvement over the base game.

This first link is to 3 versions of Lo2k's mods that you can only find for the latest versions of the game now. I emailed them and they very nicely provided me a link to get the Synthesis working versions of some of his mods. I put the working parts from that file on my mediafire account for download here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ub66yjykhe1ihwa/file

That includes: HD Clouds 4k, Clean Ship Space Map 1.0 and Slow Clouds 1.1+True Clouds 1.1

Below is my modlist (These go in the \GAMEDATA\PCBANKS\MODS folder as per usual):

002_NoCameraShake.pak - by Leonid
004_SSOOR[y,3,1000].pak - Starship Out of Range 2.23 by alechielke
005_Space Station Interior Fix 1.1.pak - by Lo2k
006_Sin_WaterTwoZero.pak - by 6th_Sin
007_PROJECT_ATLAS_WATER_COLORS_NO_UGLY_COLORS.pak - by thegamer3006/moddingaccount
008_PROJECT_ATLAS_PLANET_COLORS_NORMAL.pak - by thegamer3006/moddingaccount
009_Black Carbon 2.1.pak - by Lo2k
010_zzzCreatureRange.pak - by Battou
011_MOD.Pamehabia6.LessCreatures.1.5.pak - by Pamehabai6
012_zzzIncreaseDrawDistance_MoreGrass.pak - by Battou
015_No High Clouds 2.0.pak - by Lo2k
016_Slow Clouds 1.1+True Clouds 1.1.pak - by Lo2k
017_HD Clouds 4K 1.0.pak - by Lo2k
019_Black Space + Nebulae.pak - by Lo2k
020_No Space Dust.pak - by Lo2k
025_Astro-FarPlanet.pak - might have got this from the other NMS mod site?
026_Clean Ship Space Map 1.0.pak - by Lo2k
028_ZRatCraft - Flight Modifications.pak - by Ratan Kabidge
GCCAMERAGLOBALS.GLOBAL.pak - this is part of the NoCameraShake mod and goes here in the 'MOD' folder.

The numbers at the front are just my way of forcing load order, you can search for the mod names on the Nexus to get those specific Synthesis 2.27 compatible versions and see what they are about.

I thought i'd put this info here (rather than in the topped mod thread) as they directly relate to the last good Single Player only + never needed connection online version of the game, Synthesis 2.27.

Edit:

I took out 018_MOD.DarkSkiesV1.2.pak - by Weezedog, as this is a really old mod and after lots of comparison shots of with it in the mod list and out, it appears it does not reduce that grainy filter around clouds or on the low horizon when looking up from a planet at night time (most noticable then), as it once did.

I'm currently playing v2.24, and am curious if they managed to fix the way that Aries in the Nexus refuses to talk to the player in offline mode (ever) and Helios refuses to talk after the initial conversation. If this has been fixed as of 2.27, I'll be interested in updating.

Also, I used to be able to get a repeating quest from the base NPCs (construction, scientist, weapon, farmer, and exocraft) after their initial quest line was completed, but that hasn't happened since the nexus was added to the game. I'm guessing that is also a feature which breaks when the game is off-line. Has that been fixed as of v2.27?

Finally, there is also a broken quest where an NPC requires you to place a component that the game refuses to allow you to build unless you're currently online, but that's less of an issue if you just ignore the NPCs that have crashed on planets - that's the only way to get that unsolvable quest.

Well during the first steps of the questline to build a base, i did find an npc (same race and possibly same name?) back at the space station that had exactly the same dialogue options (you could hire them to help you build your base) as the first time you recruit someone for that task They even had all the 'i know you from before' dialogue, so it was a little weird and felt like a bug to me.

I've have been to the Nexus and Aries (the main alien you talk to, the robot guy?). Is Helios the tree-guy thing? That might still be an issue as he seems to not have anything more to say to me currently.

Not sure on the other stuff. Oh and i am playing a modded game, so that might also impact what i'm seeing? I am also playing completely offline.

The main alien you talk to is Nada. Helios IS the tree guy, and he'll reward you for discoveries the first time you visit him, but after that he'll always tell you to come back later. Aries is the guy just further from the nexus entrance from him. He's right beside the guy that wants to sample your cooking. He won't talk to you EVER. He'll just keep telling you to come back another time.

Of course, that's if you're playing offline. I presume they work just fine if you're connected.

As to the gek in the station, you can hire him IF you have a workstation for him. If you give yourself the blueprint for his workstation with a save editor, you can build it before you get to the point in the main quest where you're told to go seek him out... but he won't have any quests for you until then, so there really isn't any reason to do so.

However, that wasn't what I was referring to. When you finally DO get to the point in the main quest where you're told to go hire him, you're given the blueprint and you can build his workstation and hire him. THEN he actually has quests for you. When you finally finish the last of his normal quests, there used to be a special quest he'd give you to take a picture on a planet of a particular type. He'd do that once every few hours and the type of planet he wanted a picture of was random. The other NPCs also had repeating quests after their normal quests were completed. The Exovehicle NPC would send you out to pillage money from a random building. I *think* the garden guy would ask you to bring him a random plant resource, but it's been long enough ago now that I'm not completely sure. I don't recall what the weapons guy or scientist would ask for.

None of those NPCs have any repeating quests since the Nexus was added. I was wondering (from someone that plays ONline) if those are still part of the game. As I play offline, I can't tell if they've been removed completely or if they're simply broken because I'm not playing online. Also, if they work in a later offline version, that would be good to know too, because I expect Hello Games to eventually fix this so their offline customers aren't treated like second-class citizens. (actually "hope" is a better word than "expect", because to be honest, I expect they won't!)

No, this has not been fixed. I have not been able to connect to online discovery services for 4 weeks now, my base NPC's have always told me to just leave them alone after the main quest, and none of the mentioned anomaly NPC's will talk to me. I play in muliplayer mode now just in case it decides to work. But it doesn't. It's funny you want people out of your game and I want so badly to see evidence of other people in this galaxy. This game somehow manages to screw us both.

It was not like this in the beginning, the single player experience was perfect! As was the balance of the atmosphere with empty planets and planets with often just a few animals rather than always being a herd that appear behind you all the time dropping poo everywhere!

Since bowing to the pressure of the MP crowd they then broke the game for everyone and had to spend so much effort fixing all that MP stuff the atmosphere became a secondary concern. It's why using mods kind of became essential as Hello Games just do not have the manpower to make it the game it could be (and was very nearly spot on once upon-a-time before MP).

Not bitter (loving my current modded Synthesis 2.27 game mostly) just giving a historic perspective from a guy here from the start.

You guys are seriously missing out on all the goodies v3 has to offer :)

I might be all wet here, but except for the Nexus visits (which are kinda fun, in a way), what again is so terribly bad about the remote chance of encountering something multiplayerish? I recently clocked 150 hours on my game save and except for a very few systems at the very start of my journey, I have never encountered anyone, ever. I found I'm more of a solo player as well, but except for the super crazy public Nexus missions (currently on hiatus, apparently), I fail to see the problem... I'm well into the Eissentam galaxy and I have never, ever, EVER seen any sign of life.

So for just the Nexus visits, wouldn't it be enough to just switch off multiplayer in the settings? Honest question: what vital piece of information am I missing here?

The piece of information you're missing is that switching multiplayer OFF requires first having it ON, and that requires playing the online version. If you're playing the version which uses the offline installs and doesn't use Galaxy, then multiplayer isn't even an option, so you CAN'T "just switch it off".

And don't bother asking, "Why don't you just use Galaxy"? If you enjoy it or at least don't mind using Galaxy, then good for you. Not everyone supports or even tolerates Galaxy, and the game was sold with the promise that it would NOT require an online connection to run correctly. In fact, despite the changes that Hello Games has made, it's STILL currently being sold that way, which is flagrant false advertising.