Hello Games has been pretty good at keeping the No Man's Sky offline installer patches sequential for a long while now, but recently they've missed giving us a patch so we can keep our games current.

Note that HG previously gave us a patch for:
3.94 to 3.96

And today they provided a patch for :
3.97 to 3.98

But we're missing a patch inbetween: 3.96 to 3.97 is missing. I really don't want to be bothered mucking around with the support bot to submit a ticket because this issue doesn't directly affect me, but I would like GOG staff to be aware of it. Anyone want to alert an appropriate blue to this issue, or let me know which blue I could fire off a PM to?

It's a silly little issue which probably doesn't affect the majority of customers, but if someone has been relying on downloading the patches rather than the full version games it might be helpful if this is rectified.

It happens, sometimes. Ended up downloading all of 3.97. Patches can be as large as the offline installer for the whole game. At least it's not as annoying as when it happens to games like MechWarrior V or Divinity: Original Sin II.

Oh, definitely. A full install download is around the 12GB+ mark, updates are anywhere from 1GB (on average) to 6GB (rarely). If you download the patches to jump multiple versions it MIGHT be better to download fresh looking from a download size viewpoint (it's always better to avoid problems to install fresh though). But if you're jumping one or two versions it's gonna suck having to download fresh if your connection is slow or capped.

I think it's an oversight rather than intentional though, which is why I think GOG maybe should inquire about it with Hello Games before the version patch cycle rolls past 3.96.