Hi,

while talking with a Stream friend I accidentally updated to NEXT experimental while tinkering with channel settings so here you go :-)

### Added 07/27/18 ###

MOST IMPORTANTLY BACKUP YOUR GAME FILES (BEST WHOLE FOLDER) BEFORE UPGRADING IN CASE YOU NEED TO GO BACK OR COME TO KNOW OF AN EXPERIMENTAL FIX IN HINDSIGHT BUT YOU WERE ON RELEASE BRANCH

%AppData%\HelloGames\NMS

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Some concrete answers:

- Milestones are still there.

- Atlas path and the alternative are still there in the mission logs.

- There are still sections sealed by Atlas passes on space stations including remembrance terminals.

- Old open missions are still in the log but haven't yet tried finish any of them.

- The whole discovery/achievements UI is almost identical to before, guild and race achievements and such included.

- The only thing you really lose is tech on all fronts - exosuit, ships, potentially freighter. Vehicles gone because base gone, as a matter of fact.

- Old tech will convert to "Obsolete Technology" which can be dismantled to nanites. Every now and then dismantling obsolete tech will yield new Technology Modules that are now required items for certain crafting further down the road.

- Some select few tech is preserved or converted like for example hazmat gauntlet, visor, multitool plasma grenades or ship/jump drives which may be converted to "colored" drives for specific solar systems.

- I couldn't count the Nanites before but they seem to be preserved as virtual nanites like a currency; no more space waste in the inventory, yay!

- Freighter is still there, some minor optical changes in colorization and such from the outside.

- Internal freighter layout of upper decks is different thus freighter base is gone. Whether freighter base resources will re-surface during base recovery or with a resource terminal I cannot yet say. I had all my valuable minerals and crafted items plus all plants/farming equipment moved to the freighter because I wanted to abandon/change my planetary base on 1.38 anyway.

- Higher-value tech/crafting items or trading goods like Aronium, circuit boards or the like are all preserved or converted to their new equivalents.

- All natural resources collected on planets seem to convert to their new unrefined and refined counterparts.

- The universe/biomes are re-generated. We already had this with 1.2 and/or 1.3 so we should be able to cope with this. Only hardship might be a very carefully chosen and beautiful planet you had for your base; but I had mine already ruined with the 1.3 environmental condition/weather changes which also changed flora/fauna to some degree. So not much loss here for me personally.

- Ship appearances might be a downer. 4 out of 6 ships almost came over as they were. With two I'm not sure, regrettably not having played before updating/not having reference screenshots. With "almost" I mean two ships got different colorizations, one got a bit of wear and tear and different wings; my beloved exotic S class fighter gladly came over in full, probably to some user protest and fixing in the 1.51 hotfix (keyword S-class ship appearance); I couldn't spot any major changes in form or color of the S. Regarding the last two I'm not sure of their previous looks.

- Upper space station decks to the left and right of the landing zone have been totally revamped to open spaces with cubicles, nanite traders and various aliens of the current system race all around.

- Multitool carried over in appearance and slot size, but most tech lost as noted before.

- Exosuit/ship/multitool/freigher UI is almost a 100 % same except a few nuanced changes like the practical left/right D-Pad commands to switch between cargo/tech/extended inventories.

- D-Pad-down menu totally revamped to cater for the new gameplay/crafting. You'll also find 3rd person view switch there.

- Trading terminals UI revamped. Feels more awkward to me now, you can no longer flip pages using controller shoulder buttons. Have to use up/down D-Pad now.

- Visor scanning UI has been totally revamped with marker rectangles in a "calmer" blueish fashion with slower scanning. There is also a tagging function for relevant points of interest you want to explore.

In summary I consider the transition not as drastical as I feared it would be. I think it is well bearable for a seasoned/veteran player; I even consider some throwback to be a new challenge for someone who had almost any tech out there piling up nanites. Losing tech like hazard protections requires you to be more careful again and also is an opportunity to learn the new crafting/material mechanics.

I'll add additional info or corrections as necessary.

Regards,
Markus

Exocrafts and their upgrades should carry over just fine. Once you unpack your old base and build a pad, the vehicles as you remember them, should summon up just fine.

I'd agree with everything posted above but I've run into some really aggravating bugs.

1. My ships keep disappearing. A log out fixes it most of the time but there have been a few times that 3 of my 4 ships have gone poof only to reappear after I've logged in and out a few times. No clue why this is happening and there doesn't appear to be any ryhme or reason to it.
2. My S class freighters appearance has changed. :(
3. After I applied the 1.51 patch 2 of my ships were nested on top of each other. I tried flying the one "on top" out a few times and was stuck in the boundaries of the freighter. After a minute or so waiting for it to explode, I logged out and flew the ship "on the bottom" out with no issues.
4. Frigate fuel. I don't have the blueprint to make it and can't seem to get it. I have a fleet management console and I've worn a path between it and the freighter landing bay praying it'll show up. No luck so far.
5. Blueprint analyzer. Same thing. Don't have it and can't seem to get one.
6. Didn't get a tutroial mission to restore my base so I built another since I'd read that was a possible route to getting the blueprint analyzer. Didn't work.
7. My S class freighter, with all freighter warp upgrades has a range, after 1.5, of ~2200 LY but, with a fully charged hyperdrive I can't warp anywhere as the game thinks it's out of fuel.
8. I'm sure there's other things that have popped up but atm the no warp thing has me twiddling my thumbs and trying to work around the issues that pop up randomly.

Overall, I'd say 1.5 is a cosmetic improvement but I'm not sure if it's a better game. Seems very NMS 1.0 aka Inventory Management in Space to me.

That's the most important thing I forgot but I was already very late yesterday - do you have a backup of your save games? Or could you restore them from a recent backup?

6. could be indicative to starting out with 1.5 on launch day and then upgrading to 1.51 afterwards. The base mission was added on experimental and released in 1.51 iirc. Thus if you loaded your save in 1.5 it most probably got converted the wrong way, missing the base mission and *maybe* also causing the other appearance/stuck ships things. Altough I have to say I played 1.51 experimental only so far going directly from 1.38 to 1.51 experimental. I don't know about any potential new issues (your 3) in 1.52 experimental which I see was released today.

2. Good question, as far as I understood it they took care of the regular, little S-class starships - I'm not sure they considered freighters as well. Also see my answer to 6 on potential problems 1.38 -> 1.5.

NEXT is too new for me to properly comment on this issue but my logic from NMS experience goes like this:

- maybe something of the new material tree where resources also have to be refined manually to get other resources out of them

- you should visit a few galaxies/space stations by starship warp - maybe the offer helpful blueprints for your issue at nanite traders although I can't think of a situation where I ever got a resource print from a nanite trader in <= 1.38.

- more likely resource crafting blueprints (as I guess you know) were usually awarded in command centers/factories or how they are called (damn brains, you know the buildings you have to break in to with the consoles under alarm where you are required to make a correct decision)

@humbleman might be relevant to you, from my other reply - though I don't know what exactly you're referring to with 1.51 patch 2. If not done maybe you would also benefit from switching to beta/experimental channel and maybe turning off auto-updates.

///

I'm taking the liberty to re-post the changelog of the 1.52-to-be patch on experimental branch from Steam discussions:

Latest changes on Experimental (27/07):

* Fixed an issue that will restore more savegames for players who saved with partially repaired tech.
* Fixed an issue where players who had partially repaired a piece of broken technology would have an incorrect item in the repair interaction
* Fixed an issue where players in underwater bases played the wrong animations
* Fixed an issue where freighters incorrectly reported they did not have enough fuel to warp
* Fixed a crash in the base-building system
* Improved garbage collection and reduced memory footprint of physics
* Prevented occasional crash in animation
* Reduce memory footprint of planetary textures from space

Regards

///

Actually, I mistyped. My Freighter didn't change my S Class Hauler did.

I do actually have a pre 1.5 back up but only the mf_save2.hg and save 2.hg files. Is that sufficient to restore from?

Well I also have to take care not to talk about freighter ship when I mean the hauler XD

That sounds fine I guess, they work in tandem:

https://forums.atlas-65.com/t/re-ordering-game-save-slots/3522/6 says: Although I'm not completely sure what "forced" means, a manually saved file? Maybe you should duplicate your old game files mf_save2.hg -> mf_save.hg, save2.hg -> save.hg. Then use all 4 as a replacement.

And I guess you should disable "Cloud Saves" before replacing them and starting the game.

I'm always 7zipping the whole NMS folder.

From what I see the save*.hg seem to be some large JSON text format files probably with the mf_save*.hg being some meta/checksum files to prevent tinkering. But this is just speculation, didn't read up on the formats, using trainers or save editors is not my style. Supposedly there is also a save game management tool but I haven't tried that either.

HTH


Some more interesting info from the Steam forums. Explains why I still have *storage*.hg files, too - historical they are. Know the correct files you must XD

@humbleman guess your frigate fuel and all other issues you described are now fixed in Friday's eve experimental patch ;-)

NEXT Experimental Branch Update 2 - 27/07

This is about the "FriEveBuild2707".

Latest changes on Experimental (27/07):

* Fixed a case where invalid characters could cause saves to fail to load

* Fixed the Base Restoration mission failing to find a proper site for your legacy base
* Fixed an issue where players would not know the Living Glass recipe after upgrading their save
* Fixed an issue where players would not know the Blueprint Analyser after upgrading their save
* Fixed an issue where players would not know the Frigate Fuel blueprint if they undertook the fleet tutorial in multiplayer

* Fixed a number of issues with Galactic Commission missions that involved freighters
* Fixed an issue where players would not see their ships docked aboard a freighter when loading
* Fixed an issue where players would see multiple ships docked on the same landing pad when loading
* Fixed an issue where the freighter bridge would unload after accepting a mission from the Galactic Commission Terminal
* Fixed an issue where players would be jettisoned into space after warping aboard another player's freighter

* Fixed a number of text bugs
* Fixed a number of incorrect prices

Guess I'll wait to see what happens when 1.52 is pushed out to us.

You know you can switch to experimental also here on GOG via "More - Settings - Channel" entering "3xperimental" (without quotes) as password? Or are you afraid of any instabilities in beta and rather prefer the release version?

Actually, that's my normal channel. I'd just switched back to the release version because of all the odd things happening in my game. Just switched back to experimental aand updated my game. We'll see if that addresses things.

BTW, after MUCH fumbling around, I was able to retore a back up from 13 July. Thanks for the tips.

You're welcome, hope it'll turn out all right for you :-)