Latest No Man's Sky expansion lets you captain it up like Picard

A new No Man's Sky update called Endurance has now gone live, bringing more of a Star Trek vibe to tootling around the stars. As with every other expansion for the game since its launch six (!) years ago, Endurance is free. It's a name that Hello itself acknowledges is "fitting" for the journey the developer and players have been on since launch.

This one leans into the true Trekkie fantasy (or mine anyway) of being your own captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The Foundation update previously introduced the ability to captain your own freighter, but the Endurance update takes another pass and overhauls the whole experience of being in charge of a capital ship.

The update introduces NPC specialist crewmembers to your ship (yes!), a new bridge on the command deck with instant access to warping and teleportation (yes!!), external windows to watch the stars float by (yes!!!) and then exterior space walkways so you can walk around the outside of your giganto-ship and admire the view (yes yes yes!!!). I mean, as spaceship fantasies go, this is a good one.

In terms of the NPC crew: "Freighters now bustle with specialist crew members walking around your base. Engineers, biologists and technicians display their thoughts as they patrol the base, and your hired frigate captains and squadron pilots visit your capital ship between their deep-space excursions."

You can also now do much more with the interior of the ship itself, with new themed areas for growing food and manufacturing, as well as new technology that will let you scan and analyse planets from space without having to set foot on them.

The update also makes changes to what Hello calls the "space atmospherics", which is to say that asteroids are now more varied and numerous than ever before, and now thousands can appear on-screen at once. As well as this there are "Interstellar-style black holes, nebulae" and more to admire from your new fancy windows.

There's a new expedition, which focuses on a capital ship voyage, and some new combat focused Nexus missions to boot.

"Endurance coincides with No Man's Sky's 6 year anniversary and it remains amazing to us to see players still clocking up a bewildering number of hours in the game all these years later," writes Hello Games co-founder and CEO Sean Murray. "We are eternally grateful for the support."

The full patch notes are as follows:

Capital Ships

• Capital ship hangars have been visually updated, with additional details, features, NPCs and VFX.
• The freighter bridge has been visually refreshed with new lighting, VFX and detailing.
• A teleporter has been added for instant access between the freighter hangar and the bridge.
• The mandatory corridor in freighter bases has been removed, allowing players to fully customise their freighter base layout.
• Freighter exteriors have been updated with enhanced textures and detailing.
• Your freighter is now displayed within the warp tunnel when making a jump between systems.
• Lighting and shadow quality throughout freighter bases has been significantly improved.
• Players may now warp directly from their fleet management terminal to any individual frigate. New terminals have been added to frigates to allow quick return to the freighter bridge.
• Markers are now placed on Fleet Command Terminals in need of debriefing.
• Players may now teleport to their freighter base from any other base or space station teleport terminus.
• Capital ship engines can now be customised from the existing freighter recolouring UI, accessed on the bridge.
• Capital ships can be now reset to their default colours.
• The customisation camera for freighters has been improved with better lighting and a wider viewing angle for large ships.
• Player-constructed freighter bases are now populated dynamically by specialised crew members, as well as hired squadron pilots and frigate captains.
• Freighter crew can now move around the base.
• Freighter crew periodically display thoughts related to their current task.
• Non-player freighters now come with a variety of pre-existing bases.
• Freighters now have a Cargo Hold inventory, allowing the storage of even more items.
• A new technology, the Singularity Engine, has been added for freighters. This powerful warp augmentation is activated by speaking to the freighter’s captain, and will slingshot the freighter through a wormhole.
• The visual quality of salvaged freighter technology icons has been significantly improved.
• Players may now summon their freighter while the Pulse Engine is active.
• Freighter landing and takeoff trajectories have been improved to prevent accidental docking.
• Players are no longer blocked from summoning their freighter if another player has their freighter active.
• Players can now dismiss their own freighter in order to visit the freighter base of another group member.
  

Freighter Base Components

• Freighter base building has been totally overhauled. Players now have access to a variety of pre-built room modules (which they can further customise).
• Rooms come in a variety of pre-decorated themes, allowing players to quickly assemble a visually varied and distinctive base.
• Empty room variants are available for players who wish to more manually customise their freighter base.
• Existing freighter bases have been preserved, and legacy freighter parts are fully compatible with the new pieces.
• New freighter rooms include:
• The Scanner Room, which pings all nearby planets and automatically discovers them.
• Single and Double Cultivation Chambers, which allow players to plant directly into the room itself. Cultivation Chambers come with the ability to mass-harvest nearby plants.
• A Nutrition Room, allowing players access to cooking facilities while on board.
• The Stellar Extractor, a specialist manufacturing unit that extracts a variety of resources from the interstellar medium.
• Additional rooms have been added to replicate existing base functionality, but in room-sized modules:
• A dedicated Galactic Trade Terminal room, allowing quick access to trade facilities.
• A Teleport Room, allowing players to teleport from their freighter, as well as return via any other teleportation terminus.
• The Appearance Modifier Room, for player customisation.
• The Fleet Command Room, for managing frigate fleet expeditions.
• All the terminals for Base Specialists, such as the Overseer.
• The Orbital Exocraft Materialiser, which allows players to summon any of their Exocraft while their freighter is in the system.
• A specialist large industrial refiner room.
• Storage Rooms, with access to stowed materials.
• Players can now place exterior windows in their freighter bases, allowing a view through into the stars.
• Players can place internal windowed walls to divide up their base into aesthetically pleasing sections.
• Players can now place doors in their freighter bases, both between rooms and out to the exterior of their freighter.
• A variety of catwalks and exterior viewing platforms are now available to build within and around the freighter base.
• Freighter corridors now come in both plain and glass versions.
• Freighter corridors now come as one dedicated part that will automatically bend or add additional doors in order to connect to nearby rooms.
  

Organic ships and frigates

• Players with a frigate fleet may now receive plans for a Dream Aerial from a successful fleet expedition.
• Constructing the Dream Aerial will grant players access to a new mission to unite with an organic frigate. This living vessel will be customised according to the player’s choices while on this mission.
• Players can continue to discover additional organic frigates to fill out their fleet.
• Organic frigates come in a variety of procedurally generated colours and tentacle configurations.
• Players can feed their organic frigates various cooked foodstuffs. Feeding the frigate will adjust its mood and may cause it to generate new abilities or traits.
• Sending a living frigate on a fleet expedition has a chance of generating a special anomalous event result.
• Anomalous fleet expedition results result in various organic implants for living starships.
• Living ship upgrades have been adjusted. Procedurally generated weapon modules now do more damage, and the Grafted Eyes can now leech energy from enemy starships.
• Living ships can now evolve Neural Shielding, granting them the ability to resist hostile cargo probes.
• Living ships can now evolve a Chloroplast Membrane, which will automatically recharge its Neural Assembly using sunlight.
• Living ships can now evolve a Wormhole Brain, which allows them sight into the economy and conflict levels of unvisited systems on the Galaxy Map.
• Players may now acquire and use a Spawning Sac to add additional inventory slots to their living ships.
• Fixed an issue that could cause living ship upgrades to choose a lower quality band than intended.
• Fixed an issue that prevented procedurally generated living ship upgrades from automatically selecting the starship inventory page when deployed.

Base building

• Base parts which automatically switch between hidden variants (such as visually distinct parts for the top/middle/bottom of walls, or the freighter corridor that automatically bends and adds doorways to form connections) can now be placed manually. Relevant parts are marked within the base building menu and can be expanded to view all variants.
• While in editing mode, pre-existing parts can be now swapped out for any other part that matches its placement conditions, allowing bases to be quickly altered without having to delete and replace parts.
• Players may now quickly toggle between placement and selection mode even when no part was previously selected from the list of parts.
• Quick cycling parts within placement mode now displays the name of the newly selected part.
• A number of base building error messages have been edited for clarity.
• Many decorative parts that were not previously available to build on a freighter are now accessible in the build menu.
• ByteBeat modules can now be built on board freighters.
• Short-Range Teleporters can now be built within a freighter base.
• Lights now automatically receive power on board freighters.
• Freighter base part deletion now more strictly checks player navigation, fixing a number of cases where players could find themselves accidentally falling into space when deleting parts.
• The freighter base now has a walkable bottom level, allowing players who intentionally jetpack out of their base an opportunity to recover to safety.
• Players may now toggle snapping and collision checks when placing decoration on their freighter base, allowing more freedom and flexibility in construction.
• While on a freighter, the preview hologram is now visible behind other objects, allowing players to more easily preview the location of new rooms and corridors.
• Fixed a number of visual glitches with the preview hologram.
• Fixed a number of visual issues and glitches with wiring.
• Objects that are moved or deleted now clean up their attached wires.
• Storage Containers now display their custom name (if applicable) in the Build Menu.
• Biofuel Generators now provide power for a significantly longer amount of time.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Ceiling Light part from being powered correctly.
• The Archaic Habitation Heater now actually provides protection against extreme cold.

Visual improvements and space atmospherics

• The planetary decoration system has been significantly optimised and improved, allowing props, plantlife, rocks and other objects to be drawn at both far greater distances and at a higher quality.
• Planetary objects such as trees and rocks are now visible from low orbit.
• Players may now encounter storms and other space atmospherics while in asteroids fields, in open space, or when encountering derelict freighters in deep space.
• Players may now encounter brightly coloured nebulae while exploring deep space.
• Black hole visuals have been overhauled and significantly improved.
• Derelict freighters VFXs have been significantly improved. Existing environmental and combat effects have been enhanced, and additional atmospheric details have been added.
• Atmospheric effects have been added and enhanced within the space station.
• Starship landing and takeoff effects have been improved.

Asteroids

• Asteroid draw distance has been significantly increased.
• Asteroid field density has been significantly increased.
• Individual asteroid visual detail and variety has been greatly increased.
• Asteroid destruction effects have been improved.
• Players may now encounter systems with a large number of rare crystalline asteroids.
• Players may now occasionally disturb the nest of strange space creatures when destroying asteroids.
• Passing starships may now enter asteroids fields alongside players and begin mining nearby asteroids.
• Asteroid density patterns have been adjusted so that there are larger areas of space with few to no asteroids.
• Players can now use the starship’s scanner to locate nearby fuel-rich asteroids, in the event of an adverse fuel situation when outside of an asteroid field.
• Fixed a number of issues that could cause asteroids to intersect with other objects, such as freighters.
• The rewards for destroying rare asteroids have been improved.

Missions

• A new class of mission is available at the Nexus. Work together to raid a Sentinel Pillar and defend a planet from the constant threat of the Sentinels.
• Players can now take on a new combat mission from the Nexus to visit an infested planet and purge it of its infection.
• Players visiting infested planets may now occasionally stumble upon the hungering tentacles of the many-mouthed vessel…
• Infested planets now have an increased chance of titan worm activity.

Quality of life

• Players can now reposition items within storage container inventories.
• Fixed a number of issues that prevented full access to certain inventories when using UI popups.
• Players may now deploy upgrades to their fleet expedition from any inventory.
• The freighter inventory screen has been adjusted to better fit the model of the player’s freighter.
• A new starship technology, the Flight Assist Override, is now available from Iteration Hyperion aboard the Space Anomaly. This module reduces the effect of automatic trajectory correction while flying in space.
• Procedurally generated upgrades for the Analysis Visor may now generate bonuses for mineral discovery rewards, matching the existing upgrades for flora and fauna.
• Increased the number of stat bonuses available to illegal-grade procedural technology upgrades.
• Reduced the spread between maximum and minimum stat values for Positron Ejector procedural upgrades.
• Players can now adjust the sensitivity of cursor controls as well as look and flight sensitivities.
• The “Combat” section of the guide has new, more in-style icons.
• Combat frigates deployed from the fleet to assist the player in space combat now launch specialised ships with their own visual flair to help distinguish them while in flight.
• Pirate raid frequency has been reduced.
• Fixed an issue that could cause pirate and Sentinel attack timers to reset each other, resulting in too many hostile incidents in space.
• The base speed and acceleration of the unupgraded Nautilon has been increased. Upgrades have been proportionally decreased as appropriate to keep overall upgrade effectiveness in the same range as before.
• Procedurally generated technologies for the Nautilon now give more generous fuel usage reduction bonuses.
• Fixed a number of issues that prevented Exocraft and Nautilon scanners from revealing nearby planetary objects as intended. These scanners should now reveal not only standard scanner resources, but also other objects of interest usually identified via the Analysis Visor.
• Increased the amount of time objects are marked by the Exocraft and Nautilon scanners.
• The stack size of Creature Pellets has been increased.
• Viewing player companions through the Analysis Visor now displays more specific information.
• The Multi-Tool and starship reticles now display overheat and ammo warnings.
• Early-game Sentinel waves have been adjusted to be slightly fewer in number.
• When selling items to technology merchants, prices are now correctly listed in nanites.
• The space station scrap merchant’s shop now displays your current Tainted Metal reserves.
• Building Part item popups have been slimmed down to cut out unnecessary information.

Polestar expedition

• The Polestar expedition will take players on a cruise across the galaxy in their capital ship, forsaking starship warping and planetary base building in favour of the life of a heavy shipping freighter captain.
• The Polestar expedition offers the chance to earn an exclusive freighter engine customisation; new base parts (including a flaming barrel); a unique cape design; a mysterious jellyfish companion; and much more besides.
• Players who have entirely completed an expedition may now end the expedition early and convert the save to normal mode.