What drew you to play No Man's Sky initially?

Some friends were playing NMS; their discussion of the game piqued my interest, so I gave it a try.

Two months later, I was pestering them all with each discovery and new trick I had learned, and one of those friends remarked, “The speed that you went from ‘should I play this game?’ to being supreme commander of the known universe is really awesome.”

Now that you're an experienced NMS player, what do you think of the game?

I’m hooked. The first video game of this sort (space trading/travel/discovery, space battles with pirates, etc.) that I played was Sundog: Frozen Legacy. That was back in the mid-80s on the Atari ST. Despite its primitive graphics and other obvious limitations it was an eminently playable, and replayable, game.

So, decades ago I was already primed to be HG’s target audience—my appetite for something like NMS is nearly limitless. I started playing in earnest about 2–3 months before all the drastic Covid lockdowns began; rather than slowly broil in existential dread, I seized on NMS as a welcome distraction that kept me sane.

How did you become interested in base building?

A player “living space” that can be customized is irresistible to me, so of course I had to build. I started building the same way everybody does: simply, mostly using the prefabs at first. I gradually started experimenting with slightly more ambitious builds.

In the summer of 2020, during my participation in a weekend mission, I stumbled upon an absolutely stunning build that aroused in me such a sense of wonder and astonishment I immediately set about learning how I might do something similar.

What is it about building bases that you enjoy most?

Like any creative endeavor, building bases involves struggle, problem-solving, catharsis, and a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment from seeing the results of all that effort, virtual though it may be. That, and possibly creating a sense of wonder for base visitors.

How would you describe your design aesthetic?

I’m all over the map, and my tastes are eclectic, so I’m not so sure I have any specific “aesthetic.” I do favor clean design, and don’t go in for anything too cluttered or baroque.

Where do you find your design inspirations?

I find inspiration everywhere—in a fruit bowl, even… which is probably why in some quarters I’m known for giant fruits and vegetables. I started with a giant banana that got a Kotaku write-up; last year I followed up with a big apple, then an enormous eggplant. I’ve built a giant toilet and numerous outhouses (evidently there are a lot of 9-year-old boys out there, because scatological creations tend to get about a hundred times the traction of anything else I’ve done).

I’ve built all the Platonic solids (and then some); several floating/orbital bases; several giant robots; a gigantic rooster; a big bunny with an outsize Easter egg; a sailing ship replete with rigging; a vintage pickup truck; a caravan/trailer; a spiral rock garden; a copy of the Mona Lisa using decals & wall art; a reproduction of Hans Zarkov’s rocket from the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s; and so on.

I can’t always explain the whys and wherefores—a lot of it boils down to something that happened to strike my fancy at the time, or that appealed to my warped sense of humor. Sometimes I undertake a build just to see if it’s something I can do.

Do you usually have a clear picture of what you're going to build before you start?

It varies. Some builds come about because of experimentation—what could be called “happy accidents” that began as some vague concept I had. But just as often, and consistently, I’ve visualized clearly something in my mind’s eye, and that’s what I shoot for. It doesn’t always pan out, yet still I try.

How do you choose locations for your builds?

It’s not easy to pin down all my reasons for choosing a specific location; they’re as multifarious as my builds. Sometimes a spot seems to just beg for a base; at other times I yield to a fondness for building near—or on—a Planetary Archive. I’ve pretty much stopped building near galactic portals, mostly to avoid hassles from other players (there’s always someone who builds too close to one of my portal bases). When the local terrain is somehow unique, an interesting feature will suggest a type of build; for instance, on a particularly mountainous world, I might look for a spot to build a cliffside base. Recently, I’ve been choosing spots for a couple of reasons: 1) it’s a spacious, relatively flat tract of land; 2) The view is pretty spectacular.

Tell us a little about your thought process when you begin a build.

My. Thought. Process.

Gee, I dunno. My internal, chattering monkey is different from anybody else’s, so I don’t think it will be of much use to others. My so-called process always begins with the germ of an idea and, as soon as I start mulling it over, the monkey starts yammering “you could blow with this” and “you could blow with that.” It’s incessant, so I start building something, if only to shut up the damn monkey.

What techniques and tools do you use?

I don’t use PC mods or Glitch Building. Mods are fine if you like them; I just prefer not to gum up my installation with any. As far as Glitch Building goes, my hat is off to anyone who has mastered it, but it’s not for me.

Beyond in-game building, which is still very much a part of what I do, my primary tools are:

• No Man’s Sky Base Builder addon for Blender
• Peter Laan’s NMSUtil for Blender
• Goatfungus NMSSaveEditor

I spent many hundreds of hours building bases before becoming incredibly frustrated with the rudimentary building tools HG has provided. For example, one thing the game is lacking is precise rotation, especially along a snap point, with configurable, constrained increments (like, say, 5°). As things stand, when you’re dealing with dihedral angles like 63.435° and 116.565° (needed for making certain polyhedra), that level of precision just isn’t possible in-game. I determined that, to really push the envelope, I needed to either learn how to glitch build or how to use Blender. I went the Blender route because it allows fairly precise control of base part positioning, rotation, scaling, and object collision. It’s a bit more complicated than this, but, without having to use any mods, one can assign positioning/scaling data to native construction objects in the game, and any player can visit the finished base once it has been uploaded.

NMSSaveEditor is an invaluable necessity when using Blender for base building. It’s the key that unlocks everything. One of its features I’ve used repeatedly is the “move Base Computer” function. This comes in handy when you want to reposition the BC without moving the rest of the base. In a nutshell, you can choose between 2 different types of portable technology, either a Signal Booster or a Construction Research Unit (AKA Blueprint Analyser) and place it in the new spot where you want to have your Base Computer and, with the click of a button, it swaps locations—the portable technology will now be where the Base Computer used to be, and the Base Computer will be situated where the portable technology was placed. Miraculously, it also recalculates the base’s XYZ coordinates for you automatically without affecting the relative position of anything else.

How do these techniques and tools fit into your process?

They don’t just fit into my process, they've become my process.

What are the pros and cons you encounter by using these techniques and tools?

The Blender addon is fraught with its own problems. For one, there’s a steep learning curve; for another, a lot of arcane knowledge is needed for it to be of any use in NMS, such as a familiarity with the gamesave JSON, because futzing around with that is just one of the things you’ll have to do if you're gonna use Blender.

Blender is no instant panacea for the game’s build menu limitations. When I started using it, practically nothing got easier, at least not in the short term. Quite the reverse, in fact; the Blender UI is dense and not very intuitive, so everything became more difficult. My first notable Blender build, Big Banana Base, took over 30 hours of effort, and came about only after I had first logged around 1500 hours learning how to use Blender to build player bases (I’m still a Blender noob).

There’s a misconception that, at the press of a button, Blender does it all for you. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, it does facilitate certain purely mechanical operations, such as copy + paste and multiple object selection, yet, at the end of the day, the Blender addon is just another tool—a base still needs to be assembled piece-by-piece as in the game. I’ve found that using it is an iterative process that still involves seat-of-the-pants eyeballing and brute-force manual tweaking, and a lot of going back-and-forth between Blender and the game to check one’s work (many of the proxy objects in the Blender addon are rather primitive, which causes a slight disparity between apparent positioning in Blender and actual positioning in the game.

What do you find most challenging about building in NMS?

Nothing in particular, beyond the challenge to push myself to build new things.

How do you deal with a design that just isn't working?

I always have several builds in progress; when I get stuck, I take a break by moving on to something else. I’ll continue wrestling with the problem; eventually, I’ll arrive at a possible solution and try that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Some builds I’ve torn down and rebuilt several times. I’ll keep going like this until I make something I can live with. Sometimes I have to apply the rule of GELMO (Good Enough, Let’s Move On), usually with the expectation that I’ll revisit the build at a future time and tweak it as needed. As I mentioned before, for me building is an iterative process.

Even though I usually work things out, there remain a handful of builds that have been vexing enough that they’ve never seen the light of day. I have at least 3–4 bases I’ve been tinkering with for more than 2 years. There’s one that I tabled over a year ago because I just wasn’t skillful enough to pull it off at the time, though I’ve recently returned to work on it.

Has there been any specific design type or style you've not found a way to create?

No, nothing worth mentioning. If I want to build something, I usually find a way. There’s also a bunch of stuff I’m simply not interested in trying to build, because to do it right would require more than 3,000 base parts.

How would you recommend someone new to NMS begin learning to build?

Start simple and keep at it. If you have any knack for building, the persistence will pay off.

What additional advice would you give to new Builders?

Don’t get discouraged. Pay no attention to what anybody else says—the only thing that matters is whether or not you’re having fun.

Any closing thoughts?

I didn’t realize there would be homework. This is too much like filling out a government form.