No Man's Sky Companions Update Adds Alien Pets and Creature Breeding

Today’s unexpected No Man’s Sky Companions update has added the ability for players to adopt the alien creatures they find and take them on their travels as they explore the universe. Those who can’t find their ideal companion can instead genetically modify an egg and breed a unique creature they can nurture and train like their very own Pokemon, although their main purpose isn’t to head into battle.

Any existing creature in the universe can now be tamed and adopted. Taming isn’t an easy process; giving the creatures attention by playing with them, feeding them Creature Pellets, and issuing orders through command gestures takes time. Any animal that’s ever been fed can now be captured and milked, while giant creatures can also be ridden. Those that fully bond with players can then be summoned at any time and communicate their feelings through a neural link on the creature harness.

Tamed creatures provide a range of benefits as they explore the planet with their human companion. They can help to find important resources and buildings, as well as providing comments on the world and its other inhabitants. They’ll dig up any treasure they find or mine resources with shoulder-mounted lasers. They can even provide torchlight at night and protect players from hostile enemy creatures.

Those wanting to create their own dynasty can instead breed their own creatures. Animals that are well cared for will lay eggs that players can incubate in their Exosuit until they’re ready to hatch. Their genetics can even be modified aboard the Space Anomaly using an Egg Sequencer, but overdo it and you’ll produce something with “dramatic creature reconfigurations”. Alternatively, the eggs can be traded with other players.

Like any animal, they’ll inherit some of their looks and characteristics from their parents, but they’ll also learn from their trainer. Their personality will then affect their behavior, especially in the way they interact with other creatures. Players can also accessorize their companions with adornments that can be purely cosmetic or actually have a function. The adornments can be customized themselves with different colors and decals. Up to six creatures can be adopted at any one time.

There have been a variety of other improvements too. The full patch notes can be found below:

No Man’s Sky Companions Update 3.2 Patch Notes

Animal Companions

Creatures that have been fed can now be interacted with to access options for milking, riding and adoption.
Players may adopt up to six creatures at any one time. New companion slots are available to be purchased with nanites.
Your companions can be renamed, and then customised with a new range of accessories and decals.
Some accessories, such as the torch or mining lasers, will be used by your companion as they explore the planet.
Each companion has their own personality, which will influence how they behave and think. Some species are more likely to have certain traits than others, but each creature is unique.
The creature harness has a neural link with the Exosuit, enabling rudimentary translation of your new companion’s thoughts and wishes.
Companions will assist their owners during planetary exploration, but have needs of their own. They will periodically require food or attention if they are to thrive.
Companions will need to be cared for over a long period of time in order to win their trust.
While exploring, companions will assist their owners in a number of ways, including: scouting for resources and buildings; digging up minerals and special items; hunting other creatures; and marking hazards.
As well as acting on their own initiative, companions may be given specific instructions via gestures from the Quick Menu.
VR players can point directly to send their companion to a destination.

Companion Eggs

Creatures that have been well-cared for will lay eggs.
After a short time, creature eggs will hatch into a brand new creature, related to but distinct from the parent creature.
Baby creatures have different proportions from adult creatures and will grow to maturity over time.
Players may trade eggs from their prized companions with other players.
Creature eggs can be taken to the Egg Sequencer aboard the Space Anomaly.
The Egg Sequencer allows players to remix the genetic material of their growing eggs to produce unique, never-before-seen creatures.
Overdosing eggs in the Sequencer may cause dramatic creature reconfigurations…

Creature Improvements

New creature and companion-related titles have been added to the Appearance Modifier.
The construction cost of Creature Pellets has been increased.
The stack size of Creature Pellets has been increased.
Creatures no longer require advanced bait to unlock harvesting functions – any creature that has been fed may now be milked.
Giant creatures can now be ridden.
Creature locomotion animations have been improved.
The particle effects emanating from creature dung have been improved.
Discovered creatures now have a different shaped icon in the Analysis Visor, to better distinguish them from undiscovered creatures.
Creature icons in the Analysis visor have been offset to improve their appearance.

UI Improvements

Players using a mouse and keyboard can now use hotkeys to directly select options in dialogue menus and interactions.
Players using a gamepad can now use the analogue sticks rather than the cursor to move between options in dialogue menus and interactions.

Optimisations

Warp and loading times on PS4 have been significantly improved.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that caused freighter ‘wings’ to be hidden.
Fixed an issue that could cause an invalid system/base to appear in the teleport destinations list.
Fixed an issue that caused the gloves to be out of focus in the Appearance Modifier.
Fixed an issue that could cause players using Windows 10 to incorrectly report a network disconnect.
Autowalk is now cancelled automatically when the player manually moves forwards or backwards.
The creature feeding Nexus mission has been rebalanced to account for changes to the taming process.
Concrete base parts now require Silicate Powder rather than Carbon to build.
Fixed an issue in the Galaxy Map that caused the Distance To Core text to be vertically clipped, resulting in a comma that looked like a period.
Fixed an issue that could cause players to upload/download an excessive number of creative discoveries.
Fixed an issue that caused Cronus’ food to have an extremely bright glow.
Fixed an issue that caused the Orbital Exocraft Materialiser to have an overly bright glow.
Fixed an issue that caused base specialist terminals to snap incorrectly in specific large rooms.
Fixed an issue that could cause an increase in load times while attempting to download base data from other players.
Fixed an issue that could cause incorrect text to appear when harvesting food substances from some unusual creatures.
Fixed a VR issue that caused the Exosuit backpack to be invisible in the inventory if the player’s body was turned off.
Fixed an animation issue with the player weapons in VR.
Fixed an issue that could cause incorrect UI scaling in VR.
Fixed a VR issue that could cause UI screens to move while the UI was closing.
Fixed a rare hang that could occur when taking a screenshot in Photo Mode on PC.
Fixed a networking crash on Xbox platforms.
Fixed an issue that could cause very large save files to crash during loading on PS4.
Fixed a crash that could occur when the leader of a herd died.
Fixed a number of memory related crashes on PS5.
Fixed an audio related crash on PS5.
Fixed a rendering crash on PS5.
Fixed a crash related to the preview of summoned objects (eg starships).

No Man’s Sky update 3.2 Companions is available right now and is the continuation of their promise to bring “something new” to the game. They began that promise with the Origins update back in September, whose features included new planets, creatures, buildings, weather, and traders, though the ongoing journey of No Man’s Sky has been going through updates big and small for years.

[Source: No Man’s Sky]