Just watched the whole interview. Not much new really but there are a few bits of info that either confirm or form a better picture about stuff:
- It seems you don't actually upgrade your ship, instead you buy different and better ships that are docked on space stations. So you can buy one if you want from the currently available selection of ships, some being fighters with better guns, others haulers more suitable for trading etc.
- They call the in-game money "units" and you can choose how to earn it. On planets (on foot that is), you earn units by discovering and mining resources (sounded like you get units for both of these actions), explore the planet, discover new creatures and there's also combat on planets that they don't want to show yet. (although there are glimpses of it in the trailers). Murray also kind of hinted at there being more uses for the tricoder/weapon/tool than just scanning and shooting, upgrading the tool in different ways etc. but it's not clear.
- There's a bit of a faction alignment system in the game. If you constantly attack ships from one race, you will become their enemy. But if you continually help them, they will favor you and will start helping you out. Murray said that he "wouldn't exactly call them abilities" but by being on good terms with some races you will have benefits, one of them being those friendly AI wingmen from the trailer. But they want the players to gradually discover these kinds of gameplay elements, where they for example choose to help certain races and gradually see changes happening that influence the gameplay even though nothing hinted at these mechanics even existing in the game. They like to have a lot of that kind of stuff.
I'd say Sean Murray can't always articulate his ideas and as a result maybe presents them in a more overblown fashion. Most of these things (especially regarding the spaceship and space bits) are classic space trading sim gameplay elements, docking on stations, earning money by taking bounties or straight up killing, trading, mining asteroids, buying better ships and better hyperdrive capability, discovering new planets etc. Honestly, this would be enough and I'd say it's pretty much everything upcoming games like Elite: Dangerous will offer. The cool thing is that No Man's Sky is marrying this established space sim gameplay with on foot planet exploration, combat and a classic (or maybe pulp) sci-fi atmosphere. The concept is pretty much my dream game, but while not trying to undermine Hello Game's efforts, people should probably keep their expectations in check.
