Everyone starts off on a random planet on the outside of the starting galaxy. (There has been confirmed to be multiple galaxies)
You start off with a life pod ship, without a hyperdrive. Your hyperdrive is key to getting you from star system to star system and will be how you will cover the vast majority of your distance. You can fly from star system to star system manually, but it will take a
very long time.
The goal of the game is to get to the center of the universe. The game doesn't force you to go there, but many players may find interest in getting closer to the center since the closer you get, the better ships/equipment/resources you will come across. Also, the game will get harder towards the center as you'll have a higher chance of coming across more hostile/dangerous/alien planets and stronger AI ships/factions.
To make your journey to the center, you will need to continue getting better ships and upgrade your equipment as you go. To do that, you need to have credits. Credits are the currency in NMS, and you can get credits in multiple ways:
-Discovering new species/planets through exploration and uploading them to beacons will grant you credits. You have to upload them before the credits are granted to you. If you die before you can upload your data, then you have to re discover those things and upload them to get credits for them.
-You can get credits by selling resources to space stations and trading posts. You can sell your resources to the stations in the native star system that you find them in, or you can take a risk and warp to another star system to sell your resources there where they might be more valuable and sell for higher. (I'm assuming it's that way because resource price will vary from star system to star system depending on how common the resource is in said star system) It's a risk because you could get attacked by pirates and possibly lose all of the resources are transporting, or you could get attacked by hostile animals on the search for hyperdrive fuel. Also, ship cargo takes up the same space as hyperdrive fuel, so you'll have to manage that as needed. Oh and you can also combine resources to make them more lucrative.
If you die on the surface of a planet, you will respawn at your ship, but you'll lose whatever you had on you at the time. If your ship gets destroyed in space, you will land on the nearest planet with only your life pod ship and lose your cargo, but your bank account (credits) will still be in tact. It's always possible to work your way up from your life pod ship to a better ship with a hyperdrive no matter what star system you're in or what planet you crashed on.
You mine with your multitool. The multitool is used as a scanner, a weapon, and a mining tool. There are many different upgrades for it. The ones we know of so far are "laser beam, plasma grenade, energy shot, scan distance, scan type (certain things can't be scanned until this is upgraded)"
If you mess with the ecology of a planet too much, (mining, killing animals) Sentinel robots will be alerted and may attack you where you'll have to engage in combat. There is a wanted level on the top right hand corner of your screen that can go up to 5 levels. The robots are
not on every planet.
There is a galactic police that will attack you and keep track of your doings in any particular sector. If you try to attack freighters or space stations, the galactic police will be alerted and try to attack you. Same thing with different factions. If you help out one faction, you will be on good terms with them and you can become affiliated with them enough to call on them as wingmen. If you oppose a faction, they'll remember that and may be hostile to you if you come across them in the future.
You can also upgrade your suit. The suit upgrades we know of so far are "shields, resource capacity, jetpack (height and hang time), air hazard (separate stats for toxic, corrosive and radioactive environments, liquid hazard (length of time submerged in water, acid, and alcohol)"
There is mixed info on whether you can upgrade your ship. There are sources saying that you can't, and some saying that you upgrade whatever specific attachments that your ship came with. What we know for sure is you can't customize your ship in a way that you can switch out different attachments with what you want. You have to work with what you bought. The ship attributes we know of so far are "Shields, laser beams, plasma shot, rapid fire shots, energy torpedo, wing (affects maneuverability), hull (separate stats to allow landing in toxic, corrosive, and radioactive environments), engine (general speed), hyperdrive (hyperspace jump distance), cargo space (split between cargo and hyperdrive fuel), cloaking"
To upgrade things, you will need credits. You upgrade you suit and weapons (again, dunno about ships) at "on planet" posts. Different posts will specialize in different upgrades.
There are three main classes of ships: Fighter, Trader and Explorer. Each class has multiple prototypes
-Fighters are light and symmetrical
-Trader craft tend to be bulkier and slower, but with heavier weapons
-Explorer ships will have much better hyperdrives and stealth capabilities, allowing pacifists to run from every fight Edge
A crafting system (aside from just combining resources to make them more valuable) has been mentioned. Talks about crafting things from the "atomic level"
Quote below
"The game's crafting system looks set to be intrinsically complicated but rich and intentionally obscure, for instance. After mining resources in pure atomic form you can combine them into more valuable molecules, and gradually build up complex crafted material for selling, or to use to upgrade your ship, exploration suit or weapons. Hello Games will not document how this works before launch, instead -- in the style of Minecraft -- leaving it up to players to discover."
A blueprint system has also been mentioned. Certain equipment can only be crafted if you have attained the blueprint for it. Also, "loot crates" will be spread out through the galaxy that you can find as just another thing to reward you for exploration.
Planets will have a pre-generated name, but if you upload enough discoveries from one planet to a beacon, you can rename it whatever you want. You can also rename creatures you discover.
You CAN come across other players and see them, but it's extremely unlikely because of just how big the game is. There are 18 quintillion planets after all. As you get closer to the center, the chances of running into another player will increase, but it will still be a slim chance. If you do come across another real player, where will be no indication aside from your own observation. If you see a ship that's flying un-AI like, then it could be another player. If you see a person in a suit get out of a ship and walk around, then it's probably another player. Stars on the galactic map will twinkle whenever a discover is made somewhere, so you will occasionally catch that and see where someone might be in relevance to where you're at. You can also play completely offline.
There are a good amount of other details out there that I didn't cover, but if you don't like this, the game is not for you. Here's an information archive if you're interested on reading a bit more. (which currently isn't completely updated. I'll try to get reddit on that)
http://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/wiki/archive
I get that many people want to see more extensive footage of these things before getting on board, and that's fine. If you read this though, you shouldn't be asking what you do.
