No Man's Sky Unofficial Player Survey

The subject of this article is from the Atlas Rises update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 23 July, 2018.

This article was catalogued by Galactic Hub Atlas.

This page covers a player survey.

Summary[ | ]

The No Man's Sky Unofficial Player Survey, or NMS-UPS, is a survey routinely released by the Galactic Hub Project staff, designed to further understanding of player interests and patterns.

The current plan is to release one edition of the NMS-UPS towards the expected/predicted end of each update era. Some questions will be removed, some will be added, and many will remain to gauge any change over time.

The first edition of the NMS-UPS, the Update 1.3/Atlas Rises NMS-UPS, received 1,475 responses.

The full results can be viewed on the main Google Sheets file.

The "Visuals" tab (or "workbook" in Sheets terminology) contains crediting information, related websites, and visualizations (mostly pie or bar charts) of responses.
The "Raw Data" tab contains the response data exactly as I received it.
The "Edited Data" tab is an attempt to remove inapplicable answers: for example, "IRL" as a response to "which websites/apps do you use for NMS?"
The "Aggregated Data" tab is a tally of responses which each survey option received, and the tab which is likely most useful aside from the Visuals tab.

Data was aggregated using the "=unique" function in Sheets. It's possible some results were missed if this function didn't perform as expected, but any omissions should be statistically insignificant with 1,475 responses.

Observations & Commentary[ | ]

The commentary below is written by the primary survey author, 7101334. This should be viewed as one individual's analysis - that is, it's possible that some of the data below may be interpreted differently by other individuals.

Graphs will only be included if they seem particularly relevant; to view all visualizations from the NMS-UPS, please visit the main Google Sheets file, linked above.

The terms "players" and "respondents" will be used interchangeably. It's possible that the respondents of this survey are not perfectly representative of the entire playerbase.

General[ | ]

Most players began the game in the first 3 days of release.
The post-Atlas Rises player increase was roughly double that seen after Foundation or Pathfinder (although correlation =/= causation, the update itself is likely a major influencing factor).
Terrestrial Exploration, Starships, Earning Money, Fauna, and Lore are the top 5 focuses.
Most players own a Freighter; most players do not own an S-Class Multi-tool.
Roughly 50% of players have the blueprint for Warp Reactor Theta, while ~21% have Freighter Warp Reactor Theta.
Galaxy distribution remains consistent with surveys previously conducted by the Galactic Hub and u/TheMightyF0x - Euclid contains 72% of the population, Eissentam contains 12%, 5% for Hilbert, 4% for Budullangr, and 1.9% for Calypso. This clearly demonstrates that player distribution is determined by default spawn (Euclid) and the Atlas Storyline (Hilbert/Calypso/Budullangr/Eissentam, from Euclid).
Hesperius Dimension contains 1.5% of the population. All other galaxies contain less than 1%. 0.2% of the population occupy 0-value or negative-value galaxies, accessible only via save edits.
The Alpha quadrant is more densely populated than other quadrants; Beta, Delta, and Gamma are essentially equal; the near-Center "quadrant" is slightly lower, but encompasses a much smaller space. Alpha's greater density may simply be because it was first on the list and many players were uncertain which quadrant they were in, each of the 4 quadrants is most likely roughly equal in population.
Most players are either okay with universe resets, or at least okay with how they've been conducted thus far.

Favorites[ | ]

From most-to-least popular multitool class: Rifle, Experimental, Alien, Pistol. It's possible the "Rifle" classification was confusing for some respondents, as Alien and Experimental multitools have always seemed much more popular in the community.
From most-to-least popular, top 10 fauna genera: Rangifae/Diplos, Mogara/Grunts, Anastomus/Striders, Tetraceris/Antelopes, Lok/Blobs, Theroma/Triceratops, Tyranocae/T-Rex, Felidae/Cats/etc, Felihex/Six-legged Cats/etc, Conokinis/Bos/spiders/beetles
28% of players who considered lush planets their favorite biome prior to Atlas Rises changed their mind after the update.

Ideal Planet[ | ]

The "ideal planet" based on the results of this survey would be:

Lush biome
Rangifae/Diplos present (Probably 6m+, although the survey didn't specify height preference.)
Mogara, Anastomus, Tetraceris, and/or Lok species present.
Prionace/Sharks and Ictaloris species present.
Cycromys (large birds) present; Oxyacta (flying snakes) or Rhopalocera (butterflies) also likely acceptable.
Black/dark-tinted space.

Note that these are fairly broad criteria, and thus, one planet which meets these criteria may be preferred to another which also meets the criteria.

Civilized Space[ | ]

28% of players are either in a civilization, affiliated with a civilization, or on their way to a civilization.
An additional 4% were formerly affiliated, but are now unaffiliated.
3.2% of players see themselves as being too far past the early galaxies to have access to civilizations.
The remaining 64.8% have never been affiliated with a civilization.
From most-to-least-popular civilized space features: multiplayer content (ie racing, joint exploration, meeting other "glitches"), Other, Discovery Sharing, Community, Player-made Farms, Player-made Bases (non-farms), Fanfiction / Lore
Most players prefer a civilization to be 50%-to-100% gameplay-oriented, while 60%-to-100% fanfiction-oriented civilizations are less popular.

Preferred focus for civilizations. 50-50/Score 5 votes may include "Neutral/Don't Care/Doesn't Matter" respondents, as well as legitimate preference for 50-50 mixture.

While most players prefer large (30+ player) civilizations, there are still a significant number who prefer medium or small-sized civilizations.

Federation[ | ]

The results below relate to the United Federation of Travelers.

11.1% of players participate in the Federation to some degree, with an additional 5.2% who are affiliated with Federation civilizations, but don't personally participate.
40.2% of players have never heard of the Federation.
The remaining 48.8% have heard of the Federation, but don't personally participate (this includes the 5.2% who are affiliated with Federation civilizations).
Federation opinion is overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive: 36% more neutral than positive, 91% more neutral than negative, and 87% more positive than negative. (This considers a score of 1-3 negative, 4 neutral, and 5-7 positive.)

Third-party Tools[ | ]

Note that some websites/apps, like Amino, Gamepedia, Nexus, and others, may not have had the NMS-UPS submitted on their website/app, while others like Reddit, Facebook, Citizen Science Division Forums, Steam, and Twitter, did have the NMS-UPS submitted directly through their website/app.
Reddit, Steam, Facebook, and Twitter are the most widely-used sites for NMS (not necessarily in that order - order changes dependent on "primary network" vs "overall use").

Pilgrim Star Path
No Man's Sky Lore Vault
NMS Gamepedia - Browsing
NMS Gamepedia - Submitting
Networks Used
Primary Network Used

Future Content[ | ]

"Fauna Improvements" and "Increased Space Station purpose/variety" are significantly more popular than all other suggestions, followed by Ringed Planets, Improved Lush Planets, Aquatic Overhaul, Starship Customization / Gas Giants, Sand Worms / Ability to Construct a Base Anywhere, and others.

Based on the NEXT Trailer, Ringed Planets, Aquatic Overhaul, and the Ability to Construct a Base Anywhere will be part of the NEXT release. It appears there will also be new species of fauna.