OSS C# Project - NMSE (No Man's Save Editor)

[vectorcmdr]

NMSE (NO MAN'S SAVE EDITOR)

An open source C# save editor for No Man's Sky

Preview builds are now available at the website or the repo. Please check it out!

This repo will be winding up and archiving soon once stability is confirmed.

Outline:

An open source project that reproduces functionality from the current save editors and adds missing ones. The aim is to be the most feature complete editor available.
Written in C# .NET 10 for Windows, with support for compatibility layers such as Proton / Wine / CrossOver etc. for Linux and MacOS - built and maintained by the community that uses it.

Why "NO MAN'S SAVE EDITOR"? Because I want this editor to belong to no single [hu]man.

Teaser images (early dev vers, don't reflect current):

Exosuit (Cargo)	Starship (Tech) [Corvette]
Known Locations System	Storages

Click here for current status update!

Basic Parity Milestones:

✅ = Complete | 🔀 = In progress | 🔳 = Incomplete

Milestone 1 -> 4 (Base Feature Set):

✅ Completed - Click to fold out...

Milestone 1:

✅ Initial project setup
✅ Framework + UI
✅ Load/Reload/Restore saves/slots
✅ Load up raw JSON
✅ Edit raw JSON
✅ Import/Export JSON
✅ Load/Edit: Player stats

Milestone 2:

✅ Inventory resizing
✅ Backup/restore/import/export/delete for section categories
✅ Load/Edit: Exosuit cargo
✅ Load/Edit: Exosuit technology
✅ Load/Edit: Multitool stats
✅ Load/Edit: Multitool technology
✅ Load/Edit: Starship stats
✅ Load/Edit: Starship cargo
✅ Load/Edit: Starship technology
✅ Load/Edit: Freighter stats
✅ Load/Edit: Freighter cargo
✅ Load/Edit: Freighter technology
✅ Load/Edit: Vehicles

Milestone 3:

✅ Load/Edit: Frigates
✅ Load/Edit: Companions
✅ Load/Edit: Bases + NPCs
✅ Load/Edit: Storage chests
✅ Load/Edit: Ingredients storage
✅ Load/Edit: Discoveries (Tech, Products, Words, Glyphs)
✅ Load/Edit: Settlements
✅ Load/Edit: Account rewards (Season, Twitch, Platform)

Milestone 4 (Finalise Main Features):

✅ Expanded Corvette import/export options
✅ Fish discoveries panel
✅ Sectional saving
✅ Save all
✅ Zip backup entire save folder on load
✅ Improve r/w and general load times:

• ✅ File I/O: memory-mapped files or streaming decompression
• ✅ Decompression: LZ4 improvements
• ✅ JSON Parsing: explore custom converters
• ✅ UI Thread: Move load to a background thread

Milestone 5 (Final Testing):

✅ 100% of the refactoring
✅ Final assembly details (icons, etc.)
✅ Final live save testing

Additional Feature Milestones:

Milestone A -> C (Additional New Features):

✅ Completed - Click to fold out and see the extras...

✅ Load/Edit: Corvette procedurals (basic)
✅ Load/Edit: Corvette parts cache
✅ Load/Edit: Rocket inventory
✅ Load/Edit: Base salvage capsule inventory
✅ Load/Edit: Freighter refund inventory (unused)
✅ Load/Edit: Fishing platform inventory
✅ Load/Edit: Fish bait inventory
✅ Load/Edit: Food unit inventory
✅ Add warnings for weird inventories (like unused + h=6)
✅ Load/Edit: Settlements (other settlements extensions)
✅ Externalise DB items so users can edit/use them
✅ Port DB to use MBIN output json files and png files (without conversion)
✅ Produce hashtable of techpacks for lookup against the json files.
✅ Direct libMBIN mapping.json ingest for save mappings
✅ Proper recognition for items without count/charge
✅ Marquee labels for long names
✅ Milestones for Autophage
✅ Milestones for Pirates
✅ Discoveries filtering for known items in [Add] window
✅ Manual entry of discovery IDs

Milestone B (Additional New Features):

✅ Inventory export/import for all inventories
✅ Exocraft Import/Export
✅ Add procedural stubs
✅ Add additional procedural tables
✅ Add additional game milestone stats
✅ Add item picker dialogs for Settlements & Companions
✅ Decompression: LZ4 improvements (quickcalc size and chunk reading)
✅ Props support for corvette tech parts (CV_ -> B_ mapping)
✅ Export/Import for Corvettes (proper: ships and 'base')
✅ 657 additional procedural tech pack hashes
✅ Procedural loot
✅ Class icon overlays for inventory slots
✅ Adjacency bonus indicators (and lookup database)
✅ Companion list

Milestone C (Additional New Features):

✅ Glyph address system + renderer
✅ Player known locations teleport system (uses glyphs)
✅ Player current coords + additional stats (uses glyphs)
✅ Enhanced save info
✅ Further inventory functionality (elemental symbols, etc.)
✅ Space battle enabler
✅ Wiki / Guides account tick list (with filter)
✅ Add additional missing multitools
✅ Tech counters to %
✅ Enhance Frigates panel with mission stats and fast forwards
✅ Enhance settlements panel with extra features
✅ JSON editor with nodes and text support, filters, etc.
✅ Squadron panel with pilot settings
✅ ByteBeat Library panel w/ import/export
✅ Expanded Corvette import/export options
✅ Fish discoveries panel
✅ NMSE.Tests project: 266 Test cases (Core, Data, Models, IO)
✅ Cross platform save support (all consoles/stores)
✅ ~100% XML doc coverage got documentation
✅ GitHub actions for auto build on new commit (CI)
✅ Test before merge pipeline (CI)
✅ Website

Milestone D (Extended):

✅ NMSE.Extractor DB Extractor/Updater toolchain (pak->mbin->mxml->json/png pipeline)
✅ NMSE.Extractor.Tests project
🔀 Localisation support

15/3/26 1:06AM: Core Feature Freeze achieved after live save testing validation.

Finalisation of initial localisation support and documentation to go, then repo setup, then live.

Milestone E (Stuff For Later):

🔳 Investigate port from WinForms to agnostic UI framework.

[XariXiS]

Thanks for the all hard work you putting into this

[vectorcmdr]

Status Report 19/2/26:

Main post list (first post) provides a live checklist.

Completed (since last post [initial post]):

Old update, fold out for info 🔽

Core Functionality:

• Basic function porting (Milestones 1 -> 3): Complete
• Save Backup ZIP OnLoad: Complete
• Sectional Saving: Complete
• Externalise DB: Complete

Additional Inventory Support:

• Corvette Parts Cache: Complete
• Rocket: Complete
• Base Salvage Capsule: Complete
• Freighter Refund (unused): Complete
• Fishing Platform: Complete
• Fish Bait: Complete
• Food Unit: Complete

Other:

• Add warnings for weird inventories: Complete
• Add Autophage Milestones/Stats: Complete
• Add Pirate Milestones/Stats: Complete
• Add filtering for already known product/tech in Discoveries: Complete
• Allow manual ID entry for Discoveries (bypass DB list): Complete

Outstanding:

• Save All: Validation Testing (live testing on save files)
• Port DB to use MBIN output json files and png files instead of current converted DB: Next
• Improve general loading logic (file I/O, LZ4 [de]compression, JSON parsing, UI threading): TBC
• Refactor (cleanup from active work, separate class concerns): TBC
• Any final changes to the assembly info (Proper titles, icons, etc. for the program): TBC

Current WIP:

Currently going through save test validation.
Once completed, then I am moving on to the DB changeover which will be a significant overhaul.

[cobalt2727]

Wouldn't it be easier to use something like QT from the get-go, rather than writing it in WinForms and having to worry about porting things over later?

[vectorcmdr]

Wouldn't it be easier to use something like QT from the get-go, rather than writing it in WinForms and having to worry about porting things over later?

Thankfully it will be fairly trivial to do a final UI port later because the interface isn't doing anything too fancy.
I've got far more experience with WPF & WinForms to be able to get an operational solution working for the larger user base (Windows) to then worry about porting for Linux after it's up and running.
A pleasant Windows experience is the main focus, especially with the likes of proton+protontricks now.

With regards to Qt, it's really a C++ framework and while it is supported in C# through bindings, I'd rather use other solutions.

[mwerle]

Thank you for starting this project - an open-source save-editor is definitely appreciated!

I haven't looked at the code yet, but are you separating the GUI from the implementation? That's a pretty standard separation layer and would make it much easier to make native ports to other GUI frameworks in the future. This sort of architectural split is much easier to make early in a project than try to retrofit later. Most non-Windows users don't really like to use emulation layers.. but I also understand coding to what you know and to the largest userbase.

Looking forward to seeing the progress! I only just started playing on PC (mostly PS5), so haven't ever played around with save-editors before..

[vectorcmdr]

Planning to, yeah. UI will get separated once I start to deal with separation of concerns as a whole in the implementation. It's currently a bit half/half while I focus on building the models, etc. first.

[mwerle]

Awesome! I'd offer to help, but tbh, I haven't managed to contribute to any of my current projects in ages.. too burnt out from my dayjob.

[vectorcmdr]

Status Report 22/2/26:

Main post list (first post) provides a live checklist.

Completed (since last post):

Old update, fold out for info 🔽

✅ Everything else except:

🔀 Improve r/w and general load times:

• 🔀 File I/O: memory-mapped files or streaming decompression
• ✅ Decompression: LZ4 improvements (quickcalc size and chunk reading)

🔀 Refactor project (separation of class concerns)
🔀 Final assembly details (icons, etc.)

🔀 Export/Import for Corvettes (proper)

Final Milestone (extra goal, not priority):

🔳 Investigate port from WinForms to agnostic UI framework

Current Status:

It has had feature parity with NMSSaveEditor for a few days and the focus is now on missing features, optimisation and writing unit tests for every nut and bolt.

Current WIP:

I have begun separation of class concerns and optimisation as I go and more panels have been split out to core and model classes.

I am currently pausing that work while I add what I think is the final missing core feature (proper corvette export/import) for a more or less feature complete editor.

Sneaky shot of the editor and a dual export json for a Corvette:

Once that is complete, I will continue with the loading optimisation and separation and it should be ready for merge and user testing. I am hoping a few more days of work (as after the weekend time will be tight again).
Edit: Taking the opportunnity to squeeze in a bunch of extra stuff first!