As an intrepid traveler preparing for your first expeditions across No Man‘s Sky‘s infinite procedural galaxies, learning to thrive can feel overwhelming given the game‘s steep survival, crafting, base-building, and wealth-accruing systems.
Well, allow me – your guide across the stars with over 800 hours playtime since launch – to illuminate the key waypoints for jumpstarting your journey towards prosperity and adventure! Having earned over 3 billion units and maxed my exosuit and ships, I‘ve discovered optimal methods for rapidly progressing as a new player that I will share in this expansive guide.
Below you‘ll find essential tips on:
- Optimizing money-making by refining, trading, and crafting valuables
- Obtaining superior S-Class ships and alien/experimental multi-tools for expeditions
- Constructing elaborate bases and passive income farms across strange worlds
- Mastering faction, guild, and solo survival milestones for unique rewards
- And above all, thoroughly enjoying the emergent awe of No Man‘s Sky‘s nigh-infinite planets
So charge your warp drives and prepare for lift-off, traveler! Let‘s chart a course through the stars to accelerated success and wonders unbound…
I. Launch Your Journey: Critical Starting Tips
When first awakening alone on unfamiliar worlds, it‘s easy to feel aimless given No Man‘s Sky‘s flexibility and intricate systems. To progress smoothly, I recommend new players focus on these key starting tasks:
1. Gather Resources to Recharge Equipment
With survival equipment damaged, quickly gather sodium, oxygen, carbon, and ferrite dust from plants, rocks, and crystal formations to replenish life support systems. Caves also provide abundant minerals shielded from environmental hazards.
"Caves will refresh your hazard protection and give you oxygen and sodium, making them a valuable resource for survival in No Man‘s Sky."
| Resource | Source | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Sodium | Glowing yellow plants | Recharges hazard protection |
| Oxygen | Red flowers, underground deposits | Replenishes life support |
| Carbon | Red/green plants, wooden structures | Essential crafting material |
| Ferrite Dust | Rocks, metal structures | Essential crafting material |
2. Repair Analysis Visor and Scanner
Restoring your visor‘s scanning and analysis capabilities via the quick menu lets you identify resources and dangers critical for survival, while also detecting buildings and data points on planet surfaces and in space.
3. Visit Shelters and Secure Navigation Data
Locate nearby buildings using the analysis visor then raid their lockers for essential supplies like oxygen, sodium, ion batteries and valuable navigation data used for charting facilities across systems.
4. Follow the Overseer and Construct Base Components
The base computer‘s Overseer questline unlocks blueprints for essential base components like save points, teleporters, refiners, and haz-mat gauntlets – critical for space survival and transit. I recommend prioritizing this early.
"No Man‘s Sky beginners should…unlock base computer and be cautious of aggressive animals while using the terrain manipulator and creating life support jellies to conserve oxygen."
5. Scan All Creatures on each Planet for Bonuses
Completely scanning a planet‘s flora and fauna via your restored analysis visor generates substantial nanite payments from uploaded discoveries, especially when submitting the final species. This income finances many upgrades.
By methodically executing the above five milestone steps before indulging explorer instincts, new travelers construct a powerful launchpad for smoothly navigating No Man‘s Sky‘s complex star systems.
II. Get Rich Quick: Essential Wealth Building Tips
Once survival is secured traveler, it‘s time to rapidly accelerate your wealth production! Here are my top unit and nanite farming tips after earning over 3 billion units:
1. Refine and Craft Valuable Trade Commodities
While mining rare metals generates modest income, far greater profits come from refining common substances into valuable trade goods.
I‘ve earned over 1 billion units from refining chlorine and ionized cobalt! Here‘s how:
Refine Chlorine
Likely the best early money-making method in No Man‘s Sky. Simply:
- Buy tons of oxygen from space station vendors
- Collect chloride lattice from ocean floors and underwater flora
- Refine lattice + oxygen → chlorine (6:1 ratio) in batches of 10+
- Sell for up to +6% space station/trade outpost price
| Input | Price | Output | Price | Units Earned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 Oxygen | 25k | 1000 Chlorine | 6M | ~5.9M |
Other advantageous refinements include:
- Condensed carbon from regular carbon
- Chromatic metal from copper
- Ionized cobalt from cobalt
Craft valuable trade items like circuit boards, liquid explosives, cryo pumps and stasis devices once you have the blueprints from the overseer, scientists and weapon specialists.
Duplicate Cobalt
Similar to chlorine, buying thousands of cobalt and oxygen to generate ionized cobalt for 6x value is hugely profitable early on.
- Buy cobalt (preferably >= 1000) and twice as much oxygen.
- Refine into 4000+ ionized cobalt units.
- Sell for 6x input cost! (~20-30 million profit)
- Repeat!
This works because selling crashes system economies, prompting NPCs to resell cobalt cheaply.
2. Salvage Valuable Starships for Inventory Modules
Finding broken yet often S-Class ships via distress calls and claiming them before breaking down at the local space station can yield storage augmentation modules worth ~50 million units each!
I‘ve traded my starting 15 slot shuttle for 48 slot S-Class fighters and haulers using this method alone!
Target richer economies (3 stars) and higher wealth (booming, opulent) systems for better scrap ships.
3. Establish Mineral Mining Outposts on Resource Hotspots
Once electricity infrastructure is unlocked, building mineral/gas extractors on designated hotspots enables automatically harvesting Activated Indium, chlorine and other valuable substances for sale at staggering billions per hour!
Connect directly to storage containers to accumulate stockpiles. 20 extractors produce ~20 million every 10 minutes!
III. Upgrade Ships, Exosuits, and Multi-Tools
Wealth enables purchasing superior gear for enhanced performance – do not hesitate splurging units on these:
1. Obtain S-Class Ships and Multi-tools
Replace beginner C and B-class tools with S-Class varieties offering triple base damage, mineral yields, and 60%+ boosts to critical systems from procedural generation.
Stats for an S-Class Alien Multi-tool vs C-Class Start:
| Stat | S-Class Alien MT | C-Class Default MT | % Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scanner Range | 681.1 u | 224.9 u | 203% |
| Mining Rate | 258 | 84.7 | 205% |
| Damage Potential | 156 | 34.6 | 351% |
Obtain them from:
- Space station/outpost cabinetss
- Secure facilities, drop pods
- NPC gifts after much fauna harvesting
- Derelict freighters when extremely lucky
Install 3+ S-Class scanner modules to earn 60k+ per creature scanned!
For ships, having one suped-up S-Class model along with a rugged exploratory ship is ideal.
2. Increase Exosuit Inventory Slots
Purchase additional high capacity cargo slots from the Exosuit Upgrade agents on space stations. I expanded from 25 -> 48 slots, enabling carrying far more minerals.
Prioritize cargo over standard slots for 3x stack sizes.
3. Install Critical Ship/Multi-tool/Exosuit Modules
Modules amplifying resource harvesting, combat performance, and exploration should be prioritized once basic inventories are upgraded, including:
For Ships:
- 3+ S-Class Pulse Engine modules
- 3+ S-Class Hyperdrive modules
- 3+ S-Class Shield modules
For Multi-tools:
- 3+ S-Class Scanner modules
- 3+ S-Class Laser/Cannon modules
For Exosuits:
- 3+ S-Class Launch Thruster Recharger modules
- 2+ S-Class Underwater modules
Adjacent module arrangements provide additional stat bonuses!
IV. Construct Elaborate Bases for Passive Income
Once satisfied with your primary gear, establish permanent bases to leverage No Man‘s Sky‘s intricate crafting systems for passive production.
1. Scout Profitable Planet Attributes
When selecting base locations target planets with:
- Activated mineral hotspots: For automated mining.
- Bio-luminescent flora: For creature scanning.
- Extreme weather: Valuable storm crystals.
- Low Sentinel activity: Reduces farming disruption.
I advise finding paradise planets with mild climates, low sentinels, and bountiful flora/mineral deposits for starter bases.
Later, build additional outposts on extreme radioactive, frozen, toxic worlds rich in storm crystals.
2. Craft High-Capacity Infrastructure
Using construction blueprints from the Overseer, Scientist, and Base Computer Archives quests, erect:
Automated Industrial Facilities
- Mineral/Gas Extractors on designated hotspots
- Supply Depots storing thousands of mined substances
- Pipelines transporting inventory
- Electromagnetic Generators powering outposts
Agricultural Complexes
- Bio-Domes growing copious valuable plants
- Hydroponic Trays farming crafting materials
- Silo Structures storing overwhelming harvests
3. Construct Orbital Bases aboard Freighters
Build the above facilities on capital freighters to enable relocation throughout galaxies via frequent warping.
I produced over 500 circuit boards aboard my freighter farm parked beside my Activated Indium mine!
Purchase blueprint upgrades from Iteration Helios on the Anomaly until you can craft the Matter Beam to remotely access freighter inventories planetside.
4. Link with Teleporters to Manage Multiple Sites
Once mastering freighter construction, build additional outposts on multiple planets linked via Teleporters, distributing unique facilities across specialised sites for maximized productivity.
For example, my icy moon oils farm feeds my lush planet living glass production lab.
5. Generate Hundreds of Millions Daily!
By constructing just three optimised farms focusing on Activated Indium mining, circuit board/liquid explosive crafting, and stasis device/fusion ignitor assembly, you can easily produce ~500 million units daily with little effort!
Automated mining outposts alone generate 480 million units over 24 hours.
Now enjoy the fruits of your interstellar industry empire!
V. Join Factions & Guilds for Specialised Rewards
Beyond consolidating wealth, I encourage delving into No Man‘s Sky‘s lore-rich faction missions for unique gear and upgrades:
1. The Explorers Guild
If charting unmapped frontiers intrigues you, seek out Cartographer Polo aboard the Space Anomaly to register as an Explorer and receive exclusive ancient artefacts like the Dream Aerial and Organic Frigate Module for living ship/frigate upgrades.
Completing his strangeness-seeking missions also yields rare souvenirs like Gravitino Balls.
2. The Mercenaries Guild
Prefer blazing guns and starship steel? The stark Vy‘keen warrior clans offer nanite bounties for raiding plantery depots and eliminating hazardous fauna from their conquered systems.
I‘ve received exclusive Vy‘keen dagger multi-tools for completing their warrior trials.
Just beware earning the ire of the Sentinels by launching one too many orbital strikes!
3. The Travellers Faction
This alliance of trans-galactic nomads provides the crucial Glyphs for activating Stargates to instantly transport between galaxies once their graves are found and primordial words learnt from their ghosts.
I advise completing the Artemis/Apollo main quests to unlock all portal glyphs quicker.
4. The Titanium Miners Guild
Help hardy Gek miners extract hazardous materials from extreme planets to obtain rare underwater upgrades and surveyor multi-tools built for mining frenzies.
Bring extreme weather and radiation shielding though!
VI. Final Tips Before Launch
As a final pep-talk before you voyage into the great unknown traveler, take these essential steps:
Install the Quick Menu Customiser
This fan-made mod lets you access portable refiners/save points/base parts from anywhere without opening build menus!
I‘ve included a link in this guide‘s show notes.
Only Install Core Technologies
Resist installing too many weapon/mining upgrades early on since they drain precious launch fuel needed for exploration.
Start with efficient launchers and pulse drives.
Manual Saves and Moderate Pace
Remember to manually save at stations and buildings often! Losing an hour of progress to random bugs can frustrate. Allow time to soak in the procedurally generated alien vistas.
Embrace Getting Lost
Don‘t fastidiously follow objective markers. Land on unexplored planets! Pursue strange coordinates! Stumble into hidden pirate systems! Ride anomalies into abandoned galaxies!
The joy of No Man‘s Sky flows from embracing aimless wandering off the guided path.
So stand tall, fix your trajectory towards the galactic core, and prepare to breach the event horizon into infinity! This guide has outlined everything you need to thrive on your journey. The rest awaits your imagination.
Ad astra per procedura! Good luck!