No Man's Sky: 14 Essential Beginner's Tips
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Starting No Man's Sky
No Man's Sky is a huge game that doesn't exactly make its various gameplay elements clear in its first few hours. To help you better understand what you need to better play the game, we've compiled 14 essential beginner's tips to help you in your early adventures across the galaxy.
Got any useful tips to offer that you don't see here? Let us know in the comments below!
Get to a Space Station ASAP
Once you repair your starship during the beginning of the game, exit the planet and head to the Space Station. You can find a vendor here who gives you market prices for all the different elements and resources you can find; this is a great way to gain a better understanding of what's valuable and what you should gather more of on your visits to other planets. Whenever you enter a new space system, the first thing you should always do is go to a space station to check the market prices.
Talk to Space Traders
The Space Station vendor has set market prices for all the different resources you gather, however, these rates differ when you talk to space traders. For example, the Space Station vendor might offer close to nothing for copper, but a space trader might be willing to give you a fortune for it. You can find these space traders coming and going in the station; talk to them to find out their rates. Space traders also purchase from you the various relic items you find on planets.
Fast Navigation
There's a handy method that allows you to run quicker than the normal sprint speed. First, start sprinting and then press the melee button; as soon as you press melee, press and hold the jet pack button. This will launch you forward a reasonable distance.
Don't Impulsively Buy a New Starship, Rebuild a Wrecked One Instead
Do not waste your valuable units buying a new starship in the early portions of the game; it's actually possible to find a wrecked one that you can easily repair on every planet you visit. To find one, head towards a transmission on a nearby planet to see what you can discover. It isn't guaranteed you'll find a wrecked starship at every transmission site, but it's likely you'll discover one left over after a few attempts. If you find a wrecked starship, simply gather resources and fix it in the same way you repaired your first ship during the beginning of the game. While this method is more luck of the draw, it beats dropping upwards of 300,000 units on a new starship.
Make Sure You Have Enough Resources and Equipment
Plan ahead with resources and equipment. Make sure you have enough resources to keep your multi-tool, exosuit, and starship charged before landing on a planet. It’s entirely possible to land on a planet with no resources and then you’re stuck, left to die.
Invest in a Better Multi-Tool
In No Man's Sky, your multi-tool is your best friend. You can use it to mine resources, scan the environment, or defend yourself against hostile creatures; these features are few examples of what it's fully capable of.
That said, it's important to note that the number of multi-tool features you can use is dependent on how many slots it has. The one you start out with with only has six slots, which isn't a whole lot when you factor in that three of those slots is taken up by the mining beam, scanner, and analysis visor; don't waste your time upgrading it.
Be sure to invest in a multi-tool that has a multitude of slots. These can be purchased from vendors at a local space station.
Transfer Resources to Your Starship
As you gather resources, make sure to transfer any excess you have back to your starship when travelling on foot. Your starship storage slots hold twice as many resources as your exosuit's slots. Just remember that once you send them to your ship, you need to get back to it if you want them. To transfer a material, highlight it and hold triangle.
Don't Hesitate to Fly Your Starship
When exploring on foot, be mindful of your distance from your starship. Rather than walking for minutes to explore or reach a point of interest, consider flying there instead. It's an added step, but it saves time and negates the need of constantly having to backtrack to your starship.
Tend to Your Needs Often
Tend to your equipment on a regular basis. Keep your multi-tool, exosuit, and starship charged as a habit, and you'll have an easier time coming and going without having to make unexpected pit stops. Be sure to keep a cache of your equipment's required resources at all times.
Call Your Ship To Your Location
If you manage to get too far away from your ship, try to find a nearby settlement. It's possible to find a beacon there that you can use to call your ship to your current location. To do this, approach a beacon at a settlement and activate it with a Bypass Chip, which you can craft in your inventory.
Analyzing = Easy Money
Analyze plants and animals, and then report your discoveries for a steady stream of easy money. To analyze a plant or animal, hold L2 to bring up the Analysis Visor and hold your view onto it until fully analyzed; this adds it to your Discoveries tab in the pause menu. Proceed to your Discoveries tab, highlight the plant or animal you analyzed, and hold square to upload it. Each animal and plant you successfully upload gives you a unique amount of units.
Go to Atlas Station
Once you've built your starship's Hyperdrive, quickly go to an Atlas Station, which are marked as red icons on your navigational map. Upon arriving to an Atlas Station, you're given an item that's crucial to your quest; you'll know when you get it.
Feed Animals for Rare Materials
It may not seem apparent at first, but it's actually possible to feed animals. To do so, approach one to see if it gives you a prompt; if it does, hold square to feed it an element. Feeding an animal causes them to give you rare materials or lead you to a location where some can be found.
Fly Higher to Fly Faster
It's important to note that starships can fly faster the higher they're up in the atmosphere. If your destination on a planet is far away, fly up until you can see its curvature. You’ll notice that the destination timer will decrease quickly.