The current update “Endurance” has little in common with the release version of No Man’s Sky. Now, among other things, hobby astronauts can experience a 30-hour story and finally build their own bases. You just started playing No Man’s Sky and want to explore alien planets? Check out our No Man’s Sky tips and tricks so that you’re off to a good start.
Table of Contents
1) What should you do first?
As a new space cadet, you start on one of over 18 trillion planets in No Man’s Sky. Many of them are deadly. If you’re unlucky enough to wake up in a radioactive atmosphere, it’s best to restart the game. Especially as a beginner, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the basic game mechanics first. Otherwise, you’ll see the game over screen faster than the tutorial tells you how to jump with the space bar.
What environmental hazards are there on the procedurally generated planets? Here’s a short overview:
- Acid rain (poison)
- radioactive radiation
- no atmosphere (=no air)
- extreme cold and heat
Later in the game, you’ll have opportunities to survive longer in these biomes. However, if a dangerous storm suddenly comes up during your first exploration tour, quickly look for a cave as shelter. Alternatively, you’ll always be protected from harmful environmental influences in your spaceship.
2) Resources and power supply
Once your survival is assured, you’ll next repair your spaceship and analysis visor. For this, you need various materials and raw materials. But don’t worry, you don’t have to craft axes, shovels, and picks first in No Man’s Sky. Instead, you simply aim your multi-tool at mineral deposits, animals, or plants and pull the trigger.
The resources you get from that go directly into the free inventory slots of your exosuit. So, make sure your pockets are empty beforehand. Use the storage space of your spaceship for resources and items that you rarely need.
To ensure the power supply of your devices, you should always have carbon and ferrite dust with you. Fortunately, these elements are abundant on almost all planets.
Battery dead? No problem, just dismantle rocks or plants. This will give you the energy-rich minerals that will power your multi-tool again.
3) Refined and efficient: tips on resources
Charcoal is commonly used for grilling. It burns longer and is therefore more efficient than its source material, wood. The same goes for carbon in No Man’s Sky. To improve the energy-to-weight ratio of the resource, you need to compress it.
To do this, you’ll need a portable refiner, which you can make very early in the game. Since the refiner is an electrical device, it also needs ferrite dust or carbon to operate.
Set up the refiner and ensure its power supply. Then fill it with carbon and wait until everything is processed. To make compressed carbon, you need two normal carbons. Ferrite dust can be processed in the same way.
Tip: If your carbon supply runs low at the wrong time in the wrong place, you can take the fuel from the portable refiner. Then you’ll have carbon in your inventory again to use in an emergency.
And don’t shoot everything in front of you. If you feed alien animals, they will likely lead you to secret treasures. Also, you should scan and upload all the creatures on a planet to earn units.
4) Don’t mess with the guards
Be careful of your behavior or you’ll quickly have to deal with guards. This mechanical life form is one of the most common enemies in No Man’s Sky. Their origin is unknown, but their mission is clear: they work as a universal police force, making sure that the balance of the planetary ecosystem isn’t put in danger.
There are different types of guards. From small flying drones to combat runners, there’s everything. On planets with rare trade goods, the robots are aggressive and attack immediately. On all other worlds, however, they patrol more cautiously. If a guard notices you, you should still immediately stop mining resources and run for it.
Only with the right equipment will you stand a chance against a guard.
5) No Man’s Sky tips and tricks: organize your inventory
Your character’s inventory is very small at the beginning. Therefore, use the storage space of your spaceship to store materials and raw materials. On the other hand, you should carry important items and fuels like carbon with you on every exploration tour.
Later on, you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade your exosuit. You’ll be faced with the decision of improving your resistances or adding new inventory slots. We recommend you choose the latter at the beginning.
6) Scan the environment with your analysis visor
Repairing your analysis visor is a quick task. Once you get the thing working, scan the flora, fauna, and minerals in your vicinity. This will not only give you important information about the game world but also money – called units in the game.
If you scan plants and minerals, you’ll know which primary elements they yield when mined. In addition, the analysis also indicates which secondary elements are contained in the objects. These are now also harvested during mining.
You can also improve the analysis visor with modules. To earn money early on as a beginner, an upgrade that increases the amount of money per scan is recommended.
7) Find and explore abandoned buildings
On most planets, you’ll find remains of past cultures or abandoned alien buildings. It’s always worthwhile to search these places. You can often find blueprints and rare items there.
By activating the scanner, you will see all the nearby buildings. To enhance the effect, make a signal booster. This will also show you drop pods and other points of interest (POI).
If you can see farther than Legolas with the naked eye, get into your spaceship and fly over the surface of the planet. This way you’ll avoid the signal booster, but you’ll only be flying on sight. Then simply land next to a building, loot what you can, and fly to the next POI.
With a little luck, you will find additional whispering eggs near abandoned buildings. Shoot the eggs with your multi-tool and collect larval cores. These fetch up to 100,000 units when sold; so they are very valuable.
However, immediately after you loot the eggs, biological abominations spawn and attack you right away. You shouldn’t underestimate these monsters, so be careful. It’s best to use your jetpack to fly to a rooftop after collecting them, where you’ll be safe for the time being.
8) Upgrade your exosuit
To upgrade your exosuit, you need either upgrade modules or blueprints. You can find them in capsules scattered around the planet. It’s best to make a signal booster again so that all capsules in the vicinity are displayed to you.
There are several technology traders on space stations. They sell improvements for your suit, but also your spaceship and multi-tool. To complete the purchase, you need units.
The more upgrades you have, the more expensive new upgrades become. Alternatively, you can trade upgrades for nanite clusters. This resource is the second currency in No Man’s Sky.
Also, invest upgrades in cargo slots to increase the storage capacity for resources. This also creates more space.
Note: Because the topic of nanite clusters is very complex, we’ll cover the resource in more detail in another post. Here, we’ll focus on basic No Man’s Sky tips and tricks to get you started.
9) My best friend E.T. – making friends with aliens
In alien outposts or space stations, you’ll meet a variety of different aliens. Don’t be shy and talk to alien beings! In the beginning, you’ll probably only understand gibberish. No wonder, because you don’t speak their language yet.
You’ll learn new words by discovering ruins, activating knowledge stones, or solving the riddles of an alien monolith. Since the Beyond update, you can also translate languages with the auto-translator. This is especially helpful for puzzles. However, the words are not saved in your dictionary.
There are four spoken languages in No Man’s Sky:
- Korvax
- Gek
- Vy’keen
- Atlas
You don’t have to be a linguist to talk to aliens, though. They also give you helpful items if you speak to them and understand only a fraction. Also, they sometimes offer you missions to improve your relationship with the race.
It’s also worthwhile to exchange items or make a trade with the NPC aliens. If you deliver the desired item to your interlocutor, they’ll reward you with units or resources. You may even be rewarded with a new multi-tool. Some aliens are even willing to trade or sell their spaceships. So be on the lookout for fancy bolides.
10) Important No Man’s Sky survival tips for beginners
Save, save, save
You may have noticed that in No Man’s Sky there’s no save option in the settings under “Esc.” Instead, the game automatically saves when you exit the spaceship. If you want to save the game manually, find a fixed save point in the game world and activate it. You can also create the save point yourself during base construction.
To be on the safe side, craft a portable save point. It takes up space in your inventory but allows you to save wherever you are.
As fast as a pro – Bash boosting
After sprinting, press the melee button and then activate your jetpack to get from A to B quickly with bash boosting (or melee boosting). Note, however, that you’ll use up more life support with this technique.
By consuming blue glowing Deuterium Rich Plants, you can get an extra boost for your jetpack super jump that lets you jump even further, and a buff that ensures your jetpack doesn’t use fuel.
Master the Jetpack
Falling damage in No Man’s Sky hurts. Therefore, try to activate your jetpack just before hitting the ground. With a little practice (and after a few hard landings) you’ll get the timing right.
Search for your grave
When you die, you don’t have to start over. Provided you’re not playing in hardcore mode. And you must not restart the game after your death or load an old save game. Then your grave will disappear. So go and search for your corpse right after your in-game death. There you’ll find your lost inventory.
Planet maps
In space stations, you’ll meet the cartographer. You can buy planetary maps with navigation data from him. When you read them, you get information about points of interest on a nearby planet. This way you can easily farm valuable materials.
How can PLITCH help you get started in No Man’s Sky?
No Man’s Sky is finally the game we’ve all been waiting for. The bumpy start is as good as forgotten. With our tips, you shouldn’t have a hard time getting started – neither as a newcomer nor as a skeptical release veteran.
You don’t have much time for gaming in the evening? You’d rather explore strange stars and not constantly wait for your overheated multi-tool? Then PLITCH provides you with 30 No Man’s Sky cheats that will make your life as an astronaut easier.
For example, expand your inventory to the maximum number of slots to carry as many things as you like. Or become a language genius by decoding and learning all the words with one click.
Check out our YouTube channel for more info on PLITCH and our trainers!
Happy Gaming!
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