No Man's Sky Guide VI - Tips and Tricks

Flying


There are a number of things one can do to make No Man's Sky play a little smoother. Here are a few I have found useful; some have been already mentioned, but I include them here again all in one place.



Flying and Getting Around

When you are skimming across a planet's surface, your instrument panel will block the view of things below you; my solution is to fly upside down when you really need to see there - just mind the mountains...

Your speed in a planet's atmosphere is limited by drag. If an objective is more than a minute away, it is faster to climb into the stratosphere where your speed can be much higher and do a parabolic path to the objective. For objectives more than a couple of minutes away, climb out of the atmosphere completely (speed > 2,500) and use your pulse drive.

You can move faster on the ground by a combination of running and jet pack. Your running stamina recovers if you are flying, and your pack recharges as you run.

If you are at the base of a cliff or in a deep hole, your jet pack will run continuously as long as you are near the wall.

If you land your Starship on a landing pad (Concentric blue->green rings), you will not consume any Launch Fuel when you leave.

If you have constructed an Exocraft anywhere in the Galaxy, you can build an Exocraft Summoning Unit on the surface of any planet and call your craft to you anywhere on its surface. The Unit is permanent but does not require a base to be built there. This is very useful if you want to fly around looking for stuff and then call your craft to you when you hop out of your ship. This also works under water if you have built a Nautilon somewhere.

If you Exocraft (or Starship) gets stuck somewhere, leave it and then when in the clear, 'call it' (X-menu) and it will show up - just remember to always keep the Launch Fuel charged before leaving.

If you are attacked in space by Pirates, it is much easier to defeat them if you fly backwards. That way they will have to fly into your guns and you can quickly eliminate them. Also remember you can replenish your ship's shields in the middle of a fight by re-powering them with Sodium or Sodium Nitrate.

You can teleport TO a base that does not have a teleporter, but you need a teleporter to leave. This means that if you make a base but find you don't have the materials to make a return teleporter, just leave by ship and then you can teleport back and build one when you have collected the materials.

Navigating Black Holes to get closer to the Center of the Galaxy will destroy ship components in the main ship inventory. A way around this is to only fly a 'beater' into a Black Hole. Find or buy the crappiest ship available and don't fix anything except enough to launch it. Then, using a good ship, go to a system with a Black Hole and either land on a nearby planet or return to your base using a Teleporter. Then, change into your 'junk' ship and go into the Black Hole. Since there is nothing left to break, there will be no damage... When you get to the other side of the Black Hole, change into your 'good' ship to explore further.

Resources and Exploration

DiggingIf you need to find a cavern but can't locate an opening, scan for the yellow icon with three vertical bars; these signal the presence of an underground artifact. Tag it, move as close to it as you can on the surface and then use your Terrain Manipulator to dig your way into the cavern.

Try not to get lost in a cavern; it can be surprisingly hard to find your way out. As you go in and find a branch point, use your Terrain Manipulator to build a small mound before you take a branch so you can find it again when you come back. You can also dig a pit to mark a branch that you have already explored. If all else fails, find the highest point in the caverns and 'mine' your way out with the Terrain Manipulator.

Ancient DataWhen you scan, look for the yellow icon with a single bar; this can mark an Ancient Data Structure, where you can get Navigation Data and sometimes even a Drop Pod locator. The single bar icon will also be seen on other valuable items such as 'Metal Fingers' and 'Floating Crystals'.

Curious'Curious Deposits' are spheres containing valuable materials and are also marked with the yellow icon. However, if you try to mine it, it will break free from the ground and roll away. To prevent this, use your Terrain Manipulator to dig a small trench downslope from them so they will drop into it and be 'captured'.

If you want the instant appearance of angry Sentinels and Quads, pick up a Gravitino Ball or mess with a Sapient Plant. This can also be a useful way to bring Sentinels so you can kill them...

When you get the blueprint for an Autonomous mining Unit, go to a Gamma Planet and build the AMU on top of a Uranium Deposit. Then, set up a 'Baselet' of just a Base Computer and Teleporter. Now, you can get continuous quantities of Uranium to make more AMUs and to refuel your Launch Thruster. Name your base so you will know what it is, such as "Base-Uranium", etc. Note that this name may not show up on another Teleporter until you have used it once. It is a good idea to set up these 'Baselets' over most minerals so all you have to do is teleport to them, grab 250u of whatever is there, refuel the AMU and leave - sure beats digging all over a planet to fill your cargo slots.

Condensed Carbon, Magnetized Ferrite and Sodium Nitrate are much more effective at re-powering devices than their plain cousins. You should always have an Exosuit Cargo slot filled with each one - and replenish them. Having one filled with Ferrite Dust is also a good idea so you can make components and Hyperdrive Warp Cells while in your ship. This can be particularly important when you land on a planet with hostile Sentinels and can't afford to mine anything.

Gold AsteroidIn asteroids, Gold, Silver and Tritium can be randomly found in the smaller chunks, but solid Gold asteroid will appear rounder and very smooth; Silver asteroids will also be smooth but more elongated. Platinum does not appear in all systems but when present is found as colorful, spiky crystals. The most efficient way to get any of these is to set up an Autonomous Mining Unit over a deposit of Gold and Silver; if Gold and Silver are combined in a Large or Medium Refiner, they give Platinum.

When you mine minerals with the Terrain Manipulator, use it at the lowest aperture setting. It is tempting to blast the deposit out in a couple of shots, but you will get fairly little material. For example, I excavated a Salt deposit in three or four shots at the highest aperture and received 45u; when I used the lowest setting, it took a number of reloads and far more time, but I received 800u! It may be that the extraction is based on the number of 'hits', which may be why the Autonomous Mining Unit is so efficient.

Refiners: One of the most important functions of the Medium (or Large) Refiner is materials multiplication. For example, if you load in Condensed Carbon and Oxygen, you generate TWO Condensed Carbons as the output. This allows you to generate any amount of Condensed Carbon as long as you have Oxygen available. The same process works for Sodium Nitrate and Ionized Cobalt. Note that once you have generated the 'higher' forms, they can then be converted back to TWO of the base forms, allowing endless replication of materials. Other materials behave a little differently; if you put Chromatic Metal and another metal into a Refiner, you will get back TWO of the metal (Copper, Cadmium, Emeril, Indium), so even if you have only one unit of the metal it can be quickly multiplied. If you don't want to bother zapping rocks for Ferrites, you combine Oxygen and Pure Ferrite to form one unit of Rust (junk). Then, putting the Rust back through the Refiner yields TWO units of Ferrite Dust, thus multiplying that as well. This process is a little slower, so having more than one Large Refiner is a good idea.

Base Building

Building a base on a planet with smooth, rolling hills makes it much easier to get around using an Exocraft. If you can't find a large flat area for your base, try looking for Structures using your Signal Booster and build in someone's back yard - game-built structures are usually in nice, flat areas.

You don't need to put down a Foundation in order to plant a Circular Room. When put down, the room will 'level itself' by blowing away anything under it. Ignore whatever environmental stuff that appears in it before you actually plant it; that will all vanish when you do.

I find it easier to add corridors and such from inside a structure - this makes sure everything mates properly. If you don't like how it turns out, you can 'delete' the structure by holding down the control key when in the 'Z' (build) menu; your materials will be returned to your inventory.

Bugs, Anomalies & Work-Arounds

There is a persistent bug which will not let you collect material you have put in Storage Containers; when you try, you will get an 'Inventory Full' warning - or just a quick flash of the screen. The message may be true; to collect material from a Container, you have to have enough emply slots for ALL of the material, so a 500u load will require two Exosuit slots. However, this bug happens even if you have enough room. The only way to get around it is to save the game, quit to the desktop (quitting to the main menu won't do it) and restart the game - the problem will disappear. The bug seems to appear after the game has been running for a while.