This comes up often enough in No Man's Sky that it deserves a straight answer rather than a thread to scroll through.

Short answer

In most cases the straightforward approach works. The exceptions are specific and listed below.

  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.

No Man's Sky has been rewritten by updates so many times that old guides describe a different game. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests.

Why it works this way

If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

What to do instead

Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of No Man's Sky. Everything below is framed around the current state of No Man's Sky rather than a launch-week impression. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Check the version you are actually running before assuming anything is broken.
  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.

The practical answer

Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first.

If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.

When the usual advice fails

None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. No Man's Sky is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different.

The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

Worth knowing alongside this

Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

Where people go wrong

  • Skipping the prerequisite because it looked optional in someone else's summary.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.
  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.

No Man's Sky FAQ

Is there a faster method?

Sometimes, at the cost of reliability. Where that trade exists it is described rather than recommended blindly.

What is the short answer?

It is the paragraph near the top. Everything after it exists for the cases where that paragraph does not quite fit.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

Why do people disagree about this?

Mostly because they are describing different versions. Version drift explains the majority of contradictory advice about No Man's Sky.

Bookmark it if you like, but honestly, once you have done it once you will not need to come back.