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

Do the simple thing first. It is correct more often than the complicated thing people recommend instead.

  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.

No Man's Sky has been rewritten by updates so many times that old guides describe a different game. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one.

What to do instead

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of No Man's Sky. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional.

The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see.

When the usual advice fails

The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. No Man's Sky is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • Prefer the in-game option over an external tool when both exist.

The practical answer

Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. 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. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Worth knowing alongside this

The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows.

If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

Why it works this way

Everything below is framed around the current state of No Man's Sky rather than a launch-week impression. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

Where people go wrong

  • Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.
  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.
  • Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.

No Man's Sky FAQ

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.

Is this still accurate after the latest No Man's Sky update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

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.

Does this change between platforms?

The behaviour does not. Where menu paths or prompts differ, that is noted above.

Anything that shifts with the next No Man's Sky update will show up as a changed number, not a changed approach.