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.

  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • 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. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of No Man's Sky. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have.

Worth knowing alongside this

No Man's Sky is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it.

The practical answer

It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Everything below is framed around the current state of No Man's Sky rather than a launch-week impression.

  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Expect one number in every guide to be out of date; the method is what matters.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Region and platform change more than people expect, so confirm both.

When the usual advice fails

Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over.

If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first.

Why it works this way

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see.

What to do instead

None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later.

Where people go wrong

  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.
  • Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.

No Man's Sky FAQ

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 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 other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Is there a faster method?

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

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