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.

  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • If a menu path does not exist for you, your build is older or newer than the one described.

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. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of No Man's Sky.

What to do instead

Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.

Worth knowing alongside this

Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. No Man's Sky is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look.

  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Prefer the in-game option over an external tool when both exist.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.

When the usual advice fails

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. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different.

What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.

Why it works this way

Everything below is framed around the current state of No Man's Sky rather than a launch-week impression. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

The practical answer

The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.

Where people go wrong

  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.
  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Skipping the prerequisite because it looked optional in someone else's summary.

No Man's Sky FAQ

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.

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 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.

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.