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.

  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.
  • 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. Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively.

What to do instead

Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of No Man's Sky. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. 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. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

The practical answer

Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.

  • Revisit after a major patch if the behaviour changes.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Give a method one honest attempt before deciding it does not work.
  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.

Why it works this way

None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. 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.

No Man's Sky is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

Worth knowing alongside this

Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Everything below is framed around the current state of No Man's Sky rather than a launch-week impression.

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. 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.

When the usual advice fails

If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Where people go wrong

  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.
  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
  • Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.

No Man's Sky FAQ

Does this work the same on console and PC?

The logic is identical. Menu paths and button prompts differ, and any real difference is flagged above.

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.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

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.

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