I'll start by saying this game changes a lot, especially since the next update so any advice or tips you read, like what I have written here, can change over time. The developers are extremely active. Sometimes things will look better, other times crafting or the name of things change. Underwater exploration and the things you need to get around underwater all appeared while I was playing the game.

What this game means to you will also change over time and it did change for me over the 500+ hours I spent playing it. 

I started a new game in April 2023 to see what has changed. This guide is still relevant.

At first you will go around inspecting everything, then you will start gathering resources, then ships, then a freighter and some frigates. You'll realise there is money to be made and you'll run around trying to find expensive looking objects to sell. Most of the getting started guides describe how to get small amounts of money.

Once you have played for a while you'll realise gathering $5000 objects and fighting off sentinels is a waste of time when crafting a single "stasis device" or "fusion igniter" can get you $16 million. It took a while but as you can see from the pic I now have over a billion units ($dollars!).

To get money you need blueprints to craft things to sell. There are a number of ways to get blueprints. One way is to scan for manufacturing facilities and getting the answers right to fix the facilities. Other blueprints especially for plants are achieved by building the Specialist Terminals and completing the quests for each of these terminals.

Getting the terminals takes ages so now you can also summon the Space Anomaly and spend Nanites or Salvaged data at the Synthesis stations to get new product recipes and blueprints.


Once you get plant blueprints you can grow plants. Grow these at your base or build out your frieghter and grow them there.

Once you have plants you can start making real money, like in the millions.

Focusing on getting blueprints unfortunately took me a while to figure out, but now you know so it won't take you as long! Also every review you read will have this line somewhere, its great to take short cuts and learn from others but the game is designed so that you spend a lot of time exploring and this is a good thing.

The biggest challenge in this game is not distance/travel but storage slots. You never have enough slots to store all the things you need to craft for money and get around. Increasing slots can be done once per space station and by finding drop pods. The easiest way to find drop pods is to buy "drop pod co-ordinate data" and put these in your scanner while on a planet and this will direct you to the closest drop pod. Storage containers give you extra storage and these can be built on your freighter or at a base.

Ships are mostly priced according to their number of slots. The ships with the most slots are haulers so aim to buy one of these. A hauler with 48 slots will cost around $100 million.

Finding Exotic S class ships is a game of chance that is best done by hanging around Trade Stations, Outlaw Stations, Space Stations or even your on Freighter if someone visits.

Hold the F key on every ship that lands and this will give you the class and slot sizes so you can decide whether you want to buy it. There are stats but the average is 1 or 2 S class space ships to 100 or so of every other ship, but its procedurally generated so you might see one in the first few seconds or none in an hour of ship watching.

Really the best ship is the one with the most slots but if you want to look fancy an Exotic S class is nice, but like a sports car, not really practical. I have three Exotic S Class Ships now, they look good parked in the freighter!

Expensive ships are mostly found in systems that are doing well and are labelled things like affluent, booming, opulent etc. Below are a couple of my Exotic S Class ships so you know what to look for, though they do stand out when you see one and they generally only cost around 10 or 20 million due to the lack of slots.

The actual Void Egg missions are a bit of a drag and take days. For most of the missions you fly around, I had almost exclusively bad weather for some reason, not able to see much just watching my number co-ordinates go up and down trying to find a very specific location. By the end you get your S Class living ship.

There are a few story lines you can follow and you can complete them all. Keep in mind you get instructions and guidance for the mission when the mission is your selected mission. Once you have the ability to build 15 or so warp cells it’s a good idea to travel to the centre of the universe. This is so you can get it out of the way and continue exploring the galaxy without worrying about heading in a particular direction. The best way to play the game is to explore freely. You will hear this often.

Seeing the outlandish homes and structures that other people get together and build was amazing. I found some great buildings during the 'in game events' where you were directed to a portal that put lots of players on the same planet but people build bases everywhere. You can warp to other peoples bases and get resources or just have a look at the incredible things they have built.

When building don't terraform the ground because it comes back and other people can't get into your base as it's not editable. I visited lots of bases which were covered by the ground. Build high or at least off the ground and other people will be able to see and use your base.

If you can't extend the borders of your base, for mining or building Electromagnetic Generators, there is this weird thing where you can extend the base using tiles or whatever after loading a saved game.

I realised very early on that I was exploring high and low and all around, just to find a place that most resembled the earth.

I was looking for things like nice weather, lots of tree's, water views, abundant flora and fauna. Attributes our current planet has in abundance. We need to make sure we don't wreck this planet we live on because finding another one as good as planet earth and moving everything there, even if exploration was as easy as it is in No Man's Sky, would be next to impossible.

If there is anything wrong or out of date in this guide let me know and I'll update.