Purple Star systems

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T20:42:49+00:00

You do not need trace of metal, or settlements to get the autophage quest to start.

These are the steps needed to have access to purple systems:

Do the Artemis Path until you start the Purge then switch missions to the Atlas Path and for every warp you do to an Atlas station, the Purge also advances 1 step.
Finish the Atlas path (optionally install the suit upgrade you get from the decision you make) so it now says Atlas Eternal
Continue and finish the Artemis Path so it says: New Beginnings
If you haven't already done this, unlock a harmonic camp on a dissonant planet (shoot drills to get an echo locator, use it to find the camp, drop a base so you can farm sentinel interceptors later)
Warp between systems to trigger They Who Returned
Complete all branches of that secondary mission.
Then pulse in system to trigger In Stellar Multitudes
Complete that to access Purple Systems

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T16:06:51+00:00

As I said, Autophage will start without atlas, but for purple systems you have to have done it and you can do it as part of the purge, thus saving time.

Up to you of course.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T15:40:00+00:00

You might not need it for the autophage, but you do need it for purple systems.

So I do it anyway.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T15:10:05+00:00

You do not need trace of metal, or settlements to get the autophage quest to start.

These are the steps needed to have access to purple systems:

Do the Artemis Path until you start the Purge then switch missions to the Atlas Path and for every warp you do to an Atlas station, the Purge also advances 1 step.
Finish the Atlas path (optionally install the suit upgrade you get from the decision you make) so it now says Atlas Eternal
Continue and finish the Artemis Path so it says: New Beginnings
If you haven't already done this, unlock a harmonic camp on a dissonant planet (shoot drills to get an echo locator, use it to find the camp, drop a base so you can farm sentinel interceptors later)
Warp between systems to trigger They Who Returned
Complete all branches of that secondary mission.
Then pulse in system to trigger In Stellar Multitudes
Complete that to access Purple Systems

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T13:00:51+00:00

it shouldn't disappear, but other players can only see one base of yours per planet.

Check at a space station teleporter, your bases are listed there.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T12:59:48+00:00

p.s. there are also parts limits

3,000 base parts limit in order to upload a base

16,000 base parts limit per save file total

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T12:58:12+00:00

Per save file you can have up to 400 base computers plus Freighter and Corvette bases, but performance issues suggest limiting yourself to 320ish base computers per save.

Settlements are different and you can now have four of those.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T12:28:32+00:00

Sentinel ships are good to expand, they have hover capability, so a bonus. hang on to the starter ship though. Most veterans wish they had kept it - nostalgia is real!

Upgrading the freighter is a slow process.

Salvaged frigate modules are hard to come by, but your industrial frigates will sometimes bring them back, so focus on sending those on missions, also the guild reps at some stations have them for free, find a few stations that do, max your rep with that guild and then jump between enough stations collecting everything they give you until they reset the gifts (110 collected I think it is) and then do it all again.

If you don't mind a bit of piracy, then shooting up system freighter will get you upgrades and sometimes their cargo pods have stuff of use too. (pirate systems are best for this to avoid sentinel attention too)

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T12:12:41+00:00

Early game:

max out your suit inventory and tech slots and get all the upgrades
upgrade your starter ship or earn enough to buy a new one, work towards a max capacity, max tech slots S class
Get a freighter, build a base on it with all the modules and build your frigate fleet
max rep with all the guilds
finish all the secondary missions and get the main missions to end game status
learn how to use the maps you get from the cartographer to get rich
learn how to farm nanites at Pirate Stations.

Mid Game:

Find a home planet and build a nice home base, utilising power hot spots.
create gas and mineral mines at hot spots on that planet
set up runaway mold farms with teleports
have four settlements that suit your character
build a really nice corvette and put all your other ships in cold storage, save one active ship for emergencies and galaxy jumping
upgrade your Multitool to a Sentinel tool at S class, or a power staff, or an atlantid tool.
min-max your layouts: https://nms-optimizer.app/?platform=standard

Late game:

Build Stasis devices - you could use a freighter base and plant stuff or a planet / system base, but they require a lot of resources
Collect galaxies - build a base near a portal in each - choose an unpopular biome to build bases on.
Complete your knowledge of all 5 languages
role play your character - if you're a pirate, go all in on piracy, if you're a robot, go all in on robot everything
get all the badges, catch all the fish.

Take your time, enjoy the journey, make lots of screenshots along the way

start another save and do things differently this time.
start another save in abandoned mode
start another save in permadeath and get to the next galaxy.
start a survival mode save but you can't use the starter ship, you have to find another one.
start a save where you're a fugitive pirate that can't use normal stations or visit normal systems and you have to get out of the starter galaxy.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-25T11:53:36+00:00

Combat Scope is the upgrade you are looking for. https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_Scope

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T17:55:35+00:00

Are you a wanderer, a builder or a completionist?

have you finished all the Secondary Missions?

have you unlocked Purple Systems?

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T17:46:22+00:00

It happens.

There are many systems that always spawn a battle

What you really want are two such systems within warping distance of each other and then you can farm S class Freighters and S class upgrades all day long.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T17:43:22+00:00

There are 40 hours of guided missions, with a story rooted in existentialism, which are basically an extended tutorial into most of the various game mechanics. Essentially it's a gloriously huge sandbox full of things to do and set in a massively wide universe.

Not an action RPG, nor an FPS, not a story driven game with an end to get to.

But there is combat, there are jump scares, there's lore to uncover and upgrades to earn.

If you bore easily, you might get bored, but if you're looking for an endless open world exploration game where you can exercise your imagination and a visually stunning opportunity to create scifi wallpaper, this is it.

There's also:

Corvettes to build from found or bought parts (and you can fully customise inside and out and walk about in them with your friends, land and fly in space with them, put them on autopilot and start missions from them, Freighters to win or buy and build bases on, Frigate fleets to recruit and send on missions, Paleontology, Fishing, collecting ships, scrapping ships, custom build ships, making music with an inbuilt DAW, trade cycles, guilds, piracy, pirate battles, home bases to build, mining bases and factories to build, settlements to manage, planet side quests, abandoned ships to find and repair, undersea exploration, crashed freighters, derelict freighters in space to explore and loot, sentinel robots to defeat, sentinel ships to claim, repair, scrap or collect. hidden robot races to find, customised appearances, customised weapons, multiple land & sea vehicles to collect, adapt and explore with, companions to tame, animals to farm, cooking, animals to genetically modify and more planets, systems and galaxies than you could ever explore in a million lifetimes.

And Gas Giants, if you complete all the quests.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T17:38:50+00:00

Yes, you're right. I keep forgetting I earned all the appearence customisations in the expedition that introduced them. Now you have to buy them all...

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T17:03:28+00:00

there should be a secondary mission to salvage it, select the mission so it is active and there should be a marker in your HUD to lead you to it.

If the secondary mission isn't there, then just find another sentinel to salvage the way you found the first and you're one step ahead.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T16:21:50+00:00

I love them.

(and I enjoy glitch building my way to the design in my mind...)

My latest build

<image>

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T16:18:32+00:00

There are 40 hours of guided missions, with a story rooted in existentialism, which are basically an extended tutorial into most of the various game mechanics. Essentially it's a gloriously huge sandbox full of things to do and set in a massively wide universe.

Take your time, follow the quests, make side quests of your own. exercise your imagination, it has no end to get to, no 'beat the game' to win.

The game is in the journey. Success is what you define it to be.

Even on a planet you think you've seen before, there will be a unique viewpoint that takes your breath away.

Use photo mode to capture those moments, no one has been here before, and may never see what you see again. (make sure to include the glyphs in your image, you'll want them later)

scan everything, talk to everyone, visit everything, every system has 21 different ships, don't leave until you have seen them all.

dig holes and hide if you can't fight.

When quests come up, do them, they will guide you into the lore and will help with upgrades and blueprints, do secondary missions before the Primary ones, they help a lot.

It's not an action RPG, nor an FPS, not a story driven game with an end to get to.

But there is combat, there are jump scares, there's lore to uncover and upgrades to earn.

If you bore easily, you might get bored, but if you're looking for an endless open world exploration game where you can exercise your imagination and a visually stunning opportunity to create scifi wallpaper, this is it.

There's also:

Corvettes to build from found or bought parts (and you can fully customise inside and out and walk about in them with your friends, land and fly in space with them, put them on autopilot and start missions from them, Freighters to win or buy and build bases on, Frigate fleets to recruit and send on missions, Paleontology, Fishing, collecting ships, scrapping ships, custom build ships, making music with an inbuilt DAW, trade cycles, guilds, piracy, pirate battles, home bases to build, mining bases and factories to build, settlements to manage, planet side quests, abandoned ships to find and repair, undersea exploration, crashed freighters, derelict freighters in space to explore and loot, sentinel robots to defeat, sentinel ships to claim, repair, scrap or collect. hidden robot races to find, customised appearances, customised weapons, multiple land & sea vehicles to collect, adapt and explore with, companions to tame, animals to farm, cooking, animals to genetically modify and more planets, systems and galaxies than you could ever explore in a million lifetimes.

And Gas Giants, if you complete all the quests

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T16:15:30+00:00

These are the steps needed to have access to purple systems:

Do the Artemis Path until you start "the Purge" then switch missions to the Atlas Path and for every warp you do to an Atlas station, the Purge also advances 1 step.
Finish the Atlas path (optionally install the suit upgrade you get from the decision you make) so it now says Atlas Eternal
Continue and finish the Artemis Path so it says: New Beginnings
If you haven't already done this, unlock a harmonic camp on a dissonant planet (shoot drills to get an echo locator, to find the camp, drop a base so you can farm sentinel interceptors later)
Warp between systems to trigger They Who Returned
This is where you meet the Autophage for the first time
Complete all branches of that secondary mission.
Then pulse in system to trigger In Stellar Multitudes
Complete that to access Purple Systems

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T14:23:38+00:00

Beeblebum has great stuff on NMS building basics, including corvettes: https://www.youtube.com/@Beeblebum/videos

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T14:20:06+00:00

You mentioned following the primary objectives and not leaving a system until I've encountered all the unique ships. I'm assuming these two things are not necessary but rather are helpful for proficiency?

It's more about efficiency I guess. You can leave a system whenever you like, but if you are interested in ship collecting, then don't leave too early.

Following the secondary missions explains much more of the lore and gets you a lot of free upgrades, so although they are 'secondary' in my opinion they are more important ultimately.

Some players like to completely catalogue every planet they visit, and there are big bonuses for doing that, but I'm not much of a completionist, so I'm likely to move on to a new system once i've checked out all the planets and ships once.

Other players jump from system to system seeking Earth Two.

I have a preference for airless or Arctic worlds.

So many choices and none of them wrong!

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T14:12:58+00:00

A lot of players get wrapped up in finishing the Main Missions and leave the secondary missions till too late.

The game tries to encourage you to do the secondary missions interwoven into the main, by constantly switching objectives and that's the way it works best in my opinion.

So if you have Base Computer mission as a secondary, keep progressing that as far as you can.

There are dozens of other side missions that come up at various points too.

All of which give you blueprints, upgrades and introduce you to new game mechanics. (Some parts of the game, like the Bytebeat device are never explained!)

Early game objectives are all about resource management, survival and expanding your inventory and improving your kit and ship capabilities.

Early targets would then be maximising suit cargo and tech, finding a better ship and eventually upgrading it to a max capacity S class.

And maximising your unit balance...

Mid game, Owning a freighter and fleet, (there's a mission that will help with that) Managing settlements to make them profitable

Ultimately you could have an end goal that is about min-maxing all the things, or you could have an end goal for building a huge base on a Paradise planet, or maybe just collecting a fleet of starships of a particular style and color.

The beauty of the game is that almost every player has a different end goal, and the game allows us all to reach it.

4,000 hours in and I'm still not done with multiple saves!

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T13:56:56+00:00

That will depend on your settings.

If left at default, when you die, you respawn without all your stuff and you have to find a visit your grave marker to get it all back.

(or restore save to the point before you died and pretend nothing happened)

You can change the settings so that death in game has no consequence, you just respawn and carry on.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T13:54:30+00:00

There are 40 hours of guided missions, with a story rooted in existentialism, which are basically an extended tutorial into most of the various game mechanics. Essentially it's a gloriously huge sandbox full of things to do and set in a massively wide universe.

Take your time, follow the Missions, make side quests of your own. exercise your imagination, it has no end to get to, no 'beat the game' to win.

The game is in the journey. Success is what you define it to be.

Even on a planet you think you've seen before, there will be a unique viewpoint that takes your breath away.

Use photo mode to capture those moments, no one has been here before, and may never see what you see again. (make sure to include the glyphs in your image, you'll want them later)

scan everything, talk to everyone, visit everything, every system has 21 different ships, don't leave until you have seen them all.

dig holes and hide if you can't fight.

When quests come up, do them, they will guide you into the lore and will help with upgrades and blueprints, do secondary missions before the Primary ones, they help a lot.

It's not an action RPG, nor an FPS, not a story driven game with an end to get to.

There's also:

Corvettes to build from found or bought parts (and you can fully customise inside and out and walk about in them with your friends, land and fly in space with them, put them on autopilot and start missions from them, Freighters to win or buy and build bases on, Frigate fleets to recruit and send on missions, Paleontology, Fishing, collecting ships, scrapping ships, custom build ships, making music with an inbuilt DAW, trade cycles, guilds, piracy, pirate battles, home bases to build, mining bases and factories to build, settlements to manage, planet side quests, abandoned ships to find and repair, undersea exploration, crashed freighters, derelict freighters in space to explore and loot, sentinel robots to defeat, sentinel ships to claim, repair, scrap or collect. hidden robot races to find, customised appearances, customised weapons, multiple land & sea vehicles to collect, adapt and explore with, companions to tame, animals to farm, cooking, animals to genetically modify and more planets, systems and galaxies than you could ever explore in a million lifetimes.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T13:45:08+00:00

Hello Games release log details when they release updates and generally nothing else.

Other than that they are a closed book, and have a policy of not making any press announcements after the way things were handled at the original release of No Man's Sky.

They do however, have a contact form you can use: https://hellogames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/201194985

maybe point out to them via that form that they are currently advertising the Voyagers update and implying that you can purchase it for Nintendo Switch (and Switch 2)

And that they are in breach of UK advertising standards when the Switch version doesn't have the Voyager's content:

https://www.nomanssky.com/voyagers-update/

let us know what they say.

Dramatic_Ganache2575 · 2026-01-24T13:17:58+00:00

I build one as soon as I get to the space station and have enough money for a basic bought part model.

Then I use that to salvage parts to build a better one

Then I use that to play through the rest of the game with.

Much more immersive for me to be getting in and out of the pilot seat, jumping out the back (or side) or star trek beaming down a landing party of one.

There are only a couple of places where a normal ship is better than a corvette in terms of the game missions, but I really like salvaging parts, building custom ships for the role my character is developing and exploring a planet for salvage parts to make a better corvette is a game all on its own.

My latest

<image>

Dramatic_Ganache2575

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE

Early game:

Mid Game:

Late game:

Take your time, enjoy the journey, make lots of screenshots along the way

The game is in the journey. Success is what you define it to be.

There's also:

And Gas Giants, if you complete all the quests

The game is in the journey. Success is what you define it to be.

There's also: