Next up on the agenda is to follow along with the story missions for a little while.
The new objective is to Find the Cache. It should either be on a different area of the starting planet or on a new neighbouring planet. Whatever the case, launch over to the icon and land near it. Hop out of the ship, and activate a Target Sweep. Target Sweep is accessed by using the Analysis Visor (hold LT) and clicking left or right on the D-Pad. Once it's aligned, begin walking towards it. The Target Sweep is a bit awkward to use, meaning that you may have to walk for a bit to find the cache and apart from being aligned, it doesn't tell you exactly where it is. The closer you get to the cache, the more frequent the beeps will be. Underneath the window when using it, it shows the estimated distance until you are at the cache. In my case, it was 400u away and at the top of a mountain. Once you are near the cache, the beeping will become intense and you should notice a bunch of boxes, and a smoking machine which is where you want to head now. Decipher the signal and Extract the plans to learn two brand new recipes; the Base Computer, and the Terrain Manipulator. The Terrain Manipulator can be used to dig holes in the ground, flatten and raise the earth, among other things. It is very useful in digging up buried technologies, ancient bones, and you can even hollow out a cave to use in case of a storm. We'll install this first. You can change your active mission at any time by clicking the start button, going to LOG, and clicking on whichever one you want. Click on the Secondary mission for the Terrain Manipulator.
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What you're going to need is 2 Carbon Nanotubes, and 1 Di-hydrogen Jelly. If you've forgotten, that means you'll need 100 Carbon and 40 Di-hydrogen. Once you've crafted them, you can finish installing the Terrain Manipulator! You can switch between the Mining Laser and the Terrain Manipulator by clicking Y.
Back to the Primary Mission, Awakening, now. The current goal is to establish a base. We'll start by collecting some Copper. Copper is found in large deposits in the earth. Depending on the planet, there will be up to two other minerals you can find in the earth as well. On my planet, it was Ammonia and Magnetised Ferrite. What you want to do is activate your Analysis Visor in Analysis Mode, and look around for a diamond symbol cut into four small triangles. Hover over one until you find one which says, Copper Deposit. Be aware that there will most likely be more than one and so make sure to go to the closest one for now. Once you arrive at the Deposit, you will be tasked with collecting 60 Copper with the Terrain Manipulator. Don't do this. Collect as much as you can because, from experience, you will need it down the line, and, depending on how far away it is, you may not want to have to walk back over there.
Once you've completely stripped the deposit of all (or most) of its Copper, head back to your 'base'. For context, I mined the entire Deposit and got 296 Copper, while only using 23% of the Terrain Manipulator's charge. Once you're back at the base, click up on the D-Pad to deploy the Portable Refiner again. Instead of refining Ferrite Dust, this time you'll be refining the Copper into Chromatic Metal. You are probably going to become frustrated at even the mention of Chromatic Metal before the walkthrough is over. Remember that you need to use Carbon as a fuel source as well. Refining Copper is a little different to Ferrite as it has a different ratio. When refining Ferrite, for every 1 Ferrite you put in, you'll get 1 Pure Ferrite. This is known as a 1:1 ratio. With Copper however, you'll need to put 2 Copper in for every 1 Chromatic Metal you need, thus being a 2:1 ratio. Meaning that you require 30 Chromatic Metal, so you put 60 Copper in. Get it? Cool.
Once your Chromatic Metal has refined, click up on the D-Pad and deploy the Base Computer. Hold X to enter the Computer, and Claim the Base. Congratulations! You've just made your first base!
Now that that's done, enter the Computer to receive the recipe on how to build Wooden House Pieces.
You're going to want to create a Floor, 3 Walls, a Door Frame and a Roof. Simple right? All of that costs 120 Carbon, and 10 Ferrite Dust so go ahead and collect it. When you have the resources, go ahead and build your cute little shack. It'll be small and dark but it does the trick. It will protect you from storms and it will also advance the questline.
This should unlock the Cradle achievement; If it doesn't don't worry as you keep going it will unlock. It's not buggy, it's just that this is where it unlocked for me, it may unlock a little earlier for you or later.
- Cradle
Claim a Base or Buy a Freighter
1 guide
Outside around the cache, there should be a thin black pole with a larger white base and some white spokes at the top of it. This is a save and chart beacon. It basically charts the surrounding area so you can see more of the surroundings when using the Analysis Visor. It also acts as a save point for all the other times you use it.
After the little shack is complete, return to the Base Computer and Extract some more plans. You will learn the blueprint for the Construction Research Unit. This device allows you to convert old/damaged technology modules into advanced construction blueprints. Basically meaning that once it's placed, you can learn new blueprints. To create this you'll need 1 Carbon Nanotubes (50 Carbon), and 20 Magnetised Ferrite. Now, there is two ways to obtain Magnetised Ferrite;
- Refine Ferrite Dust into Pure Ferrite, and then once more into Magnetised Ferrite.
- Find a Magnetised Ferrite Deposit on the earth's surface. (some planets don't have this)
We'll do the double refining method because I personally think it's easier. Remember that Ferrite Dust into Pure Ferrite is a 1:1 ratio. Next, put the Pure Ferrite into your inventory (so the quest updates), and then put it into the machine as well. Pure Ferrite into Magnetised Ferrite is a 2:1 ratio so if you need 20 Magnetised, you require 40 Pure Ferrite. Got that? Awesome. Then craft the Carbon Nanotubes in your inventory and click upon the D-Pad a few times to craft and place the Research Unit. Access the Research Unit and either option, it doesn't matter. Inside you can spend Salvaged Data to research new blueprints relating to base building. You can find Salvaged Data by using the Analysis Visor, locating the symbol which looks like the wi-fi symbol on your phone or computer, and using the terrain manipulator to dig to it. When you have two of these, come back to the Research Unit and unlock the Base Teleport Module, under the Core Habitation Tech tree. When powered, this machine will allow you to teleport to another of your bases, or if you are playing multiplayer, a friends base. It also allows you to teleport to nearby Space Stations. Note that the Teleporter must be powered to go through it, but does not need to be powered on the other end. Now you'll go about making the Teleporter.
But just before you make the Teleporter, I'm not really sure why, but the game wants you to rename your base. So go up to the Base Computer, interact with it and where it says "something colony" at the top, hold A and rename it.
Now you'll want to gather the necessary resources for the Teleporter. It requires 4 Metal Plating (200 Ferrite Dust), 2 Carbon Nanotubes (100 Carbon), and 40 Sodium. Assuming you don't already have that, go out and grab it. Once you've gathered it all, craft the necessary items and click upon the D-Pad to enter the build menu again. This time instead of entering the Portable menu, you want to enter the General menu. Once there, simply place the Teleporter to craft it.
With the Teleporter crafted and placed on the earth, a new secondary mission will show up. Make it active. You are going to learn how to create a Biofuel Reactor. A Biofuel Reactor turns Carbon into power, although rather inefficiently. To learn to make it, head over to the Research Unit and it will be the one directly below and to the left of the Teleporter. This requires one more Salvaged Data so if you need to find more, scurry along. When you come back, unlock the Reactor. The Reactor requires 1 Metal Plating (50 Ferrite Dust) and 25 Oxygen. When you have those, simply access the build menu, and enter the Power section. It will be the only thing there so place it down.
Next you'll want to head back to the Research Unit and research Electrical Wiring. This one is free to research and also free to create so happy days! Head into the Power section again and select Electrical Wiring. It will come out as a small sphere. Simply place one on the lightning bolt on the Teleporter, and another on the Reactors lightning bolt. The Reactor has two bolts but using either is fine.
With those connected, interact with the Reactor and put either Carbon, Condensed Carbon or Oxygen inside to power it. I used Condensed Carbon and figured out that 1 Condensed Carbon gives you 3 seconds of power. Not exactly the greatest fuel source.
Interact with the Base Computer once more, and take off to the Space Station.
If you're like me, and you moved your Starship over to the base, you'll be out of fuel. To refuel the ship, it's a rather simple recipe; it's 40 Di-hydrogen and 1 Metal Plating. Put those together and you get Starship Launch Fuel. The fuel allows for 4 take-offs from the surface of a planet, including the one you are about to do. Use this to refuel the starship and launch into space once more.
Use the Pulse Engine to zoom off to the Space Station. As you get near the blue light emitting from it, the Space Station will suck you in and land your ship for you. Taking off from a Space Station, or landing pad, will not consume and launch fuel. Now there is a lot to unpack in a Space Station for the first time. Looking at the entrance (the giant hole into Space), walk forward and to the right to find the stairs up. Let's investigate the right-hand side first. As we go along, talk to any and all aliens until the quest updates. When you find the alien, click '16', and then the quest marker will direct you to the teleporter on the Station. Use this after exploring the Station fully.
From when you walk up the steps turn left. I'll do everything from left to right. First up is Starship Outfitting, which is where you can Upgrade your Starship, or salvage the ship if you own other Starships. Just to the right is the Appearance Modifier, which lets you change your look and is purely free and cosmetic. Moving right once more is the Exosuit Merchant. This bloke sells Upgrades to key Exosuit functions. Before leaving this guy, make sure to grab the Exosuit Upgrade which will be the holographic backpack just to the left of the merchant. This costs 5,000u and gives an extra slot in the Exosuit. Well worth the 5,000u. Moving right again, here is the Exocraft Merchant. Exocraft are vehicles you can create on a base to help move mass quantities of items around. He sells Upgrades for Exocraft. Moving right once more, this is the Starship Merchant. Once more, he sells Upgrades to key components in the Starship. Move right one last time to find the Multi-Tool Merchant. There are three areas of the Multi-Tool Merchant. Going from left to right. The first thing is a reddy/orange rectangle, which when approached, will open to reveal a Multi-Tool that the merchant is selling. It's worth noting that if you buy one, it will most likely have different components, so any you need, you'll need to reinstall again. For example, the one I could've bought had a Pulse Spitter Ricochet Module, but no Terrain Manipulator. They are also rather expensive. But a new Multi-Tool is worth buying soonish as you can really make use of the extra slots. Next over is the Merchant himself, who, you guessed it, sells Multi-Tool component Upgrades. Spinning one last time, you'll see a kind of workbench, with an orange holographic Multi-Tool. This is where you can install more slots, purchase new slots and upgrade the class. I wouldn't use this machine ever really unless you've grown really attached to your Multi-Tool.
Lying around the Station, there will be very bright 3D objects which when hovered over, will say Encrypted Navigation Data. Use these as they will often give Nanites and Navigation Data (also known as Salvaged Data).
Moving over to the left side of the Station, starting again from the top of the stairs, this time going from right to left. First, right away, is the Teleporter. This acts exactly like the teleporter at your base except you don't have to power it. We'll be using this soon. The first alien is the Station's Cartographer. He will sell you specific charts or random maps for cheap. The maps you can get are for, Secure Sites, Distress Signals, Inhabited Outposts, and Ancient Artifact sites. You can trade him the Navigation Data for a map. Heading left is the Envoy, which will eventually allow you to recieve rewards once you have good standing with one or more of the guilds. The next alien is the Mission Agent. He will allow you to do missions to increase your standing with the guilds and get rewards. And the last thing on this side is the circular terminal next door. This is the Galactic Trade Terminal. This is the main area where you can buy and sell goods for Units. If there is anything you don't want or have room for, feel free to sell it for some quick cash. Although at this point I personally would only sell Junk and plants, as well as any Vortex Cubes, or Storm Crystals if you were lucky enough to get some. If you managed to find two Storm Crystals, you most likely would've unlocked the Foundation achievement.
With the majority of the Space Station explored, head over to the Teleporter and use it to warp back to your base.
Interact with the Base Computer and Begin Decryption. Your new goal will be to reach the possible distress signal. It'll be close by; in relative terms. Real life close by maybe. Mine was a 22 minute and 21 second walk. So I would recommend flying over. As you approach you will notice the MASSIVE crashed ship in the ground. This is a freighter. The signal will be coming from nearby it. If you would like to explore the freighter, be aware that they can sometimes have massive amounts of radiation which can kill you rather quickly.
Interact with the Beacon and Request the Log. Take the blueprint and you will have discovered the Hyperdrive. The Hyperdrive allows for FTL (Faster Than Light) Travel across systems. Install the Hyperdrive and you'll be informed on how to craft it. The Hyperdrive requires 5 Microprocessors (you have to buy), and 125 Chromatic Metal.
Fly back to the base and refine 250 Copper into enough Chromatic Metal. Once you've done that, you need to head up to the Space Station again. You can either Teleport or fly up. Once you've arrived at the Space Station, head over to the Galactic Trade Terminal and look for Microprocessors. They aren't cheap so you may have to sell some things. In my game I had 187,641u and each Microprocessor cost 19,000u. More than enough. But you may not be so lucky. If you aren't, I would recommend leaving the Space Station, flying out into some asteroids and destroying them (with the A button) until you feel like you have enough. Assuming they are 19,000u each, you need 95,000u. Shouldn't take too long.
With your Microprocessors in hand, access the ships inventory and install the Hyperdrive. Another part of the quest is done! We're flying through this mission! Return to your ship for the next part of the questline. The next goal is to fuel the Hyperdrive. For this we need a Warp Cell. A Warp Cell is created using an Antimatter Housing and an Antimatter. Tune the Scanner to find Antimatter and leave the Space Station. Once in orbit, click LS to perform a scan. A trace of Antimatter will be found so fly over towards the icon. You'll notice that the icon lies (or at least it should) on a brand new planet. Mine was a Hot Planet. Once you've landed, get out the Target Sweep and begin the search for the location. You'll see the location you're after is actually an abandoned building filled with alien slime and goop. Activate the Abandoned Terminal and take out the muck thats corrupting it. When it's free of the muck, it prints out a blueprint for Antimatter and you are free to leave it. To make the Antimatter you need, 25 Chromatic Metal (50 Copper) and 20 Condensed Carbon. Outside the building, you'll notice some purple eggs named Whispering Eggs. If you're feeling ballsy, you can destroy these eggs and pick up the drops from them. Be quick though as they despawn after a while. Oh and also when you destroy an egg, a swarm comes out and tries to kill you. My recommendation is to Jetpack onto the roof where they can't reach you. After about a minute they will go away. Be warned though, they pack a nasty punch. If you don't feel comfortable doing this we can always come back later. There are many of these identical buildings scattered across the landscape. I only did one before leaving.
Fly back to your base now as we know how to make Antimatter and it's Housing. You need to refine 50 Copper into Chromatic Metal first. Next up in Condensed Carbon. You can either find red crystals on the earth, which are condensed carbon, or you can use the Refiner to refine Carbon into it. It's also a 2:1 ratio. So 40 Carbon is needed. Once that's done, craft them into Antimatter.
Now onto the Antimatter Housing. It's alot simpler than the actual Antimatter. All you need is 30 Oxygen and 50 Ferrite Dust. With those, craft them into the Housing. Now use the Antimatter and the Antimatter Housing together to create the Warp Cell. Board your ship and fuel the Hyperdrive with the Warp Cell. The Warp Cell fills 20% of it and allows you to do one FTL jump. There is an item called the Warp Hypercore, which allows you to do 5 FTL jumps, but we can't get that until later on. With the Hyperdrive fuelled and ready to go, take off into space.
When you're in space, you can click down on the D-Pad to access the Galaxy Map. The Galaxy Map is a rather daunting sight the first time you gaze upon it. If you hold down the LS, you will get locked on to the next system. This is where you'll head next. Don't worry you can always warp or teleport back later.
Click A to warp and see your new System for the first time. When you arrive, accept the guidance to the fuel source. It was at this point I was attacked by Pirates for the first time. When you get attacked, you have 4 options. You can either Refuse them, and fight, pay their fee, bargain with them for a lower fee, sometimes they'll still attack anyway, or if you have a Defence Chit, you can dob on them to the authorities. What you choose is up to you. Personally, I fight them everytime but I find that Space Combat is definetely my strong suit in NMS.
Your next goal is to follow the icon to the waypoint. My icon was luckily enough on a Paradise Planet, which means there is no Hazard Protection for you to worry about. Paradise Planets are usually teeming with life, have limited sentinels, good weather and are very much Earth-like. This is the optimal planet to start your long term base on. If your planet is not a Paradise, my apologies, I'm sure your planet is lovely too. As soon as I wrote this paragraph, I hopped out of my ship and was attacked by a hostile creature. I take everything back, this planet sucks.
Head out and use the Target Sweeper to find the location. You'll find that the location in question is infact a Monolith. A Monolith is an ancient structure left here by a long past civilisation. In these Monoliths there will be 2-4 Alien Words to find. Grab these as there is an achievement for knowing 150 words so this is a decent start. The words are on circular parts of the Monolith but you can easily find them by the purple icon that appears on your compass. Interact with these and Accept the Knowledge. Once you have claimed the knowledge, they will glow, letting you know you've used that one. Head up the steps to learn the Memories. Answer with any of the options, they don't overly matter. You will be rewarded with another Warp Cell, allowing you to make another jump to another system.
Return to your ship and blast back off into space. Once you reach space, the Awakenings quest will update and you will receive a new secondary mission as well called Base Computer Archives. Head off to the Space Station and use the Teleporter to travel back to your Base. Interact with the Base Computer and Search the Archives. Now Search the Construction Database as well and you will learn how to make a Storage Container. The Storage Container requires 35 Magnetised Ferrite (70 Pure Ferrite / Ferrite Dust) and 20 Sodium. Go ahead and collect that before placing it down somewhere. Go ahead and connect the Container and the Reactor with Electrical Wiring. The major caveat with the Container, is while it can store items you may not need right now, everytime you want to use it, you have to power it. Although it only takes 1/4 of the power the Teleporter does. The Base Computer will take 1 hour and 30 minutes to download what it needs to, so clearly we need to do something else.
What that is, is going to be some exploration. Back on the Awakenings mission, the objective should be 'locate the benefactor'. Now head back up to space. If you haven't already, you will now receive a transmission. Pick any of the options and you will receive a new quest marker. (I know this is an extremely long quest, but it is very necessary). Once you arrive at the coordinates, wander around again to find the correct location. Once you've found that, you'll notice that it's a crashed starship. Now a word of warning. Once you enter the starship and claim it as your own, it becomes your primary starship. Meaning your current starship will teleport to who knows where. If you don't have any fuel in your current ship either, you can't call it to you. Just a heads up that if you claim the starship, you may have to setup a base, and make a teleporter to a space station to get off the planet, like I had to. You can enter the starship and see that it is very damaged. Now you may claim this starship for yourself, however before you can take it anywhere, everything damaged must be repaired. If you want to fix it, feel free, however, I wouldn't recommend it as it should be around the same as your current one, in stats of course, and the hassle to collect everything required is huge. Claim it to your collection if you'd like and interact with the distress beacon. You'll have to repair the beacon as well. You'll need 5 Sodium and 5 Chromatic Metal.
With that fixed, extract the records and you will receive the blueprint for the Advanced Mining Laser, which comes in very handy. It requires 1 Carbon Nanotubes (50 Carbon), 1 Hermetic Seal (30 Condensed Carbon), 2 Wiring Looms (which must be bought). The Wiring Looms cost somewhere in the region of 50-60,000u. So roughly 100-120,000u in total. When you have that much cash, buy them and install the Advanced Mining Laser.
And that's it! You've successfully finished the Awakenings quest! When you enter space again, you will get a transmission and the Anomaly will spawn in front of you. The Anomaly is basically the online hub of the game. The Anomaly is one of the main reasons why you had to complete such a long quest. If you didn't get a transmission and the Anomaly didn't spawn, there are two things you need to know. You will only get the transmission after playing NMS for a minimum of 3 hours. AND you must not have died in the last 2 hours.
We will be using the Anomaly a hell of a lot in the coming pages. You are welcome to do them in any order you like, however, the order I set is a rather efficient way.
One last thing before I let you continue on though.
Make 'The Space Anomaly', your active mission. Once inside, you should be able to see a purple icon. Follow that to speak to Priest Entity Nada. Speak to him and go through the dialogue options, then cross the room to speak to Specialist Polo. Ask him how, then follow the purple icon once more to speak with Iteration: Helios. Give him the Data (planets) and receive 90 Nanites. These will be useful soon. Follow the icon to speak to Selene. Iteration: Selene allows you to buy Exosuit upgrades with Nanites. Don't buy any just yet and leave. Turn just to your left and enter the Construction Research Station. You don't need anything from here just yet. Head back to Nada and ask about Artemis. You will receive another 120 Nanites. With this task completed, you are finally free to continue on with the rest of the walkthrough.
5. Units3. Starting Planet
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