Update 8/25/2016: Added pages on Finding Trade Posts, Sentinels and Wanted Level, in addition to Shielding, Power, and Unstable Plasma Items. Also see my guide to Making Money in No Man's Sky for some tips on the best methods for earning cash, what crafting items are most profitable, and a list of all resources in the game.
No Man's Sky: Walkthrough
Beginner Guide, Ship Repairs and Leaving the First Planet
Sentinels will attack if you get too aggressive toward the planet's fauna or harvest too many resources. Thankfully, the small ones are easy to kill with blasts from your multi-tool.
This is my attempt at a walkthrough for No Man's Sky and its first mission, describing how to repair your gear and get off the first planet. Because everyone starts on a different planet and in different conditions, it's not really possible to say do X but I can relay my own experiences with repairing the ship and leaving.
No Man's Sky Basics, Atlas Guidance, and How to Save
Finding Iron in No Man's Sky. Many resources are harvested with the Multi-tool, others from interacting with plants and other objects.
Shooting things with your multi-tool and interacting with plants will yield crafting and materials you use to recharge your multi-tool, suit, and ship. Blasting too many animals and getting greedy with materials seems to bring sentinels after you, but the early ones are easy to kill (and should yield Titanium). You can transfer items from your limited suit inventory to the ship at any time. Don't let yourself fall too far or you take damage, hold the jump button to use the jetpack to soften landings and climb hills rapidly.
Should you take the Atlas' Guidance?
Looking around your ship, you'll see a beacon that brings up some text and two choices: Take the Atlas' guidance or explore the galaxy freely. Personally, I chose to take the Atlas Guidance for my first playthrough. It may lead to some lore, and I don't mind having some quests that teach me about the game. Some players may prefer to rush to the center of the universe and this selection does allow you to do that without any restrictions. Choose carefully, it's kind of a character creation choice.
You need four carite sheets to repair the launch thruster on your ship, as well as another damaged component. Use the iron you find to do this.
Entering your ship, then leaving, will let you save the game. It should say, "Restore point saved". If you left before this happened, you'd start on an entirely new planet. The game lets you revert to a previous restore point but autosave is the way they chose to go with No Man's Sky. Last thing you should know as for how to craft - select an empty inventory slot and press the indicated button to craft product.
Things You Need to Find on the First Planet
- Carbon - from plants, destroy with multi-tool
- Iron - from rocks, destroy with multi-tool
- Plutonium - found in crystal-like structures (sometimes in caves)
- Heridium - blast a monolith-type structure (use scanner)
- Thamium9 - from flowers (harvest)
Repair the Scanner and Analysis on Multi-Tool
A couple of your ship's components are broken at first, as well as parts of your multi-tool. First you need to fix the multi-tool so that you can more easily locate the rarest of components on your starting planet.
Here I found platinum from a flower, which is the same way you locate Thamium 9. Some resources are harvested this way, others are blasted.
Look around your surroundings and find objects - look for both iron (from rocks) and carbon (from plants). You're going to need a lot of iron so gather a good bit of it. If you find a large rock that contains Iron, blast it for 3-4 seconds and let off for a moment, then fire again. This will prevent the multi-tool from overheating.
Blasting plants should yield Carbon. Not grass, but obvious plants sticking out of the ground. Other plants, you interact with and they may contain Zinc or Thamium9, which you also need.
Repairing the scanner will help you find crafting materials on the planet.
Be patient and gather up resources. Using the materials you get by going to the inventory screen and multi-tool tab. There you'll see that you can repair two parts of the multi-tool using some of what you've found. Click them, then press the indicated repair button with the materials in your inventory. Iron will fix the Analysis Visor, and Carbon will fix the scanner. With the scanner and analysis equipment fixed, it gets much easier to find things.
Craft Carite Sheets
You need carite sheets to repair the ship's launch thruster. You'll need a couple more for other repairs, but need other resources to do that.
Because you only have so much inventory space, you should craft some Carite Sheets as soon as you have enough iron. Head to the ship tab on the inventory screen. From there, click an empty inventory slot. You can then choose to craft a carite sheet. You need four to repair the launch thruster. Make all four and select 'repair' on the thruster. Now one of your ship's systems is fixed!
Use the Scanner
The scanner module on the multi-tool lets you see markers of nearby resources. Use it as you explore to see things you might otherwise miss.
Now you can use the scanner item (L3) to do a scan of the planet. Now you can locate Heridium in order to fix the ship. You should see icons pop up. Pointing your sights directly at the icons and walking toward them will let you see what item you're walking toward, as well as the estimated time to arrival at your current speed. The scanner will temporarily highlight nearby things while important ones (such as Heridium) seem to stay on the HUD.
Refueling the Multi-tool and Life Support
You must refuel the mining beam as well as your life support systems to survive and gather resources.
Your gear needs to be repaired as you explore. You should be warned, in particular, when life support is low. The percentage durability of your multi-tool (mining beam) is always displayed in the top right. Head into the inventory and you can see the materials needed to recharge those things. The exosuit's life support module and the mining tool are charged with Isotope type elements. Try not to use more valuable ones, simple carbon will repair it just fine.
Find Heridium, Zinc and Thamium9
Use the scanner tool (z on PC) to locate Heridium and other resources
Now the hardest part of the walkthrough, or at least most time consuming. Have room for these three elements along with plutonium in your exosuit inventory (so four slots for them). When you used the scanner, a blue icon indicating the location of Heridium should have appeared. There may be more than one, and looking in that direction should tell you how far away they are. Go toward the closest one. Send extra items to your ship when your inventory is full. Do bear in mind you only need so much iron, if you have four stacks it's probably a bit much. You do have limited space.
Zinc and Heridium are needed to repair the booster. Thamium9 fuels the ship.
When on your journey (which for me was a 5-minute walk away), use the scanner here and there to see if anything interesting is nearby. You need both Zinc and Thamium9 which are seemingly gathered from flower-type objects. It may vary depending on your own planet, but it's worth repeating not everything is shot at with the blaster and some items are 'picked' kind of like plants in Skyrim. Look at the objects and see what they yield. Always have something to top off your life support and multi-tool on hand.
Heridium deposit in No Man's Sky
Aggressive creatures may attack, but they shouldn't be too threatening. Eventually you should make it to your Heridium, and hopefully find enough Zinc (used with Heridium for ship repairs) and Thamium (which you'll use to actually fuel the ship). The Heridium I found was a giant structure that, when blasted, gradually broke off. Thankfully you can look at the ship at any time (from the inventory screen) to see what you needed for repairs. I tried to get some extra myself and you probably should, too.
Repair the ship with the crafting materials you found.
Use the little white icon to guide you back to your ship and repair it, assuming you found everything. You'll need 2 carite sheets, which you learned to craft earlier - if every slot is full, you may need to drop some low-value materials like iron or carbon. You'll need to look around for some of those flowers (or what your planet loaded) to finish up, but it should be doable soon.
The ship is repaired. Time to explore space in No Man's Sky.
While the launch thruster is fueled with more common plutonium, the pulse engine will need Thamium9 for fuel. Once you have enough of all of these materials, you'll have your mind wrapped around the basics of crafting simple items and refueling your equipment in No Man's Sky. You may now leave the starting planet and begin exploring the universe!
Board your ship to leave the first planet and take to the skies. You can fly about to explore, or ascend to space!
Now we can depart the planet, and will get another quest if we chose to follow the Atlas' guidance. This will lead to learning how to craft our first Warp Drive in No Man's Sky.
Other No Man's Sky Guides
