Repair the scanner, keep your hazard protection charged, and follow Awakenings until the Radiant Pillar can take off. The same mission then leads through a small base, a Hyperdrive and your first warp. After the warp, you can follow Artemis, visit the Space Anomaly, and pick up the separate Atlas Path. This route covers those connected opening stages and stops at the next Atlas Station objective; neither the Artemis story nor the Atlas Path ends there.
If you are returning after a long break, open the Log before moving. Select Awakenings or Alone Amidst the Stars for the next story marker. A side mission such as Base Computer Archives can take over the on-screen prompt without advancing the story you meant to follow. This walkthrough follows the missions and menus shown in a 2026 first-time playthrough of No Man’s Sky. Your planet, system, weather and station jobs will differ.
Survive the first planet and get the Radiant Pillar flying
If your first planet is toxic, start by watching the hazard-protection bar; another save may open with a different environmental threat. Gather Sodium from yellow plants and recharge hazard protection through the quick menu. On another hazardous world, follow the resource shown by its recharge prompt. Use a cave or the ship to get out of the weather while you gather the next materials. When the scanner is broken, gather Ferrite Dust from small rocks and repair the Scanner in the Multi-Tool inventory. Scanning then highlights nearby resources, including plants that refill protection.
Follow the marked ship rather than wandering until you find a better one. Inspect the Radiant Pillar’s damaged technology in the Starship inventory. The Pulse Engine asks for Metal Plating and a Hermetic Seal. Craft Metal Plating from Ferrite Dust. The Hermetic Seal comes through the ship repair objective: use the Planetary Chart the tutorial provides, travel to the marked cache and return with the seal. If the icon appears to vanish, check that the ship-repair mission is selected in the Log, then use the compass and Analysis Visor to recover the marker. Follow your own chart marker; its coordinates will differ from another player’s.
The Launch Thruster is a second repair. The on-screen sequence asks for Di-hydrogen Jelly, made from the blue Di-hydrogen crystals, and Pure Ferrite. Build the Portable Refiner when prompted, refine Ferrite Dust into Pure Ferrite, and place both required components into the damaged Launch Thruster. The repair screen is the place to confirm what remains missing. Once both propulsion systems work, take off and test the ship controls; the Awakenings objective moves from repair toward a signal in space. Keep a little launch fuel available before making extra landings, since an empty thruster can strand you away from the next marker.
Follow Awakenings through the base tutorial
Answer the signal and follow its planetary marker. The route introduces Target Sweep and the Terrain Manipulator, then asks you to build a small base. In Target Sweep, the Analysis Visor gives a direction toward the approximate site. Walk in that direction and recheck the signal as you close in; the ordinary compass marker may not sit exactly on the object you need. Install the Terrain Manipulator when the mission requests it, and use the correct mining mode for a marked deposit rather than firing the Mining Beam at terrain it cannot remove.
Place a Base Computer where the mission allows it and claim the site. Build the requested shelter parts from the construction menu, then interact with the Base Computer again when its archive objective appears. The base tutorial later asks for a Base Teleport Module and a Biofuel Reactor.
Connect the reactor to the module before trying to teleport out of the base. Keep track of the base’s name and system in the teleporter list. This gives you a way back if the next signal takes you elsewhere, and it keeps the base tutorial from being confused with the later Artemis marker.
Base Computer Archives can offer more building plans after the introduction. The later archive objective in this journey asks for a Storage Container, but that belongs to the base mission rather than the next story signal. If the Log sends you back to the computer or asks for another base part while you want the first warp, reselect Awakenings and follow its current objective. You can return to the base by teleporter. A complete base, expensive upgrades and a new ship are unnecessary to move the opening story forward.
Install the Hyperdrive and make the first warp
The Awakenings signal leads to the remains of a crashed freighter, where the player obtains the Hyperdrive blueprint. Open the Radiant Pillar’s Starship inventory and pin the Hyperdrive installation if you need the component list on screen. The installation calls for Microprocessors. A space station trade terminal provides a way to buy missing manufactured parts; gather or sell spare resources if you need units, but keep the materials already pinned for the drive. The nearby station also gives you a teleporter entry for returning to this system.
After fitting the Hyperdrive, follow the objective to learn or obtain Antimatter. Craft Antimatter from Chromatic Metal and Condensed Carbon, make an Antimatter Housing, then combine the two into a Warp Cell. Refine Copper or another suitable stellar metal into Chromatic Metal, and refine Carbon when Condensed Carbon is required. For the Housing, the mission points you back to Ferrite Dust from small rocks. Pin whichever component you are short of so the resource prompt points to the right material. Insert the finished Warp Cell into the Hyperdrive in the ship’s technology inventory. Carrying the cell in your Exosuit does not charge the drive.
Launch into space, open the Galaxy Map and select a system that the Awakenings route permits. Use the Galaxy Map for the jump. Flying toward the star in normal space or engaging the Pulse Engine will leave you in the same system. The first warp changes the story prompt to a stranger’s coordinates. If the map offers several colored routes, keep the story mission selected and follow its highlighted path instead of choosing a distant system for its scenery. Your star name and distance may differ, but the highlighted mission route still identifies the next system.
The Space Anomaly and Artemis are two tracks you can follow
After the warp, respond to the marked transmission and continue the new story signal. The Space Anomaly becomes an accessible hub. Visit it when the mission asks and speak to Nada and Polo. Ask Polo about the signal, then continue toward Artemis. The Anomaly provides a place for technology and blueprint research, but you do not need to buy every visible upgrade before contacting Artemis. Return to your ship, check the Log and follow Alone Amidst the Stars when you want the Artemis route.
Artemis first appears through a holographic contact rather than a person waiting at a fixed surface location. Follow the mission marker to the appropriate communication point and complete the dialogue. If you leave to collect resources or visit your base, select Alone Amidst the Stars again. Several later stretches revisit Base Computer Archives, station services and upgrades. The player also inspects a damaged spare ship. None of those activities is shown unlocking the next Artemis call. Claim the ship only if you want the repair project; the functioning Radiant Pillar can carry you to the next story marker.
Handle the useful detours without losing your story marker
The middle of the journey shows why the Log matters. A station offers trade, a teleporter and technology upgrades; a Base Computer can recover another blueprint; a damaged ship can invite a long salvage job. Visit those when they solve a current shortage. When you finish, select the primary mission you mean to resume and check its destination before warping. The log can display several primary missions at once, so the marker on your HUD may belong to the wrong one.
A Sentinel pursuit or space combat can interrupt the trip. Those encounters do not award the Hyperdrive or complete Artemis triangulation. If a fight interrupts a resource run, get clear of the immediate threat and repair or recharge the affected technology before returning to the pinned objective. A long chase is a poor substitute for following the mission marker. Likewise, building a larger base may make later travel more comfortable, but the introductory shelter, computer and powered teleporter are enough for the route described here.
Visit the first Atlas Interface when its path appears
The Atlas Path appears in the Log as its own primary mission. The Log calls its early stage The Dust of Creation and asks for an Atlas Interface. Select The Atlas Path, leave the planet in a ship and use the Galaxy Map’s Atlas route. This is separate from the Artemis trail, so you can switch between them without assuming one is a prerequisite for the other. The red station and its interior look unlike an ordinary space station; enter the Interface and interact with the central structure to receive the next instruction.
At the first Interface, learn the Captured Nanode blueprint. Its crafting screen calls for Chromatic Metal. Collect the ingredient when you choose to pursue Atlas seeds, then check the active Atlas objective again. The next instruction is to locate another Atlas Station on the Galaxy Map. That is a continuation, not a completed Atlas Path. If the map seems to point somewhere unrelated, verify that The Atlas Path is selected in the Log and that you are viewing its route rather than Free Explore or another mission’s path.
Triangulate Artemis’s location
Return to Alone Amidst the Stars when you want to push the Artemis story. The next stretch requires three triangulation readings with a Signal Booster. Visit the locations the mission marks, deploy or interact with the booster as directed, and use its triangulation function at each site. The progress display should reach 33 percent after one reading and 66 percent after two. Do not repeat the same reading at the same spot if the percentage stays unchanged: reselect the mission, find the next marked location and take the next measurement there.
Once all three readings are complete, go to the Holo-Terminus indicated by the objective and send the data to Artemis. The conversation then leads to a translation task. If another quest has replaced the on-screen prompt during travel, use the Log to bring Alone Amidst the Stars back into focus before searching for a tower. The Holo-Terminus is the immediate destination after triangulation; a random planetary terminal or space-station trade terminal will not send those readings.
Build the translator and deal with the local species
Install Artemis’ Translator in the appropriate technology inventory when the mission gives you the plan. The installation shown here calls for a Microprocessor and Copper. Use the pinned recipe to find any missing part, then check that the technology is installed rather than merely that its ingredients are in a cargo slot. Next, follow the calibration prompt by learning alien words through the marked interactions. When calibration reaches 100 percent, check the Log for the next requirement.
Take Artemis’s star chart to the marked space station and speak with the indicated lifeform. If the contact will not help yet, the Log asks you to improve standing with the alien lifeform dominant in that system. In this save it is the Gek.
The station mission board offers jobs displaying +1 Gek Standing; a Gek dialogue also offers a gift interaction. Read the actual reward and eligibility of a job before accepting it, and choose one that raises the standing named in your Log. Standing with a guild or another species is a different reward. Return to the mission agent to hand in a completed station job, then check whether Alone Amidst the Stars advances. This route stops before that standing gate is cleared. When your Log advances, follow its newly marked Artemis objective.
Where to go next
At the end of this journey, two primary routes remain open. For Artemis, finish the local-species standing requirement and follow the new Alone Amidst the Stars marker. For Atlas, select The Atlas Path, leave the planet and use the Galaxy Map to find the next Interface. The Atlas route here ends with the next Interface still to be found. Keep one mission selected at a time when you travel, and use your base or station teleporter to return to a previous system if an optional trip pulls you away. The archive, salvage and station jobs can wait until you need their rewards.