Pretty much from the start, we’ve known that in No Man’s Sky, you want to get to the center of the galaxy. How do you get there? What do you find once you’ve closed the distance? Those are questions we can only answer now. We’ll tell you here how to do it, but bear in mind that the journey’s often far more satisfying than the destination.
This article will naturally contain spoilers, but we’ll save the majority of those for the end. That’s both a warning and a promise. If you want to save the discovery for yourself, we’ll let you know when to jump out, but if you just want to know the secrets of the universe, you can skip right on ahead to the end.
Getting the Hyperdrive and its Upgrades
So what’s first on the agenda? Well, first you need to get away from your starting planet, and while the game tutorializes you through the opening section, there’s still a couple of ways to slip out from under the thumb of that tutelage. Most notably, you might end up without plans for a hyperdrive if you end up switching ships and hopping systems before you’re granted that blueprint. That’s a problem, but not an insurmountable one, since you can grind out new technology finds until the hyperdrive finds its way into the rotation.
You likely won’t need to search for those initial hyperdrive plans, but you will need to seek out Warp Drive upgrades to allow to make jumps of greater distances. Sadly, there’s no way to expedite this process, so you’re just going to have to keep looking until you find them. Find NPC aliens, look for crashed ships, check out every building you come across. Be especially sure to loot each of those smoking, cylindrical containers you see dotting the alien landscape.
Once you’ve found those upgrades, you might be tempted just to start grafting them onto your ship, but you need to be more particular than that. No Man’s Sky never really explains to you that grouping similar systems gives major bonuses to their effectiveness, and maximizing that efficiency will make the long series of jumps to the center way more bearable.
Building the Upgrades
You’ll be looking find three separate Warp Drive upgrades: Sigma, Tau, and Theta. You’ll want to keep all three installed, as well, since their upgrades stack with each other. The most efficient layout of the upgrades is a cross shape with Theta at the center. Why? Nobody seems to know. If you find yourself unable to directly connect the systems, you’re not completely out of luck, but you can expect a moderate boost to your jump abilities if they’re in the right configuration.
For reference, you can expect 100 light year jumps with the default hyperdrive. Sigma will add 200 light years, Tau will add 400, and Theta will add 800. Having all of them at the same time will make your jumps a whopping 1500 light years, and combining them all in the Theta-centered cross shape will boost that to nearly 1700.
To craft the Warp Reactor upgrades, you’ll need one or more Dynamic Resonators, which can simply be bought at various trading screens. You’ll also need to get ahold of progressively rarer precious resources. There’s no shortcuts here–those resources are randomly distributed in given locations, so you’ve just got to keep mining until you find what you need.
In space, you’ll be looking for the larger, rounded asteroids that don’t just blow up with a single shot. On the ground, you’ll be looking for large, conspicuous mineral deposits, as well as green crystal formations. The first upgrade will take 200 Iridium and 400 Copper, the second will take 600 Nickel and 800 Aluminium, and the third will take 1000 Gold and 1000 Emeril. If you’ve got the inventory space to spare, don’t give up any of those rarer resources. You might be kicking yourself hours down the line if you sell that gold now.
Staying Fueled
As you start looking for those hyperdrive upgrades, you’ll become very familiar with how they’re fueled. Suspension Fluid (which can either be crafted with 50 Carbon or simply purchased until you find the blueprint) will combine with 100 Plutonium to make Electron Vapor, which will combine with 50 Heridium and 20 Zinc to make Antimatter, which will finally combine with 100 Thamium9 to make the Warp Cell you’ll need to make a jump.
Most of those resources are easy to find, but in case you need some hints, here’s what to look for. Carbon comes from most animals and plant life, so mow down some forests to get big stores of it. Plutonium can be found by mining red crystal formations. Heridium is found in the towering spires of blueish-blackish stone. Thamium9 can easily be found by blowing up smaller asteroids. Zinc is the only one, as you’ll be looking for it in little flowering plants on the surface of various planets. Ping your scanner and look for the yellow icons–that’s typically where you’ll find Zinc.
The Path to the Center
The game gives you a pretty straight line to the center whenever you open the map, so it’s just a matter of following that line and crafting the Suspension Fluids, Electron Vapors, Anitmatters, and Warp Cells you need to keep moving. Don’t be deceived by the lines between stars, though–once you start getting those Warp Drive upgrades, you’ll be able to jump several stars down the line on a single Warp Cell.
What, you were hoping for a shortcut? Sadly, there’s not really an instant secret to making it to the center. There are a couple of considerations to keep in mind that might make the journey a tiny bit quicker, but don’t expect a miraculous leap to the endgame.
Nada, Polo, and the Black Holes
Nada and Polo are pretty much the coolest folks in the universe, and they’ll more or less be your only friends on this infinitely long journey. You’ll find them wherever the Space Anomaly appears, so if you end up in the same system as it, make sure to drop in. Not only can they set you up with new technologies, they can point you toward some specific paths to meet your goals.
Notably, Nada can point the way to a black hole that will take you closer to the center of the galaxy. Yes, it’s technically a shortcut, but you need to keep your expectations in check. The difference in distance covered by a black hole jump and a fully upgraded Warp Drive is minimal, and warping through black holes will cause random damage to one of your ship’s systems. That could be easily repaired, but it could be one of your high-tier warp upgrades that will require lots of rare resources to fix.
The other thing Nada can do is point you toward the Atlas path, which you have the option of following or ignoring throughout the game. It could be beneficial if you’re looking to hit the center of the galaxy, though.
Here’s where the SPOILERS start: The Atlas Path
So you either picked up the Atlas path early in the game or had Nada point you toward it. You found a giant Atlas Interface and got an Atlas Stone. What now? Well, you’ll want to keep hanging onto those Atlas Stones and keep moving toward more Interfaces. Each Interface you find will give you some extra blueprints and a few new alien words, and some will even give you a couple of free Warp Cells.
Each new Interface you find will require you to be a certain rank before it will give up its Atlas Stone. Your ranks is improved by completing various milestones, from walking a certain distance to warping a certain number of times to killing a number of sentinels to meeting a number of aliens. In short, for playing the game.
But why are you holding onto all these Atlas Stones? Once you’ve reached Magellan rank and collected 10 stones, the next Atlas Interface you find will give you the opportunity to create a new star. That’s all well and good, but the ultimate benefit here is that every black hole is now marked on your map. The same risk applies here as it does with standard black hole jumps, but now you no longer have to rely on Nada to point the way forward.
If you just want to see the conclusion of the Atlas path, check out our video below.
Once again, SPOILER WARNING: The Journey’s End
Now the journey’s finally at its conclusion. Once you’ve made it to the last star on your path you’ll see the same bright circle that’s been representing the center of the galaxy all along, but now you’ll have the option to select it and warp to it.
What happens when you finally warp to the galactic core?
Very little, as it turns out. We were very much beat to the center, so check out the video below, courtesy of Youtuber ShoSho, if you want to see for yourself what happens.
Basically, you get the boot. All the way out of the galaxy, into a new galactic frontier. You hang onto your current upgrades, but they’ll all be broken when you awaken on a new planet, just as it was when you first started the game.
It’s cyclical and all that. We did warn you at the top of the article that the journey is more interesting than the destination.
