No Man's Sky

No Man's Sky

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No Man's Sky All Achievements Guide
By Mr. September
Hello there, Interloper! You must be here for some help, so allow me to give you a hand. This guide is about each and every achievement and how to get them, along some tips. Thanks for your visit and I hope this guide will be beneficial to you. Good luck on your journey, Interloper!

This guide contains:
- Extensive information about achievements
- Humor
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I Would Walk 50.000 Steps and I Would Walk 50.000 More Just To...

Symphony For A Lost Traveler
Take 40,000 Steps


Have Spacesuit - Will Travel
Take 100,000 Steps

These are easy to obtain because all you need to do is walk, which is what you do when you are doing anything else than using your spacecraft. Just don't trip and fall!

Mr. Obvious: Running also counts.
Making New Friends

Contact
Meet 10 Aliens


Who Goes There?
Meet 50 Aliens


What Mad Universe
Meet 80 Aliens

You need to meet other life forms and talk to them. Over time, unless you stay in one system and forget to visit stations/structures, you'll get these achievements naturally. I can recommend visiting the space stations and talking to everyone in those if you want it somewhat faster.
How Many Curse Words Are There Again?

Babel-17
Learn 10 words


The Languages of Pao
Learn 50 words


Citizen of the Galaxy
Learn 150 words

For the achievements above, you can use these methods to increase your vocabulary:
  • Talk to aliens and request them to teach you a word in their tongue. This requires some resources, sometimes, or credits.

  • Finding and activating Knowledge Stones.

  • [Atlas' Questline] Walk over the orbs that are on the floor after you land in Atlas' structure. They may reward words.

  • Find Monoliths and access the Knowledge Stones (AKA Ancient Artifacts) there and choose to learn words, basically same as the second method except there are usually 3 Stones at the ruin structures.

  • Find and use the Encyclopedia that is found in some Space Stations and buildings.
Currency Without the Bling

Foundation
Have at least 250.000 credits in your wallet


The Space Merchants
Have at least 1.000.000 credits in your wallet


The Diamond Age
Have at least 2.000.000 credits in your wallet

These ones can be obtained naturally by playing and accumulating money over time.

In case you need some quick cash, I can recommend the method of finding alien eggs and placing a Signal Booster (or any sufficient structure you can carry around and stand on) nearby. Simply jump on the booster and dig the eggs, grab them and wait for the mobs to despawn. The mobs that appear can't and won't attack you as long as you are not in contact with the terrain/floor/soil. You can alternatively grab the eggs and fly to the roof of the abandoned building nearby and wait it out.

CAUTION: Do NOT Alt-TAB when using this method, as the game usually pauses itself when not focused. Being in a menu also pauses the game unless you are playing in a multiplayer session.

They updated the "Biologic Horrors" so they now have ranged attacks. You can still grab their eggs and run inside the abandoned building though.
Gotta Scan Them All

A Scanner Darkly
Discover all creatures on 1 planet


The Star Beast
Discover all creatures on 7 planets


Galapagos
Discover all creatures on 10 planets.

Scan all creatures in sight! I recommend checking the catalogue often as the maximum amount of creatures that roam the planet you are on should be visible there.

I can recommend Exotic worlds to somewhat make the process faster. Exotic worlds usually have exceptionally low creature count, so you can use those strange planets to boost your progress. An Exotic planet is obvious at a glance, you will see terrain and structures that are unique to Exotic-tier planets and their names may be strange too. Like "[REDACTED]".

Trying to find planets that lack water might also prove useful as you usually have to scan the things that swim too.

Friendly Reminder: Don't forget to grab upgrades for the scanner, more scanner range and money per scan always helps!
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself

The Stars, Like Dust
Warp 5 Times


The Longest Voyage
Warp 40 times


A Space Odyssey
Warp 75 times

These achievements are the type you can get naturally if you are the explorer type. After repairing your Hyperdrive, stack up on fuel and warp around systems. You will need different colored warp drives later on to warp farther and to warp to certain "colored" systems. You will probably get this without much of a problem if you are aiming to reach the center of the galaxy you are in.

As a side note: It doesn't matter which systems you Warp to, because all of them count and you can even travel between the same 2 systems if you want to.
Only the Dead Have Seen the End of War

Use of Weapons
Destroy 5 Ships


Pattern for Conquest
Destroy 50 Ships


The Forever War
Destroy 80 Ships

The fastest way to get these achievements (without hurting your standing with each race/faction) is to increase your Mercenaries Guild standing to Level 5, then take on every Pirate Hunting mission you can get your hands on. You might want a decent ship and strong weaponry beforehand so the whole process is easier.

Note: Phase Beam seems to be one of the decent choices when it comes to destroying ships.
The Red Achievements
These didn't fit any other category and I couldn't find a creative title for them, so here they are:


Cradle
Claim a Base or Buy a Freighter


Navigators
Build an Exocraft


Reunion
Visit another Player's Base


These are self-explanatory if you ask me. Visiting another friend requires a friend that actually got "Cradle" though... Hold on, it also requires a friend...

1. Join a friend's game and find their base
2. Build a base somewhere near to be able to teleport to it
3. Leave their game
4. (optional) Turn off multiplayer
5. Go back to your game
6. Teleport to that base you just built and go interact with their base computer
Hitchhiker's Guide to Extreme Survival

Stranger in a Strange Land
Survive 20 Sols on an Extreme Planet without dying


The Sentinel
Survive for 32 Sols on an Extreme Planet without dying

One sol is approximately 15 minutes of real time. According to the wiki, confirmation is needed but as far as I know, all planets have the same sol per day.

In that sense, "Stranger in a Strange Land" takes 5 hours and "The Sentinel" takes 8 hours of real time.

What counts towards your Survival stats:
  • Staying in a cave or other underground space
  • Staying in a building that is above ground
  • Sitting in your Exocraft seems to count as well, according to a commenter
What does NOT count towards your Survival stats:
  • Swimming on or underwater
  • Driving or flying around an Extreme planet
  • Parking your Freighter in orbit of an Extreme planet and staying on that for the duration
  • High/Maximum Security Planets that only have Extreme Sentinels but no Extreme Conditions
  • Pausing the game, leaving a menu screen open or Alt-Tabbing while being under the right circumstances

So to speak, you need to be exposed to the environment to an extent for it to count. This means your life support bar and/or your hazard bar should be depleting when you are "surviving".

To note: Your Extreme Survival parameter adds up, which means you don't have to all the surviving in one try.
Local Interloper Literally Too Angry to Die, Now on Other News...

Take a Deep Breath
Reach the Centre of the Galaxy in Survival Mode


To Live Forever
Reach the Centre of the Galaxy in Permadeath Mode

These ones are straightforward. Except... They are difficult because of the challenge they pose. For "To Live Forever", you can do a bit of a save abuse by hitting "Alt + F4" when you die or are in unfavorable situations. Permadeath actually deletes your save so be sure that your survival is ensured and save often. Best of luck!

[CAUTION] About saving: Unless you didn't notice earlier or just started the game, the game only saves when you exit your current spacecraft. Don't end up wasting precious minutes and potentially hours because you forgot to enter and exit your craft!

"Take a Deep Breath" REQUIRES you to be on a Survival save. Make sure you are playing on Survival so you don't waste your (and my) time.

dXQuarionXb:

"For reaching the center of the galaxy, you don't actually have to travel towards the center. SPOILERS AHEAD: Just complete the Artemis/Apollo/-null- quest line and you'll be offered the option to "reset the simulation". This option is the same as reaching the center of the galaxy, and the achievements will be awarded upon reaching the new galaxy."

Cheaty Way for Lazy People Like Me:

I did this one by using a portal and going close to the center. However, there is a preventive measure called "Portal Interference" which prevents people to warp after they go through a portal. The only way to bypass that is to edit your save file. Since going to the center is only important for getting the achievement... It's pointless to leave the majority of the playerbase behind only to make your already lonely experience even lonelier. Editing the save for it and avoiding to warp several hundred times is probably a better choice.

The process is simple, you are meant to edit an entry by picking "Edit Raw JSON". The entry you are looking for is named "OnOtherSideOfPortal". Simply change it to "False" from "True" and you are good to go.

I know this takes away the challenge of the achievement away but let's be honest, after you get used to Permadeath mode it's just tedious to warp again and again and again... I'd rather not waste time for that.
Credits
Special Thanks to:

- Everyone that pointed out mistakes/misinformation in the comments

I used several sources when typing this guide out, but there might still be misinformation and/or inaccuracies. So feel free to point them out! You can also provide feedback if you feel like doing so.

Safe travels, Interloper!

-Mr. September
36 Comments
Mr. September  [author] 31 Aug, 2024 @ 9:17am 
Thanks for the kind words! I hope my work was useful!

I haven't been playing No Man's Sky for a while, but most of the information here should still be accurate. They added a lot of things, but no new achievements as far as I'm aware. If anything is inaccurate, I'll try to fix it as best and soon as I can.
55SURFSIDE 31 Aug, 2024 @ 8:42am 
Mr. September, thank you very much for providing the guide. I really appreciate the amount of work and the level of detail you put into it. It's an incredibly kind and generous thing that you've done.
OppaiEcchi 2 Jun, 2024 @ 11:17pm 
i got it in normal mode
Drywno 27 May, 2024 @ 11:52am 
I will try stay a bit longer maybe i die somewhere between those days and I don't remember it
Mr. September  [author] 27 May, 2024 @ 11:47am 
As far as I remember, it shouldn't matter as long as the "extreme survival" condition is met on a planet. I think there was a statistics page that showed stuff like this, with an entry related to it.
Drywno 27 May, 2024 @ 11:35am 
To get Stranger in a Strange Land achievement i need to be in Normal or Survival mode? Does it make a difference?
Mr. September  [author] 8 Oct, 2023 @ 4:27pm 
Thanks for the heads-up. I'll update accordingly. I was thinking of updating the entire thing after I reset my achievements and doing it over again. I probably should stop being lazy, heh.
OppaiEcchi 8 Oct, 2023 @ 4:25pm 
for reunion it would be like this:
1. join friend's game and find their base
3. build a base somewhere near to be able to teleport to it
4. leave their game
5. turn off multiplayer(not sure if that's required)
6. go back to your game
7. teleport to that base you just built and go interact with their base.
(tried to do it the way you mentioned here but it didn't work, i even left and rejoined their game and did the same way again just to make sure)
Mr. September  [author] 6 Oct, 2023 @ 8:35am 
They must have changed it at some point. Maybe in one of the recent updates. Thanks for the information, I'll add it to the guide!
OppaiEcchi 6 Oct, 2023 @ 12:47am 
Thank you for the guide so much, but i just want to say that, as for the extreme survival achievements the best way is to just afk in your exocraft, is the way i just got both of the achievements, staying in caves or buildings?, i tried those and no cave nor any building counted for the in game milestone, so they probably have changed the way this works or something
(the exact way i did this was both just exploring the extreme cold planet[that i use for farming storm crystals anyway] in a "roamer" exocraft, and then leaving my character afk for a night in it[you probably need "Megawatt Heater" shield installed for that, as i have it and it just stays 100% if the exocraft is not moving])