It was a rollercoaster. I rage quit a few times after dying, some due to my own incompetency, some due to glitches. I finally found a way to easily backup my saves, but after that I only died once after being ambushed by a bunch of pirates in space.

Other than the frustration of permadeath it was really a lot of fun. The real joy to me in this game is improving things: your character, your ship, your mechs, your base, etc. When you have all of that stuff close to maxed out the game becomes boring. Prior to the expedition I would log in, collect my spoils from my frigates, fight sentinels for a bit to get Walker Brains, maybe farm some mats and then log out because there is nothing else I really wanted to do. It had become rote.

The expedition brought back the olden days when I had nothing and didn’t really know what I was doing. I look forward to the next one.

Here’s some of the FAQ suggestions we received in our previous FAQ thread. Keep in mind that these are opinions from some of our valued OP’s and you may agree or disagree with some of these. We just ask that everyone remains respectful when replying to this thread and we look forward to your contribution! NMSTG Mod Team

You can also drop a quick tip!

Tip #1: Always try to be doing multiple things. Pick up the portable refiner so you can refine something from your inventory while exploring and mining.

Tip #2: Avoid multiplayer until unlocking the anomaly, can be stranded if not.

Tip #3: Exotic worlds only have 1 fauna so it’s easy to scan all of them.

Tip #4: Need glyphs? All 16 are on one planet here

Q- “I was on the Anomaly and a bunch of expensive stuff showed up in my inventory. What do I do with it? A:” Congrats! Another player has bestowed you with a gift. Most likely it is an item to sell for some quick and easy cash. Usually the item description will tell you what it is used for.

Q: “Help, I claimed a broken ship and now I can’t find my starter ship! Is it gone forever?” A:” If you merely selected to “claim” the broken ship and not “swap” it, then your old ship is still around. If you left it with launch fuel in the tank, you can summon it with the quick-menu. If it does not have fuel, it can be summoned on the Anomaly (once you unlock it), your freighter (once you acquire one).

Q- “Are crashed ships worth repairing?” A-” Unless it is an exotic, no. Scrap the ship at the space station, sell the items it gives you, and use those units to buy a better, working version of a ship in that system.

Q- “Any advice for new players?” A-“For new players, make sure you read the guide in-game. It’s an excellent beginner’s guide for traveling, learning about the alien races, building, and etc. Take a look over the catalogue of items too. Also, I’d strongly suggest mining a massive amount of carbon, oxygen, and sodium. These three items will be some of your most used and critical items in the game

I saw a recent comment from a newbie saying they didn’t know what an expedition was or why they’d want to play in one. I think we, as a community, may have started assuming too much context and should explain ourselves.

So TL;DR: An expedition is a game mode where you start a new save from scratch and participate in a series of challenges that lead to rewards you can share with all of your saves. Unlike the normal game, you do this in the same systems as everyone else playing the expedition!

The rest of this is not a guide to any particular expedition, but will give new players a sense of how you interact with one. Feel free to comment with non-PC control options or corrections.

You start an expedition when one is active by selecting “Play Game” and then “New Game” from the main menu. One of the options on the New Game screen is “Community Expedition.”

Once you start, you get the usual starting sequence and you follow the on-screen instructions until you get into the game itself.

Expeditions start on a specific planet. Everyone starts there and as usual your first mission is typically to find and repair your ship. But from there, you are led by a series of expedition challenges. There are some number of phases to the expedition and each phase has a set of milestones you must accomplish. Once you accomplish each of the milestones in a phase you get a reward that will be sharable with your other saves, even the non-expedition ones!

You find these milestones by pressing Escape and then going to the “Expedition” tab in the menu. You’ll see a jagged line through a number of phases, with each of the systems showing the milestone achievements you need to complete in order to finish the final step (don’t forget that there’s the final achievement for having done all of the previous ones in a particular system. This will give you the permanent rewards you can share with other saves (in gold text).

Here’s what an expedition looks like.

Each phase has a “rendezvous” associated with it which is another star system you have to get to and find a specific point of interest. This is very much like any mission you may have gotten in the normal game that involved a location. You will get an approximate location (make sure you have selected the milestone you want so it shows up) and when you get there, your scanner will help you narrow down the location.

Usually the rendezvous is in a place that helps you accomplish the milestones that are in the same phase. So if you need eggs from some creature, for example, they will be available either on the same planet as the rendezvous from the same phase or nearby.

Ultimately, when you finish the whole series of phases, you get a final phase that’s just a free “you did all the things” to complete the expedition and claim the final prizes.

Why should you do it?

Expeditions aren’t for everyone, but the rewards are pretty compelling. They’re often things like a ship or freighter or companion that is unique and may even make some of the regular game a bit easier.

You claim your prizes on other saves by going to the Quicksilver vendor in the Space Anomaly. If you don’t know what that is yet, keep going and you’ll get there. It’s pretty early in the main game. Once you get there, you will find a merchant close to where your ship lands who has a “claim expedition rewards” dialogue option.

Can I do it with friends?

Absolutely! Having shared goals on the same planets makes it really easy to share the experience with others.

Is this a PVP thing?

Players can attack other players if you have PVP turned on. Obviously with expeditions happening in the same systems, this is a big deal, but you can turn off PVP at any time. Just go to the settings in Options -> Network and turn off “Allow PVP with…” if that’s not your jam. Keep in mind that this is reset for each new save, so you will want to do this as the start of a new expedition.

When is the next one?

There are a series of shorter expeditions happening right now. Check out: https://www.nomanssky.com/2022/11/holiday-2022-expeditions/