Hello there! No Man’s Sky is letting us replay old expeditions, each one lasting two weeks.

There are 7 days left for expedition #1, which rewards you with the Golden Vector spaceship, streamlined jetpack unit and the Golden First Spawn Battle Mask.

These rewards are unique to each expedition so it is worth getting them. Who knows if we will get another chance.

The free S-class ship you also get along the way is not transferrable, however its ugliness is made up for with great stats. Expedition 1 is especially worth it for newer players or perhaps veterans looking for a change of scenery.

Few things to note: Phases and milestones can be done in any order. Under menu and then expedition you can see each phase, milestone and the potential rewards. Finishing all milestones in each phase gives you one extra reward. Then a reward for all five phases (that rare golden spaceship).

Expeditions are started as a new game save then select expedition. Some people can do all five phases in a few hours. It took me12 hours, although I did mess around and avoided using other player bases to accumulate required items.

The main ship, jetpack and mask rewards can be used on all game saves. You just need to summon the Anomaly, then go inside and chat to the Quicksilver vendor. Select the reward you want to unlock and enjoy.

NOTE: Make sure you complete and claim all phase rewards on the expedition save before the next expedition begins on the 7th of December 2021. Clear inventory space to do so.

Any questions? I can try to help. Got about 130 hours on my main save so bit of a nerd.

*** Phase 1 ***

FIRST STEPS: Reach your starship. Use the visor and/or look for a ship icon on screen. Along the way you should collect resources as you need to repair your ship.

LIFT OFF: Leave the planet and head off into space. To take off, you need to fix the pulse drive and launch thrusters. Scan objects to find what you need.

Condensed carbon can be refined using the Portable Refiner (split the stack of carbon as you need some separate for fuel).

Di-hydrogen is used to make Di-hydrogen jelly. The rest is just found in nearby objects.

INTERSTELLAR: You need to use the hyperdrive to travel to another system. Open the galaxy map and travel along the expedition rendez vous route.

HOMECOMING: You can do this later but it does not matter. Land on a planet you like, deploy a base computer and make a basic enclosed structure (ceiling, floor, walls).

Once the mission is completed you can then use it for farming plants later or delete parts to get your components back.

NATURALIST: Use you visor to find 10 new species. New to you, not new to all players, so just look around planets for species and scan them using your visor.

CAPTAIN ON DECK: Acquire a capital ship, a freighter, requires you to warp to new systems. As you land, there is a chance you will have to save a freighter. Defeat the pirates, then board the ship after a quick communication with the captain. You can accept the freighter for free the first time.

If you intend on using this save as your main one, it can be worth jumping around a bit until you find a freighter type / class you like. You only get a freighter free once.

THE PILGRIM: Walk around. This will accumulate while exploring anywhere so no need to prioritise this milestone.

RENDEZVOUS 1: Use the galaxy map and follow the quest route to a system with the icon that indicates the rendezvous point. You will need antimatter housing and antimatter to create warp cells, which recharge the hyperdrive, for jumping between systems.

Use the visor to walk to the spot once in the correct system. If you see a direction arrow, change course until both sets of yellow lights turn on. Then head straight.

Get close enough and the visor will start a scan for the exact location. Once you arrive it will let you know you have.

*** Phase 2 ***

RENDEZVOUS 2: Same deal as before. Use the galaxy map to reach the system them use the visor to navigate to the exact spot.

FARMER: As you arrive in some systems and near rendezvous locations, you may see player bases. Some will have setup farms that you can harvest the plants from. You need to harvest 20 plants. Haz-mat Gauntlet gloves are necessay so unlock the technology and then create them in your exosuit.

If you cannot find a player base with plants to pick for whatever reason, you will need to unlock the Frostwort plant (fastest to grow) and build a few trays to grow them in.

Frostwort grows every two hours so you will need 40 hours for 20 harvests from one seed or two hours from 20 seeds etc. Build all this in your base.

FIRST CONTACT: Discover a brand new system. This means a system no other player has been to so I would suggest doing this later or use a black hole and go off piste.

EVENT HORIZON: Speaking off which, this task requires you to find a black hole. Speak to the Gek guy Polo in the Space Anomaly you can summon for black hole locations. Then travel to that system and fly through it.

Remember to come back or getting to your next rendezvous point will be a long trip. Warp in a space station back to your previous system or nearby.

ROCKETMAN: Fly for 20 seconds. You can cheese this by jetpacking for 20 seconds in a space station, upgrade your jetpack and find a very deep chasm and/or go to a planet with critical conditions and let the windy storms float you to success.

RED SKIES: Visit a red star. This means installing and building a Cadmium Drive. Then look for a red star system in the galaxy map with no filter engaged.

MONEYBAGS: Earn 2,000,000 units. By the end of this expedition you will have done this. Just the storm crystal collection alone will make you plenty of money. No need to farm money or worry too much.

*** Phase 3 ***

RENDEZVOUS 3: Same as rendezvous 2 and 1.

THE COLLECTOR: Dig up thee artifacts. These need to be three alien artifacts. Apparently treasure from derelict freighters counts so you could do this later as part of the required derelict freighter challenge (not to be confused with a crashed freighter on a planet surface).

If you want to do this earlier or whatever, buy cartographic data from inside a space station. Specifically, navigation data for planetary charts of ancient artifact sites.

Once you arrive, you just have to dig up thee ancient keys then use these to open the underground container. Inside will be an alien artifact.

CLUSTER HORDE: There are many ways to earn nanites. By the end of the expedition you will have accumulated more than 2,000 so no need to prioritise this milestone.

LIGHTSHOW: Acquire an A-class multi-tool. You get an S-class multi-tool from another milestone so no need to buy one.

COMPANIONSHIP: Adopt three companions. You need to create thee creatue pellets then feed them to wild creatures. If you do not get the option to feed, it cannot be a companion.

If you do get the option, select adopt as companion. More companion slots can be bought inside the companion registrar.

Companions can also be deleted here if you wish to save yourself the nanite cost of additional companion slots.

EMERALD DREAMS: Visit a green star. To do so you need the Emeril drive. Install it using Cadmium found on planets in red systems. Then find a geen system on the galaxy map and warp there.

SPACE ODDITY: Encounter three space anomalies. These appear as you warp between planets. There is a warning and you can disengage from warp to see it.

Space anomalies include that weird space jellyfish and Atlas thing. Not traders. This is likely to accumulate as you complete the expedition.

*** Phase 4 ***

RENDEZVOUS 4: Yeah, you know the drill. Just make sure you did not travel through a blackhole and never return as that will ruin your journey.

LINGUAPHILE: Learn 15 alien words. Just speak to aliens in stations (not shopkeepers) and choose to learn some dialect. Two or thee stations, which you can warp between using the station portal, should be enough. And/or find knowledge stones on planets. These appear in your visor.

THE GOOD SHIP: Acquire an A-class ship. Go into a space station and wait in the landing area. Find a ship of the starter variety at A-class and buy it. Haulers and fighters are more expensive.

You can use the visor to see what class a ship is without talking to the pilot. Player ships cannot be bought, just NPC ships.

BLUE EXPANSE: Visit a blue star. Now you need to install the Indium Drive on your ship. Requires Emeril to do so, found in green systems and maybe elsewhere the No Man’s Sky community can suggest below. Player bases setup around rendezvous points may have Emeril, Cadmium and other useful stuff. Then look for a blue system and warp to it.

NEST ROBBER: Steal 10 whispering eggs. You need to find abandoned outposts as around the edge are whispering eggs. Break an egg and you will unleash alien creatures that are not especially friendly.

Use the terrain manipulator to create a tunnel below the eggs and then crack them open. Watch as the aliens cannot reach you and those eggs roll down to your feet. Airless planets can also provide whispering eggs if I recall correctly.

UNCHARTED: Map three star systems. This means visiting three systems you are the first to visit. So go into the galaxy map, then select free route and go off piste away from the main path. The less travelled, the better. Going through a black hole can help with this.

Alternatively, get to the last rendezvous point as there will be fewer players who made it this far. Especially if you are among the first to start an expedition.

FAMOUS EXPLORER: Reach rank 16. In space stations you can do missions. Do them for the explorer’s guild as this is what you need to rank up. Jump between space stations using the station portal and get as many easy missions as possible (scan fauna etc). Then go out and do them.

If the explorer’s guild missions are not an option, you may need to raise standing with the Gek race. Use Gek Geknip bought from space traders or planetary trade outposts and maybe other places I have forgotten. Gift 5 or 6 of them on a Gek in a space station to reach the required standing rank.

CLEANSED BY FIRE: Complete a derelict freighter. These are found in space. I had a scanner in my inventory for finding one of these. Warping around systems until one shows up is also a valid tactic. You need to have checked out all three displays during a freighter mission. Use the teleporter at the last display to exit faster.

You may also need to explore every area so just walk around a lot. I do not think you need to fight/kill the aliens on some freighters (others have ceiling guns).

Use the healing lights to recharge your shield. Go in with ion batteries to do emergency shield recharges. If you must kill the aliens, make them spawn and retreat into a doorway. Fire from there like the big coward, I mean sensible player you are.

*** Phase 5 ***

RENDEZVOUS 5: Same as before. Except this is the fifth and final one. Good job.

THE SURVIVOR: Walk 5,000u on extreme worlds. Find a planet with extreme conditions where crazy storms happen. Run around and keep that shield recharged. If something goes wrong, use the terrain manipulator to burrow into the earth deep enough to stop the pain. Collect 12 storm crystals while you are here as that is another (lucrative) challenge.

BOUNDARY FAILURE: Kill 25 sentinels. Do this milestone earlier as it gives you a lovely S-class multi-tool. You can use a base to hide inside once you have taken too much sentinel heat.

Or strafe a lot and ensure you have at least one exosuit shield upgrade. You can build up sentinel forces to level three or so then jump in your spaceship and blast them from on high. Are of effect weapons such as the rocket launcher work best.

Walkers are defeatable from the ground if you hide behind a rock and remove its armour points one by one. Upgrading weapons will help here. Do not stop moving when the Walker is in its missile rain phase.

THE JACKPOT: Make 500,000 in one sale. Just sell an item or few for more than 500,000. 12 storm crystals, for instance, or some of the ancient artifacts. Taking apart your ship could also work via the scrap feature in the space station.

LOST IN SPACE: Discover an abandoned system. These are not to be confused with unexplored systems, which do not have a station. Install the economy and conflict scanners on your ship (buy the technologies from the Space Anomaly), then go to the galaxy map.

You want a system with 1 star of economy, barely any conflict, a space station and it has to be undiscovered by another player. The milestone will complete upon entry. Abandoned systems have eerily empty space stations to check out.

THE NAVIGATOR: Chart 16 waypoints. These are those spinny save poles found on planet surfaces. To do this quickly, jump in your spaceship and fly around, using the scanner as you go.

Land at blue building icons that will pop up from time to time. Do not bother landing at sites without the spinny save poles. Scanning on moons will work faster as buildings etc are more densely packed together.

More industrialised systems are said to have a higher frequency of relevant buildings too but I did not verify this.

STORMY SKIES: As previously mentioned, this milestone involves finding 12 storm crystals. These can only be harvested during a storm hence the name. So find a planet where they exist and run around in deadly toxic rain or firestorms until you have the required amount.

To find extreme planets, look for planets with ‘activated’ materials using your scanner when in space. These materials are worth more to sell and so the game balances this with more extreme conditions, storms, aggressive sentinels and more expensive coffee. Okay, not that last one.

Red, green and blue systems can yield a higher chance of the extreme planets you need. Just remember that you need the relevant ship warp parts fitted.

Systems with fancy materials, in particular lovely expensive activated indium, but a lack of extreme conditions make sense for bases. Especially if it is a moon. My activated indium farms make 144 million per day.

Anyway, complete all phases and the phase 5 reward is that golden vector spaceship. Enjoy! Hopefully this guide helps players during the 7-day countdown.

because it made me install no man’s sky again after 2 years. Thank you Bethesda!

After the games controversial Launch back in 2016 I do think that a lot of gamers at the time just assumed that the reason No Man’s Sky struggled so much at first was because hello games were such a small team that could not possibly deliver on all their many promises. There was also a widespread belief that once the bigger video game studios started making thier own space games it whould show just how out of their depth that hello games really was by taking on such an ambitious project in the first place.

Now after 7 years we can look back and realize that frankly it’s kind of a miracle that No Man’s Sky. even exist at all because other games that have attempted to do what No Man’s Sky did have not worked out so well

For example, Mass effect Andromeda was originally going to be very much like No Man’s Sky and yet the developers struggled so much with it that they decided to just abandon the idea in the middle of making the game.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 looks like it also tried to pull off no man sky on smaller scale but even they are having a tough time with the idea and it looks like the game ain’t never coming out

Star citizen is more successful compared to the others, but just like Beyond Good and Evil 2 that game still does not even have a release date and Even when it comes to a big triple A game like like Starfiled Todd Howard himself admitted just how difficult it would be to pull off the seamless planet landings that we see in a game like no man sky and that was a big reason why he ultimately decided not to include it in thier game

The reason I bring all this is up is simply to say that what the incredible team at hello games did was not easy at all and even game studios with much bigger teams and bigger budgets have a hard time because it is still insanely hard to make a space exploration game

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