Note: Since this guide was written, a few new strats have emerged, most notably including anomaly strat and scooting instead of jetpack dashing for movement. However, anomaly requires some setup and scooting is a bit mechanically challenging, so I think this is still a relevant guide for anyone new to the run. Refer to Skiiac's guide for the advanced strats.
TL;DR at the end
Hello and welcome to the Space Station run! This is the place where many runners choose to start with No Man's Sky, because it is relatively short, action-packed, and fun. In this guide, I'll be going over everything you need to know to have a successful run on Normal, Survival, or Permadeath, including the route, the resources you need to gather, how to move quickly around the landscape, and how to find the space station without the location marker. I like to split the run into 3 segments: Reach Ship, Ship Fixed, and Reach Station. Let's get into it!
Your time starts when you first press the button for “Begin Initialization”. On PC, that button is E by default. Note, however, that your video must include the creation of the save file before that or it will be invalidated.
First Split: Reach Ship
There will be a cutscene of the player looking around the environment for around 45 seconds when you start the run. This is unskippable (as far as I know), but you can use the time to take note of any resources that are near you. Take special note of any nearby sodium plants and Deuterium plants.
Once the “looking around” cutscene ends, immediately start shooting rocks near you. You will need 75 Ferrite Dust before you can progress any farther. You can start walking towards any sodium plants that you saw in the cutscene, because sodium is the next thing you need to gather, but note that if you pick up the sodium before fixing your scanner it will not count and you’ll have to find another plant. Once you have the 75 Ferrite Dust, fix your scanner, exit your inventory and scan, then go and pick up the nearest sodium plant. Recharge your hazard protection with the sodium you recieved.
After a few seconds, a marker will appear signalling where the crashed ship is. Make your way towards the ship, gathering resources on your way. When you get to the ship, you should have 150 Ferrite Dust, 40 Dihydrogen, and at least 4 Carbon. Geodes and Crystal Shards can help a lot with gathering Ferrite Dust and Dihydrogen, make sure to crack open any that you recieve.
Movement: Before we continue, let’s talk a little bit about movement. You should obviously be trying to get to the ship as fast as possible, and the best way to do that is through a technique called jetpack dashing. To do a jetpack dash, press the melee button (on PC that is Q) and then press the jetpack button right after. If done right, the momentum from the melee should transfer into the jetpack and you should get a nice speed boost, similar to the boost that the Rocket Jump upgrade gives you. Practice this until you can do it fairly consistently, it will improve your movement speed significantly. Generally, it is faster to do one jetpack dash held for maximum duration when travelling downhill, and several short jetpack dashes in a row when travelling uphill. You should also be scanning as you move so that you know if there are any Deuterium plants on your way to pick up. With a Deuterium plant and a good jetpack dash, it is possible to travel several hundred meters in a matter of seconds.
Second Split: Ship Fixed
This is where I finish the “Reach Ship” split, but you can split the run however you like. The next bit requires a lot of actions in a relatively short amount of time, so I’m just going to list them in what I have found to be the most optimal order (note that you don't actually have to interact with the distress beacon itself):
-Enter ship -Craft 2 Metal Plating and 1 Dihydrogen Jelly -Fix Pulse Engine part 1 -Exit ship -Pick up 3 Oxygen plants (there will always be 4 of these that spawn to the right of the ship) -Build Portable Refiner -Insert Carbon and Ferrite, begin processing -Reenter ship -Exit ship again -Talk to beacon -Use Planetary Chart to get Hermetic Seal coordinates
I know that feels like a lot, but after your first few runs it will start to feel intuitive. After only about a week or two doing this run, I can already do this part in my sleep. Note: the fastest way to get through dialogue is to spam click as fast as possible in the space where the top dialogue option appears when it asks for your response. In some of the longer dialogue sections, I even take my left hand off the keyboard to click faster. Moving on: Hermetic Seal.
When you use the Planetary Chart, you will receive a new set of coordinates for where you can obtain a Hermetic Seal. Start making your way there, using the same movement techniques we discussed before. A storm will always trigger while you are on your way to the Hermetic Seal, don’t worry about it, it’s actually better to not recharge hazard protection for a reason we’ll talk about in a bit. Also, if your planet is a hot planet, the storm will boost your jetpack’s efficiency, so your movement will be much faster.
When you get to the Hermetic Seal location, enter the building. The place to pick up the Hermetic Seal looks like one of the places where you can ordinarily Collect Nanites, but it will be called a Holo-Archive. Talk to it, get the seal, and leave the building. The next part will be different depending on what difficulty you’re playing on:
Normal or Survival: The next thing you need to do is die as fast as possible. The easiest way to do that is to repeatedly fly straight up with the jetpack, then take the fall damage. This is also boosted by hot storms, which is why hot planets are in my opinion the best for this run. If you see any hazardous flora nearby, take damage from those as well. The ones that damage you the fastest are the ones that release poison when you look at them, often found at cave entrances. You can also try shooting any fauna nearby to see if they will become aggressive. If none of those things are available, fall damage will do just fine. It’s also a good idea to take some damage on your way to the Hermetic Seal to speed up this process. When you die, you will be returned to your ship after a brief death screen.
Permadeath: Obviously, because it’s Permadeath, you cannot do the death exploit. Just travel back to your ship as fast as possible, recharging hazard protection if you need to to avoid dying.
Once you return to your ship, pick up the portable refiner (this will automatically give you everything in it and it’s usually faster than taking the items out yourself) and reenter your ship. Once you fix the Pulse Engine part with the Hermetic Seal, you have about 3 seconds to fix the Launch Thruster before the game will force you to exit your inventory. It’s not a big deal if you miss this, it only loses a few seconds. Once you have fixed both parts, take off, and that marks the end of the Ship Fixed split.
Final Split: Space Station
Here comes the most RNG-dependent part of the run: finding the space station. When you take off for the first time, the space station’s location will not be marked like it normally is. However, ships travelling through the system leave trails behind them, and you can follow these trails to find the station yourself. Look for orange, red, or blue lines going across the system, and the point where a bunch of them converge is where the space station is. Be careful not to mistake it for a depot on a planet’s surface: when it’s a depot, the lines will curve sharply towards the planet and fade away before you can see where exactly they go, whereas for the space station the lines will all point straight at a single location and not fade at all. Sometimes, the space station is even visible as a small dot in the distance. If you can see the station from where you take off, pulse to it. While you’re looking, don’t use the throttle or boost, you want to postpone testing all your ship’s controls. When you pulse to the station, try to get there in one pulse. If you never used the throttle or boost while in space, the game won’t register that you’re using your pulse engine the first time, but pulsing a second time will trigger a dialogue sequence that takes around 10-20 seconds, so try to avoid pulsing twice.
Sometimes, you can’t see the station from where you take off, usually because it’s hidden behind a planet somewhere. Take your best guess and pulse in that direction, if you have absolutely no idea, just get some distance away from your starting planet and take another look around. There’s really not much more to say, just follow the lines and hope you can find it somewhere. Probably around 25% of my runs never get completed because I can’t find the station, so it’s really just a lot of luck. Once you land on the station, your run ends when you exit your ship.
That’s all there is to it, I know this probably seems like a lot to do in less than 10 minutes but it becomes familiar really quickly. If you have any questions, ping me on the Discord, otherwise, happy running and good luck!
-RobTheStars
TL;DR:
-Fix scanner (75 Ferrite Dust) -Go to ship -Fix Pulse Engine (1 Metal Plating) -Build and start refiner (1 Metal Plating, 30 Oxygen, 4 Carbon (fuel), 50 Ferrite Dust (to be refined)) -Go to Hermetic Seal, get it -Die -Fix everything else (1 Hermetic Seal, 1 Dihydrogen Jelly, 50 Pure Ferrite) -Take off -Find station -End run when you exit your ship on the station
