After 7 years since release, it should be no secret that No Man's Sky features multiple galaxies to explore. In the early days, reaching a new galaxy was a tedious, thankless grind. Today, no matter where you are in the galaxy, even starting fresh, expanding into a new galaxy is just a virtual phone call away. This guide is my attempt to consolidate the information from various wiki articles and reddit posts into one cohesive plan to help you step from Euclid to Hilbert and beyond.

First, we should discuss setup if you're going for "To Live Forever", or just jump-starting a new save. Skip if you already have a saved journey that you want to transition.

Permadeath is a game setting that can only be chosen when starting a "Custom" game. There could be some convoluted file-editing tricks around this, but I would not recommend them. Start with the difficulty preset "Permadeath", then adjust the other settings however you like. I also recommend selecting "Difficulty Setting Changes: Locked" for good measure (bottom row), but it likely does not matter.

Whether you enable permadeath or not, the new game will start as normal. You will have to spend several minutes installing new equipment and repairing your ship before heading out into space. You should set up a permanent base somewhere in-system, either on your starting planet or somewhere less hostile so that you can gather resources in peace and comfort.

In ancient times, players worst-case had to jump thousands of times to reach the core, best-case still hundreds through the use of black holes. There were no Portals, certainly no player bases, thus every refuel meant flying down to a potentially hostile planet to stockpile more resources, yes, hundreds if not thousands of times. Delayed fall damage could (and still can) break your jetpack or life support and kill you near-instantly, hundreds if not thousands of times.

While I have immense respect for the players that did and continue to do this, I value my time differently.

A moment of silence for those brave heroes who suffered and complained to the devs so that we could move onto better things.

Without spoiling too much, the "Awakenings" mission and subsequent "Artemis Path" will lead you to a new galaxy, should you choose to go. It serves as a decent tutorial, and is accessible even if you select "Tutorial Missions: Disabled" during setup. Whether you are new to the game, or returning after many changes, I do recommend following through this story on at least one playthrough.

That said, as far as survival or permadeath difficulties go, the "Artemis Path" is incredibly risky because it is many hours long, and actively puts you in danger. Follow the story at your own risk, Traveller.

With the transition of No Man's Sky into the MMO space, player bases are one of the keys to reaching the Core. A player can hypothetically warp to any base that is accessible through a group session, or is otherwise publicly shared and known to the player.

With this information alone, it is possible to simply find a "Core" base hosted by a friend or published to the workshop that will get you one or more jumps away from a Galactic Core.

I have not tried this myself as it is less viable for PS4 / Gamepass players, and it feels maybe TOO easy a solution. That said, it is the fastest way by far, as the "Middle Way" I have followed requires some time and luck.

The "Middle Way", the method I followed "to live forever", requires some knowledge about the game mechanics that, while not story-spoilers, may spoil your joy of discovery if you are completely new to No Man's Sky. I recommend this method to players on a second or third save, who want a balance of moving quickly with some honest challenge. I did this in about 4 hours of play, but it could be done faster if you're lucky and/or really know what you're doing.

Very little progression is required. At minimum, you will need your basic multi-tool, a working starship with hyperdrive, and access to the Anomaly (easiest from having a previous save). You should also stockpile a small purse of credits and nanites, and a stack each of basic resources:

• carbon
  
• oxygen
  
• ferrite dust
  
• sodium
  
• di-hydrogen
  
• cobalt

You will need to start by finding a Portal site. You can stumble on one flying around a planet or discover them randomly with the portable (buildable) signal booster, but a sure way is to purchase a Planetary Chart (ancient artifact site) from the Cartographer in any normal space station. At a cost of one Navigation Data item drop, Planetary Charts are incredibly cheap, and popping a few on the same planet, is guaranteed to lead you to a monolith. Interact twice with the monolith, and it will lead you to the planet's Portal if given an offering (Korvax Casing, Gek Relic, Vy'keen Effigy). If you do not have an offering on hand, plop a base on the site and earn that offering by practising language with station NPCs. Bottom line, Planetary Chart (ancient artifact site) leads to Portal.

Once you find a portal, you will need to activate it. If you have your resource stockpile handy, this should be a quick and surprisingly cheap process. Either way, drop a base nearby with power and a player portal so that you can easily jump back here and out again as needed.

To activate the portal, you will need to know at least one glyph. If you've been playing a while or followed the "Artemis Path" some ways, you likely have this without knowing it. If you have more than one glyph, the one you want is the first one called "The Star Above Water" which looks like an ocean sunset (search glyph in the wikis if you're still confused). This glyph represents 0 in hexadecimal, and is always the first glyph you discover.

If you do not yet have this glyph, visit space stations and planetary outposts to look for unusual guests: NPC travellers. Speak to them twice, and you will be given the option to ask them where they came from (100 nanite cost). Fly in your ship to the Atlas marker, and, in addition to some interesting lore, you will be granted a glyph, specifically 0 assuming you had none before.

You're ready for the final stretch, and here's where things are the most risky. Make sure you fuel your ship and that you have your stockpile of resources handy; you'll need them just in case things go wrong. Enter all 0s into the portal. You will receive the message atlas transport error // location corrupted // approximating destination. That's fine. Walk through.

You will arrive on some planet and, if all goes well, you will land right on top of another player's base. If so, you can warp home and back; otherwise call/find your ship. The weather on the planet I landed on was quite extreme, so I left quickly.

Taking off into space from this new world, you will find yourself within 5-6 ly Galactic Core. I believe this has to do with all 0's corresponding with the core itself. You can jump nearly to the core without any hyperdrive upgrades, but I do recommend picking up a A/S class upgrade from a station if you can afford the nanites; it will save time and warp fuel.

Preparing for the final two jumps, you will likely need an Emeril Drive, an upgrade for the hyperdrive that allows you to visit green stars. The easiest way to get this is to buy the blueprint from Iteration: Hyperion on the Anomaly, about 200 nanites for it and the previous upgrade in the way, Cadmium Drive. The intent is to use the Cadmium to reach a red star, harvest some cadmium metal there, then upgrade to Emeril. However, the faster, cheaper way is to visit any normal space station, purchase two photon/positron starship upgrades, install and dismantle for the cadmium metal you need to install the Emeril Drive.

Finally, just before the final two jumps, ensure that you have a few units of fresh hyperdrive fuel, as you will absolutely need to refuel before the final jump. Visit a low-risk planet for the resources you need to make that happen.

And that's it! The first jump will lead you to a green star with no significant NPC presence. The second and final jump requires a full hyperdrive tank. Go to the map, target the Core, and see what's next.