No Man's Sky First Day: What to Do First (Step-by-Step Walkthrough)

No Man’s Sky opens with a broken ship, a hostile sky, and no instructions beyond a waypoint. The first two hours decide whether the game clicks or bounces off you — and most of the classic “I quit on day one” stories trace back to one skipped step in that opening sequence. This walkthrough is the sequence, in order, with the exact shopping list. It is the step-by-step companion to our starter tips list: that page is what to know, this page is what to do, right now.

Last updated: August 27, 2026. The repair recipes below match the current build (game version 6.5); if a future patch touches the tutorial, the patch notes page is the source of record.

Step 1: Fix the Starter Ship (The Only Mandatory Task)

Your crashed starter ship needs two components repaired before it flies:

Component	Needs	Where to get it
Launch Thrusters	50 Pure Ferrite + 1 Di-hydrogen Jelly	Ferrite from any rocks; blue Di-hydrogen crystals (40 craft the Jelly)
Pulse Engine	1 Metal Plating + 1 Hermetic Seal	Metal Plating is 50 Ferrite Dust; the quest marker leads to a damaged machine holding the Seal

Practical notes from a hundred crash sites:

• Mine as you walk. Every rock is Ferrite, every tree and shrub is Carbon, and the bulbous red plants are Oxygen. Ten minutes of casual mining on the way to the quest marker covers the whole list.
• Don’t try to craft the Hermetic Seal. The tutorial marker points at a damaged machine next to the crash area that simply contains one. Players who miss this burn twenty minutes looking for a recipe the game never asked them to research.
• Charge your suit while you work. Yellow Sodium flowers refill Hazard Protection; Oxygen plants refill Life Support. Grab every cluster you pass — the game does not warn you until the bar is already blinking.

Step 2: Before You Launch

One minute of prep saves a death: top up Hazard Protection and Life Support, confirm the Launch Thrusters show fuel (they fill themselves from the repairs, but check), and stuff any spare Oxygen and Carbon into your very limited starter inventory. Then fly straight up. Do not sightsee at 40 meters altitude — terrain is not your friend in a ship with no upgrades.

Step 3: Orbit, Then the Space Station

In orbit, fly to the space station before anything else. Three things matter inside:

1. The Exosuit terminal. Each station’s shop sells exactly one inventory slot expansion. Early slots are the single best quality-of-life purchase in the game — check the price, buy it if you can.
2. The galactic trade terminal. Sell the junk you mined past, but keep your elemental fuel stock (see the FAQ above). Prices for the same goods vary station to station; don’t chase perfection on day one.
3. The mission board filler. Guild and NPC missions on the station pay decent early units for tasks you were going to do anyway (scan five creatures, mine X Frost Crystal). Accept one or two as passive income.

Step 4: The Hyperdrive Quest Chain (Free Warp Fuel)

Back in your ship, follow the Awakenings quest chain. The game hands you the hyperdrive blueprint and walks you through crafting your first warp fuel — this is deliberately generous, so don’t buy a hyperdrive from a station vendor in a panic. Your first warp unlocks the road to the Space Anomaly, the roaming hub where:

• Nada and Polo hand out story guidance and quest rewards,
• the Nexus mission board gives quick coop-able missions for units and Nanites,
• the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion sells cosmetic and utility items for event currency.

The Anomaly is the game’s living room. Unlocking it on day one means every future login starts with easy options.

Step 5: Plant a Base Computer (Your Fast-Travel Anchor)

The quest chain gifts you a Base Computer early. Plant it on the next mild planet you like — near where your ship naturally lands — and throw down:

• a Teleporter (once unlocked) so the base becomes a permanent fast-travel point, and
• any storage you can afford, so your overflow stops living in your pocket.

The full construction system is covered in the base building guide. On day one, utility beats beauty: a teleporter hut on a nice planet outperforms a palace on a scorched one. When a freighter enters your life later, the base stays behind as your grounded home anyway.

Step 6: First Units (Scanning Pays)

Day-one income, in order of effort:

1. Scan everything. The Analysis Visor pays units for every flora, fauna, and mineral discovery — and the starter scanner upgrades multiply fast. Scanning is why you should photograph every new creature instead of shooting it.
2. Run Nexus missions. Twenty minutes of coop missions pays better than an hour of aimless mining, plus Nanites for upgrades.
3. Sell route loot. Anything looted from containers, wrecks, and buried caches that isn’t fuel, data, or a Buried Technology Module can become units.

For the bigger engines — trade loops, activated Indium, the real money — the units farming guide takes over where this page stops.

The First-Day Mistake List

Mistake	What it costs you
Crafting attempts at the Hermetic Seal	Twenty minutes and morale — follow the marker instead
Selling your Oxygen/Carbon/Sodium stock	A death to a drained suit on the next planet
Skipping the space station exosuit slot	Hours of inventory Tetris across the next week
Buying a hyperdrive from a vendor	Units the quest chain gives you for free
Building the dream base on planet one	Days on a planet you’ll leave; start with the hut

First-Day Checklist

• ✅ Both engines repaired, Hermetic Seal collected from the marker
• ✅ Suit charged, Oxygen and Sodium stocked
• ✅ Space station visited, exosuit slot bought if affordable
• ✅ Awakenings chain followed to the hyperdrive and first warp
• ✅ Anomaly unlocked, Nexus mission board seen
• ✅ Base Computer planted, teleporter on the wishlist
• ❌ Don’t warp deep into uncharted systems on starter fuel
• ❌ Don’t fight Sentinels with an unupgraded Mining Beam

The one-sentence version: fix the ship with rocks and blue crystals, follow the markers to the seal, buy the station’s suit slot, let the quest gift you the hyperdrive, unlock the Anomaly, plant a teleporter hut, and let scanning pay for it all.