No Man's Sky has come a long way since its turbulent, initial release in 2016. Many games that suffered disastrous launches fade away never to be heard from again, but Hello Games' epic space odyssey has endured and continues to receive regular updates fixing bugs, issues, and adding new content.
Related: The Best Evolving Games of 2020
With all the new mechanics and possibilities, there is a steep learning curve and it can take players a while to learn everything and work out their preferred playstyle. Base building is an integral part of No Man's Sky and learning how to efficiently use the game's construction mode will save a lot of time, resources, and headaches.
Updated By Beau Low On The 11th Of August 2021: With the release of the PRISM update, No Man's Sky now looks better than ever before. Exploring planets is now incredibly fulfilling, with visually detailed landscapes full of plants and animals to discover. As players traverse the galaxy they will no doubt find useful locations that they will want to return to at a later date. No Man's Sky certainly isn't a game about building one, steadily expanding base. In such a vast, cosmic sandbox, players will find it necessary to build many small bases at crucial locations such as anomalies or large deposits of minerals. This article has been updated to include more useful tips that will help players build better bases.
14 Creating A Base In No Man's Sky
In order to build their first base, players will of course need a terrain manipulator for gathering resources. Building walls and other structures will consume a lot of materials that can be mined by hand or purchased from vendors if players have enough units.
Constructing a base will require a base computer, which can be made from 40 chromatic metal and 80 copper. Once players have gathered these materials and built the computer, it will automatically create a plot of land where structures can be built. Inside the base computer's archives, players will find the blueprints for building their first base which will require:
- Wooden Walls
- Wooden Door Frame
- Wooden Floor Panel
- Wooden Roof
- Flag 2
- Lamp
- Flora Container
13 Build Small, Build Often
No Man's Sky is a game of exploration and discovering new horizons. As such, while players may want to focus on constructing a single 'main base', it is often necessary to place smaller, ancillary, bases across the galaxy.
Large deposits of natural resources, quest locations, and portals are all areas the player will want to visit again and mark with a base. Not every base has to be a large, multi-functional facility and often a single room with a teleport station will suffice. It is easy to make mistakes when starting No Man's Sky and being able to fast-travel back to important areas will help make the galaxy-sized sandbox much more navigable.
12 Base Boundaries Are Very Easy To Extend
All construction in No Man's Sky must take place within a set radius (normally 300u) from the base computer. However, there is an easy way to extend this boundary. Doing so will require the player to unlock their base boundary which can be done by saving the game and restarting.
To extend the base boundary simply place an object just outside it while standing within the circle. This new object will create its own buildable area around it of about 25-30u. By placing objects just outside the limit players can extend their base up to 1000u away from the base computer both horizontally and vertically.
11 Pick The Right Location
As with any game that includes base-building mechanics, location is everything. Of the countless planets in the game's universe, some are far more hospitable than others. Building bases on planets with extreme climates will require better technology and materials to keep the player safe.
While it is not a good idea to build on dangerous planets, it is beneficial to build near them. As such, players should construct bases on planets in systems with varied planet types as this provides greater access to different types of resources.
10 Always Build A Save Station
No Man's Sky allows players to explore a universe full of wonders and hazards. Hostile alien lifeforms, space pirates, and extreme weather are just some of the dangers players will face in their cosmic odyssey.
One essential feature to build at any base is the save point. While the game will autosave every time the player enters or exits their ship, save points are the only way for players to manually save their game. Building this base feature will require 2 pieces of metal plating and one Di-hydrogen Jelly.
9 Keep Wires Neat And Tidy
Wiring up electronic machines in No Man's Sky can quickly get messy. Unless Players plan to only occupy a living ship, they will have to use wiring at some point and it is tempting to connect items directly to the power source with a single wire. Not only does this look chaotic, but it often makes it difficult to fix things when they go wrong.
Related: No Man's Sky: Exotic S-Class Ships (& How To Get Them)
Wires can be made any length, don't use any resources, and can clip through walls or floorboards. Using multiple wires and connecting them together allows the player to hide them out of sight by running them along walls or through the floor panels. This will make your bases look much tidier and should help with easily identifying problems when they occur.
8 Raise Flooring Off the Ground
There are eleven different types of planet players can find in No Man's Sky and very few of them are perfectly flat. This can present problems for base building as floors will often clip into the planet's surface.
Raising floors off the ground not only helps with making them flat and consistent but also provides a useful space under the base for running wires and pipes. The easiest way to raise floors is to place them on the short walls available from the structures menu.
7 Travel Between Bases Without A Spaceship
With numerous bases scattered throughout the game's expansive universe, some players may encounter the problem of not being able to find all of the important locations they have marked. Thankfully it is possible for players to build a device that will allow them to fast travel between their bases.
The base teleport module only uses 20kps of power making it an essential station to build on any planet the player wants to revisit. The blueprint for this module can be purchased from the Construction Research Unit for 2 pieces of salvaged data. To build a teleporter players will need the following:
- 4x Metal Plating
- 2x Carbon Nanotubes
- 40x Sodium
6 Reactors Aren't The Best Power Sources
When tackling the issue of how to generate power for a base, players may be tempted to use biofuel generators as they are cheap and relatively easy to find fuel for. However, there are much more efficient means of providing a base with all the power it needs.
Solar panels don't require constant fuel input and are relatively easy to unlock in the early game. Combining them with batteries allows the player to store up excess power generated during the day to keep the base operational through the night. With enough panels and batteries, this method will easily sustain even the largest bases.
5 Beware Of Excavating To Build Underground
Players can build bases in the planet's upper atmosphere should they wish, however constructing subterranean facilities is slightly trickier. As one of the biggest open-world games available, the planets in No Man's Sky have a variety of biomes including mountain ranges and intricate cave systems, if players wish to build underground they should always aim to do so in a pre-existing cavern.
Using the terrain edit tool will only alter the planet's surface for a brief amount of time. Should the player flatten out an area, or try to create a hollow to build in, the terrain will often grow back when they reload. Any structures placed down will be buried and need to be re-excavated each time the player loads the game.
4 Don't Harvest Resources Manually
Players of other survival games may be used to building their bases from resources they have gathered and mined themselves. While this is also possible in No Man's Sky, there are much faster ways of acquiring resources without the need to spend hours grinding in a mine shaft.
If players want to have the resources for bigger bases or enormous recreations of Rapture from Bioshock, they will find it far more efficient to buy materials in bulk from the markets on space stations. Earning units is easier than manually gathering resources and following the main quest will provide numerous opportunities for players to quickly accumulate units.
3 Large Rooms Aren't Protected From The Outside Environment
No Man's Sky is a game where players can set their own path, be it intrepid space exploration or dedicating a whole planet to virtual dance raves. As such, creative players will probably want to build large, impressive, structures. However, any open space over a certain size counts as being outside even if it is not, which can make enormous rooms difficult to utilize on stormy planets.
Storms will spawn inside any room that is large enough to count as being outside, meaning players should only ever seek shelter from natural hazards in small contained rooms. Breaking up large spaces with dividing walls or objects is one way to regain the room status, but it is often best to save big buildings for lush or stormless planets.
2 Learn How To Adjacency Glitch
The building engine in No Man's Sky has come a long way since the game was first released. That said, there are still some bugs in the system and ingenious players have found many ways to turn them to their advantage.
Related: No Man's Sky: 10 Ways The Game Has Changed Since It First Released
Adjacency glitching is a useful skill that allows the player to place an object in a way that the building engine would normally not allow. To do this, simply choose an item immediately before or after the desired structure in the menu, the item must be green and placeable (which may require some temporary scaffolding). Clicking the arrow to move to the desired item and the build button simultaneously will adjacency glitch the object into the correct alignment. Glitch building can be used to make a variety of interesting structures that the game would otherwise not allow.
1 Save Power With Proximity Switches
No Man's Sky has grown more and more complex as it has evolved with the latest update adding alien pets for the players to adopt. Wiring up devices to power sources can be tricky but there are numerous sensors and switches available to make things easier and more functional.
Proximity sensors are most useful for making automatic doors, which are a must-have for any base. They can also be connected throughout a base to turn off whole sections when they are not in use. This will help players who are struggling to generate power and want to avoid wasting their precious electricity.
Next: No Man's Sky Players Are Hunting For Sandworms
