No Man’s Sky – Exploration Guide Mission Tips

If we talking about the Exploration guide mission in your log, be aware that you will get that mission over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Like…on every single planet you land on. And there’s quntillions of planets.

Tips to Exploration Guide Mission

Overview

There is also no reward for completing it. Yes, you get units for each scan, and yes, if you find all of the fauna on a planet you get a nanite payout. Neither of those is a reward for the exploration mission though, you get those regardless of whether you complet that exploration mission.

You get this mission for every planet. The only one really worth worrying about is the animals. If you get them all, you can get a nanite bonus for the effort – and they give you clues as to where you can find them. Just click on the animal icon:

Then look at the clues:

• Ground, Underground (cave), Underwater, etc.
• And the frequency: Rare, uncommon, etc.
• Plus the specials, like Jaggid said above. Nocturnal, Southern hemisphere, etc.

Pretty simple.

Oh. just so its clear: scan everything you see – but don’t go hunting down anything but the fauna. Not worth it.

PS: To get the nanite bonus, its not automatic, you need to go and click it when you have them all. I would have to check – but I am not sure if the “upload all” button will give it to you.

Tips

For fauna, check the discovery to see what type of fauna you are missing and to make sure you are in the correct hemisphere if that’s a requirement for any of them.

For underwater fauna, you often need water that is deep enough to find the ‘rare’ ones. What works well for locating deep water is to use the nautilon exocraft to scan for a crashed ship. Those are always in deep enough water.

For Underground fauna, you don’t actually need to find them underground, they also will spawn anywhere that cave terrain is at the surface. Easiest way to find cave terrain is to locate buildings, which frequently ‘cut away’ and expose cave terrain. Again, an exocraft scanner can help you quickly locate buildings. As can the economy scanner if you have it installed in your ship.

As for Flora, don’t forget about caves. There may be a few unique ones to scan in caves. I’ve literally never tried to complete the exploration guide though, so that’s the extent of my knowledge about finding flora….its just not something I go out of my way to get ‘all of’ on any planet.