No Man’s Sky Nanites Guide: How to Get Nanites

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Austin Podeszek

Austin is a freelance writer who loves survival games. He loves all sorts of games, whether it be FPS Survival or Strategy games. He enjoys constructing things and structures in different survival games. He tests out different builds and regularly tweaks them as needed. Some of the games he enjoys are No Mans Sky (Playstation), Conan Exiles (Console), and Rust (PC and Console).

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• No Man’s Sky Nanites Guide: How to Get Nanites - September 16, 2022
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There are many ways you can get nanites in No Man’s Sky; Through completing missions or scanning flora, the possibilities are endless; Try turning in milestone data to a bizarre-looking alien on the Anomalous Space station. Regardless of what you do, stick around, as in this No Man’s Sky Nanites guide, I’ll show you almost every method you can use to grind nanites.

The Nanite Economy

The nanite Economy is remarkably unique in No Man’s Sky. Nanites often are used for buying upgrades for your equipment. Do you need a superior upgrade for your Exosuit, mech, or starship? Nanites help you acquire specialized upgrades from each star system you come across. Nanites can be used for upgrading a starship’s class. Which is beneficial as it improves your ship’s shield and damage.

Nanites can stand as currency for trade in researching recipes that space stations do not sell; Research is bought at specialized trade outposts on planets you find. Alternatively, you could also go to the anomalous station and purchase equipment. I usually invest in the recipes there because of the money you can get selling them. However, the equipment you can get from the station is important for mining resources and deploying vehicles on different No Man’s Sky planets.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way. Let’s dive into how you could obtain nanites in No Man’s Sky.

Check out the following guide to learn more the best ways to make money in No Man’s Sky.

Damaged Machinery

Damaged Machinery is a simple way to obtain nanites; Nanites fetched when cleaning the slime from Damaged Machinery are decent. Slime you clear out is frequently identified as a green or purple-colored item that once refined turns into a set of mold-super colonies. (Something we will talk about later.) Each piece of damaged machinery that you fix up will give you up to around one hundred nanites.

To find Damaged Machinery you can look for starship crash sites or gear symbols with “Damaged Machinery.” on your visors HUD. However, when you are looking for these indicators, make sure you mark them in your Visor HUD, so you don’t lose track of them. This can be done by pressing the “Mark” button while using the visor.

Something useful you can do in the field is to look for cylindrical flashing equipment that has a diagram on the front. The flash of each piece of damaged machinery that you’d be looking for is blue and sparkly. Finding these can be tricky, but if you are just getting initiated, this damaged equipment may save you time searching in the beginning.

Some Planets May Not Have Damaged Machinery

Certain planets you may come across do not have damaged equipment spawns on their surface. Any Webbed Planets, For example, have bizarre nature and infrequently have any Points of interest. Points of Interest include damaged machinery, crates, trade outposts, and shrines. 

This makes them useful for scanning but not for nanite gathering. However, these planets may seldom have some points of interest. Stick to regular planets if you wish to keep your farming operation. This is because you can find more points of interest and other associated nanite-producing opportunities on other planets.

Let’s quickly examine the planets you should avoid when exploring No Man’s Sky.

Planets to Avoid

Webbed Planets

Webbed planets are remarkably profitable for resource extraction; You can accumulate hex cores that are traded to Polo for quicksilver on the anomalous station. These types of planets you should bypass, often because there are too few resource spots. The planet usually is discernable by the big wired metallic balls that scatter the surface. 

Frothing Planets

These planets are the same way as Webbed Planets, but they have bubbles scattered everywhere. Not only are resources scarce the facilities to maintain your nanite grind are too.

Other Anomalous Planets

There are other planets out there that do not provide landmarks or points of interest. All of these have a strange look about them. You will know when you land on one that they are bizarre or “Glitched” since they are barren of life or industry.

Mold Super Colonies and Nanites

Mold super colonies are practical if you are looking for nanites. These can be made from the slime you can get from facilities, damaged machinery, and other events.

Slime is the most common thing you can encounter while searching Points of Interest. Once you have accumulated a decent amount. You can refine the slime until it becomes the super colony. This process is a bit more tedious, as you have to refine the slime twice. (usually) Once you are done you can refine the mold into nanites.

Now the real question you may be wondering is where do I refine slime? This can be done at any refinery you make. Put the slime into the leftmost slot in the refinery. It’s kind of a long process depending on how much you have. It could easily take a few minutes to process it all.

This is the most leisurely but equally, much longer way to get nanites. That being said if you are just starting, you may not have as many other opportunities. There is a way to negate this “speed hump.” The fastest way I know to obtain the slime you need is by going into abandoned buildings and searching the terminals. This gives you two opportunities, as they may have damaged machinery inside. The terminals inside may also provide you with nanites if you read them.

Facilities and Receiving Nanites

Nanites commonly placed inside almost every building in the game can assist you. More commonly, you can find them either along with each event that a building can give you, or you can find them by a short or simple minigame, or puzzle.

Often you find these scattered across a planet’s surface. Optionally, instead of searching for one manually with a starship, you can go up to your system’s trade station to buy charts and outpost locations there. These charts require navigational data that can be found by looking for bright holographic shapes you find on desks in space stations.

Let me break down each point of interest; and how they can help you reach the goal of collecting those nanites.

The Industrial Buildings

Industrial buildings usually require you to break in the front door. You can get this done by shooting it with a blaster. You could try using your starship to fly close and shoot it. Once blown up, an alarm will trigger the sentinels to your position, which you can avoid by going inside the building. Sometimes installations could have a yellow-orange container on the wall that you can examine for nanites and a terminal.

For you to get anything, you must first successfully solve a puzzle to unlock nanites or recipes. This usually happens once you activate the terminal. If you have successfully solved the event, you can choose to either unlock a component, get an upgrade, or acquire nanites. It would be up to you what you decide at that point.

Abandoned Buildings

Abandoned buildings are not only great for Living Slime and scrap metal; you can come here to get nanites. Like the industrial facilities, they should have yellow-orange containers lying around. Terminals sheathed in Living Slime can provide nanites.

In this abandoned infrastructure, you can find Atlas containers that only will open with an Atlas Pass. There are purple sacs outside the facility that you can destroy for Whispering Eggs. These are suitable for trading. Just know that green alien monsters will try and surface to extinguish you.

Often, Abandoned Buildings are lumped into the category of distress signals; however, I think they deserve a unique category because of their eerie look and how rare resources are scavenged there.

Distress Signal Buildings OR Crash Sites

Distress signals are an excellent way to get nanites and a new ship if you can solve the puzzle that is given in each facility. In some occurrences, there is just a ship crash site, with either no one around or someone there that you could talk to about fixing their ship.
Inside the facility’s terminal, you must guess a pattern to obtain coordinates to a crash site. If it is either of the two options: you can salvage the ship’s crash site. If there is a Pilot you can talk to them about their problem. Either way, you can gather nanites from these locations.

Trade Stations

Remarkably, trade stations and exchange hubs have ways you can get nanites from the people, or containers inside. Every Trade station has orange-yellowish containers on the walls that you can use to get a decent amount of nanites.

Sometimes even talking to the Alien while walking around can reward you; The Alien can give you either a set of nanites, an upgrade, or a weapon. Trade stations are where you can unlock rudimentary upgrades if you have not discovered the Space Anomaly yet.

These stations are excellent for trying to learn alien languages or hiring aliens for employment. Employment only if you find the terminals to do so, but that’s later in the game.

Missions Can Give Nanites

On occasion, nanites can be procured through missions with mission agents at the mission station near the chart dealer. Often these dealers can give a decent amount of nanites, credits, or resources for decent work.

Honestly, nanites can be earned effortlessly by doing these missions too, and give you more independence as you can explore each planet while completing every assignment. Each assignment given to you is unique and offers you a chance to earn nanites for either exploring, delivering packages, or breaking into industrial buildings.

Doing missions not only gives nanites, but they often come with reputation points for factions too. Factions can reward you daily if you reach an acceptable reputation with them. You can check ranks by the person between the map exchange and the mission board. To see your current prestige, go to your menu, Milestones, and select the guild you wish to inspect. Usually, once you have achieved your first few positions in the guild, you can get packages from the guild board.

You may need to refer back to the missions board on the space station to see its possible rewards. Missions may vary with the number of nanites that they could pay you. For example, one task could pay you around 150, and another could pay up to 250 Nanites. Bigger the payment, the higher the difficulty. Let me break down the types of missions you can do. There you can determine if any of these are for you.

Delivery Jobs

You can supply packages to an unseemly buyer in another solar system; The mission giver will present a supply package to deliver. (You can optionally sell that package ruining the mission.) These packages must be delivered in a separate solar system from the system you first received the assignment.

When delivering a package, look for either a trade station in the area of your marker or land. These areas are where you deploy your delivery; When searching, look for a metal orb with a blue eye that looks like it was from Portal or Halo Combat Evolved. Talk to the ball and deliver the package.

Thank Jesus that you do not have to travel back to the previous system to turn in your reward. You can go to the station in that system to hang up the mission; Going to the mission board can add more assignments from that system to your roster.

Attack Space Pirates

Attacking space pirates has you engage several ships at once and destroy them; This requires some serious firepower, as you can easily get outflanked or outmaneuvered. Bring some weapons and shields for your starship.

Recent updates also added the ability to receive suspicious or sus packages that can give you illegal technology; or resources. Combat in No Man’s Sky will require more labor than standard gameplay.

Scan Planets

This is random, and sometimes you may be scanning resources, Fauna, or Flora. The mission usually tells you where to make the scan. Therefore, you will need to look for specific planet items. A speedy way to finish scans on planets with water is to scan near the ocean; That way if you can not find any of the things needed to get a reward, you can try submerging underwater
You may need to be careful when you dive.

Especially since mining resources underwater can generate blue jellyfish swarms that strike. You also may not retain oxygen. The possibility of Abysmal horrors lurks in the deep Ocean. I would recommend scanning other planets until you get better equipment. Paradise worlds are excellent planets for beginners. There you can invest in better aquatic gear at the Anomalous Station.

Facilities

You can get a mission that has you raid an industrial deposit or a facility. You will receive a zone on your HUD that tells you where you need to go. Sometimes, this could mean proceeding to another system.

Once you are where you need to be, you break down the entrance. You can use any weapon or blaster on the door. When I run out of ammo, I use the starship’s cannon. Once inside the installation, stabilize the facility as you would.

Now, sometimes these quests may have you destroy an enemy station. This means you deploy to a location and decimate the miniature facility. As the mission implies, you may have to deploy on the ground or engage from the air against the silos. Be wary that engaging in the air causes sentinel ships to spawn in. After the installation or Depot is decimated, you can return to the mission agent and collect your reward.

Anomalous Missions and Nanites

Now, if you have been on No Man’s Sky for a while, you can unlock the missions on the anomalous space station. These are the more difficult missions that you can get later in the game. This is because of their increase in loot. That being said, you are likely to find more important things on these missions.

This would include Wiring Looms, Salvaged Data as well as Quicksilver. Quicksilver is another currency you can use to buy cosmetics from the anomalous station.

Every mission you may get on space stations will most certainly take you to another system. Just be very wary of what missions you choose too, as sometimes it may pay out Nanites or quicksilver.

Are Missions the Only Way?

Inside the anomalous space station, you can find a variety of characters that will pay you Nanites. Some will pay you for bringing them food. Others will pay you for things you have accomplished like milestones etc. Particular iterations like Helios will want data from the things you discovered on planets so do not forget to scan everything before you leave a planet. Just make sure you are having fun with what you decide to do.

Here is a breakdown of the three iterations that can give you nanites.

Iteration Helios: This will give you nanites for scans of flora, fauna, resources, or planets.

Iteration Ares: trades nanites for milestone data, can also trade a daily object for 10 nanites.

Iteration Cronos (wannabe Gordan Ramsay): Offers nanites for food and hand-made recipes.

Scanning Planets

You can get some nanites by scanning planets and finding all the creatures on those planets. It used to be that you could simply scan everything and get nanites for each Flora, Fauna, and resource you find. I’m not certain if they have changed it, but last I tried scanning everything the only thing that paid out was the Fauna. Just make sure that you look for Flora just in case though. I am not sure if they still have these features. I haven’t been so lucky scanning anything aside from fauna.

Another way to earn some small chunks of Nanites is to name a planet. You can also try renaming a solar system too if you’d like. Just know that once you name it, you can’t change it, and the number of nanites you may get is usually less than 100. scanning the fauna, however, gives more, and if you scan enough animals on every planet, you can get an achievement. I’ve gotten between 500-1200 nanites doing this so, it’s worth it. It’s the better method if you compare it to searching machines.

Fighting Pirates or Sentinels

Granted, if you are a pro and decide to take on the world with violence, mayhem, and devastation; Player Versus Environment combat is the place for you.

Sentinels and pirate hunting are great ways to get pugnem and tech modules. Both of these resources are good for a variety of things. Pugnem is used for refining nanites, so you can use that as an extra resource. Otherwise, you can pugnem for fixing technology. You could sell it in a Vykeen system if you run out of ideas.

Just know that when you are fighting sentinels, once you reach the final attack; the sentinel destroyer will spawn. This ship looks very big in design and can often lead to death if unprepared. This is the biggest sentinel in the game, second from the Walker you can encounter on land.

Selling Redundant Modules

Selling redundant modules is a great way to get started in getting nanites. The fastest way I know to collect modules is to fight pirates and sentinels. However, you can easily find these almost anywhere; because you can acquire these through emergency charts. You could try getting them through other means like going into factories or finding crashed ships. It is very random with what you can find. If you are lucky, you can find superior upgrades or nanites.

Sometimes, however, you may feel that you may not need to use those upgrades for yourself. So, here is where the fun begins.

• Take yourself to any upgrade trader; there is one on the Anomalous station if you are desperate. (Ares: is the upgrade dealer)
• Walk up to the trader and hit “buy upgrades.”
• switch to sell and sell your upgrades.

Once you have sold the upgrades you do not want anymore, you can now use those to buy other things you may want or need. Or save up to upgrade the class of your starship!

Derelict Freighters

Another way to acquire Nanites is through derelict freighters. Derelict freighters can be found through the scrap dealer on the trading side of every space station you may come across. The booth looks like a mini gazebo and has junk around him.

Before you purchase the beacon, know it will cost you over a million credits. However, you can use it to get some resources that even out your loss. Often you can find nav data or other goodies on the ship. You can also find old logs and sell them from each freighter. However, there are many dangers inside these hallowed walls, and you most certainly will require some hazard protection and weaponry.

To trigger this event, you must be in space. Then you must enter into a jump and activate the beacon. The beacon will search for distress signals in your area. The device will eventually ask you to stop moving. Once you have decided to slow your ship it will spawn a derelict freighter. Just remember to be prepped with weapons, ammunition, and hazard gear. I did it once without prep and died immediately.

Each corridor inside the freighter is covered with egg sacks or layered with turrets. Every egg retains a vile swarm that could effectively kill you. These eggs may explode at any time, releasing them. Using any Area of Effect weapon is suggested due to the sheer number of opponents. Bring excess ammunition so you can survive the onslaught. If you run out of life support, there are floating balls of oxygen and sodium in small amounts. It would be beneficial to bring your best hazard gear.

With that all in mind, the pay is decent. Sometimes these ships give you some advanced upgrades that you can sell for credits. Ensure you check every nook and cranny, especially when each crate may have valuable items you can scrap. At times I miss things when searching the interiors of massive ships. Just know this is one the hardest things to do in the game, as you can easily get killed by anything inside. 

FAQs

Some References, and Resources:

• Wiki, F. (n.d.). Anomalous numbers station. No Man’s Sky Wiki. Retrieved September 1, 2022, from https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Anomalous_Numbers_Station