Unraveling The Mystery Of Portal Travel In No Man's Sky

Portals in No Man's Sky are structures that allow players to travel between worlds and regions of space quickly. They are points of interest and can be found on all celestial bodies, including dead planets and uncharted systems. To use portals, players must first find the 16 Glyphs, which are symbols that contain transportation addresses when combined. Once players have found all the Glyphs, they can then locate and activate portals to travel to specific locations instantly.

Locating a portal

Finding a Monolith:

The first step to locating a portal is to find a Monolith. Monoliths are large, dark, vertical towers with Knowledge Stones scattered around them. There are a few ways to find a Monolith:

• Random Discovery: You can stumble upon a Monolith while exploring a planet's surface, but this is unlikely.
• Ask for Directions: You can ask lifeforms for directions, but you may need to ask several before finding one.
• Using a Signal Booster: This is the most reliable method. You will need Navigation Data, which can be bought from ship pilots, Galactic Trade Terminals, or found in space stations, crates on your freighter, or from NPCs. Use the Navigation Data with the Signal Booster and select "Scan for Artifacts".
• Using a Cartographer: Purchase purple planetary charts or Alien Cartographic Data from a Cartographer NPC on any space station. These charts can be bought with Nanites or exchanged for Navigation Data. However, this method may also lead to alien plaques or ruins, so it is recommended to buy multiple charts.

Activating the Monolith:

Once you've found a Monolith, you need to activate it to locate a portal. To do this, you must have a specific trade commodity from the dominant race in the local star system:

• Gek System: Gek Relic
• Korvax System: Korvax Casing
• Vy'keen System: Vy'keen Dagger

These commodities can be found inside green containers, gained from NPCs, rewarded for monolith challenges, or received from Frigate missions.

After activating the Monolith, select "Locate a Portal," and a marker for the portal will appear on the planet.

Travelling to the Portal:

Now that you have located the portal, it's time to travel to its position on the planet. The portal will be waiting for you to activate and use for your interplanetary travels.

Charging the Portal:

Before using the portal, you must charge it by approaching the uncharged portal from the correct side. This will cause its terminal to rise from the ground, displaying 16 buttons or runes, representing the portal address. Each glyph must be charged with specific resources:

• Earth Elements: 20 Cobalt, 20 Deuterium, 20 Di-hydrogen, 5 Ionised Cobalt, or 50 Salt per glyph.
• Fuel Elements: 20 Carbon, 7 Condensed Carbon, or 10 Oxygen per glyph.
• Catalyst Elements: 10 Sodium or 4 Sodium Nitrate per glyph.
• Stellar Elements: 20 Copper, 10 Cadmium, 7 Emeril, 5 Indium, or 10 Activated Copper per glyph.

Activating the Portal for Travel:

After charging the portal, you can access its terminal, which offers three options: "Activate Portal", "Request this planet's address", and "Leave". Choose "Activate Portal" to input your destination's 12-digit address, using the glyphs you have unlocked. Once all twelve glyphs are input correctly, the portal will activate, and you will be transported to your chosen destination or a nearby random star if the address is invalid.

Using a monolith to locate a portal

Monoliths are large, alien structures that players will encounter on planets in No Man's Sky. While it's possible to stumble upon them at random, players can also use Cartographer planetary charts or a Signal Booster on an Exocraft to find them.

Once players have discovered a Monolith, they will be presented with a trial. This consists of a series of questions about a situation, and players must select the correct solution. If the player fails the trial, they can reload their last save before interacting with the Monolith and try again. If the trial is completed successfully, the player can trade a commodity item for directions to a Portal.

To locate a Portal, players must interact with the Monolith a second time. This will prompt the option to find the Portal. Note that Monoliths will only reveal the Portal of their own celestial body, so repeated attempts on the same planet will not yield other Portal locations.

To find the location of a Portal, players must offer a donation to the Monolith. This donation will depend on the dominant race in the star system. For example, if the system is owned by the Gek, the player must offer a Gek relic. If the player gets the donation wrong, they can reload their last save and try again.

Once the donation has been accepted, the Monolith will provide the location of a Portal on the planet. A navigation icon for the Portal will then appear, and the player can travel to the Portal.

Charging a portal

The 16 buttons are divided into four groups, each requiring a different type of material to be charged:

• Earth elements: 20 Cobalt, 20 Deuterium, 20 Di-hydrogen, 5 Ionised Cobalt, or 50 Salt per glyph.
• Fuel elements: 20 Carbon, 7 Condensed Carbon, or 10 Oxygen per glyph.
• Catalyst elements: 10 Sodium or 4 Sodium Nitrate per glyph.
• Stellar elements: 20 Copper, 10 Cadmium, 7 Emeril, 5 Indium or 10 Activated Copper per glyph.

Once the portal's control terminal has been charged, players can access its menu, which offers three options: "Activate Portal", "Request this planet's address", and "Leave". Choosing "Activate Portal" allows players to input a 12-digit address consisting of glyphs to activate the portal and travel to the desired destination.

Using a portal

Portals are structures in No Man's Sky that allow players to travel between worlds and regions of space quickly. Each celestial body in the game's star system has one portal, and they can be found on dead planets and in uncharted systems.

Locating a Portal

To locate a portal, players must first find a Monolith. Monoliths are large, black altars that are intended to help players find nearby Portals. They can be located using the Signal Booster upgrade for an Exocraft or by purchasing planetary charts from a Cartographer on any space station.

Once a Monolith is found, players must interact with it and pass its trial to receive directions to a Portal. The trial consists of questions about a situation, and players must select the correct solution. If the trial is failed, the player can reload their last save and try again.

Charging and Activating a Portal

Once a Portal is found, it must be charged before it can be activated. Charging a portal requires inputting a type of material (organic, catalytic, stellar, or alloy) into the Stone Pillar associated with the Portal. Once charged, the portal can be activated using a combination of the 16 Glyph symbols, which serve as a transportation address. Each Glyph sequence sends players to a specific location.

Restrictions and Considerations

There are some restrictions to using portals. Players cannot:

• Use the Galactic Map while visiting a system via portal
• Create a Base Computer on any world in the system visited via portal
• Shut down a portal
• Dial a portal while still on the visiting side
• Dial out of any other portal on any other planet in the visiting system
• Call the Anomaly Station or their freighter while visiting a system through a portal

Additionally, it is important to note that putting in random values into the portal's sequence may lead to a world, but it can also lead to perilous situations. It is recommended to have a current saved game position to go back to if things go wrong.

Finding missing glyphs

To find missing glyphs in No Man's Sky, you can employ a few different methods:

Ask Travellers

Slim humanoid Travellers with strange heads can be randomly encountered at trading posts, camps, and space stations. When you find one, ask them "where they came from" to receive the location of a Traveller's Grave, which holds a glyph. You can then go to the marked grave and scan it to collect the glyph. Travellers are the fourth alien race introduced as part of the Atlas Rises update, so you can encounter them in various places.

Artemis Path Missions

The Artemis Path is a series of missions that begin at the start of the game and serve as a tutorial. If you follow these missions, you will eventually reach one called "The Purge," where you are tasked with reaching the final Atlas Interface at the centre of the universe. This is the final mission, and once you reach it, you can unlock glyphs without scanning Unknown/Traveller's Graves.

Explore Normally

You can also stumble upon Traveller Graves and find glyphs by exploring the universe normally. However, they can be rare and easily missed. These graves can be found on planets and used to select a portal's destination.

Anomaly Quests

Another method is to check the Anomaly quests for one called "Eliminate dangerous plants" (or a similar title). Go to the planet, locate the Traveller grave, but do not interact with it. Instead, put up a Save Beacon, then go back to the Anomaly and cancel the mission without exiting the screen. You will then have the option to start the same mission again, but it will spawn another Traveller grave. Repeat this process as many times as needed to acquire the required number of glyphs.

Progress in Storyline Quests

Progressing in the storyline quests to the point where the subquest is named "16,16,16" will result in you receiving a glyph every time you warp between systems.

It is worth noting that glyphs are required to access and use the Portal Network, and with 16 glyphs in total, there are a vast number of possible combinations. Therefore, it is not recommended to try and randomly guess a portal code.

Frequently asked questions