It was time to get some space miles under my belt. This is also when things start to get a bit strange like this game can get from time to time. I’d end up discovering some amazing places and just strange things.

It was time to get this party on the road of the galaxy. I gathered what remaining resources were needed for my hyperdrive. I also some materials to make warp cores to make it to the next system. I noticed quite a few milestones would end up rewarding me with warp cores throughout my adventure. I would only need to craft one once and that would be it.

Right after the warp while I was heading to a planet to check things out. I earned the milestone for Interstellar. This ended up giving me some much-needed launch fuel, a pulse engine upgrade, and the blueprints to make a microprocessor.

I would end up not making it to whatever planet I had intended to explore. As the next milestone wanted to check out a Space Anomaly and have a chat with Nada and Polo.

Getting sidetracked like this would end up becoming normal while running the expedition. From all the events that take place to the expedition stuff as well. I ended up just going with the flow of things. Often whatever adventure I'd end up going on would end up being more fun than just checking out another planet for the fun of it. Granted, just exploring this game is in itself quite entertaining.

The biggest part about the Space Anomaly would be having access to buying a bunch of blueprints with nanites. I would end up getting a few of these from turning in reports of creatures, plants, and minerals I'd end up scanning along the way. I would acquire some as expedition rewards or just open random boxes I'd find along the way.

Quite a few of the blueprints I'd end up buying would end up being a bit wasteful of nanites. Sometimes I'd need to buy something so I could move forward on a milestone. Many times, a milestone already had whatever blueprint I needed as a reward. So, running everything in a proper order had its benefits. This for the most part is what I'd end up doing as these milestones gave me my next goal to work towards.

I also had quite a bit of fun just exploring the Space Anomaly. I somewhat could recall the place. While other things I had forgotten over the years. For the most part, I did not understand a lot of what the different aliens on this ship were saying. I was becoming familiar again with what they offered.

Once I was done in the Space Anomaly I headed back out. I know needed to collect some silver. Since there was not any silver on the original planet I was going to check out. It quickly faded out of my mind.

After looking around a little bit for silver. I ended up finding a little cluster of it in an asteroid belt. I also needed some of the other resources I could get from blast-apart asteroids. So, I felt I might as well work on a couple of things I needed all at once.

Another getting some needed materials I was able to repair some damaged sections on my ship. Allowing me to install some further modules. This ended up getting me another milestone for salvaging that netted me some further nanites and some decorative blueprints for my base.

This left me with just a couple of remaining milestones in the first phase of the expedition. The biggest one is reaching the first rendezvous world. Since I was just a couple of system warps away from it I headed right for the target.

Once down there I started to understand an optional milestone that each phase has. There is a massive research project going on that requires all players to partake in. You help progress things alone by just scanning objects on each rendezvous world.

This research project is also the only thing I can’t fully do on my own. I have to hope enough players are making it far enough along the way to work on it as well. It seems the rewards for some of these are a pet, quicksilver, and unlocking some inventory space.

While usually when I land on a planet, I'm not trying to 100% scan all plants, animals, and minerals. I made an honest attempt at each rendezvous world since quite a few players would need to make an effort to unlock further planet’s progress towards the option milestone. Since the next phase milestone for this would appear till the one before it had enough players scanning things.

Each rendezvous world also has a special location for you to check out. The first one had a large trading hub. I ended up going down there to speak with the locals and learn a few different words from their language.

I also ran across some things I just had no clue about at the time. One of them ended up being an artifact exchange vault. It was nice to see some content that must have been added in after I stopped playing. As the entire thing did not ring any bells.

After finishing off so many milestones and now done with the first phase. I decided to take a moment and just enjoy how this game looks. The graphics style of this game always has my jaw ajar. I also tend to have quite some fun with the photo mode.

If only one could wake up every day seeing a view like the one above. It was so tempting to set up a second base right on top of a massive cliff. I decided since I had enough things I already had to do to my first base. I should be saving up my resources for that. So, I took some screenshots of this amazing spot and moved on.

Next up I needed to take a couple of warps and off the route, I was traveling through the galaxy on. I needed to make one of two visits to the Atlas Interface. I’m kind of glad I did not need to interact too much with this thing since I was on an expedition and not looking to do other things.

This game has always had some strange things going on in it. After talking with the Atlas, I ended up waking up on a planet of all places. Perhaps the object I selected was not the best one. I just shrugged a little and went back on my way.

I also did acquire a memory fragment. I would end up getting quite a few of these that the expedition wanted me to craft and head towards. The first one I was short salt. So, I ended up going around looking for planets with oceans so I could extract salt from sodium.

While exploring the next planet. I also unlocked some further milestones for the expedition. One of them ended up learning twelve words from aliens. Like some of the milestones, I did not take enough a note to realize this was one I could have quickly earned. Thankfully it just came naturally as I was playing the game.

After exploring some oceans, I realized I could just turn sodium into salt. Kind of silly that I did not realize it sooner. I then made one of many memories I would be making during this entire experience. Each one of these memories would end up being just strange. They also have a little bit of a storyline but not much.

Final Thoughts

This is kind of where things along my journey ended up being all over the place. While it was kind of nice, I did not need to finish off one phase at a time. That also meant while I was still working mostly in phase two, I had random stuff getting finished in phases three to five like discovering enough species or mining a certain amount of asteroid for milestones.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about No Man’s Sky.