No Man’s Sky – All Achievements Guide

My Feet Hurts from All That Walking…

Symphony For A Lost Traveler
Take 40,000 Steps

Have Spacesuit – Will Travel 
Take 100,000 Steps

These are easy to obtain because all you need to do is walk, which is what you do when you are doing anything else than using your spacecraft. Just don’t trip and fall!

Making New Friends

Contact
Meet 2 Aliens

Who Goes There?
Meet 20 Aliens

What Mad Universe
Meet 40 Aliens

You need to meet other life forms and talk to them. Over time, unless you stay in one system and forget to visit stations/structures, you’ll get these achievements naturally. I can recommend visiting the space stations and talking to everyone in those if you want it somewhat faster.

How Many Curse Words Are There Again?

Babel-17
Learn 10 words

The Languages of Pao
Learn 50 words

Citizen of the Galaxy
Learn 150 words

For the achievements above, you can use these methods to increase your vocabulary:

• Talk to aliens and request them to teach you a word in their tongue. This requires some resources, sometimes, or credits.
  
• Finding and activating Knowledge Stones.
  
• [Atlas’ Questline] Walk over the orbs that are on the floor after you land in Atlas’ structure. They may reward words.
  
• Find Monoliths and access the Knowledge Stones (AKA Ancient Artifacts) there and choose to learn words, basically same as the second method except there are usually 3 Stones at the ruin structures.
  
• Find and use the Encyclopedia that is found in some Space Stations and buildings.

Currency Without the Bling

Foundation
Have at least 250.000 credits in your wallet

The Space Merchants
Have at least 1.000.000 credits in your wallet

The Diamond Age
Have at least 2.000.000 credits in your wallet

These ones can be obtained naturally by playing and accumulating money over time.

In case you need some quick cash, I can recommend the method of finding alien eggs and placing a Signal Booster (or any sufficient structure you can carry around and stand on) nearby. Simply jump on the booster and dig the eggs, grab them and wait for the mobs to despawn. The mobs that appear can’t and won’t attack you as long as you are not in contact with the terrain/floor/soil. You can alternatively grab the eggs and fly to the roof of the abandoned building nearby and wait it out. 

Caution: Do not Alt-TAB when using this method, as the game usually pauses itself when not focused. Being in a menu also pauses the game unless you are playing in a multiplayer session.

Gotta Scan Them All

A Scanner Darkly
Discover all creatures on 1 planet

The Star Beast
Discover all creatures on 7 planets

Galapagos
Discover all creatures on 10 planets.

Scan all creatures in sight! I recommend checking the catalogue often as the maximum amount of creatures that roam the planet you are on should be visible there. 

I can recommend Exotic worlds to somewhat make the process faster. Exotic worlds usually have exceptionally low creature count, so you can use those strange planets to boost your progress. An Exotic planet is obvious at a glance, you will see terrain and structures that are unique to Exotic-tier planets and their names may be strange too. Like “[REDACTED]”.

Trying to find planets that lack water might also prove useful as you usually have to scan the things that swim too.

Friendly Reminder: Don’t forget to grab upgrades for the scanner, more scanner range and money per scan always helps!

All This Travelling Is Making Me Nauseous

The Stars, Like Dust
Warp 3 Times

The Longest Voyage
Warp 30 times

A Space Odyssey
Warp 60 times

These achievements are the type you can get naturally if you are the explorer type. After repairing your Hyperdrive, stack up on fuel and warp around systems. You will need different colored warp drives later on to warp farther and to warp to certain “colored” systems.

As a side note: It doesn’t matter which systems you Warp to, because all of them count and you can even travel between the same 2 systems if you want to.

War Has Changed

Use of Weapons
Destroy 5 Ships

Pattern for Conquest
Destroy 50 Ships

The Forever War
Destroy 80 Ships

The fastest way to get these trophies (without hurting your standing with each race/faction) is to increase your Mercenaries Guild standing to Level 5, then take on every Pirate Hunting mission you can get your hands on. You might want a decent ship and strong weaponry beforehand so the whole process is easier.

The Red Achievements

These didn’t fit any other category and I couldn’t find a creative title for them, so here they are:

Cradle
Claim a Base or Buy a Freighter

Navigators
Build an Exocraft

Reunion
Visit another Player’s Base

These are self-explanatory if you ask me. Visiting another friend requires a friend that actually got “Cradle” though… Hold on, it also requires a friend…

Caution: for “Reunion”: This can only be obtained while another player is in the same Multiplayer instance as you. Also note that Freighter bases do not count, because they don’t have a Base Computer onboard (which makes sense).

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Extreme Survival

Stranger in a Strange Land
Survive 20 Sols on an Extreme Planet without dying

The Sentinel
Survive for 32 Sols on an Extreme Planet without dying

One sol is approximately 15 minutes of real time. According to the wiki, confirmation is needed but as far as I know, all planets have the same sol per day.

In that sense, “Stranger in a Strange Land” takes 5 hours and “The Sentinel” takes 8 hours of real time.

What counts towards your Survival stats:

• Staying in a cave or other underground space
  
• Staying in a building that is above ground

What does NOT count towards your Survival stats:

• Sitting in your Exocraft or Spaceship
  
• Swimming on or underwater 
  
• Driving or flying around an Extreme planet
  
• Parking your Freighter in orbit of an Extreme planet and staying on that for the duration
  
• High/Maximum Security Planets that only have Extreme Sentinels but no Extreme Conditions
  
• Pausing the game, leaving a menu screen open or Alt-Tabbing while being under the right circumstances

So to speak, you need to be exposed to the environment to an extent for it to count. This means your life support bar and/or your hazard bar should be depleting when you are “surviving”.

They Will Remember You as the “Undying”, for Now

Take a Deep Breath
Reach the Centre of the Galaxy in Survival Mode

To Live Forever
Reach the Centre of the Galaxy in Permadeath Mode

These ones are straightforward. Except… They are difficult because of the challenge they pose. For “To Live Forever”, you can do a bit of a save abuse by hitting “Alt + F4” when you die or are in unfavorable situations. Permadeath actually deletes your save so be sure that your survival is ensured and save often. Best of luck!

Caution: About saving: Unless you didn’t notice earlier or just started the game, the game only saves when you exit your current spacecraft. Don’t end up wasting precious minutes because you forgot to enter and exit your craft!