Update 8/25/2016: Added pages on Finding Trade Posts, Sentinels and Wanted Level, in addition to Shielding, Power, and Unstable Plasma Items. Also see my guide to Making Money in No Man's Sky for some tips on the best methods for earning cash, what crafting items are most profitable, and a list of all resources in the game.

No Man's Sky: AtlasPass V2 & V3

How to Find Them and (Maybe) Keep Your Sanity

Flying to Operations Center in No Man's Sky for AtlasPass V2 and V3

When Operations Centers are far away, head toward space and engage your boost to speed up the process.

While the Atlaspass V1 is very easy to find by simply playing the early game and locating an Anomaly on the Path of the Atlas, AtlasPass V2 and V3 can be an exercise in frustration. I'll probably have to tear this whole article down when Hello Games (the developer) patch the game, because it's far too annoying and random, but here's how it's done:

Signal Scanners

Scan for Colonial Outpost in No Man's Sky

Colonial Outposts may include Operations Centers (what you want for the AtlasPass) or Manufacturing Facilities

Head to a planet and locate a Signal Scanner. Using Bypass Chips with these, you can scan for Colonial Outposts and make them pop up one by one on planetary map markers.

Make about 5-6 or so, they take iron and plutonium, scan for colonial outpost and over and over and locate some operations centers. It's about 50/50 between them and manufacturing facilities. The latter tend to give blueprints that make things like micro-density fabric, carite sheets, and other nonsense you need to craft to make other things in the game's mildly-infuriating crafting system (see Antimatter.

Operations Centers

This is how you find AtlasPass V2 and V3, at least until they hopefully patch the game.

Operations centers are what you want, but what you want and what you get are separate matters altogether. Sadly, I've visited over 50, and RNG has not been in my favor. Some players got them very early on, others got so disillusioned they think they don't even exist, and a few came forward with answers - Operations Centers. You may be one of the lucky ones. Don't take your lucky moment and tell me or others that we're wrong that it's 'hard'. It's hard for some of us. Your experience is not that of the majority.

What You Get Visiting Ops Centers

Sick part is, after so many visits, you start to get the exact same blueprints. And none of them are new, and you won't benefit whatsoever once you've maxed reputation with that game's faction. It's a grind, and not an acceptable one.

Polo Gives AtlasPass V2 and V3 Blueprints

Upon visiting Anomalies on the Path of the Atlas, you're rewarded with tech when you speak to Polo, so long as you have surpassed his requirements (such as having collected x funds, learned so many alien words, or killed sentinels) - all requirements that are based on the game's milestones system. Two of the 16 rewards that Polo can give you are Atlaspass V2 and Atlaspass V3. They are at #13 and #16 in his list of rewards according to the game data. If it's random, those are not great odds, but far far better than Ops Centers. It is likely these are in order, so after finding the 16th anomaly it may be possible you get the final blueprint for your atlas passes.

You WANT All the Passes, But Do You NEED The V2 and V3?

The worst part of all this is that both V2 and V3 both come from operations centers. It makes sense given the names of the facilities. I know I want a V1 on my next playthrough - assuming that happens - but so far I do not have any evidence to tell me that I NEED a V2-V3 AtlasPass. Sadly the rewards for these high-security passes do not seem to be there for the effort involved.

Skip Them

When you get to the outpost, you must solve a language puzzle

So far the evidence is that there isn't much to be found behind the Atlaspass V2/V3 locked doors. Some people even say there are nothing but plants with isotopes. The only good thing that can be said is that a V3 will let you open all three types of doors, but it's much less thrilling to imagine going through all this effort and not getting any tangible reward for it. I've spend literally 20 hours trying to find one, your results may vary, but it's just not worth it until we get a patch for NMS that makes them something desirable.

Conclusion

Play the game, visit an Ops Center here and there but don't worry about the fact that you don't have all 3 Atlas Passes. The outcry is likely high enough that Hello Games may start to limit the number of repeat blueprints you get, or provide some other means of obtaining these. Your odds of getting one from an Operations Center suck, and I discourage you from trying to grind it. I just want to let players know how incredibly tedious it can be. I'd rather continue my journey without this than to try for hours more.

There are plenty of other upgrades to seek, ignoring this one would make the game more enjoyable especially when the reward is lackluster. If Hello Games gave us a reason to want these, the story would be very different. I got the best warp reactor in the game from a random guy at a trading post, and without any effort at all. This isn't typical, but shows that chasing one singular type of building is not necessarily worth the effort.

Other No Man's Sky Guides