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: Survival and Recharging

Supplies to Keep When Exploring Planets

There's limited inventory space in No Man's Sky. What should you carry to recharge your equipment when exploring a planet?

With limited inventory space in your Ship and Exosuit, knowing what you need to bring to recharge your equipment can help you to make more money.

Because No Man's Sky is, in part, a survival game due to the resource management and that you can find yourself nearly stranded at times, I thought it'd be handy to list out the items that you should carry when exploring a new planet, as I found myself carrying a bit too much when I could've sold things and made money much more quickly. This is mainly to point out the types of resources that recharge all of the main ship, exosuit, and multi-tool systems and do so efficiently.

Recharging Your Gear in No Man's Sky

It is necessary to recharge gear from time to time, due to its finite energy. Some things drain much faster than others, like life support on a harsh planet, or the launch engine that lets you leave worlds and consumes about 25% of its power each time. Similarly, the warp engine can only hold 5 charges. Gear and ship equipment are recharged by clicking the item in the inventory, then selecting the type of element you will use to recharge it.

Quality of the Element Used Does Matter

Generally speaking, it is better to carry higher quality items if you want a light load so as to carry as much loot as possible in your limited inventory. Resources like carbon are plentiful, but do little to restore energy to your Multi-tool's mining beam and take up much more space. I did some testing getting the mining tool charged from 60% to 100% using 3 common types of isotope. It took:

81 Carbon valued at 6 credits per unit = 486 credit cost to refill
41 Thamium9 valued at 21 credits per unit = 861 credit cost to refill
27 Plutonium valued at 41 credits per unit = 1,107 credit cost to refill

Therefore it costs more to use expensive elements, even though they fill your charges more efficiently and with less units. However, if you wanted to go to a planet with valuable resources and just a few stacks of elements on you in order to maximize storage space, the Thamium9 would be a nice medium. It's also plentifully available from asteroids.

Based on this info, I'd use the least valuable resource first, unless I need it for another ship component or as a crafting material. Plutonium is all over too, it's just not quite as easy to get in massive quantities as the Thamium9. I'd carry a stack of Plutonium for the launch thruster and Thamium9 for things that charge via Isotopes. Hello Games were nice and put Plutonium on every planet I've seen, so it's almost impossible to get truly stranded.

List of Elements to Recharge Gear and Ship Parts

You need the following to recharge everything except the hyperdrive, the why's are detailed below. You can literally take just 2 stacks of good isotopes and a stack of Titanium and be good for most trips. You can always grab low-value materials on planets and use them to charge up your equipment, discarding them when you need room. Charge everything up before you discard something to save some money.

Plutonium (Isotope)
Thamium9 (Isotope)
Zinc or Titanium (Oxides)
No standard equipment recharges with Silicate or Neutral Elements - they're for crafting and valuable to sell for credits.

(Ship) Launch Thruster - Charges with Plutonium. Needed to lift off from planets. Takes 25% per charge, so you can lift off 4x. You may need to if exploring extensively, because monoliths and outposts may be hours away on foot.

(Ship) Pulse Engine - Charges with Thamium9. Needed to fly rapidly and drains only when you're using boost (holding shift to speed up to 10x normal speed) or pulse jumps, when you travel at 9999u/sec toward an in-system target.

(Ship, Combat Only) Shields Charges with Oxides of any kind. Recharging shields during an unexpected pirate attack will save your life. Obviously, Iron will work but will be inefficient compared to Titanium, so you can carry much more metal by bringing Titanium instead. It is very easy to get massive amounts of Titanium by simply shooting down Sentinel bots. They will raise an alarm to summon more, and you can get about 500 by killing 6 or so Sentinels. Pay attention to your wanted level as they get harder around rank 3. In addition to looting titanium, you'll get schematics for multi-tool weapons by doing this.

(Suit) Life Support - Charges with Isotopes. Drains faster under certain conditions. While exploring you should sometimes mine some carbon to charge life support, without really meaning to take stacks back to the starbase due to carbon's low value.

(Suit) Hazard Protection - Charges with only Zinc, Titanium, and Shielding Shards. Only used on hazardous planets. Titanium is the most abundant element for charging this, though zinc is more efficient at charging things that require oxides.

(Multi Tool) Mining Beam - Charges with Isotopes. This will typically drain the fastest while you're on a planet. You can grab some Carbon or Plutonium while on a planet. Use the Carbon to charge this first, you'll get use out of it and save space for more valuable materials.

(Multi Tool) Boltcaster - Charges with Isotopes. I rarely use this, as it's very poor without extensive upgrades. I prefer mining beam upgrades instead, as they can both mine faster while also dealing additional damage. Boltcaster is needed, however, in order to break down certain locked doors (abandoned facilities).

Hyperdrive: Warp Cells - see the guide to Making Your Own Antimatter and Warp Cells for a full list of the items that go into making these things. It's best to keep the hyperdrive charged up at least 40-60% so that you can avoid carrying all those extra items!

Inventory Management in No Man's Sky

Always recharge all your gear before you sell, using the cheapest materials first. I mention this elsewhere but it bears repeating. The ship can stack up to 500 items in each inventory slot, while the suit does 250, so moving two stacks from suit to ship is doable and should be practiced frequently. Items that stack to 1 are best stored in the suit so that you can put 500-stacks of items in the ship - those would take 2 slots in the suit. This is for when it's time to crunch things down and take a good haul to the station, carrying it as efficiently as possible. See the Inventory Upgrades (suit) and using Using Signal Scanners to find Drop Pods for info on upgrading your carry capacity.

Other No Man's Sky Guides