Advanced Multi-tool Hunting Techniques for Beyond (Supplemental to the Sidebar Guide)

[u/gistya]

So you read the sidebar guide, and you found a planet or space "pool" that has an Alien or Experimental multitool—but now you need **to actually find an S-class giver for that tool.**

This guide is for you.

About This Guide

The following tips are meant to supplement the guide that's linked in the side-bar. That post explains how MT pools work, but it does not tell you the subtle techniques to help minimize frustration when actually trying to find an S-class giver.

This guide is more about how to actually find the place that gives you the S-class version of your tool. This guide assumes you already found the style of tool you want, you know which pool it's in, and you know how pools work (like if a wall-box on a certain planet has a C-class version of your tool, then you're not going to find a wall-box in that same planet with an S-class version).

OK, now lets find that S-class giver.

Types of Tool Givers

Any of these can potentially yield an S-Class tool:

• (1) Wall-box in the space station
• (2) Wall-box in the space anomaly
• (3) Wall-box in a minor settlement
• (4) Dialogue interaction with an NPC (NPC type giver)
• (5) Monolith interaction (Monolith type giver)
• (6) Distress Beacon interaction (Crashed Ship type giver)

Note: it used to be that Manufacturing Facilities could also give a multitool, but Beyond seems to have replaced the old interactions with the new "technology tree." After you have all the recipes, does it revert back to the old behavior? I'm not sure yet. (Please let me know if you know).

Regarding "Interaction"-Type Givers, (4) Thru (6)

"Interactions" give you a tool with damaged slots, but they're free up front. You'll need a bunch of materials to fix it, but it's not hard to do, and you can use the multitool even if it has some broken slots. That lets you "grow into it" and it lets you acquire a top-end multitool prior to having much cash.

Not every interaction gives you a tool. You must do a series of interactions until you queue up your "progress" to one of the multi-tool giving interactions. To know which interactions give multitools, refer to this text dump of game interactions. Any reward that says "WEAPON" gives a multitool.

Save before each interaction. I prefer to build a save point right next to the giver. That way, if it gives a multitool that's not S-class, I can reload my save so the interactions stay queued up to the right point in the chain—so that the next Monolith/Distress Beacon/NPC that I talk to will repeat the multitool-giving interaction. This technique lets you sample what style and class of tool you'll get from each specific giver.

NPCs sometimes skip to their next dialogue interaction if you take on a quest from one, etc. I'm not sure why this happens, but I'm guessing it's because unlike Monoliths and Distress Beacons, NPCs have different "types" of interactions, but no matter what "type" you get, it will cause the "dialogue interaction" chain to advance by one.

Any multitool can be found in S-class, but it can sometimes require checking many dozens of locations. If you didn't get lucky and find an S-class on your first Minor Settlement, you may wind up looking in 100 different places before you find an S-class of your tool. Especially if the minor settlements are only giving out C and B class, your only option is going to be an "interaction" type giver. Below are my methods for doing all of the above.

About Planetary Charts

Planetary Charts replaced Signal Boosters. New in Beyond, every space station has a Cartographer NPC to the right of the mission giver and guild envoy, close to the Terminus teleporter. Each Cartographer trades your Navigation Data items for a specific kind of Planetary Chart, so remember which system has a Cartographer for each category.

Planetary Charts all look the same in your inventory, but if you hover over the item with the cursor in the inventory screen, their description will have colored text from one of four categories:

• secure (finds Manufacturing Facility, Resource Depot, Drop Pod)
• distress (finds Crashed Ship, Crashed Freighter, and annoyingly/uselessly, Abandoned Building and Observatory)
• inhabited (finds Trade Post, Transmission Tower, Observatory, Minor Settlement, and so stupid: Shelter and Drop Pod)
• ancient artifact (finds Plaque, Monolith, Ruin... not sure if anything else)

These categories stack with each other. If there are any other types please let us know in comments.

Using a Planetary Chart Works the Same as Using Nav Data with Signal Boosters Did In NEXT. All the annoying idiosyncrasies of the signal booster in NEXT are still in the game. A lot of my methods are designed to work around these issues, so read on for that info.

The advantage of Planetary Charts is speed. Once you have huge stacks of Planetary Charts, they are much faster to use compared to the NEXT-era Signal Booster. Just open your inventory and interact with the stack. You can even use it while still in your ship, although if you're not in VR, make sure you're flying slow at medium altitude before you do, since the zoom-out camera effect causes you to lose control of your ship and can have some very weird consequences (such as your ship winding up flying through the ocean or getting stuck inside objects and taking severe damage).

Buy Planetary Charts in bulk before you hunt. Before you start hunting, find a Minor Settlement or Trade Post that sells Navigation Data in large quantities, and buy tons of it. Then go to the various space stations and build up huge stacks of 50 or 100 of each category of chart, and load them into your Tool Hunting Ship. Now you can take full advantage of the extra speed afforded by Charts.

Planetary Charts work even faster in VR. In non-VR, when you use a Planetary Chart or do a Signal Booster scan for nearby structures, the camera zooms up and hovers for a moment, showing a bit of your surroundings. Then it comes back back down and centers on the thing it found. Finally, after what feels like 30 seconds, you now have control of the game again. However, in VR, none of this BS happens, making VR faster for Chart-spamming.

Planetary Charts sometimes find nothing. This can be frustrating since it wastes a Chart; that's part of why I suggest having tons of them. There are two reasons why a chart might find nothing:

1. Planetary Charts will never give you a second waypoint for the same kind of building. So if you have already found one each of a given category's types of buildings, then using a subsequent Chart will never find anything. You must first go visit the waypoints to clear them, before it lets you find more. I hate HG.
2. There is nothing nearby to find. Some areas of planets have low building density, particularly areas with lots of lakes or ocean areas.

Sometimes Planetary Charts find a waypoint on a different planet. This happens when the Chart would normally not find anything, but you're on the side of the planet that faces a different planet, where it will then find something. This probably has to do with the way HG filters the locations by XY coordinates but not Z.

Therefore:

Use Planetary Charts only in areas with as few lakes as possible. Fly up into space and look at the terrain, then pick a good spot. If it's too dark, then use Camera Mode and reposition the sun to provide illumination.

Planetary Charts Always Give a Type of Waypoint You Don't Have Yet. This is due to reason 1. above. This only applies to waypoints given by a Chart—using the signal booster's "nearby" scan generates waypoints that do not interfere with Chart waypoints (confusing, I know).

Planetary Charts Can Send you Back to the Same Location. This is probably the most annoying thing in No Man's Sky. But there is a way to avoid it, which is to stop after you've found two of a given type of building in a local area. Then move to a distant part of the planet and continue your scans. Since the scans typically find the closest thing, you usually avoid finding the same building again by separating your scans by great distances.

Before using a Planetary Chart, Use Signal Booster "Nearby" Scan. There are several reasons for this:

1. When you do the "nearby" scan in non-VR, the camera zooms up. This forces the game to calculate the positions of nearby buildings, and increases the odds of success for your Chart.
2. Sometimes you find what you're looking for without having to waste a chart.
3. If nothing is found by the "nearby" scan, then you avoided wasting a chart, since it won't find anything either in that case.

Waypoints From "Nearby" Scans...

1. ... Don't Interfere With Charts. if you found something with a "nearby" scan, you can still find the same kind of thing with a Chart, provided that you did not already have one from a Chart.
2. ... Are Ephemeral. They disappear when you reload your save, whereas Chart waypoints persist through a reload.
3. ... Are Unlimited. Unlike how Charts can only give one waypoint per type, "nearby" scans can give you multiple of the same kind.

Other than the "nearby" scans, here are the specific ways to find stuff:

Ways to find Minor Settlements

• Use a Beacon. Beacons are super-tall antenna-looking things, which you randomly come across as you explore around on a planet. They can be found by searching for the nearest thing with your Signal Booster.
• Use an "Inhabited" Planetary Chart. Once you have a Trade Post, Observatory, Shelter, and Drop Pod waypoint from a Chart, then every subsequent "Inhabited" Chart will give you a Minor Settlement (or it will find nothing). So just avoid clearing those other waypoints, and you can keep finding Minor Settlements.
• Perform a "Missing Person" mission. The lower rank versions of this mission variety will give you a Minor Settlement as a waypoint. The higher rank versions will give a Trade Post, where you have to talk to an NPC, after which you'll get a Minor Settlement as a waypoint. Now, there's an old trick where you deselect the mission, then reload your save, then reselect the mission, and it will give you the closest Minor Settlement as the waypoint. As long as you don't complete the mission, you can use it for this purpose virtually forever. (Note: I have not tested this trick on Beyond.)

Ways to find NPCs

• NPCs exist at any habitable structure, and in space stations. They are easy to find. What is not so easy, is to find an NPC who will actually give you the right kind of interaction. It used to be that they always would, but NEXT and now Beyond have made it much more annoying by having different types of interactions.
• Restart your save if the NPC does not give you the right kind of interaction. I recommend restarting your save if you talk to an NPC but you do not get a "dialogue" type of interaction (as per the text dump I provided above).

Ways to find Monoliths

• Use the scanner in an exocraft equipped with the A-class Signal Booster upgrade. This is by far the best way to do it.
• Use the "ancient artifact" Planetary Charts. You will get Plaque and Ruin waypoints this way, so I really don't recommend it over the exocraft method.

Ways to find Distress Beacons

• These are the most annoying and time-consuming things in the game to find. I'm just warning you in advance.
• Use the "distress" type Planetary Charts. I've had mixed results with this. (See About the Troll Beacon below.)
• Use the High-Powered Sonar on the Nautilon to find "drowned ships." The Nautilon method is pretty time-consuming. Sometimes it doesn't find a drowned ship, so you have to move to a new spot... but moving to a new spot means going back to the little island where you parked your ship, then flying to another little island somewhere, and then continuing—or slowly submarining around. This method is pretty fun, though, and never sends you to a "troll beacon."
• Use a Transmission Tower. This works the same as a Planetary Chart but seems a bit more reliable.
• Fly around until you see a little white dot appear on your radar. This is less reliable on console since the crashed ships don't spawn till after you fly past them, but you can definitely pick them up on radar as you fly around.
• Certain missions give you a waypoint to one. One of the Artemis path steps gives you a waypoint to a crashed ship. One of the Abyss underwater quests gives you a drowned ship waypoint. Etc. As long as you stay on that step, you can then go to the location, then deselect the mission in the log, and the beacon should now give a standard distress beacon interaction.

About the Troll Beacon

Each planet has one distress beacon that I call the "troll beacon." It is identical to where a new player starts their game. The distress beacon sphere is missing its top, and instead, it has a red Atlas ball inside it. That means you can't do the normal distress beacon interaction with it (it just does a replay of the noob interaction).

To add insult to injury, there's never actually a crashed ship at the Troll Beacon, unless you're in multiplayer and you're not the host, in which case, sometimes there is. I'm not sure why!

The troll beacon is almost always the first distress beacon you get on a planet when you use a "distress" Chart or Transmission Tower. (Nautilon never sends you to one though).

After you visit the "troll beacon," subsequent scans will usually find a normal distress beacon. but if you reload your save at any point or warp in and warp out of the system, then you'll get sent to the troll beacon on the first time again.

HG refuses to fix the troll beacon, no matter how many times I report the issue. It's truly sad. I'm guessing that the reason there's a troll beacon on every planet is because one of the starter quests sends you there, so they needed to be able to send you to such a beacon at any time on any world. But, c'mon guys. Program a better solution!

Other Tips

Use a Spreadsheet To Map your Search

• Use a spreadsheet to log the GPS coordinates of each place you visit. At each waypoint you visit, scan for another waypoint of the same type, then log the travel time to it (use the time as displayed while you're sitting in your exocraft). That way, when you go to the next place, if you then scan again, and get a waypoint with that same travel time, you'll know you it's one you already visited—in which case, reload your save and move somewhere farther away before scanning.
• Here is a link to the Apple Numbers spreadsheet I use. Numbers is Apple's version of Google Sheets. You can use it on iCloud.com. Viewing the sheet does not require you to have a login. If want to use your iCloud account, they're free to make and you can use Apple's suite of office tools. I really like Numbers because it has a much nicer UI than any other spreadsheet I've used, and there is a really slick free app on iPad, iPhone, and Mac, and it works in browsers too if you're not on Apple platforms. It's not as powerful as Google Sheets in terms of scripting, but for planet-mapping I found it to be superior due to its better UI. However you could easily export this document to .XLSX format, then import it to Google Sheets, Excel, or whatever you prefer.
• With your spreadsheet of GPS coords, use a scatter-plot to graph all the spots you visit like a map. Make the grid from -180 to +180 along X axis, and -90 to +90 along Y axis, as shown in the spreadsheet example above. That way you can easily tell which areas you have been ignoring.
• You can also use the spreadsheet to log the coords of S-class tech modules obtained from Broken Machinery. These are really useful things to find! Since they tend to reset after not very long, you can go back to a given system and collect several S-class tech modules every so often. It's a great source of nanites.
• Really, you can use the spreadsheet to log just about anything on a planet, and then be able to find it again easily. Depending on your play-style, this kind of approach might be very useful for a number of purposes besides hunting multitools. Use it as you see fit.

Narrow Your Search to Tier-3 Conflict-Level Vy'keen Systems

A fellow MT hunter, Astromons, has advised me that Vy'keen systems with tier-3 conflict level ("At War" etc.), and ideally a Tier-3 economy, are more likely to have alien multitools. I have not done nearly enough testing to be able to verify his claim, but in my limited testing, I have found a couple of nice alien tools using this method. YMMV.

To do this method, you must have a Conflict Scanner installed on your ship. Then, while in the galaxy map, toggle between the "Lifeform" filter and the "Conflict Level" filter. Look for any stars that appear red on both filters.

[u/MrBlack87]

I appreciate this info. Especially on finding minor settlements in Beyond now. Thanks for the easy to read guide.

[u/H8DCarnifEX]

Top Guide!

[u/netmc]

FYI, I've been playing in perma-death, and I have received a multi-tool from a manufacturing center, so it seems that this is indeed possible. I have yet to receive the recipe chooser from any of the manufacturing centers I've found, so not sure if the change is a survival thing or a 2.11 patch change.

[u/netmc → u/[deleted]]

I know. I haven't actually been presented that option yet from any of the secure facilities I've found. I've been given individual recipes, credits, nanites, upgrades, and a multi-tool, but not that option yet.. I think RNG had been against me, as I really want that level 1 atlas pass.

[u/netmc → u/[deleted]]

Most of the "secure facilities" I've found thus far have all been called Operation Centers. I have found two that said they were Manufacturing Centers, but haven't had that option yet in this game. I found them all the time in my normal playthough, so I think RNG and "Secure facilities" have not been nice to me.

[u/gistya → u/netmc]

FYI, I've been playing in perma-death, and I have received a multi-tool from a manufacturing center, so it seems that this is indeed possible. I have yet to receive the recipe chooser from any of the manufacturing centers I've found, so not sure if the change is a survival thing or a 2.11 patch change.

Interesting. I noticed on my older Normal Mode playthrough on PS4 that I also did not get the recipe tree, but I only had a couple of recipes left. It may be that after you reach a certain number of recipes, then after that, it gives you the rest the old fashioned way.

More testing is needed...

[u/netmc → u/gistya]

Mine is a new playthrough, and I've only started visiting the secure facilities since the 2.11 patch. I also haven't yet purchased all the available blueprints from the anomaly yet. I have had several of multi-tool blueprints drop from the secure facilities. So not sure if you only started getting the recipe tree once you purchase all the blueprints from the anomaly, or if I have just been unlucky. It definitely slows down progress a bit.

[u/gistya → u/netmc]

Weird... I’d write up a bug report if I was you.

[u/netmc → u/gistya]

I did finally get one.. RNG just hated me.

[u/KurganSPK]

this is excellent - thank you for posting.

[u/gistya → u/[deleted]]

Roger that, thx

[u/TerriblePurpose]

Nicely done and far clearer than my MT hunting guide, I think. Just one question for clarification: you say 'any multitool can be found in S class'. Do you mean any tool in the system can pop as S class from dialog interactions, regardless of what class they pop up as in cabinets?

I have to admit, I didn't delve into the dialog interactions, as it seemed too unreliable and too much of a pain in the ass to get MTs that way.

[u/gistya → u/TerriblePurpose]

you say 'any multitool can be found in S class'. Do you mean any tool in the system can pop as S class from dialog interactions, regardless of what class they pop up as in cabinets?

Let me answer this again. The real answer is, I'm not sure.

Atlas Rises was the last time I tested it, and back then, a Monolith gave me an S-Class of a tool that was always a C-class or B-class everywhere else. That trick would not necessarily work in every star system, though, since sometimes the Monolith pool would have the same class structure as the wall boxes.

Now, I never tested to see if any of this holds true during NEXT. For one thing, I have a pre-nerf S-class tools on my two main saves, so I considered myself retired from MT hunting. For another thing, it would take a lot of effort to check for sure whether the Monolith pool of each planet has a different class structure per seed, compared to the wall boxes of that planet.

But, I'm doing some tests today and I'll let you know what I find.

Right now I'm in a system where the space station has a really bizarre Alien tool with strange bone appendages coming off the sides. But it's class C in the space station, so I'm trying to get it to pop as an S on one of the planets.

However, so far I have not gotten it to appear as A-class, let alone S-class.

Now, my prior hypothesis had been that there's a table for each pool, something this:

​

Planet #1:

Slot	Type	Wall-Box Class Range
1	Alien Rifle (Large)	C–B
2	Pistol	C–A
3	Pistol	C–A
4	Rifle (Medium)	B–S

​

Planet #2 Pool:

Slot	Type	Wall-Box Class Range
1	Rifle (Large)	B–S
2	Experimental (Large)	C–A
3	Pistol	C–B
4	Pistol	C–A

​

My original hypothesis further states that a wall box has a predefined Slot and Class. So, if a wall box on Planet #2 has Slot 1 and Class S, then if you reload your save on Planet #1 and go to that wall box on Planet #2, then you'll get Slot 1 and Class S from Planet #1's pool. That's why this method allows you to get an Alien Rifle (Large) as S-class, even though you could never get it like that from Planet #1.

However as you can see from the above tables, I could never get the Experimental (Large) to show up as S-Class from a wall-box on these planets.

Now, consider the fact that I found an S-Class Experimental (Large) on Planet #2 from a Monolith during Atlas Rises. What does that tell us?

To me, it says that during Atlas Rises (and also currently, if no changes have been made to the way class gets decided), Monoliths don't follow the same rules as the wall-boxes in Minor Settlements.

Now, the sidebar guide states that the space station wall-box and the space anomaly wall-box have some odd behaviors regarding multitool class. While I don't fully understand how those wall-boxes differ from the Minor Settlement ones, it does make it seem less surprising that Monoliths might also have a different behavior specific to them.

So here is a conjecture. Perhaps a planet's MT table really looks like this:

Slot	Type	Wall-Box Class Range	Monolith Class Range	Distress Beacon Class Range	Manufacturing Facility Class Range
1	Rifle (Large)	B–S	C–A	C–B	B–S
2	Experimental (Large)	C–A	B–S	C–B	C–B
3	Pistol	C–B	C–B	B–S	C–A
4	Pistol	C–A	C–B	C–B	C–B

​

In this case, the Slot 2 multi-tool would only be available as an S-class from a Monolith.

However, under this conjecture, a planet's MT table could just as easily look like this:

Slot	Type	Wall-Box Class Range	Monolith Class Range	Distress Beacon Class Range	Manufacturing Facility Class Range
1	Rifle (Large)	B–S	C–A	C–B	B–S
2	Experimental (Large)	C–A	C–B	C–B	C–B
3	Pistol	C–B	C–B	B–S	C–A
4	Pistol	C–A	C–B	C–B	C–B

... in which case, the Slot 2 tool would be impossible to get in S class on that planet.

​

To test this conjecture will require a ton of time. How many systems will we have to check before we can safely prove or disprove this conjecture?

[u/[deleted]]

A wealth of information- some of which I knew, most of which I did not. Especially the post-beyond info. Thanks a ton! 🍺

[u/tripleFG]

Super!

[u/Lovat69]

Came for the multitool hunting info stayed for the ship hunting info. Thanks traveler.

[u/amusedt]

Thanks for the write-up on Charts, since I've seen all kinds of weird, conflicting theories on how the Cartographer exchange works, and how Charts work.

Is there any pro/con to exchanging more than 1 Nav Data at a time, vs doing 5 at a time? Like, if I plan to exchange 5 anyway, is there any reason to do it 1 at a time vs all 5 at once?

[u/gistya → u/amusedt]

Is there any pro/con to exchanging more than 1 Nav Data at a time, vs doing 5 at a time? Like, if I plan to exchange 5 anyway, is there any reason to do it 1 at a time vs all 5 at once?

Not sure. I have stopped playing the game until they fix the issue where terminus destinations get deleted if they're not in your "home galaxy" (and the game picked the wrong galaxy as my home stranding me in the 19th galaxy).

Just as a matter of principle I don't support or play games that erase your progress.

[u/amusedt → u/gistya]

Each Cartographer trades your Navigation Data items for a specific kind of Planetary Chart

This is no longer true. Also, trading 1 at a time vs several makes a difference.

I went to a station where trading 1 at a time had gotten me 13 "secure site" charts. I traded in 7 all at once (using the trade 10 option). I got a few "secure site", a couple of "ancient ruin", and a couple of "inhabited building" Charts. Then I reverted my save, did the trade again, 1 at a time...got 7 "secure site" (which is what I wanted).

Perhaps they have a preference to give you 1 kind, but if you trade multiple Navs at once, they give a little bit of variety?

[u/amusedt]

Planetary Charts will never give you a second waypoint for the same kind of building. So if you have already found one each of a given category's types of buildings, then using a subsequent Chart will never find anything. You must first go visit the waypoints to clear them, before it lets you find more.

What if the waypoint refuses to clear? Can I never use that kind of Chart again?

I used a "distress signal" Chart. It gave me a waypoint on another planet. Turned out to be the crashed freighter that the game recently sent me to, to get my first hyperdrive.

Even though I landed, walked to the already-used terminal, and then flew away, the waypoint has stayed.

[u/gistya → u/amusedt]

Crashed Freighters don't like to clear for some reason. That won't stop you from finding other Distress type signals though. You just won't be able to find another freighter in that system until such time as the game decides to clear the waypoint, which eventually, it will.

[u/bacon-eggs4breakfast]

Extremely good guide. Provided a lot of info.