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The subject of this article is from the Echoes update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 13 February, 2024. |
The subject of this article is from the Echoes update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 13 February, 2024.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 13 February, 2024.

Grave marker
Death forces a player to reload the game.
Summary[ | ]
Death plays an important role in No Man's Sky[1] Although there is not a permanent death except in Permadeath mode, penalties are applied to the players depending on the conditions in which they die.
Penalties[ | ]
- Upon death (by losing all health points) the player loses all discoveries not uploaded to the Atlas, and all resources the player was carrying and had not stored/sold properly. However, the resources will be put in a "grave" where the player died so they can be collected again. (Note: Upon logging out your gravemarker will disappear)
- See Starship destruction for rules regarding death and your starship.
- Items such as the multi-tool, exosuit, jetpack and blueprints are not lost.
- In Survival mode all resources the player was carrying are lost.
- If the player dies in space while outside of their starship, such as by falling through an unloaded area, they will not receive any penalties. In a multiplayer game, the death message will display, "<player> died (Death by cosmic ray bombardment)".
- If the player dies upon returning to their graves, the player will lose ALL items carried previously.
- Even though all items will be lost if the grave is not retrieved before dying a second time, all installed tech of the exosuit will remain.
Causes[ | ]
There are several ways for the player to die and each one will result in different messages to be displayed. The following list is taken from the game file.
- Voluntary – Life became too hard. Falling on your own Plasma Grenade.
- Police – Death by System Authority Starship.
- Asteroid – Death by asteroid collision.
- Landing – Death by high speed ground-impact. (Death due to collision with terrain when using jetpack)
- Freighter – Death by freighter defence laser system.
- Ship – Death by ship combat.
- Gun – Death by Sentinel attack drone.
- Creature – Death by planetary predator.
- Standstone – Death by mysterious relic.
- Laser – Death by laser.
- Player – Anomalous Combat Death Detected (Death by another player)
- Terrain – Death by catastrophic planetary impact. (Death due to collision with terrain when using starship)
- Radiation – Death by radiation.
- Toxic – Death by toxic inhalation.
- Cold – Death by hypothermia.
- Drown – Death by oxygen starvation.
- Heat – Death by heat exposure.
- Walker – Death by Sentinel walker.
- Energy – Death by life support system failure
- Plant – Death from deadly plant toxins
- Lost in Space – Death by cosmic ray bombardment (Death by exposure to space, for example falling off a frigate.)
- Fiend – Death by stalking monstrosity
- Green Jellyfish/Minifiend – Death by Space Horror
Quotes[ | ]
Each time the player dies, the screen fades to black and the player is presented with one of the following quotes randomly.
The sequence is taken from the game file.
Order | Description | Quoted from |
---|---|---|
1. | The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. |
Larry Niven, Ringworld |
2. | The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. |
Arthur C. Clarke |
3. | I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. |
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul |
4. | In such seconds of decision entire futures are made. | Dan Simmons. Hyperion |
5. | The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive. |
Robert Heinlein |
6. | All reality is a game. | Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games |
7. | We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. | Ray Bradbury |
8. | Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. |
Isaac Asimov |
9. | Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. | Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon |
10. | The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. |
Frank Herbert, Dune |
11. | To appreciate the wonder of the universe, one must first remain alive. |
Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence |
12. | I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. |
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country |
13. | We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. |
H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu |
14. | A star has died. Elsewhere in the cosmos, in an unremarkable corner of one galactic arm, a child was born. Such is the balance of existence. |
Alan Dean Foster, Star Trek |
15. | I see the blackness. Worse than space, worse than anything. Utterly black, and it swallows me whole. |
James Smythe, The Explorer |
16. | Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life... |
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine |
17. | There's a difference between the fact that the universe is inherently unfair on a cosmic level, and the fact that life is unfair because people are actively making it so. |
John Scalzi, Old Man's War |
18. | So much universe, and so little time. | Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero |
19. | I guess you could call it a 'failure', but I prefer the term 'learning experience'. |
Andy Weir, The Martian |
20. | I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke. | Neil Gaiman, American Gods |
21. | There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality. |
Steven Spielberg |
22. | Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end. | Stephen Hawking |
23. | Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. |
Albert Einstein |
24. | There seems to be more to the universe than random, chaotic, purposeless movement of a collection of molecular particles. |
Edgar D. Mitchell (Apollo 14 astronaut) |
25. | We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. |
Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave |
26. | Stability is the beginning of the end. We only walk by continually beginning to fall forward. |
William Gibson |
27. | Even when the world throws it worst and then turns in its back, there is still always hope. |
Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six |
28. | Reality is shaped by the forces that destroy it. | D. Harlan Wilson, The Kyoto Man |
29. | We walk in dark places no others will enter. | J. Michael Straczynski |
30. | If you're going to do something that crazy, save it for when it'll make a difference. |
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice |
31. | Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death? |
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein |
32. | Here lies one from a distant star, but the soil is not alien to him, for in death he belongs to the universe. |
Clifford D. Simak, Way Station |
33. | We think everything in this universe has to conform to our paradigm of what makes sense. |
Robert Buettner, Overkill |
34. | Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. | Carl Sagan |
35. | Sometimes I think I must have a Guardian Idiot. | Spider Robinson |
36. | We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark? |
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and the Real Volume 2 |
Additional information[ | ]
- The causes are extracted from the NMS_LOC1_ENGLISH.MBIN (1.77) and NMS_LOC4_ENGLISH.MBIN (1.77) game files, while the quotes are extracted from the NMS_LOC1_ENGLISH.MBIN (1.77) game file.
Videos[ | ]
References[ | ]
- ↑ 41 amazing things you might not know about No Man's Sky (3 August 2015) Retrieved on 11 July 2016