No Man’s Sky: How to find a Portal

Portals in No Man’s Sky allow players to instantly jump to any planet within a galaxy. This is an extremely useful feature in No Man’s Sky which allows players to share their world with other players. Moreover, it can also help players travel to a new galaxy without having to spend a lot of time and resources to exit their current galaxy.

Portals can be found on all planets in a star system. To activate a portal, players first have to learn how to use it, which is taught during the Atermis Path storyline.

Finding a portal in No Man’s Sky requires some small steps of preparation. The guaranteed way of finding a portal on any planet is through the use of an Exocraft (except a Minotaur). You need to install the Exocraft Signal Booster Upgrade Tau technology in that Exocraft. The blueprint for this technology can be purchased at the Space Analomy by spending Nanites.

The Exocraft will help you find a Monolith first. The Monolith will then reveal the location of a portal.

How to find an Alien Monolith

You may stumble upon a Monolith during exploration of a planet, but that’s a tedious affair. Buying a Planetary Chart for an ancient artefact site from a Cartographer on a Space Station may also work, but the chart may also reveal the location of historic sites or ruins, making it a trial-and-error approach for finding Monoliths. Hence, the reliable (and quicker) way is to use an Exocraft with the required technology installed.

1. Go to any planet where you have a base installed, and summon your Exocraft. You will need to have an Exocraft Geobay installed to summon it, or a Summoning Station installed in your Freighter.
2. Hop on to your Exocraft and use the quick menu to use the Exocraft Radar.
3. Choose the “Scan for Alien Structure” option.
4. After a quick scan, the location of an Alien Monolith will be revealed.

How to find a Portal

Once you receive the location of an alien Monolith, head to the location and interact with the Monolith. It will interact with you and offer a cryptic challenge. If you answer with the correct input, you will be able to interact with the Monolith again. If the Monolith does not like your answer, you will not be able to interact with it again.

If you put in the wrong input, you can find the location of another Monolith on the same planet. However, you won’t find more Monolith on the same planet once you’ve given the right answer. Giving the right answer will allow you to interact with the Monolith. Now, you have to offer the Monolith a relic to receive the location of a portal.

The relic will depend on the dominant race in the star system. If the star system is controlled by the Gek, you give the Gek Relic, if it is a Vy’keen-controlled star system, you offer the Vy’keen Effigy, and you offer the Korvax Casing if the system is ruled by the Korax race.

Submitting the required relic will reveal the portal location. Make sure you have the dominant race’s relic when you find the monolith. You can find the relic by heading to a trading post and purchasing the relic from an NPC pilot of the same race.