No Man's Sky - How to get an Atlas Pass

An Atlas Pass is a special kind of key card that let's you open locked doors on space stations. Players can earn an Atlas Pass blueprint during the game and then keep the luxury of opening doors without any restrictions. Passes come in different versions aptly named V1, V2, V3 etc. In this post I'll explain exactly how you get one of these passes.

Although No Man's Sky is relatively open to players, it doesn't mean that there aren't any locked or inaccessible areas. Far from it. Every space station that you visit has a certain number of rooms, some of which will be locked behind the "Atlas pass required" message:

Atlas Pass message

The key to entering these rooms is to have the special keycard in your possession - you then have free reign over all of the space station rooms. Is it worth the hassle? Yes, because these locked rooms usually contain rare resources, notably resources required for crafting Warp Cell's which are a fundamental mechanic for reaching the end game.

How to get the Atlas Pass

1. Atlas Stations

One thing new players seem to miss is that there are actually missions in No Man's Sky. These are hidden under the Discoveries tab in the games inventory/menu screens and these missions guide you on your way to the center of the universe and the end of the game. The easiest way to start the missions is to accept the "Atlas Path" quest from the Orb next to your crashed ship at the beginning of the game - many of you may have left that planet already though.

By following the missions you will eventually uncover a specific Monolith and reach a point where an Atlas Station is highlighted on your map. You can of course find these Atlas Stations yourself by exploring systems and spotting the red coloured station. The image above shows what a Atlas Station looks like up close but to find one of these on your map you need to look for the marker with red dots around it - see image below:

Atlas Station highlighted on map

Step by Step

Fill up your Hyperdrive with Warp Cell's
Travel to one of the Atlas Stations (see image above for map marker example)
Go inside the station and communicate with the large Orb NPC inside
Accept favourable requests
As a reward you should earn the Atlas Pass blueprint and possibly Atlas Stones (which are worth a tremendous amount of credits)

2. Space Anomaly

The alternative way to get your hands on a pass is to find a "Space Anomaly" which is a massive sphere object that sometimes appears close to other planets. See the image above to understand what these look like.

Fly towards the anomaly and dock your ship inside. Head up the gangway, speak to one of the NPC's and answer the dialogue favourably - in my game I simply handed over species data (required level 3). In return you may receive an Atlas Pass blueprint for your safe keeping.

3. Colonial Outposts (Atlas Pass V2, V3)

To acquire the high level versions (V2, V3) of the Atlas Pass you will need to craft bypass chips. Exchange these with the orange orbs for information pertaining to "Colonial Outposts". Hunt down the Operations Center or Manufacturing facility and answer the question correctly (I chose upload comms) to earn the higher tier pass.