Part of the Beginner's series:

Quick Answer

  • Awakenings is the opening mission chain. Every new save starts inside it, on every platform and in every game mode.
  • It runs from waking beside a damaged starship on a random planet through to your first hyperdrive jump.
  • Along the way it teaches you mining, crafting, refining, the Analysis Visor, the Terrain Manipulator, base building, and warping.
  • Expect roughly two to four hours if you follow the markers. Longer if you stop to explore, and most people do.
  • Core materials are Ferrite Dust, Carbon, Di-hydrogen, and Sodium. The game prompts you with exact amounts, so gather generously rather than counting.
  • It ends when you warp for the first time and the story hands you over to the Artemis Path.

Overview

Awakenings is the game teaching itself to you while pretending to be a story. You wake up with no memory, no fuel, and a suit that is losing hazard protection by the second, and the mission chain walks you through every core system in the order you will actually need them. It is not optional in any meaningful sense, and trying to route around it usually costs more time than following it.

The chain is broken into smaller sub-missions with their own names and objectives, and those names shift slightly between updates. What does not shift is the shape of it: survive, repair, launch, build, meet the Anomaly, warp.

Every start is procedurally different. Your planet might be a mild grassland or a scorched radioactive rock with a storm rolling in every four minutes. The steps are identical either way. Only the difficulty of standing outside changes.

Stage by Stage

Stage What you do What it teaches
Wake up Manage hazard protection and life support, find the ship Survival meters, recharging from resources
Multi-Tool repair Fix the Scanner and Analysis Visor Multi-Tool basics, scanning, crafting components
Gather materials Mine Ferrite Dust, Carbon, Di-hydrogen, Sodium Resource identification, the Terrain Manipulator
Refine Build a Portable Refiner, make Pure Ferrite Refining, portable technology
Repair the ship Fix damaged systems, craft launch fuel Technology slots, installation, fuel
Reach space Launch, fly, orbit Flight controls, pulse drive
Claim a base Place a Base Computer Base building, territory claims
Space Anomaly Meet Nada and Polo Hub systems, upgrades, multiplayer space
Hyperdrive Install it, fuel it, warp Warping, star systems, the Artemis Path handoff

Stage 1: Waking Up

You start face down beside a damaged ship with your suit already draining. Two meters matter immediately. Hazard Protection depletes based on the planet's environment, and Life Support drains constantly no matter where you are.

Recharge hazard protection with Sodium, which comes from the yellow-flowered plants dotted across most surfaces. Recharge life support with Carbon from any plant or tree, or from an Oxygen deposit if one is nearby. Do this before you do anything else. A surprising number of first deaths happen while someone stands still reading the crafting menu.

If your planet is brutal, duck inside your ship or any cave to pause the hazard drain while you sort your inventory. For a fuller breakdown of the meters and what refills them, see the survival guide covering life support and hazard protection.

Stage 2: Multi-Tool Repairs

The first proper objective points you at your Multi-Tool. Repair the Scanner and then the Analysis Visor. Both need small amounts of Carbon, and the Visor needs a crafted component that the game will walk you through making.

Do not skip these. The Scanner pings nearby resources onto your compass, and the Analysis Visor lets you tag deposits, creatures, and plants from a distance. Without them you are hunting blind, which is the largest time sink in the opening hour.

Get comfortable with the Terrain Manipulator once it becomes available too. It digs and tunnels, and it is how you reach buried resources or carve an emergency shelter out of a hillside during a storm.

Stage 3: Gathering

Four materials carry the entire opening chain:

  • Ferrite Dust from rocks, boulders, and stone formations. Mine everything you walk past.
  • Carbon from plants and trees. Also fuel for a lot of early technology.
  • Di-hydrogen from the glowing blue crystal formations. Distinctive, but not present on every square kilometre of terrain.
  • Sodium from yellow-flowered plants. Keeps your hazard protection topped up.

Overgather. The prompts will tell you exactly how much of each thing a recipe wants, and those numbers change between recipes, so counting ahead is wasted effort. Having a surplus of Ferrite Dust and Carbon in particular saves you a second trip.

Stage 4: The Portable Refiner

At some point the chain asks for Pure Ferrite, which you cannot mine. You build a Portable Refiner from Ferrite Dust, drop it on the ground, feed it Ferrite Dust, and it converts. It runs on Carbon as fuel.

Two things trip people up here. First, refining takes real time, so start it and go mine something else rather than watching the bar. Second, and this is the classic mistake, pick the refiner back up before you walk away. It is a placed object, not an inventory item, and leaving it behind means rebuilding it later when the chain asks for more Pure Ferrite. If you want the fuller picture on what refines into what, the crafting and refining basics guide covers the ratios.

Stage 5: Repairing the Ship

With materials in hand, open the ship's technology tab and work through the damaged slots. Each one names its requirement, and each requirement is either something you already have or something you craft from what you already have. The chain also routes you to a nearby shelter or structure for at least one component that cannot be mined, so follow the marker rather than assuming you can craft your way through it.

Last comes launch fuel. Your Launch Thruster needs charging before the ship will lift, and it needs charging again after every landing early on. Keep the ingredients for it in your inventory as a habit.

If any single repair step is giving you trouble, the dedicated ship repair walkthrough breaks each system down individually.

Stage 6: Leaving the Planet

Board, launch, and pull up. Once you clear the atmosphere you are in space, and the game gives you the Pulse Drive for crossing distances that would otherwise take twenty minutes.

Fly around your home system for a few minutes and land at a space station. Station pads refill your launch fuel for free, which is worth remembering permanently.

Stage 7: Your First Base

The chain then asks you to place a Base Computer. Pick somewhere flat and near resources, but do not agonise over it. Almost everyone abandons their first base within ten hours once they find a planet they actually like, and you can dismantle a Base Computer to reclaim the claim later.

What matters is that placing it teaches you the build menu and unlocks base technology you will use permanently. The base building guide for beginners is worth reading once you are ready to build somewhere for real.

Stage 8: The Space Anomaly

Shortly after, you are summoned to the Space Anomaly, a station that exists outside normal systems and can be called into any system you are in. Inside you meet Priest Entity Nada and Specialist Polo, the two characters who quietly run half the game's progression.

The Anomaly is where you find the Nexus for multiplayer missions, terminals for unlocking base parts and technology blueprints, and other players wandering around. Nada also offers a choice about which story path to prioritise, and that conversation is where the Atlas thread first surfaces. If you want to know what you are agreeing to, read the Atlas Path story and endings guide before you commit.

Stage 9: Hyperdrive and the Warp

The final beat is the Hyperdrive. You are pointed at the blueprint, you gather what it needs, you install it in your ship, and you fuel it with Warp Cells. The chain guides you through acquiring the fuel components, so follow the prompts rather than trying to source them independently.

Then you open the galaxy map, pick a system, and warp. That jump is the end of Awakenings. The story transitions straight into the Artemis Path, which is the actual narrative campaign, and the tutorial framing drops away.

What Not to Waste Time On

  • Chasing a better ship. Crashed ships you spot early are almost always worse than yours and cost more to repair.
  • Perfecting your first base. It is scaffolding. Build the computer, move on.
  • Hoarding trade goods. You have barely any inventory slots yet. Units come easily later.
  • Scanning every creature on the starting planet. The payout scales badly against the time cost this early.
  • Long-distance exploration on foot. Until your ship flies, distance is expensive.

Where People Stall

No Di-hydrogen anywhere. It is the most common wall. The blue crystals are not evenly distributed. Get in your ship if it flies, or walk a few hundred metres in a new direction, and use the Analysis Visor to tag deposits from a ridge. Caves frequently contain them.

The Portable Refiner left behind. Covered above, and worth repeating because it happens to almost everyone once.

Ignoring hazard protection. People read menus while standing in acid rain. Recharge before you craft, and step inside during storms.

Not scanning. The Analysis Visor exists to stop you wandering. Use it every time you are unsure where something is.

More patterns like these are collected in the common beginner mistakes guide.

FAQ

How long does Awakenings take?

Roughly two to four hours if you follow the markers without detours, and five or six if you stop to explore. Difficulty settings matter: a relaxed custom setting removes most of the survival pressure, while Survival or Permadeath stretch the same content considerably.

Can I skip Awakenings?

Not properly. Some game modes and custom difficulty settings loosen the early survival constraints, and creative-style settings hand you resources, but the mission chain still gates your hyperdrive and the Artemis Path behind it. Even experienced players restarting a save just run it fast rather than skipping it.

I cannot find Di-hydrogen. What now?

Look for glowing blue crystalline formations, often in clusters and often in caves or along cliff faces. Use the Analysis Visor from high ground to spot them at range. If the immediate area is barren, move. Planet surfaces vary enormously across a few hundred metres, and the mineral simply is not everywhere.

What comes after Awakenings?

The Artemis Path, the main story campaign, which begins as soon as you complete your first warp. Our full Artemis Path walkthrough covers every mission from here to The Purge, including the two that stop most runs. Alongside it you can pursue the Atlas Path and the various expedition and faction questlines. The early game checklist covers what is worth doing in the hours immediately after.

Do I have to build the base where the mission tells me?

No. The mission asks you to place a Base Computer, not to place it in a specific spot. Anywhere flat and safe works. You can dismantle it and reclaim the base slot later, so treat the location as temporary.

Key Takeaways

  • Awakenings is the mandatory opening chain and the game's real tutorial. Follow the markers rather than fighting them.
  • Survival comes first. Sodium for hazard protection, Carbon for life support, and both topped up before you open a crafting menu.
  • Repair the Scanner and Analysis Visor immediately. Everything after that is faster with them.
  • Overgather Ferrite Dust, Carbon, Di-hydrogen, and Sodium, and let the in-game prompts tell you the exact amounts.
  • Pick the Portable Refiner back up. Every time.
  • Your first base is disposable. Place it, learn the build menu, move on.
  • The chain ends at your first warp, and the Artemis Path takes over from there.