Summary
TheNo Man’s Sky: Orbitalupdate landed on July 25, 2025. This was the 31stmajor updatetoNo Man’s Skysince its rocky launch in 2016. TheOrbitalexpansion brings some excellent new features, including finally fulfilling a long-term community wish, and providing a way for Starships to be modified and crafted.
TheOrbitalupdate also added many new station variations, and a complete overhaul of station interiors. This means that players who previously knew exactly where to find every station facility will now need to track them down in their new format. The new station interior layouts are very different from the single, original one from before theOrbitalupdate.
Located Directly In Front Of The Docking Tube On The Ground Floor
How to find:
How manyNo Man’s Skyplayers ever thought to themselves, why did they put the teleporter there? In the old station interior, the teleporter was about as far away from the docking bay as something could get. And, of course, with its symmetrical layout, players also had to remember which side of the station the teleporter was on.
In theOrbitalupdate, the teleporter has been moved to the perfect position. It is in the middle of the ground floor of the station, right in front of the docking bay. Running from ship to teleporter or vice versa, now takes just a few seconds. Now if only the location of the teleporter onNMS freighterscould be moved to such a logical place.
One of the minorgameplay loops inNMShas always been the need to hop around to multiple different stations looking for commodities to buy, or seeking the best price when selling commodities. This used to mean the player had to exit the teleporter, run all the way along the station to the galactic trade terminal, check it, perform any required transactions, and then run back along the station to the teleporter. Phew.
Making this run to and from the galactic trade terminal, potentially dozens of times, was tedious at best. The good news is, that with theOrbitalupdate, the galactic trade terminal has been put in the perfect place. It is on the opposite wall to the teleporter. Players just need to step through the teleporter, and the trade terminal will be right in front of them when they exit warp.
Located On The Ground Floor At The Left Side Of The Companionway
InNo Man’s Sky, the cartographer sells and trades certain types of maps, such asplanetary maps, for example. This is another station facility that was annoyingly far away from the main docking bay in the old station layout beforeOrbital.
The cartographer NPC is now handily located on the bottom floor of the station interior, right next to the docking bay. It is in the next alcove over to the teleporter and galactic trade terminal. Once again, this tightens a minor gameplay loop, reducing the amount of time the player has to spend just running across the station over and over again.
Moved To The New Large Terminal Area At The Rear Of The Station
Staying on the ground floor of the new station interiors inNo Man’s Sky: Orbital, the ship outfitting terminal has been moved to the very back of the station, in a large, open area. Players looking for the new location of this terminal just need to move to the back of the station past the teleporter.
Look for the left-hand terminal with the large holograph of a starship hovering above it. This is the new location of the ship outfitting terminal in theOrbitalupdate.NMS Orbitaladds functionality to this terminal, in the form of allowing players to salvage ship upgrade parts when scrapping a ship.
A New Terminal Added To The Open Area At The Rear Of The Station
Located to the right of the starship outfitting terminal, right in the middle at the rear of the station, is the new starship fabricator terminal. This was added inOrbital, and provides the capability for players to craft upgrade components and design and build entirely new ships, leading to more diversity in thetypes of shipsinNo Man’s Sky.
This terminal uses salvaged or looted ship construction parts and upgrade modules as the input. These can be obtained by looting, or by scrapping ships that have either been found as crashed ships and repaired, or purchased from NPCs.
Moved To The Area At The Rear Of The Station
There was obviously a lot of thought put into the new station interior layouts inNMS Orbital. The large appearance modifier terminal sits on the left of the starship fabricator, and makes up one of the three large terminals that use this big open area at the rear of the station.
This is the last of the station facilities on the ground floor that this article will cover. No new functionality was added to this terminal in theOrbitalupdate, apart from the tweaks to the color palette that are common to everything in this update.
Moved To The Top Floor Gantry
Moving up to the top floor of the station, merchant booths are located in a group of alcoves that run across the top floor station gantry that links both sides of the viewing area. Each alcove has two merchant booths, one on each of the facing walls.
In theOrbitalupdate, the merchant NPCs got a visual update. There is now much more diversity in clothing and body features. They are also much more colorful now, making thisprocedurally generated contentmore organic looking. However, they still sell exactly the same goods as before the update, nothing new here at all.
Moved To The Dividing Walls On The Top Floor Gantry
This is the only change to station interiors in theNMS Orbitalupdate that doesn’t place something in a much more logical location. Prior to the update, these terminals were each located right next to the corresponding merchant. The weapon terminal was next to the weapon merchant, and so on.
In the new station layout, these terminals have been moved to the end of the walls, creating a divide between each of the alcoves that the merchant NPCs now reside within. OK, this is only a minor gripe, and most players will seldom need to find these terminals once they have good S-grade gear anyway.
Now In A Nice New Office On The Top Floor
It seems that the guild envoy NPC has received a promotion in theNo Man’s Sky: Orbitalupdate. Before, he used to have a small booth on merchants row. Now, he has his own office over on the right-hand side of the top floor of the station, towards the back, in the corner.
Guild missions received a pretty decent buff in the Orbtal update, including howmany nanitesare given as a reward, and are now much more worthwhile to take on and complete. Perhaps this is why the guild envoy NPC was given a swanky new office.
