No Man's Sky Echoes Autophage Quest complete guide

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Official No Man's Sky artwork (Image via Hello Games)

No Man's Sky is a game filled with endless exploration and quests. With the title being centered around space exploration, it gives gamers the freedom to choose their own path across the enormous cosmos. However, this open-ended gameplay can sometimes leave players feeling puzzled or unsure of how to start out on particular objectives.

In response to this issue, the most recent No Man's Sky update added a fascinating new race of aliens who resemble machines, as well as an entire narrative line for players to engage in. The game purposefully makes it difficult for players to find the starting point for the first quest, "Those Who Returned," by not giving clear directions on where to go.

In this article, we will walk you through everything you need to know to get started with the Autophage storyline in No Man's Sky.


How to start the Autophage questline in No Man's Sky?

There are three things that you need to complete to get access to the Autophage quests:

  • Finish the main quests, also known as the Artemis storyline.
  • Have a settlement and finish the “A Trace of Metal” questline.
  • Go to a corrupted planet in a dissonant star system.

Once these three conditions are met, you can start the Autophage questline in No Man's Sky.


No Man's Sky complete Autophage questline walkthrough

Once you defeat a Sentinel Dreadnought, you will have to warp to a different star system. It can be any random system but you need to make sure you have completed the three aforementioned prerequisites. If you successfully fulfill the neccessary criteria, you will be greeted with the following message:

“Starship Alert: Starship Monitoring System reports: File Registry…FRAGMENTED; Autodiagnostics…ERROR. Unable to verify system integrity. Manual input required”

Once you see this pop up on your screen, the Autophage questline will begin for you.

For the manual input, you will get three options:

  • Run diagnostics: This will give you an error and run the previous message from the start.
  • Verify system integrity: This will give you the same result as the previous one.
  • View fragmentation map: This is the one you need to choose.

Once you choose the last input, you will be greeted with this message:

“The ship computer presents me with a raw memory readout, address blocks lighting, and dimming as they are accessed by internal processes.”

After reading a few more lines of text, you will get a starship alert that will need you to “Analyse a Block”.


Visit the Unknown Hijack Source

Once you complete the Block Analysis, you will learn that an unknown source is trying to hijack your starship. You will need to “Decline the overwrite” and get the coordinates to the Unknown Hijack Source.

Upon reaching the new star system, you will be guided to the planet you need to land on. From here onwards, you will able to enjoy the real deal that comes with the Autophage update in No Man's Sky.

You will have to interact with an Autopage head, Autophagy x-5Y, at the Harmonic Camp. Doing this will reveal the location of a monolith. When you reach the ancient structure, interact with the glyph portal and “Offer 50 Atlantideum.” Then you will be able to interact with the monolith.


Repair the Autophage Head at the Harmonic Camp

Once you finish listening to everything that the monolith has to say, you will gain knowledge of a few words from the new race’s language in No Man's Sky.

Return to the Harmonic Camp and interact with the Autophage head again. You will have to repair the memory of the head with the following glyphs: 14, 4, and 9. This will defragment the Translation Module and you will finally be able to understand the Autophage head.


Build the Scan Harmoniser

After a long conversation with the head, you will get the blueprint for a Scan Harmoniser. This is a multi-tool upgrade that will allow you to decode cloaking signals of Autophage units in your vicinity. You will need the following items to construct this:

  • 1 Radiant Shard
  • 1 Microprocessor
  • 100 Runaway Mould

Besides this blueprint, you will also receive some Void Mote - Essence of Atlantid for assisting the Autophage at the Harmonic Camp. This is the currency that the Autophage race uses for day-to-day transactions.

After you finish constructing the Scan Harmoniser, the game will ask you to scan for nearby Autophages. Once these are revealed, you will have to interact with the nearby Autophage units.


Go to the Anomaly and talk to Nada

After interacting with all the nearby Autophage units, you will have to visit Nada in the Space Anomaly of No Man's Sky. Nada will give you a brief overview of these units and he will call them Builder Entities.

Following this visit, you will have to go and interact with the Assembled Construct. This is the robot that you constructed during the previous expedition.


Construct the Polyphonic Core

Once you finish talking, you will receive a new technology blueprint that will allow you to construct an S-class Polyphonic Core. This is an Autophage Resonance Key that serves as an attachment to the previously constructed multi-tool scanner.

You will need the following items to construct this item:

  • 190 Atlantideum
  • 1 Quantum Computer
  • 1 Living Glass

After constructing this item, you must charge it with 40 Atlantideum and then you will have to go back and talk to Nada. Make sure to select your mission after constructing the Polyphonic Core as No Man's Sky has a tendency to remove the active missions and pin something else that is irrelevant to the task at hand.

Talking to Nada will unlock the following Secondary Missions:

  • Prayers of the Machine
  • Audience with the Autophage

Research Properties of Atlantideum

This comes as a part of the “Prayers of the Machine” mission in No Man's Sky. For this, you will have to offer Atlantideum to an “electronic heart and note its response”. Scanning the Space Anomaly will reveal its location.

You will be led to the Korvax Simulation Terminal, where you will have to offer the Atlantideum. This terminal will then give you the location of the next checkpoint.

You will have to exit the Space Anomaly and scan for an Electronic Processing Unit. Once detected, you will have to visit the planet that hosts the Factory Operations CPU.

Once you reach the location, you will have to break the door of the Manufacturing Facility and reveal the Atlantideum.

After interacting with the computer inside, you will have to leave the facility and scan for the Electronic Processing Unit. You will then have to make your way to the Space Station and interact with the Station Core.

However, the Space Station Core will fail to execute your input. Consequently, you will have to test out the Atlantideum in your own Starship after scanning for the Electronic Processing Unit again.

Exit the Space Station and enter into Pulse Drive mode to search for a New Atlantid in No Man’s Sky. After pulsing through space for a few seconds, you will detect an echo and receive an incoming message stating, “Frequency Dissonance Detected.”

After interacting with this Curiosity, you can destroy it to receive some Atlantideum. Then, head over to the Autophage camp marked on a nearby planet and interact with the designated Autophage Unit.


Audience with the Autophage

Upon reaching the marked camp, you will have to interact with the waypoint to reveal the individuals, after which you can talk to Beta-Construct Yundhar. You will have to offer 2 Life Support Gels to this Construct and you will receive a blueprint that will allow you to craft a Fibreglass Grip. This is crucial as you will need it to build the traditional Autophage Voltaic Staff in No Man's Sky. You will need the following items to craft the Fibreglass Grip:

  • 1 Glass
  • 50 Pure Ferrite
  • 3 Carbon Nanotubes

Upon further interaction with the Construct, it will reveal that this Staff is a holy symbol and a multi-tool that is sacred to their race. You receiving the blueprint is a sign that they are beginning to accept you in No Man’s Sky.

After you finish interacting with these Units, your Autophage rank will increase. Then, you will have to go and meet other Autophage Units in a different star system.

Once you reach the new system, you will have to use the scanner on your multi-tool to scan for remote Autophage signals. You will be led to a Drop Pod’s location. You will find an Autophage Unit here and you will have to reveal your Fibreglass Grip to this entity.


Help the partially built Autophage

After interacting with the Unit at the Drop Pod, you will be given a mission, where you have to help repair a partially constructed Autophage in No Man's Sky. Fly over to the location marked on the same planet and scan with your Visor to locate the exact position of this Unit. You will have to repair the damaged components inside the Autophage. You will need the following items:

  • 10 Sodium
  • 10 Magnetised Ferrite
  • 1 Antimatter Housing

After fixing this Unit, you will have to return to the Drop Pod and talk to the previous Unit. You will have to Hand in the Mission to this Unit and as a reward you will receive a blueprint for the Atlantideum Chamber. This is one of the three core components you will require to eventually build the Voltaic Staff. You will need the following items to craft this item:

  • 1 Wiring Loom
  • 1 Radiant Shard
  • 1 Microprocessor

Having finished your conversation here, you will have to warp to a different star system to interact with more Autophage Units. Reach the planet with the Autophage Signal and scan for the Units.

Once this next Unit is revealed, you'll have to show your Atlantideum Chamber to it.


Salvage starship components worth 540,000 units

After this, the Autophage Unit will reveal the location of a broken-down ship that you must salvage. Since you can have a maximum of 12 ships in No Man's Sky, you will have to trade one of your existing ships to take this one if you have reached the limit.

Another thing to note is that you can scrap any ship for this particular mission. It can be one that No Man's Sky marks for you or you can use one of your own that you don’t need.

Return to the Autophage that gave you the mission and hand over the scrap. He will give you a blueprint for the Concentric Transducer. This is another one of the three components that you need to build the Voltaic Staff. You will need the following items to craft this Transducer:

  • 1 Superconductor
  • 50 Magnetised Ferrite

After constructing this item, you will have to scan for an Autophage Camp. Once you reach the camp, scan for the Autophage Synthesis Terminal and look for Staff Assembly. Here, you will have to provide the 3 items you constructed throughout the duration of this mission so far in No Man's Sky and build the Voltaic Staff.

Once you finish assembling the Staff, you can claim it for free and this will be set as your default multi-tool in No Man's Sky.

After this, you will have to scan to detect a Portal Leyline’s location. You can use your Staff to “open doors that were closed before.” You will have to travel to the revealed location and interact with the Portal.

Once you finish interacting with the Portal, it will turn purple and you will have to travel through it.

You will be transferred into the middle of space temporarily, but you don’t have to panic as you will be sent to the Atlas Station in No Man's Sky. Here, you will have to present the Atlantideum to the crimson interface.

You will have to force the Atlas to accept your Atlantideum and once that is done, this interface will reveal a lot of backstory about the Korvax and the Autophage races.

After the interaction ends, you will be transferred to an unknown planet. You will then have to summon the Space Anomaly in No Man's Sky and talk to Nada. Once you finish talking to Nada, your Autophage questline in No Man's Sky will be concluded.

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