Maps and Surface Navigation?

[Captain Skinny]

I've just started playing NMS and am enjoying myself immensely.
While I still believe I am in the 'prologue' meant to teach me the game mechanics (I'm about to do my first hyperjump, I think) I've still wandered off the beaten path a little, scooping up map marker thingies to find buried treasure and derelict ships and the like, which is all good and fun but I'm noticing one thing more than anything.

Despite all this fancy technology, I seem to be bereft of a map. I've got a galactic map on my spaceship, and I've got a compass showing me the direction of certain specific things, but that's all.
I flew by some big neat tower on the surface, palled around with the aliens, sold some stuff, and I'd like to find my way back, but am hopelessly far from it, and wandering an actual planet sized planet in hopes of finding it seems stupid, especially considering the first time I found it it was purely coincidental.

Am I to understand you have no little surface map to reference while exploring worlds, or am I supposed to just tag everything with a little pin drop from the scanner?

[Dirak2012]

No, there are no maps. Also the scanner pin is temporary, and it will disappear.
If *really* need to mark some location, you have to build a save beacon as those are permanent.

In the end, there is basically no reason to return anywhere, as every planet is littered with the same buildings and places and resources, over an over.
If you lost sight of a trade center, just keep flying until you see another.

[Crystal_Pistol]

These hyper advanced societies could not grapple with the matrices of 2d map tech.

[umop-apisdn]

Better than a save beacon is a base computer. It's a little more expensive, but you're capped at 5 save beacons per planet... and there's no limit on bases per planet (other than the cap of 450 bases overall).

As a side effect, you can teleport to any base from the space station (or any teleporter, truth be told); another reason to drop (and claim) a base computer instead of using a save beacon.

The only thing I drop beacons on these days is extraction hotspots.