sentinels are the worst part of this game

[jackal[ronin]]

I'm gonna harvest this metal dust so i can build a launch fuel, sentinel sees me, calls his friends, i can't take off cause i don't have any fuel, I can't fight them because repair bots undo ALL of my damage by the time I kill them, and then I die and I lose all the metal dust i got in the first place.

as if survival mode wasn't already hard enough to play, sentinels make you unable to even play the game

[Insanitor]

The game warns you when a Sentinel is observing you. So just stop mining for a moment, let it scan you and pass on its way, then continue your work.

The sentinels only attack you, if they observe you destroying the planet or hurting the wildlife. Unless you're on a planet with Aggressive Sentinels, which the Starting Planets never have.

[william_es]

Okay, either a new player, or just clown farming ragebait post. Hard to tell.

The sentinels are the galactic cops.

So, first off, don't commit crime in front of the cops.

Then when they zoom over to you, don't keep committing the crime non-stop right in front of them again. Just a bit of advice. There's a period where they scan you, and if you stop doing whatever set them off, they will not attack.

When you upgrade your multi-tool, you can aim at resources far away and make the sentinels zoom over to investigate over there, while you mine where you're standing. Or mine until you see them zoom up to you, and then just _stop_. Go find more resources, leave the partially mined stuff behind you. They'll be stuck there scanning the whole area while you run away.


Sentinels are part of the basic lore of the game. They exist practically everywhere. They're what the entire vykeen race is focused on fighting. The sentinels are why there are no actual weapons in the game, just "multi-tools". You make weapons, the sentinels kill you. Everything that exists on our ships, exocrafts, and multi-tools are disguised to be mining and other resource gathering tools.

By the way, not only do the sentinels exist all over the universe, they exist all over the universe in OTHER DIMENSIONS. When sentinels appear, they're coming sideways from another dimension. When you explore more of the game, you will come across bits of lore where billions and billions and billions of sentinels poured out of another dimension and wiped entire galaxies clean of all higher intelligent life.

On some abandoned worlds you can find giant stargate like rings, that are big enough to fly a freighter through. They were entry points between dimensions where those non-stop endless hordes of sentinels came through.

[Hykril Tynyx]

No one is forcing you to play the Survival Mode, so this sounds like a pathetic ragepost.

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

1. Avoid extreme sentinel planets
2. Avoid sentinels if you see them
3. Get better weapon modules and/or MT
4. I've heard sentinels won't aggro if you're riding a companion, but idk if that also applies to mining/killing creatures while mounted
5. Barricade your self in with base parts or the terrain manipulator so they can't see or reach you
6. It's possible, but temporary, to turn off a sentinel pillar, which disables them for a while, but then you need to get a boundary map or get lucky.

[Shadow Strider]

You have two options,
1. run away - self explainitory.

2. fight them. - focus on clearing the summoners (triangles) first, then the repair bots, then the regulars.
When you reach wave 3+ you may want to defeat the quad/hardframe/walker first, but the best strategy will depend on your skill and weapons strength - if you are weaker, then you may still find it easier to kill the summoner and repair bots first.
After you clear wave 5 then sentinels are disabled on the planet until you warp away or reload a save.

Note: At the moment there is still a bug with walkers not spawning... if this happens then you cant disable the sentinels without visiting a pillar.

Also, survival (and Permadeath) is easy if you know how to play. So maybe you should go learn the basics in normal mode first.

[rikwes66]

the sentinels are one of the most intriguing aspects of the game ( the lore about them is fantastic , kuddos for whomever at HG who wrote that ) . And what Shadow strider said : you can simply avoid them by running away if you don't want to fight them . By the way , you seem to think getting of planet in your ship will despawn them ... that isn't the case , you will then have interceptors to deal with . The best way to deal with them - early game - is to stop doing what you were doing and run away from them .

[The Basement Berean]

Get high ground on Sentinels, no joke, you can wipe them out VERY easily, from outpost buildings, transmission towers, even the Sentinel pillars themselves, you can sit & plug away at them individually while they fly EVER so slowly to get close enough to shoot you & the Dog Bot & Minotaur Sentinels can't really hit you either, the Big one can, but its a big target you can take out with sustained fire, Legs, Shields Body done.

Then your not dealing with terrain, random Hazardous plants, aggressive animals & if you use the Geology Cannon on the Groups as they Spawn you can wipe out the entire group in 1 well placed shot.

The Paralysis Mortar has become A Favorite too, with the Voltaic Mod it even helps up the damage on stunned enemies & doesn't hurt you, it also has an on impact detonation.

The Colossus Exocraft gives A pretty good lift on all this, provides A wall you can run around & hide behind & even use AS A high point to try this out, but it's got dead zones where you fall through so best to stay put when you get A stable spot on top of it.

Otherwise what weapon are you using against them as well, Neutron Cannon is universal it seems & wipes the floor with everything, Plasma Spitter is great, until you deal with Walkers, then it does nothing.

Blaze Cannon is only good for stuns & long distance Targets, but ESSENTIAL for those buggers that float way off into the distance & reset the damn timers.

[Ozwald]

[kutyax]

first: get a cloaking device
second(exploit): get in and out of your ship(it makes an autosave), then reload the game. wanted level will be gone.

[jackal[ronin]]

Originally posted by kutyax:

first: get a cloaking device

does that operate while you are mining? or is it the same gag where I have to stop mining to get it to engage?

Originally posted by kutyax:

second(exploit): get in and out of your ship(it makes an autosave), then reload the game. wanted level will be gone.

I'm not having trouble keeping my wanted level down. it's landing on an aggressive planet, finding out my takeoff fuel is empty and then having to deal with sentinels hunting me the whole time

Originally posted by Batabii • M&L: Brothership:

1. Avoid extreme sentinel planets
2. Avoid sentinels if you see them
3. Get better weapon modules and/or MT
4. I've heard sentinels won't aggro if you're riding a companion, but idk if that also applies to mining/killing creatures while mounted
5. Barricade your self in with base parts or the terrain manipulator so they can't see or reach you
6. It's possible, but temporary, to turn off a sentinel pillar, which disables them for a while, but then you need to get a boundary map or get lucky.

1. you don't know they are extreme sentinel planets till you land on them
2. i can't avoid them, they are ever present, even hiding under the ground
3. what is MT? Mining time? i haven't been able to upgrade my multitool cause I can't get enough money. so i'm limping along with a tool that only has 8 slots, I'd love faster mining time.
4. lol, companions is so late game for me. i can build a rover exosuit on every planet if you like, if only I could find a planet with enough parafinium
5. so I should build a base everywhere?
6. i'd love to find a sentinel pillar, see #3. pillars have new multitools, with more slots, yes please. I could have swore the map guy on the space station sold pillar maps. maybe I am confusing it with worthless signal maps.

Originally posted by The Basement Berean:

a bunch of late game stuff.

man I haven't even gotten enough money to buy a freighter. all my quests are for not-money and every time I try to go farm gold it's a pocket of 10-15.

Originally posted by Insanitor:

The game warns you when a Sentinel is observing you. So just stop mining for a moment, let it scan you and pass on its way, then continue your work.

The sentinels only attack you, if they observe you destroying the planet or hurting the wildlife. Unless you're on a planet with Aggressive Sentinels, which the Starting Planets never have.

I do that, then when I go back to mining, they come back, so i stop, they go away, i go back to mining, they come back, have i mentioned that i'm dying from the environment at a nonzero rate, all that waiting for them to scan me is just lost hazard protection.

[Shadow Strider]

Originally posted by jackalronin:

1. you don't know they are extreme sentinel planets till you land on them

yes you do, just scan it from space...

MT = multi-tool

If you want to find a pillar you need to clear wave 5 against the sentinels, or get a boundary map... or just get lucky
You get the map as a drop from walkers iirc... you also get them as a random drop from suspicious packets (goods), which you can buy in outlaw systems

[Batabii • Suikoden I&II HD]

Originally posted by jackalronin:

Originally posted by Batabii • M&L: Brothership:

1. Avoid extreme sentinel planets
2. Avoid sentinels if you see them
3. Get better weapon modules and/or MT
4. I've heard sentinels won't aggro if you're riding a companion, but idk if that also applies to mining/killing creatures while mounted
5. Barricade your self in with base parts or the terrain manipulator so they can't see or reach you
6. It's possible, but temporary, to turn off a sentinel pillar, which disables them for a while, but then you need to get a boundary map or get lucky.

1. you don't know they are extreme sentinel planets till you land on them

yes you do, scan them from space.

2. i can't avoid them, they are ever present, even hiding under the ground

That's not possible, they can't tunnel through dirt

3. what is MT? Mining time? i haven't been able to upgrade my multitool cause I can't get enough money. so i'm limping along with a tool that only has 8 slots, I'd love faster mining time.

You just said it. Multitool. Get one better than c class. Or get one just for weapons.

4. lol, companions is so late game for me.

How? You get one slot for free, they're on every planet, and all you need is one creature pellet.

5. so I should build a base everywhere?

Sentinels aren't aggressive "everywhere".

6. i'd love to find a sentinel pillar, see #3. pillars have new multitools, with more slots, yes please. I could have swore the map guy on the space station sold pillar maps. maybe I am confusing it with worthless signal maps.

you can't get boundary maps from cartographers, only mission rewards or defeating sentinel waves. I get if that's still a long way off but it's still an option for later in the game. You could just check space stations for mts, if you have enough units.

[kutyax]

nah, it does not works when you mining, but its extremely useful, but in your situation you cannot get it.
i recommend to do quick recon expeditions in different directions. metal ferrite and di-hydrogen is just everywhere.
just run in a direction till you can and run back to your ship. replenish, and do the same in an other direction, and so on.
certainly wait in your ship if the weather is stormy outside.

[gorgofdoom]

go to a cartographer> get a sentinel pillar location or go to the planet and scan for it> shoot the walker & two drones while in the ship, get out and hit the terminal. Now you can do whatever you want on that planet in that session without really fighting them.

also for relatively little cost you can set up resource farms yourself, or through the anomaly, go to the weekend mission, and find a player base during the weekend event. Lots of people set up resource farms just to share. I picked up 50k oxygen and have been using it to generate ferrite dust.

Now you can just avoid them, to get on your feet, but it is good to fight sentinels to earn nanites. To get a good weapon: find a dissonance planet. On these you can find a camp, which will have a simple puzzle to solve and give you a free weapon.

Sentinel weapons are very powerful, even a B class is more than twice as damaging as an S class rifle.

You can also play as conservatively as you want. Just exploring, picking flowers, and taking oxygen from hostile plants will support survival without conflict.

Some really useful refinery recipes:

oxygen + ferrite dust > rusted metal > 2 ferrite dust

oxygen + sodium nitrate > 2 sodium nitrate

oxygen + condensed carbon > 5 condensed carbon

chromatic alloy + any stellar metal > 2 stellar metal

[rikwes66]

you can simply outrun them .You STOP mining , not pause mining, and run in any direction until they're no longer a threat ...mine some more and if it triggers them again simply repeat the process . When you scan a planet before you land it literally says at the bottom if there's aggressive sentinels on it . If you don't want to deal with this find a planet which says "sporadic " or even "absent " . There's now been quite a lot of folks telling you how it works but you seem adamant to NOT heed any advice ( even from folks having played 1000+ hours ) so I'm not sure you're looking for answers .

I'd also advice to go to a planet with "dissonant " in desciption ASAP to get
- a better multitool
- a better ship

there's detailed youtube videos on how to do this ( or look it up at NMS wiki ) .... just type "sentinel ship " or "sentinel multitool " in the youtube search bar . You can also watch jasonplays 2025 NMS guide

as a side note : don't start your first game in survival mode until you grasp the basic mechanisms of the game . Start a NORMAL game and when you think you are ready change the difficulty to survival ( you can change those settings whenever you want , you don't have to start a new game )