No Mans Sky Beyond: Hotspots and How to Use Them

Curious about the new Beyond content for bases? Well, this guide can help shed some light on how to dive in and really improve your base or your harvesting/mining operations.

Getting Started: Hotspots

With Beyond, there is now something called the Survey Device. This is a multitool mod that you can install, the blueprint for this can be found at the Nexus/Anomaly. Once installed, you can now scan for hotspots using the visor. Hotspots have different classes similar to everything else: C through S. The lower the class, the less productive the spot will be. There are currently three types of hotspots: Power, Gas, and Deep Mineral. Key thing to know here is that distance correlates to yield from the epicenter of the hotspot. The further away a generator/extractor is, the less yield it will have. It is recommended to start at the middle of the hotspot with the equipment for best results. The Survey Device also scans for the closest signal, which can be any of the three types. If you are looking for power, keep looking around for one until you see the power icon. Same goes for gas and minerals. The minerals and gasses are the same as they would be on the planetary info. For example, if the planet info says there is indium, then there is a chance that the deep level mineral will be indium as well.

Power:
Class C power has a strength of 15000.0 (150 000 V/m). Placing an Electromagnetic Generator yields 150kPs of power.
Class B power has a strength of 22000.0 (220 000 V/m). Placing an Electromagnetic Generator yields 220kPs of power.
Class A power has a strength of 25000.0 (250 000 V/m). Placing an Electromagnetic Generator yields 250kPs of power.
Class S power has a strength of 30000.0 (300 000 V/m). Placing an Electromagnetic Generator yields 300kPs of power.

Gas:
Class C gas has a density of 100. Placing a gas extractor yields 250 per cycle.
Class B gas has a density of 200. Placing a gas extractor yields 500 per cycle.
Class A gas has a density of 300. Placing a gas extractor yields 750 per cycle.
Class S gas has a density of 400. Placing a gas extractor yields 1000 per cycle.


Deep Mineral:
Class C mineral has a density of 100. Placing a mineral extractor yields 250 per cycle.
Class B mineral has a density of 200. Placing a mineral extractor yields 500 per cycle.
Class A mineral has a density of 300. Placing a mineral extractor yields 750 per cycle.
Class S mineral has a density of 400. Placing a mineral extractor yields 1000 per cycle.

How to Get That Power to Your Base

So, you have a power site either beaconed or you just have it marked by analyzing it. Now, the tricky part. As it stands right now, it is not possible to siphon power from one base to another. However, there is a trick that can get you the power. Its really straight forward but it is annoying in how much time it can take to do this correctly.

Let's say that the nearest power site is about 800u away. Your base boundary is just shy of reaching that. So what do we do? We extend that boundary. How? With batteries. Batteries can only be placed in the base boundary, but they can extend it as well. Why batteries? Well, it makes connecting the power cables easier and you can see if there is an issue with the power along the way back to base.

To start this: make sure you have plenty of mats to make about 15 or so batteries, or you could just use something cheaper like a wood floor. Start heading in the direction of your out of bounds power site. While you are walking about, get ready to place a base object. The base boundary is about 300u. As soon you cant place one, back up a few steps, then place one. There, boundary extended to that location by about 50u. Get another base object ready and continue on, repeating this process until you reach the power site. Once you reach the power site, you will be able to place the power generator without the need of a base computer there. All you have to do now is hook up the power cables and viola, power! Note: There seems to be a limit to base sizes, around 960u from the base computer. If your hotspot is further than this, you wont be able to reach it with this method.

You may need more than one power tower, depending on how much power your base needs. Keep placing power towers and hooking them, until you are happy with the amount of power usage. You can always add more towers later if needed, but for now, you can rest easy knowing that you dont have to waste space and resources on those pesky solar panels and battery fields. Unless you like that kind of thing. I'm not judging.

Mining and Gas Harvesting

Mining and gas extractors basically act the same way, for the most part. Each has a capacity of 250 storage and needs the same amount of power, 50kPs, to run. They both need to be hooked up with a supply pipe to a supply silo as well, for more storage. Storage silos add another 1k storage per unit. That's it. That's really all you need to know about them.

The proper way to setup extractors: they are both the same so I will just put the basics here for this Once you find your hotspot, you need four things: an extractor, a supply depot, a power source, and supply pipes. However you want to do, that is up to you, but ideally: place the extractor(s) in the middle of the hotspot and work your way out from there, keeping them this close the center is best for yields. Hook up the supply pipes, you dont need to hook them up to each other like a spider web, you can just chain link them. Once you have this setup, do the same for supply depots. You only need a single connection between the extractors and the supply depot. The supply depots "currently" do not need power, but that may change with patches/updates. The % is the filling status, the timer is how long until storage is FULL.

If you didnt need to place a base computer at the hotspot (if you used my base extension part) you can place a beacon or something else (up to you really) to help locate for future use. I personally use base teleporters for easy access.

[Fuchsium]

If it won't let you extend base boundary, go in and out of your ship. I don't know why, but this will "unlock" your base for expansion.

[TraderBeowolf]

Well it seems as of 10-28-19, instead of extending the range of the base with batteries, I had to lay down some floor panels instead and then place the batteries upon them to link up the power lines. I will try and figure out something that looks a bit better than the batteries to link everything up but batteries will work until I do.

[Mondogrunday]

yes you must make sure your base is around 300u i think from hotspot or extend base by going to its perimeter and building something (battery, wood floor etc) and repeating the process untill you can open tech build menu at EM sight. I literally just did this with an activated indium mine that was 2000u from EM hotspot. it took forever but i got power to mine and it kicks out 23000 units every 2.5 hours. i placed base computer at midway point, so 1000 away in each direction to mine and power. i think i hit the limit because where my extractors are, if i move like 10 ft past i cant build supply depots lol i had to build them on near side of extractors, closer to base computer.

[Gohirro]

@Saratis Did you expand your base boundary to the hotspot?

[Saratis]

My problem is that when I find a hotspot, makes no difference which one, my menu does not show any of the power tech tools. They are available in my base, but when I find the hotspot that gives all the information, no tech available. Anyone else having this issue or am I doing something wrong?

[St_Minorto]

you can just use wire themselves to extend base borders

[Gohirro]

@Antizycle interesting, this is the first Ive heard of something like this being done. I made a mod to extend the base boundaries, which seems to work just fine now. Sucks that we have to make up a mod for something the devs didnt seem to think about. I guess time will tell.

[Antizycle]

I managed to hook up base with extractors at like 1,4 ku away from my power generator base in single network. It is possible to power one base with power from another base. Didn't do much expermenting, but it is messy. At current state of my testing it seems you need to make a power line from your source/network to another base, but both must be interlocking (battery trick is handy here). And you build your powerload AFTER you made the line. You cannot power up stuff that was already build before you got your line there. I'm not 100% sure about how that exactly works and what is the main trick (probably building battery at the new base hooked up to another base and then connecting newly build stuff to it), but it definetely works. I currently have 2 distant mining bases connected to one grid.

[Gohirro]

@MOOncalF yeah, I think some of the minerals/gasses are bugged still. I use the cube foundation frame for my power poles. Id have to check out that half arch style.

[MOOncalF]

The numbers appear to be different for Sulphurine, unless I'm bugged, my gas extractors can only pull 10 units each per hour from a Class C deposit. Storage connected to Sulphurine is also alarmingly small? Also I saw a Reddit user building "Power Poles" out of two half-arches on top of each other, looks quite tidy, I used a coloured light on top to connect the wires.