After-Frontiers update quick and dirty guide on how to obtain every unlock quicksilver companion can provide using minimum amount of quicksilver.
 
 

Abstract

No Man’s Sky allows to purchase, using secondary currency called ‘quicksilver’, blueprints of cosmetic items to either liven up one’s space crafts, beautify their bases or change their appearance. Until now, that is before Frontiers update, players had to amass quicksilver, by doing daily or weekly missions, equal to the sum of items they wished to obtain. Having more than one save meant that if one wished to have access to all the unlocks, one had to do it again playing each and every save.
 
 
Now, since No Man’s Sky changed the way information about unlocks is stored, it is possible to:
 

• unlock ALL the cosmetic items using only 3200 quicksilver,
• unlock them for ALL player’s saves, be it normal, survival or permadeath.

 
 
 

Prerequisites and how to meet them

First of all, player has to posess 3200 quicksilver. One might simply do daily and weekly missions issued by Space Anomaly and withhold purchasing any quicksilver-unlocked items until they amass exactly or more than 3200. Normally it would take 13 days of playing No Man’s Sky at least for as long as it takes to do one daily mission for 250 quicksilver each day.
 
 
One can shorten this time to 8 days by doing one weekly mission for 1200 quicksilver (1200 + 8×250). If one starts from 0 on sunday, this time can be further shortened to 6 days by doing one mission for 1200 quicksilver on said sunday, then doing one mission for 250 quicksilver from monday to friday and finally on that last friday doing another 1200 quicksilver mission.
 
 
It is perfectly possible to amass legally, and I mean without any cheats or save edits, 3200 or more quicksilver during one weekend, doing repeatedly the same 1200 quicksilver mission. It requires careful timing and is not guaranteed to succeed every time, so this will not be part of this guide. I will only mention one can quit the game TO DESKTOP the moment they report successful completion of their 1200 quicksilver mission. Upon reload one would have that earned 1200 quicksilver and POSSIBLE chance of doing that mission again.
 
 
Above all: Following must be done while having multiplayer turned OFF in options, to avoid accidental and untimely saves caused by third party (other players) as much as possible.
 
 
 

The big (hehe) HOW-TO…

Once player has 3200 or more quicksilver, they need to head over to the Quicksilver Companion.
 
 
DO IT WHILE MULTIPLAYER IS OFF!
 
 
SERIOUSLY!
 
 

1. Player needs to ‘speak’ to the mentioned NPC, choose option 1 and purchase unlockables IMPORTANT: Don’t purchase any that land in one’s inventory, like fireworks, beacons or the eggs, just skip them for now
2. Purchase until one runs out of quicksilver,
3. Press ESC and quit to mode select, wait 5 seconds, then reload one’s latest game,
4. Upon reload, one should notice their quicksilver return to the amount it was before any purchases were made
5. Head back to the Quicksilver Companion, again, choose option 1 and see that any unlockables previously purchased will have ‘Available’ next to their name, instead of quicksilver price, meaning they now cost 0 quicksilver to claim.
6. Skip all the ‘Available’s and purchase next batch of unlockables until one’s quicksilver runs out, again, avoiding any that grant an item, like fireworks or eggs
7. repeat until done or bored

 
When all the unlockables are purchased, one can claim all the ‘Availables’, now for free, and finally commit remaining quicksilver to item-granting purchases. This will permanently deplete quicksilver and reload will not revert it to the previous amount.
 
 
 

…and why is it possible

Frontiers expansion brought about a change in how No Man’s Sky saves all unlocks, regardless if they’re expedition, quicksilver or tainted metal unlocks. Now all the unlocks are saved into a new, accountdata.hg file in player’s save directory. This file is used while playing all the saves, that are in this folder. Previously there was also a file, which was ‘cross-save’, but it didn’t mean one could claim unlocks achieved in other saves. I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but after Frontiers, one save unlocks all the items for all others, so it means one can claim any quicksilver unlocks in any of their saves for free, once purchased once. It’s as simple as that, no cheats nor editing involved. We’re using all in-game mechanics.
 
 
Why one can claim unlocks with quicksilver and then be able to reload the game with their quicksilver still on their account? This is most likely overlooked, but player’s save is autosaved only when they exit their starship OR their inventory changes by interaction with ANOTHER PLAYER (one was given something). This is all while accountdata.hg file is saved upon every unlock, resulting in that file being always newer than player’s save. That’s why it is important to not be in multiplayer, where one runs a risk of accidentally autosaving their game when some random, generous passer-by gives them i.e.1 ferrite dust, while cutting short their quicksilver unlock-spree.
 
 
That’s all. I love finding cheats vanilla game allows when devs overlook something, so I will probably post some more, if I am not beat to it. I noticed, researched and executed it on my own with no outside input whatsoever. Any existing, previous guides involving this topic, if they exist, I don’t know about them and I didn’t find any prior to publication.
 
 
Enjoy
 
 

 
 
This is all about No Man’s Sky – Unlock Quicksilver Achievements Guide; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!