Highlights
- Update 4.4 Echoes in No Man's Sky has changed the behavior of multi-tools, making knowing which ones are best for combat crucial.
- Quest-specific multi-tool weapons like the Solar Ray and Animus Beam are only useful for collecting materials during specific quests and are not effective in combat.
- The Blaze Javelin is considered the most powerful multi-tool weapon in the game, functioning as a sniper rifle that deals significant damage at long distances.
For years, No Man's Sky has drip-fed new content through its free expansions, expanding the story and gameplay with new weapons, vehicles and species. As a result, the meta has often changed, and once-titanic instruments of destruction have diminished to utility tools that are better as cosmetics than weapons.
With update 4.4 Echoes, No Man's Sky changed how multi-tools behave. It has made important alterations to both what they can be considered, and how they influence the economy. Multi-tool trading became a big industry, and as a result, knowing which multi-tools are best is critical information.
The Solar Ray and the Animus Beam are pretty redundant when it comes to combat. Instead, their sole purpose is to collect particular materials during the acquisition of a living ship. As a result, they have little purpose outside of that.
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Cosmetically, they appear to be altered versions of a mining laser, but purpose-wise, they can accomplish only a fraction of what that tool can do. As a result, these quest weapons are best stowed away after using them for their quests.
9 Mining Laser
Like The Animus Beam and Solar Ray, the mining laser is more tool than weapon. As a result, it offers little combat prowess when facing beasts or sentinels. However, it can be upgraded, meaning that if players are in a tight pinch, they have something to use as a last resort.
The mining laser is best reserved for its namesake task: mining. Other tools are better suited to fighting duties. The mining laser is included in every multi-tool alongside the boltcaster as a blueprint. This means that a better weapon is always available to trump the mining laser.
8 Geology Cannon
The geology cannon is an off-shoot of the terrain manipulator. Its primary purpose is to modify the landscape with large, explosive rounds that leave craters wherever it is used. It is widely inaccurate and slow to perform, but with swarms of enemies and great timing, it can become a beast.
The key drawback, despite the high damage, is simply how big an area it affects. This limits its effectiveness against powerful enemies who may come alone. The geology cannon is best used as the first tool when add-clearing, but when fighting enemies that require higher damage and greater accuracy, it is best put to bed.
7 Plasma Launcher
Fast-firing and a pain to keep stocked, the plasma launcher uses unstable plasma to launch bouncing green shells at enemies, which explode after a delay. A single round is low and ineffective, but when holding the trigger, expect some serious firepower thanks to the sheer number of rounds that the weapon will fire.
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The device is limited by its low ammo count, which makes its lifespan and upkeep in combat small and forgetful. It can be used to add clear, with greater accuracy than the geology cannon, but is still outperformed by many other weapons in No Man's Sky.
6 Paralysis Mortar
A strong support tool against Sentinels, the paralysis mortar is more or less redundant against organic enemies such as predators. It offers a fraction of the damage that would be obtained in combat against machines. That being said, it is such a strong tool for fighting the Sentinels that its place in a player's arsenal is obligatory.
When upgraded, the paralysis mortar becomes a one-hit instrument of death. It can easily destroy those pesky healing drones before they have a chance to scurry away. It performs best in tandem with a stronger weapon, but with upgrades, the paralysis mortar offers a lot on its own.
5 Boltcaster
Trusty and reliable, the boltcaster is immediately available for construction, and works as the most traditional and inexpensive form of gun in the No Man's Sky universe. It offers good accuracy and plentiful ammunition (provided it is constructed from simple ingredients). As a result, never fails to impress.
That being said, the boltcaster is a jack of all trades, master of none. It offers no significant bonuses when encountering enemies closer, faraway, organic or inorganic. It may be outclassed by some later-game upgrades, but the boltcaster can still be used at any time.
4 Pulse Splitter
Another fast-firing weapon, pulse splitters fires three projectiles in quick succession, shredding enemy health. The semi-automatic firing method requires a good grasp of the recoil to use efficiently, but otherwise serves as a trusty weapon in the player's collection when investigating the wild.
When modified, the pulse splitter can become a savage source of damage over time. The impact igniter upgrade can cause enemies to burn. It echoes the now-unobtainable incinerator weapon, to a much less successful degree, outstripped once again by weapons that have specialized efficiency distances.
3 Scatter Blaster
The No Man's Sky equivalent of a shotgun, the scatter blaster is nightmare for enemies up close. It fires a spread of pellets that cover a decent sized area, or one nearby target. The scatter blaster is excellent for fighting melee opponents such as biological horrors or close-by sentinels, but performs terribly at long range.
Even at a middling distance, the scatter blaster becomes drastically weaker. It's unable to beat even a minimally-upgraded mining laser if the player moves too far away. As a result, it is very situational, but it is a strong choice in combat at close range.
2 Neutron Cannon
This slow-firing beast serves as an improved version of a scatter blaster. The neutron cannon has two firing modes that can drastically affect its damage and efficiency. When tapped, the gun fires small rounds that do minimal damage, but the repeated action can drain health bars quickly.
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When the weapon is charged up, however, the neutron cannon can fire powerful rounds that inflict huge damage on the enemies standing nearby. Additionally, this gun doesn't use ammunition, giving it more versatility and leaving more room in the backpack for planetary resources.
1 Blaze Javelin
The undisputed master of No Man's Sky combat, the blaze javelin is a sniper rifle that relies on both distance and charge-up to deal undisputed damage to inorganics and organics alike. Further away, the weapon deals more damage, and so it becomes a win-win.
With a long recharge period and cooldown, it does take a little practice to become a weapon of destruction, but this is hardly a flaw. Instead, the use of this weapon is a skill to be mastered, rewarding the players with the most lethal weapon in the game.
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