No Man's Sky: find a Warp Reactor v1 to upgrade your hyperdrive

No Man's Sky loves to tell you to upgrade your hyperdrive. But how do you do it?

No Man's Sky has several methods of travel through the universe, but outside of individual systems the hyperdrive is your primary method of getting around.

If you've put a few hours into exploring the galaxy, you'll probably have noticed that your hyperdrive generally only gets you as far as the next major system. If you try to visit the next stop listed on your path to the centre of the galaxy (or wherever you're going), you'll be advised that you need to upgrade your drive. As far as No Man's Sky goes this is practically explicit instructions, but for those of us raised on more forgiving games a little further explanation is needed.

To upgrade your hyperdrive, you're going to need a Warp Reactor v1. As with most No Man's Sky blueprints and upgrades outside the early tutorial missions, there's no guaranteed way to obtain one of these; you'll need to rely on random drops. Luckily, there are two different ways you might find one:

• Warp Reactor v1 as a reward in an alien encounter
  You know how when you first meet a new alien in No Man's Sky it always has some little task for you with a multiple choice answer? Get this right, and you might just receive a Warp Reactor v1. It can be hard to tell what the aliens want, so read the text description carefully and if in doubt pick the most expensive or unusual response.
• Warp Reactor v1 as Damaged Machinery loot
  In your No Man's Sky travels you've probably come across Damaged Machinery. These random loot stashes are found marked with a blue gear icon, or easily spotted thanks to the plume of smoke they send up. here's a small chance you'll find a Warp Reactor v1 inside one of these caches.

Once you have the Warp Reactor v1, you can upgrade your hyperdrive. This will allow you to travel through multiple systems with each Warp Cell charge, making your race to the centre of No Man's Sky that much more manageable.

Given the relative scarcity of Damaged Machinery and low chance of getting a drop, combined with the relative paucity of alien encounters, your best bet for upgrading a drive may be to try and forget about it while you play No Man's Sky as normal, and just hope like hell you randomly stumble across one. Make sure you scan whenever you arrive in a new system or on a new planet, to maximise your opportunities to get lucky.