The new Sentinel upgrade for No Man’s Sky brings lots of great new additions to the game, most notably in several areas of combat ― and being able to transform your mech-like Minotaur Exocraft into an AI companion can certainly prove to be very useful in a fight. All you need is a single upgrade, and the Minotaur will turn into your faithful follower, ever ready to help out in a combat situation or with your more casual exploration endeavors.
How to find and install the Minotaur AI Pilot in No Man’s Sky
As with many of the game’s key upgrades, you’ll be able to find the blueprints for the Minotaur AI Pilot in the trading area of the Space Anomaly. Approach the Exocraft Research vendor, and you can pick up the blueprints for 480 Nanites. To craft it, you’ll need 1x Quantum Computer, 1x Antimatter, and 1x Wiring Loom. If you’re short of anything, the Quantum Computer can be crafted by combining a MicroProcessor with (another) Antimatter, while Antimatter itself is made from 25x Chromatic Metal and 20x Condensed Carbon. All three items can also be bought at most trading terminals, but there are no guarantees where or when they’ll be in stock.
Once you’ve got all the ingredients, you can access the Exocraft inventory, choose an empty slot and drop the components into place to complete the install. As long as the completed AI Pilot is in place, every time you spawn the Minotaur but don’t jump in yourself, it will follow you wherever you go, even tracking your cross-planet spaceship jaunts (with a few off-limits areas such as space stations and other interiors). All you need to do to regain control is to climb into the cockpit, and the Minotaur is all yours again.
How to use the Minotaur AI Pilot in No Man’s Sky
A Minotaur trailing in your footsteps can make for a powerful companion. As mentioned, it will back you up in any combat situation if you’re under attack ― although it is worth noting that it will only pack the weaponry you’ve installed on it, so it might be a good time to consider a few further upgrades. However, even with a basic mining laser, the Minotaur can still dish out plenty of damage, while also drawing a lot of otherwise unwelcome attention away from you.
There’s also the added convenience of having a walking storage unit by your side should your inventory be filling up. Plus, the Minotaur can also be a very useful, and mobile, refuge from storms or other adverse conditions, as well as being a safe place to recharge your Hazard Protection back to its maximum levels.
The only downside is that there’s no easy ‘off’ switch, so you can’t pause this hulking mech for a quiet solo moment, but swapping to another Exocraft will reset the Minotaur to its idle state. For a quick fix, you can always just dismantle the upgrade, which returns the exact same components it takes to build it, leaving you free to rebuild and reinstall the AI Pilot as soon as you like. Regardless, it’s certainly worth taking it out for a test drive to see how you get on ― even it’s only to make all of your in-game photos look like the two of you are about to drop your first album.
