Listening to the podcast from yesterday and hearing them discuss their experiences, and Jeff's is very similar to mine. I guess because I redeemed the PS preorder (which I only did because the stupid tooltip wouldn't go away) I skipped out on them explaining how to construct the hyperdrive, or what the significance of the space station is. I tried digging through the comments to see if this was really a known issue but I didn't see anything and am trying to avoid to much in the way of spoilers.

Right now my objective is telling me to go to hyperdrive but in the map I can't seem to do anything. Basically I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm wondering whether I should blame this stupid preorder and restart the game or not.

I've seen people on reddit say that, eventually, you can still stumble upon the recipe for warp drive fuel. You could keep exploring a little and see if you do find it. Just look for every Manufacturing Warehouse you can find.

Here's my fun version of your problem.

I accepted the Atlas question in the beginning, repaired the ship, left my starter planet and flew to the nearest space station. I didn't realise the next step after leaving the starter planet is to follow a quest waypoint to a vendor who will teach you the hyperdrive blueprint. Instead of following that step, once I reached the space station, I redeemed the pre-order ship and because it has a hyperdrive already in it, the quest updated to the next step after getting the blueprint - learning to make the warp cells. I completed the rest of the tutorial quest, crafted the warp cells and went on my merry way. I didn't even realise I'd missed a step at the time.

About 10 hours later, I finally decided to upgrade my ship. I was getting sick of the low inventory space, and I'd jumped through about 7 systems at this point so the pirate ships were starting to carve me up if I got caught in a fight. I'd mostly been focusing on scanning/mining. It actually took me a while to find a ship I liked and could afford - most of the ones flying into the stations near me were between $1-5 million spacebux, which is crazy. When I found my dream machine, I moved all my resources over and started to see what upgrades I could install.

Hmm... That's weird. I don't have a hyperdrive component option in the crafting menu. A couple quick Google searches later, and I discover a bunch of other people having the same problem. Oh shit. Now I'm stuck in a system with 1 planet, and no warp drive. This is a problem.

Apparently after the first warp jump you perform, most people get offered a waypoint to visit an outpost and get the hyperdrive blueprint from an alien vendor if they haven't got it already. Guess I missed that prompt too. I'm told that colonial outposts and crashed ship locations on planets can have hyperdrives or their blueprints, but the planet in my system doesn't have any of those. I did just find a post on Reddit where someone claims you can use the beacons next to outposts that require a bypass chip to activate and scan for a colonial outpost, so I guess I'll try that next.

It's 2AM now, so I'm going to bed, and I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Alright, I've played a bit more this morning, and the short version is I'm still fucked, but there's hope.

I can use a bypass chip on the beacons at outposts on a planet to scan for colonial outposts (either Operations Centers or Manufacturing Facilities) and it seems to generate new ones most of the time. These usually reward me with a blueprint if you answer their console question correctly. Unfortunately all I've gotten so far has been a bunch of multitool and ship upgrades that aren't the hyperdrive. The worst one was when the correct answer to one of the consoles was "Hyperdrive" and I fist pumped because I thought I was saved, but then they awarded me a mining laser damage upgrade. Get fucked, you parrot lizard Gek jerks.

I've visited about 10 outposts now, and still don't know how to craft a hyperdrive. Also the planet (the only one in this system) is a high security planet, so the space cops are fucking with me at every turn. But I refuse to give up.

Meanwhile, I also used the beacons to visit a bunch of drop pods and max out my suit inventory slots (didn't know that was a thing, thanks game) and discovered a broken trade mechanic where you can convert 10 plutonium/10 iron to a bypass chip which sells for way more than 10 plut/10 iron cost to buy. I found a Gek trader buying them for 114% markup, so I converted all my supplies and I'm a millionaire now, but I can't leave the system.

This is space hell.

Okay I a. Confused do you not get the recipe for warp cores or the actual hyperdrive?

Cause i have the dumb ship too but I got recipe for warp cores pretty easily.

So don't redeem the pre order code is the moral of the story, right?

...so I made a good decision by not preordering this game because the preorder bonus has a potential to fuck you over?

Good to know.

I got the recipe for the warp cores, but not the hyperdrive recipe. I redeemed the pre-order ship before I had completed the hyperdrive blueprint step, and because the pre-order ship has a hyperdrive in it, I think the game saw the hyperdrive in my ship inventory and moved on to the next step in the tutorial - creating the warp core fuel.

Redeem it after you've repaired the starter ship, left the planet, got the hyperdrive blueprint, crafted a warp core, and made your first warp jump. At that point it should be fine to upgrade.

Ok so I should probably start a new game. Will I get the same starting planet?

I ended up restarting.

@mister_v: did you start out on the same planet or a totally new corner of the galaxy?

@devil240z: new planet

Yeah I restarted too. Pretty ludicrous oversight but i'll get over it

@effache: damn it. My first planet was paradise!

Silly question, I know - Is the pre-order ship always there when you start a new save or is it a one time deal?

Okay I restarted. So what happens if I completely ignore the atlas distress beacon thingy that asks for your complete faith? Sounds like a cult to me!

Also I got some Ice planet! DAMN! I miss paradise.

To answer my own question, the ship's still there.

The other thing you could try is searching for observatories that give you the co-ordinates of a crashed ship somewhere on the same planet. It might be the case that you're only allowed to find ships without a hyperdrive if your current ship doesn't have one, which would obviously not help, but I'm not sure that's the case. What I do know is that I found a crashed ship with a hyperdrive already installed in the starting system and initially thought I'd managed to screw myself because I didn't yet have the recipe for Warp Cells. I eventually found a trade terminal that was just selling Warp Cells but it took a while and I was worried about having to restart for most of that time.

Also, my gawd the whole transfer items between ships can be a pain and it sort of sucks that you can't move drives and tech across.

I think I got "Lucky". I spent over six hours on the second planet I jumped to, ignoring the off world beacon the entire time. I saved and reload after a failed attempt into a locked up outpost, and when I reloaded the previous save I was warped (heh) back to my ship and it took itself off planet completely out of my control (bug?) And when I returned to the outpost to re-do the break in, I saved at the sign post thing, and It randomly just gave me the recipe....? So yeah, That was a weird one!

I still have the preorder ship. Thanks for letting us know, looks like I'll need to be careful and only upgrade to a ship with a hyperdrive already installed.

Your situation sounds like a nightmare :(

Totally different.

@cloudforest: I'm more bummed that you can't move the god damn things ala Resident Evil. I wanna make my inventory presentable.

This seems like a pretty unpleasant bug. Can you just not claim the preorder ship until later?

@devil240z: I'm trying to figure that one out myself. My understanding is if you don't choose to follow, the game is just Free-Roam.

I just restarted a game, and now that I know what i'm doing, I quickly repaired the ship and took off without activating the distress beacon. And now I can't find that spot again.

I am hoping it doesn't spawn out once you leave the area.

I am about to restart again, and plan to note a landmark, and fly around a bit then try to come back to it.

Edit

Well shit. Restarted, got ship up to snuff, did not activate the Distress beacon, flew around the start area a few times, could keep the area (distress beacon) in my sight. There was even a very uniquely shaped Heridium column right next to the start area. I re-landed, and took off without touching the controls to ensure a straight trajectory. I landed at a save tower. Then tried walking back along the straight line. Could not find the start area. I thought for sure i could scan and find the Heridium since they are so fricken obvious after a scan. No dice.

I went back to the ship, flew back, but a straight line was not possible, and I never saw the start area again. I did find a super cool Colonial Viper looking Gek ship. All yellow and shit.

But I am giving it one final masochistic try again tonight, maybe if I screenshot the shit out of it for more static identifiers on the way back. The rock formations are too repetitive to use as landmarks.