Phantom Star Hypothesis

Hypothesis:

Manual editing your save game file to input a System ID number in the galactic address that is higher than the total number of normally accessible stars in a region will result in travel to a “Phantom Star” that is in the same region of space but does not exist on the galaxy map.

Experimental Procedure:

Use the No Man’s Sky Connect Application to manually edit a save game file in an attempt to find a phantom star in the Yihelli Quadrant region of Euclid. The galactic address for this region is 043D:0072:0D44:XXXX. The last four digits in the address represents the location of star systems. The highest number of star systems found in any region to date according to NSM Wiki is 562.

As an initial test the System ID number of 555 was used in the galactic address for Yihelli, which, when converted to Hex, is 043D:0072:0D44:022B. If there are 555 systems in this region then this address would result in arriving in the 555th system in Yihelli that was on the galactic map and accessible by normal means (warping to or portal glyphs).

If, however, the number of star systems in the Yihelli region on the galactic map is less then 555, then travel to this galactic address should result in arriving at a phantom system still in that region but not on the galactic map and not accessible by normal means (warping to or portal glyphs).

Results:

Manually editing a save game file and inputting the galactic address in the Yihelli Quadrant region of 043D:0072:0D44:022B resulted in arriving in a system named Lisysalua however, according to the galaxy map, I was in a system named Lataihekon in the neighboring region of Rexijto Anomaly. Landing on the nearest planet and using a signal booster, the galactic address was confirmed to be 043D:0072:0D44:022B which is in the Yihelli Quadrant. This would support the hypothesis.

A second manual editing of a save game file and inputting the galactic address in the Yihelli Quadrant region of 043D:0072:0D44:022D (a System ID of 557) resulted in arriving in a system named Ninslig. Again, according to the galaxy map, I was in the Lataihekon system in the neighboring region of Rexijto Anomaly. Landing on the nearest planet and using a signal booster, the galactic address was confirmed to be 043D:0072:0D44:022D which is in the Yihelli Quadrant. This also supports the hypothesis.

Conclusion: Based on these tests the hypothesis holds true.