No Man's Sky Recipes

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Affinities

Arena battles turn on affinity. Each of the 8 affinities hits one affinity hard and one weakly, and takes extra damage from one and less from another, so pick a companion that counters your opponent.

Matchup chart

AffinityAttack strong vsAttack weak vsDefense strong vsDefense weak vsSpecies
FireFrostDesertAnomalousRadioactive3 Fire species
FrostMechanicalRadioactiveToxicFire1 Frost species
RadioactiveFireToxicFrostAnomalous3 Radioactive species
ToxicTropicalFrostRadioactiveDesert7 Toxic species
MechanicalDesertAnomalousTropicalFrost9 Mechanical species
AnomalousRadioactiveFireMechanicalTropical8 Anomalous species
DesertToxicTropicalFireMechanical4 Desert species
TropicalAnomalousMechanicalDesertToxic10 Tropical species

Attack is the damage a creature deals: extra against its strong affinity, reduced against its weak one. Defense is the damage it takes: reduced from its strong affinity, extra from its weak one. The game shows both on each creature's Attack Profile and Defenses panels. Strong attacks run in one loop: Mechanical, Desert, Toxic, Tropical, Anomalous, Radioactive, Fire, Frost, then back to Mechanical.

Each affinity links to the species table, filtered to creatures with that affinity.