As of now, the new Origins update on No Man's Sky has lifted the portal interference on the teleportation terminals, making them much more useful. This lift makes it so that no matter the distance between two terminals, the player can still travel across that amount of space. With the update, players can also see all sorts of information about each place before transporting themselves there.
In previous versions of the game, players could teleport to star systems that they had been to before as long as they had found a terminus station on them. Even so, there was portal interference, which meant players could only travel somewhat locally. However, that has all changed with the new Origins update.
Where to Find and How to Use the Teleportation Terminals in No Man's Sky
For a simple way to access different planets and star systems, players can build a base on each to teleport back to them. However, this is a tedious process that would take a lot of effort on the player. Instead, if the player wanted to return to any of the previous places they had visited, they would need to complete the set of main tutorial missions for the player. Specifically, completing the mission-based around the space anomaly will allow them to travel to any previous world regardless of having a terminal on the other side.
In either context, players should simply be able to walk up to any teleportation terminal and see all the previous planets they have visited. With the update, players should be easily able to filter through the areas and see all sorts of information about each one. If the player is unable to build a terminal as of yet, some planets may already have a monolith. These monoliths are pre-built teleportation terminals. For help in finding these monoliths players can buy alien cartographic data and/or a scanner which will give them a sort of map that can lead them to monoliths.
Depending on the area that a player activates them in, it may detect nothing, ancient ruins, or monoliths. This means players may need to buy several to find a monolith anywhere. However, this is not the only thing a player will need to worry about. Monoliths also can only be owned and used by one player. So even if a player found one, if they weren't the first to claim it, they'll need to keep looking.
No Man's Sky is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.