Please note that the most recent updates to No Man's Sky make this document relatively obsolete; Ships found at crash sites will have damaged slots, reducing the likelyhood that you'll be able to carry the equipment necessary to repair as you go.
Before you start, make peace with leaving your existing ship behind; you won't have the luxury of being picky about what your next ride looks like.
Additionally, it is highly recommended (but not strictly necessary) that you upgrade your exosuit as far as possible; it will help carry the materials you'll need for your final ship.
Lastly, pick a planet that you won't mind spending a lot of time on. Don't do this on an EXTREME planet, for example.
Before you start, find a Signal Scanner and mark a Monolith. Then fly into space and come back down about 1/4 of the way around the planet. This Monolith waypoint is now your "True North"; you'll be flying toward it anytime you're not flying toward a crash site or Transmission Tower.
Clear out your exosuit inventory as much as you can. De-construct any modules you don't need. Take note of the materials it takes to rebuild them later and just make sure you keep these in the Transfer To Exosuit step.
Now, do steps Partial Deconstruct Ship and Transfer To Exosuit on your current ship.
For these steps, we'll call your current ship Alpha and your discovered ship Beta.
- Find Transmission Tower
- Solve puzzle
- Fly Alpha to downed ship (Beta)
- PARK CLOSE TO CRASH SITE
- Take over Beta
- IF Beta has more cargo slots
- Partial Deconstruct Beta
- Swap back to Alpha
- Full Deconstruct Alpha
- Transfer To Exosuit from Alpha
- Swap back to Beta and follow Transfer to Ship
- Fix Launch Booster and Pulse Engine ONLY
- Optionally, you could fix the Deflector Shield if you hate the alarm
- ELSE
- Full Deconstruct Beta
- Transfer To Exosuit from Beta
- Swap back to Alpha, and follow Transfer to Ship
- Repeat until complete and Sell Items when necessary
- Transfer, repair, explore!
The fastest way to find a Transmission Tower is to spot one from the air. The distinguishing characteristic is a 4-post antennae extending from the building's roof (Gek).
Note: this is NOT the same building as the radar-dish observatories. You don't want observatories.
If you're having problems finding them, feed Bypass Chips into Signal Scanner and choose "Transmission" until it marks one for you.
I'm not going to give you the answers to these. Stretch your mind a bit during this numbing process :)
If you've not figured out how to fly yet, you're probably jumping the gun on the ship upgrade.
If you fail to land close, at least give yourself a visual indicator where you landed. My preferred technique involves a few well-placed Plasma Launcher shots
No matter what, take over the ship. If you don't, there is a chance it will show up on a subsequent Transmission Tower attempt. During this step, don't bother transferring anything; you'll need the space for the next step.
Only if Beta has more slots than Alpha
This is why you parked close.
Only if Beta has more slots than Alpha
This is where you'll be using the Iron to make extra Carite Sheets and the Heridium to fix up the basic necessities. Optionally, you could also fix the Deflector Shield if you hate the alarm.
The maximum cargo space is 48 (8x6 grid). Once you hit 48, you could keep farming for materials (or Selling Items), but eventually you'll probably want to stop. When you find a ship you're happy with, don't do the Partial Deconstruct.
You might have to swap between your penultimate ship and your dream ship a few times as you make repairs and move modules around, but take solace in the fact that this is the last time you'll need to worry about positioning pieces of your ship!
I'm not sure exactly how they are related, but there seems to be a connection between the modules on the ship you're flying and the modules you find on crashed ships. Flying in a ship with very few modules will mean all the ships you find will have very few modules, which will make it hard to amass materials. My current suggestion is to dismantle any Sigma modules. If you still don't have enough room for everything you want to carry, dismantle some Tau.
Bear in mind, when you leave this ship behind, you will be doing a Full Deconstruct, so you won't be missing out on the materials.
The only two modules you absolutely need can't be deconstructed: Launch Booster and Pulse Engine.
When you're about to leave a ship behind, deconstruct EVERYTHING you can.
One suggestion for organization is to keep a stack of the minerals you'll need less than 250 units of in your exosuit. These are:
- Carbon
- Gold
- Iridium
- Platinum
- Omegon
- Titanium
See Ship Module Repair Cost if you want to customize what you save for different stack numbers!
Once you have enough stock of the minerals listed in Transfer to Ship, store excess in your exosuit. In this way, when you stop to Sell Items, you'll be able to quickly determine what to sell: anything not on the above list!
Keep in mind that Dynamic Resonator, Neutrino_Module, Vortex_Cube, Dimensional Matrix, Carite Sheet, Microdensity Fabric are all stackable by transferring between your ship and suit.
You'll also want to keep at least 2 stacks of Iron (in case you're short on Carite Sheet) and a stack of Heridium to repair the Pulse Engine and Launch Booster of the ships to which you upgrade.
Keep the minerals that exceed 250 in your ship. These are:
- 1x Chrysonite
- 1x Copper
- 1x Nickel
- 1x Zinc
- 2x Aluminum
- 2x Emeril
- 2x Heridium
- 2x Iron
- 2x Thamium9
See Ship Module Repair Cost if you want to customize what you save for different stack numbers!
That's ultimately 14 slots of materials to repair your final ship; plan accordingly!
Similar to the Transfer to Exosuit section, you'll want to keep excess sales-worthy materials from that list in your ship to make it easy when you stop to Sell Items.
You can either head to a Space Station if you want to use up some Thamium9, or find a structure/shelter with a landing pad.
If you're following this guide's suggested storage practices, see Transfer to Ship for a list of things to sell from your Exosuit and Transfer to Exosuit for a list of things to sell from your Ship.