No Man’s Sky: How Much You Can Destroy a Planet and How Long it Takes

With over 18 quintillion of them in its universe, the thought has probably crossed your mind in No Man’s Sky as to just how much you can mess up a planet and whether it could all be done during a lazy Sunday afternoon. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that you can definitely mess one up. How long it takes, on the other hand, may disappoint you somewhat.

First, let’s talk about just how much you can mess up a planet. In order for you to do some serious damage to a planet, you’re going to need the Plasma Launcher. This is an attachment for your Multi-tool that excavates the land. While it may seem like a simple job of simply using this over and over to mess a planet up entirely, like everything else in No Man’s Sky, it requires resources to function. Theoretically speaking, you could probably very slowly but surely whittle away layer after layer of a planet’s surface; bury your way five hundred feet into its center, or shrink it down considerably. However, this will take a serious amount of resources and time to do so.

A few thousand Isotopes, we believe, is enough to create a small tunnel, a million Isotopes may be a giant crater, but it’s the time commitment that is most likely to hold you back. How long it takes you to mess up a planet depends on whether or not you’ve managed to seek out any upgrades for your Plasma Launcher, though in the grand scheme of things even this won’t drastically cut down the amount of time to really make some dents in a planet. You’re likely going to have to spend days upon days of blasting a planet’s surface and seeking out resources to completely mess one up, and I doubt many people are that hell-bent on planetary destruction.

For more tips, tricks, and guides, be sure to check out our No Man’s Sky wiki for all of your other space adventure needs.