No Man’s Sky: How to Get New Ships

Ships in No Man’s Sky

Your ship is an important tool for your space exploration journey in No Man’s Sky. It’s the one vehicle that allows you to travel from one planet to the next, from one star system to another. Without it, you’d essentially be trapped on a planet until you figure out another way to get off of it.

When traveling in the game, you’ll amass items and resources that you can load onto your ship as cargo. However, the more you progress in the game, you’ll also start to find that you’ll need better ships with better upgrades to see you through your mid to late game activities. Here are a couple of ways you can obtain new ships in No Man’s Sky.

Fixing Up a Crashed Ship

Whenever you see a crashed ship in No Man’s Sky, be sure to go inspect it. You will probably need a lot of resources to repair the ship and get it running again, but the wreck you find might just be better than the one you have right now. Before trading your current ship for the crashed one, do make sure that you at least have the resources to fix up the more important components of the ship, like the Launch Drive and Pulse Drive to get it off the ground.

If you interact with the crashed ship by hitting square, you can also transfer the cargo from your current ship to the crashed one (not including upgrades). After you’ve finished loading up the crashed ship with all the items you want to bring along, hit ‘Exchange’ and the ship trade will now be complete.

If you want to loot the cargo from the crashed ship, you’ll have to complete the trade first, and then interact with your old ship and transfer everything there the same way you did with the crashed one.

Buy Them Off Other Traders

When you reach Space Stations or other bases on planets, sometimes you’ll find a few ships parked outside those structures. These belong to other space traders. If you walk up and inspect the ships, you’ll be able to talk to the pilots. You’ll then be able to sell them some of your cargo, buy some of their items, or even offer to purchase their ship.

The price will be set, and once you agree to their offer, the ship will be yours. If you do buy their ship, make sure to transfer all of your cargo to the new one before setting off again. If the asking price is a little too high for you, you can also decline and look elsewhere for a new ship.

If you need any more help with No Man’s Sky, check out our robust wiki full of guides and tips.