Ever chase down a Distress Signal only to find yourself asking how to sell ships in No Man’s Sky? Players can only have so many of these suckers in their personal fleet. If you get one you don’t want, or find a better one and suddenly don’t need to worry about upgrading your oldies, you may wish to just get rid of them. Luckily, we can scrap starships! NMS makes the process fairly painless. Though you need at least two personal ships to do so. Let’s take a look at how in this NMS starship scrapping guide!
Speaking of scrapping, this whole process really does produce scrap. There technically is no way to sell ships in No Man’s Sky. At least not directly. You need to instead convert them into trade materials which you can then sell at any Galactic Trade Terminal. You can do it at just about any normal space station, too. You just need to hit up the Starship Outfitting table.
This is a large, orange, holographic display found up the right-hand ramp (if you’re facing towards the outside of the hangar). It’s right next to the Technology Merchants and the character customization kiosk.
Interact with the device and you should see at least four options. The third one down ought to read “Claim Scrap Worth X Units.” The number associated with the scrap will depend on the total value of your ship (i.e. its class). We should also note that clicking this button does not scrap your ship automatically! There is another menu asking you to confirm that you really want to sell your ship. Or destroy it, as the case may be.
The total worth of the scrap is also more of an estimate. You can sell it for lower and/or higher than the listed total value. That’s because the scrap comes in the form of various different items. These have different value depending on which system you sell them in, just like any other item in the game. You can always see the bonus or deficit in the form of green or red percentage numbers at the Galactic Trade Terminal.
The table will also scrap whichever starship you flew into the station. Or, in such cases where you teleported in, it will scrap the last starship you flew. This is what NMS considers your “default” ship until you enter and exit a different one. Make sure you know which vessel you’re selling before you confirm it!
If you do screw up, however, don’t fret. The game doesn’t save automatically all that often. You can simply quit to the main menu and reload. Assuming you don’t get into and then exit a different starship, or otherwise save manually somehow (such as by interacting with a Save Point on your freighter).
Speaking of different ships: you won’t be stranded if you sell your ship this way. The second-to-last ship you used will “magically” teleport into the space station hangar to replace the one you’ve lost. This is why you can’t scrap a starship when you only have one. You could potentially strand yourself permanently in space. The game won’t let you.
The same goes for any technology modules left on the ship when you liquidate it. These are automatically converted into the materials you would get for scrapping them normally. That means, for example, that you would retrieve 100 Copper and 50 Condensed Carbon if your scrapped ship had a Rocket Launcher installed. The materials needed to craft it are essentially refunded at the same time you receive your loot.
Besides the money and the instant windfall of resources, selling NMS ships can provide Starship Storage Augmentations. These are basically a type of currency that takes up space in your inventory, almost exactly the same as Navigation Data and/or Salvaged Frigate Modules. They’re used to upgrade a single ship’s inventory space by one slot per augmentation — for free. This is an otherwise extremely costly process that can set players back hundreds of millions of Units. Making the little items quite valuable.
The downside is that not every vessel will drop a Starship Storage Augmentation. It’s a bit random. Still, between this and the money you stand to make, hunting down Distress Signals to crashed ships is a worthwhile pursuit in NMS.
And that’s it for our guide to selling ships in No Man’s Sky! We hope it helps you make a bit more room in your fleet and put a few more Units in your virtual wallet.
