When you first start off in No Man’s Sky, you don’t exactly get to be picky with your ship selection. You’re likely either stuck with the starter ship, are slowly upgrading via star stations, or have found a broken ship on a planet. Eventually you’ll get far enough to get your own freighter which can store up to six total ships. This No Man’s Sky ships guide will run down all of the different options available to you.

No Man’s Sky Ship Types

There are five different types of ships and four different classes.

C-Class: Small inventory. 20% or less class bonus.
B-Class: Can have up to three fewer slots than the maximum for the ship type. 20% or more class bonus.
A-Class: Can have up to one fewer slots than the maximum for the ship type. 35% or more class bonus.
S-Class: Always has highest number of inventory slots for its tier. 50% or more class bonus.

But what are the class bonuses? Well that depends on what type of ship it is! Here’s the breakdown:

Shuttles: Your run-of-the-mill ship. Has balanced stats and inventory size.
Fighters: Built for dog fights. Has much higher damage scaling. At S-Tier does at minimum 35% more damage than an S-Tier Shuttle.
Haulers: Built with much larger inventories that can top 50+. Has much higher shield scaling.
Explorers: Built with higher hyperdrive range.
Exotics: Varies from ship to ship, but in general, way better than A-Tier ships from their class.

You can determine what class a ship is by using your Analysis Visor!

No Man’s Sky Ship Spawns

How does the game decide what ship to spawn? Every star system in the game has a pool of 21 ship designs. These consist of seven of the generic shuttle types, three of each of the ship types (Fighters, Haulers, etc), one exotic, and four of the system’s dominant species preference. Vy’Keen prefer Fighters; Korvax, Explorers; and Gek, Haulers.

The solar system’s economy also plays a role in how frequently ships spawn. From C to S-Tier:

Poor: 60, 30, 10, 0%
Average: 49, 35, 15, 1%
Wealthy: 30, 40, 28, 2%

Note that the appearance of the ship stays the same every time it lands. It’s traits, however, are randomized every time you see it. If you don’t like what a certain ship has, you can wait until the next time you see it.

Getting Ships in No Man’s Sky

There are numerous ways to get a ship in No Man’s Sky. You can either purchase a ship via a trading post on a planet, in a space station, at a lone outpost, or in freighter hangers. If you’d prefer not to spend a ton of units, you an also find a crashed ship on a planet and take it upon yourself to repair it. This is often a great method. My first No Man’s Sky: Beyond ship was an A-Tier ship worth 47 million units, easily worth repairing.

It’s worth noting that nothing affects the price of ships, they are static. The game will always offer 70% of the value of a ship when you trade one in for another. If the ship is broken, the price decreases for each broken tile or technology. Sometimes it’s worth grabbing an expensive broken ship for free and then trading it in for a few million credits off your next ship purchase.

Best of luck finding your dream ship! The odds of you getting your ideal ship is small, so you may have to settle, but hopefully this guide makes that process just a little easier!

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