If you’ve spent even a few hours wandering No Man’s Sky’s endless galaxy, you’ve probably stumbled on a free crashed ship by the side of a mountain, or got offered a cheap shuttle from a friendly NPC at a trading post. It’s easy to end up with a cluttered fleet of vessels you never use, taking up precious slots you could save for that perfect S-class hauler you’ve been hunting for. If you’re asking can you sell ships in No Man's Sky, you’re not alone -- thousands of new players get confused by the game’s non-traditional ship ownership rules their first playthrough. This guide breaks down exactly how to get rid of unwanted ships, make extra units from them, and skip the mistakes that cost players hours of wasted grind.
Can You Sell Ships in No Man's Sky Directly? How the Core System Works
First, let’s clear up the most common misconception: you can’t list a ship for sale on a public market or sell it directly to another player in the vanilla version of the game. That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with every ship you claim, though. The game has two official ways to get rid of unwanted ships and get value back from them, and both are easy to access once you know where to look. You don’t have to keep every ship you pick up, even if you claimed it as your own for free.
The first method is trading your ship in when you buy a new one from an NPC. Any time you approach a ship owned by an NPC at a space station, trading post, or settlement landing pad, you’ll have the option to buy it outright, or use your currently active ship as a trade-in to lower the total cost. The second method is scrapping your ship for units, resources, and upgrade modules, which you can do at any space station in the galaxy. I spent my first 20 hours of play hoarding six random low-class ships because I thought I couldn’t get rid of them, and scrapping three of them gave me enough units and nanites to fully upgrade my main explorer ship in one sitting.
How to Scrap Unwanted Ships for Fast Units and Resources
Scrapping is the best option if you don’t want to buy a new ship right now, and just want to clear space in your fleet and earn quick rewards. The process is straightforward, and you can do it as soon as you reach your first space station. First, make sure the ship you want to scrap is the one you flew into the space station with -- you can’t scrap ships you have stored in your fleet from a distance. Next, head to the ship technology merchant’s area, and look for the bright blue ship scrapping terminal right next to their counter.
When you interact with the terminal, it will show you exactly what you’ll get for scrapping your current ship, including total units, raw resources, and any upgrade modules you’ll recover from the ship’s inventory. Once you confirm, the ship will be removed from your fleet permanently, and all rewards will be added to your inventory immediately. S-class ships always give the highest payout when scrapped, even if they're damaged or low on inventory space.
Scrapping is usually more flexible than trading in for most players, for a few key reasons:
- You don't have to spend extra units on a new ship to get rid of an unwanted one
- You get rare upgrade modules you can sell for nanites or install on your main ship
- Damaged crashed ships give the same payout as fully repaired ones, so you don't have to waste resources fixing them first
You can scrap any ship you own, no matter how you got it, as long as you can fly it to a space station. The only exception is your very first starting ship, but most players replace that within the first few hours of play anyway.
Maximizing Profit When Trading in Ships
If you’re actively looking to upgrade to a better ship, trading in your unwanted vessels will almost always save you more units than scrapping them. Trade-in value is calculated based on your ship’s class, total inventory slots, and the value of any upgrades installed on it, so there are a few easy tricks to bump up the value before you make a trade. Always install any cheap ship upgrades you have lying around before trading in a ship, as they'll increase its value far more than the cost of the upgrade itself.
For example, a few weeks back I found a B-class explorer with 28 slots that I didn’t want to keep. I had three common hyperdrive upgrades sitting in my inventory that cost me less than 50,000 units worth of materials to craft, so I installed them on the explorer before taking it to a space station to trade in. Those upgrades boosted the ship’s trade-in value by 1.2 million units, which covered almost half the cost of the A-class hauler I was looking to buy. That’s a way better return than I would have gotten from scrapping the explorer.
You can also trade in multiple ships in a row if you’re working toward a very expensive high-class ship. Just trade in one unwanted ship to lower the cost of a mid-tier ship, then trade that mid-tier ship in to lower the cost of the endgame ship you want. It takes a little extra time, but it can cut the total cost of a top-tier ship by 70% or more if you have a few unwanted vessels in your fleet.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Getting Rid of Ships
It’s easy to make costly missteps when you’re first learning how the ship trading and scrapping systems work, but most of them are avoidable if you know what to look for. First, never scrap or trade in a ship before checking its inventory for rare upgrades you want to keep. If your ship has a unique upgrade like an S-class shield module you farmed for hours to get, make sure to uninstall it before scrapping or trading it in. Any upgrades left on the ship when you scrap or trade it will be lost forever, or only returned as a damaged module that’s worth a fraction of its original value.
Another common mistake new players make is claiming too many random ships early on before they know what type of vessel fits their playstyle. You only get 6 total ship slots in your fleet in the vanilla game, so if you fill all 6 with low-class shuttles and fighters you don’t use, you’ll have to scrap one before you can claim that rare S-class ship you just found on a random planet. I always leave one open slot in my fleet when I’m out exploring, just in case I stumble on a ship I want to take home.
Finally, don’t waste resources fully repairing crashed ships before you scrap or trade them in. I see new players spend hundreds of thousands of units worth of ferrite dust and tritium fixing every damaged slot on a crashed ship, only to scrap it for barely more profit than they spent on repairs. You only need to repair the launch thruster and pulse engine on a crashed ship to move it to a space station for scrapping. The rest of the damage doesn’t affect the ship’s scrap or trade-in value at all, so there’s no point fixing it unless you plan to keep the ship for your own use.
So now you know the answer to can you sell ships in No Man's Sky -- you can’t sell them directly to other players or list them on a public market, but you can easily trade them in for steep discounts on new ships or scrap them for fast units, resources, and nanites. I usually scrap any C or B class ships I find that don’t fit my fleet, and save A and S class vessels for trade-ins when I’m looking to upgrade my main explorer or hauler. It’s a great way to earn extra resources without having to grind for hours mining asteroids or running repetitive trade routes. Play around with both methods to see what works best for your playstyle, and don’t be afraid to get rid of ships that aren’t serving you -- there are always millions more to find out in the galaxy.
