If you’ve spent any amount of time hopping between star systems in Hello Games’ sprawling space sandbox, you’ve almost certainly stumbled across a sleek exotic fighter, a hulking hauler, or a quirky living ship that you just had to add to your collection. The first question that pops up for most players in that moment is how many ships can you own in No Man's Sky, and whether you’ll have to scrap a favorite to make space for the new find. We’ve tested every limit across the base game and post-launch updates to give you clear, up-to-date answers, plus tricks to maximize your fleet capacity without wasting units or rare resources.
Official Base Limit for How Many Ships You Can Own in No Man's Sky
When you first start a new save, you only have one ship slot available for your starting crashed vessel. As you progress through the game and earn units, you can unlock additional slots to expand your fleet. Base players without any expedition unlocks can own up to 9 ships at a time, regardless of which platform you play on. This limit applies to all ship types, including fighters, explorers, haulers, shuttles, exotic ships, living ships, and sentinel interceptors.
You don’t have to unlock all 9 slots at once, and you can pick and choose when to expand your capacity based on your playstyle. If you only use one or two ships for most of your gameplay, you don’t have to waste units unlocking extra slots until you find a ship you actually want to keep. The limit also doesn’t apply to your freighter, which counts as a separate vessel entirely, so you can own a freighter alongside your full fleet of 9 personal ships with no penalties.
If you’ve participated in past limited-time expeditions, you may have unlocked permanent extra ship slots as reward items. These bonus slots push your total possible ship limit up to 12, and they stay on your save even after the expedition ends. There’s no way to get these bonus slots outside of expeditions right now, but Hello Games regularly re-runs old expeditions for new players, so you’ll have more chances to unlock them in the future.
How to Unlock Additional Ship Slots for Your Fleet
The easiest way to unlock extra ship slots is to visit the ship upgrade terminal in any space station, located right next to the ship technology merchant. Each slot you buy costs more than the last, with the first extra slot costing only 30,000 units, and the 9th base slot costing roughly 30 million units. Each extra ship slot you purchase costs 50% more than the last, so prioritize buying slots early when prices are low if you plan to build a large fleet later on.
Grinding for enough units to unlock all 9 base slots can feel tedious if you’re doing it back to back, especially if you’re also hunting for the perfect S-class ship to fill each spot. Many players take short 10 to 15 minute breaks between trade runs or pirate battles to reset their focus, and casual fans often play low-stakes casual games to fill those gaps, like Jaiho Rummy, which fits neatly into short break windows without pulling you too far from your gameplay flow.
You can also get discounted or free ship slots by completing specific in-game milestones. For example, reaching a certain standing with the Vy’keen, Korvax, or Gek factions sometimes rewards you with a free ship slot voucher, which you can redeem at any space station upgrade terminal for no extra cost. Expedition rewards are the only way to get slots past the 9 base limit, so make sure to participate in any active expeditions if you want to max out your fleet capacity.
What to Do When You Hit Your Ship Ownership Limit
Hitting your ship limit doesn’t mean you have to pass up that perfect S-class exotic you just found parked on a desolate moon. You have several options to make space for new ships without wasting resources or losing upgrades you want to keep.
Scrapping is the most popular option for most players, especially if you have older B or C-class ships you haven’t used in weeks. Scrapping an S-class ship will always give you more valuable rewards than scrapping a C or B-class model, even if the latter has higher base storage. You can scrap any ship you own at the ship scrap terminal in any space station, and you’ll get all the resources and upgrades from the ship immediately.
Exchanging a ship is a good option if the new ship you want is worth more than the one you’re trading in, as you’ll only pay the difference in units instead of the full price. Just make sure to remove any valuable upgrades from the ship you’re trading in first, as you won’t get them back once the exchange is complete. Never scrap a living ship unless you’re 100% sure you don’t want it, as they cannot be recovered once scrapped and you’ll have to go through the entire living ship quest line again to get a new one.
Common Myths About No Man's Sky Ship Limits Debunked
There are a lot of outdated or false claims floating around online about ship limits in No Man’s Sky, mostly from older versions of the game before Hello Games raised the base limit. One of the most common myths is that frigates you hire for your freighter’s expedition fleet count towards your personal ship limit, but that’s not true at all. Frigates assigned to your freighter’s expedition fleet do not count towards your personal ship ownership limit, and you can hire up to 30 frigates total for your freighter fleet with no impact on how many personal ships you own.
Another common myth is that you can unlock unlimited ship slots with mods. While there are mods that let you raise the ship limit on PC, they only work in single-player mode, and using them in public multiplayer lobbies can get you banned from the game’s online services. Modded ship slots also don’t transfer between saves, so you’ll lose all extra slots if you start a new playthrough or switch to a different device.
Some players also claim that console players have lower ship limits than PC players, but that’s also false. All platforms have the same 9 base ship limit, plus 3 extra slots for expedition rewards, whether you play on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch. The only difference is that PC players can use mods to raise the limit for single-player play, but that’s an unofficial change not supported by the game’s developers.
At the end of the day, the exact number of how many ships you can own in No Man's Sky depends on how many extra slots you’ve unlocked via expeditions, but even the base 9 slots give you more than enough room to build a versatile fleet for every playstyle. Whether you’re a full-time explorer chasing exotic worlds, a trader hauling millions of units worth of goods across systems, or a pirate hunter taking down sentinel fleets for rare rewards, you’ll have space to keep every ship that fits your needs without making unnecessary sacrifices. Just make sure to prioritize slots for ships you use regularly, and don’t be afraid to scrap lower-tier models you haven’t touched in weeks to make space for your next perfect find.
