There’s no worse feeling in NMS than scanning a planet and finding a rare S-class shield upgrade, only to realize all your technology slots are already full. You end up stuck choosing between ditching your maxed jetpack boost or your hazard protection mod, and neither option feels good. That’s why learning how to get more technology slots in No Man's Sky is one of the first skills every new player should master. It lets you build a loadout that fits your exact playstyle, no compromises needed. I’ve put over 400 hours into NMS across three playthroughs, and I still get excited every time I unlock a new slot to fit another quality of life mod.
Why Extra Technology Slots Make NMS 10x More Enjoyable
You don’t realize how limiting a small tech slot pool is until you start dipping into endgame content. If you want to explore scorched or radioactive planets without constantly refueling your hazard protection, you need multiple stacked upgrades for each resistance type. If you want to take on pirate fleets or sentinel walkers without getting one-shot, you need room for combat buffs and shield mods. Even casual players who only build bases or farm resources benefit from extra slots, since they let you fit scan upgrades that make finding rare materials way faster.
A lot of new players mix up tech slots and cargo slots at first, and that’s an easy mistake to make. Technology slots are separate from general inventory slots, and they give you a bonus stat boost if you place adjacent upgrade mods of the same type. You can’t put upgrade mods in cargo slots, so even if you have 50 extra cargo spaces, you still need more tech slots to actually use the upgrades you find or craft.
That adjacency bonus isn’t trivial, either. Stack three S-class jetpack upgrades next to each other, and you’ll be able to fly halfway across a planet without touching the ground. Stack three scan upgrades, and you’ll earn millions of units every time you catalog new fauna or flora on an uncharted world. You can’t pull off those kinds of powerful builds if you only have 10 or 12 tech slots to work with.
How to Get More Technology Slots in No Man's Sky for All Gear Types
There are four reliable ways to unlock extra tech slots for your exosuit, multitool, and ship, and none of them require you to grind for hundreds of hours unless you’re going for max slots on all three pieces of gear. I always start with exosuit slots first, since that’s the gear you use 100% of the time, no matter what ship or multitool you’re carrying.
Here are the most consistent methods I’ve used across every playthrough:
- Track down Drop Pods on every planet you visit. You can find them by using your scanner to look for the drop pod icon, or by buying drop pod coordinates from space station vendors for a handful of nanites. Each drop pod lets you unlock one exosuit tech slot for 5,000 to 15,000 Nanite Clusters, depending on how many slots you already have. This is the cheapest and fastest way to get early game slot unlocks.
- Purchase upgrade modules from the Space Anomaly construction vendor. You can buy exosuit, ship, and multitool slot upgrades here for increasing amounts of nanites, and you don’t have to go exploring to find them. This is the best option if you’d rather grind missions or refine nanites instead of running around planets looking for drop pods.
- Buy higher slot count gear from space stations or trading posts. Every ship and multitool you find has a set number of base tech slots, so if you find an S-class ship with 30 tech slots, you can swap it for your current ship and keep all the slots. You can even transfer your existing upgrades to the new gear for a small nanite fee, so you don’t lose the mods you already invested in.
- Complete expedition milestones. Every few months, Hello Games launches a new limited-time expedition, and most of them have free tech slot unlocks as rewards for simple tasks. You can transfer these unlocks to your main save file after you finish the expedition, so it’s a great way to get free slots without spending any resources.
You don’t have to stick to just one method, either. I usually mix drop pod runs for early exosuit slots, then buy the rest of my slots from the anomaly once I have a steady stream of nanites from scrapping extra S-class upgrades.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Unlocking New Tech Slots
It’s easy to waste resources on slot unlocks if you don’t know what you’re doing, especially when you’re first starting out. I made a ton of these mistakes my first playthrough, and I ended up wasting thousands of nanites on upgrades I didn’t actually need.
First, don’t waste nanites unlocking tech slots for low-tier ships or multitools you’re just going to replace in a few hours. If you’re still using the starting multitool you got at the beginning of the game, don’t bother buying extra slots for it. Wait until you find an A or S-class multitool you want to keep long term, then unlock slots for that one. The same goes for ships: if you’re flying a C-class hauler you picked up for extra cargo space, hold off on buying tech slots for it until you find a ship you want to use permanently.
Another mistake a lot of players make is prioritizing ship slots before exosuit slots. Your exosuit is the only piece of gear you never stop using, even if you swap ships or multitools every week. Unlocking all 28 exosuit tech slots first will make every other part of the game easier, from exploration to combat to resource farming.
Don’t ignore supercharged slots, either. Every piece of gear has a few supercharged slots that give an extra 30% boost to any upgrade you place in them. When you unlock new slots, make sure you’re not accidentally skipping over supercharged slots that are already available on your gear. You can identify them by the bright gold glow around the slot icon.
How to Organize Your Tech Slots for Maximum Benefit
Once you have all the tech slots you need, the way you arrange your upgrades makes a huge difference in how effective they are. You don’t just want to cram every upgrade you have into empty slots; you want to arrange them to get the maximum possible adjacency bonus.
Group all upgrades of the same type next to each other in a block. For example, put all your jetpack upgrades in a 2x2 square next to your base jetpack mod, and all your shield upgrades in a separate block next to your base shield mod. You’ll get a 10-20% bonus per adjacent mod of the same type, which adds up really fast.
If you have supercharged slots, put your highest tier upgrades in those first. An S-class combat upgrade in a supercharged slot will be almost twice as effective as the same upgrade in a regular slot. I always put my hazard protection and shield upgrades in supercharged slots first, since those are the ones that keep me alive the most often.
Don’t be afraid to rearrange your slots depending on what you’re doing that day. If you’re going on a long exploration run, swap out your combat upgrades for extra scan and jetpack upgrades. If you’re going to fight a sentinel dreadnought, swap your farming upgrades for shield and weapon mods. You don’t have to stick to one permanent loadout, now that you have enough slots to swap back and forth whenever you want.
No matter what your playstyle is, knowing how to get more technology slots in No Man's Sky will make your time in the game way less frustrating and way more fun. You don’t have to grind for days to get enough slots to fit all your favorite upgrades; even just 10 extra slots unlocked from drop pods will make a huge difference in your first 10 hours of play. Take it slow, prioritize your exosuit first, and don’t waste nanites on gear you’re just going to replace, and you’ll have a fully kitted out loadout before you know it.
