I remember spending my first 12 hours in No Man’s Sky hoarding every dented starship I stumbled across on radioactive or frozen planets, convinced each random find was a rare treasure worth holding onto. It wasn’t until my fleet hit the 6-ship limit and I couldn’t claim a gorgeous S-class explorer I found parked at a trade outpost that I realized I had no clue how to sell starships in No Man’s Sky without throwing away thousands of units. This guide is built from 200+ hours of playtime across multiple saves, with all the tricks, mistakes to avoid, and step-by-step processes I wish I knew when I first started. You won’t find any overcomplicated glitches or exploits here, just legitimate strategies that work for every platform, from PC to console.
How to Sell Starships in No Man’s Sky: Core Prerequisites You Can’t Skip
Before you can sell any ship, there are a few basic rules you need to know to avoid wasting time. First, you can never sell your only active starship, for obvious reasons – the game won’t leave you stranded without a way to travel. You’ll need at least two ships in your fleet before you can offload any of them, either by buying a second ship, claiming a crashed one, or earning a ship as a quest reward.
You will never get 100% of a ship’s listed market value when selling or scrapping it, no matter where you go or what upgrades you add. The standard payout is between 60% and 80% of the listed value, depending on the system’s economy rating. That means it’s rarely worth dumping tons of resources into upgrading a low-class ship just to sell it, as you’ll almost never make back the investment.
Living ships and special event reward ships cannot be sold or scrapped, so don’t waste time trying to offload those. These ships are permanently bound to your save, and the scrap dealer will not even show them as an option when you ask to process a ship. If you don’t want to use a living ship anymore, you can just leave it stored in your fleet and ignore it, no harm done.
Step-by-Step Process to Sell Any Ship for Maximum Units
There are two valid methods to sell a starship, depending on whether you want to upgrade your fleet at the same time or just get rid of an unused ship for quick units. The first method is trade-in, where you exchange your old ship for credit when buying a new one from a merchant. This is the best option if you’re already looking to upgrade, as you’ll get a slightly higher payout than scrapping, and you can put the full value directly toward your new purchase.
If you just want to offload a ship without buying a new one, scrapping is your only option, and it’s still extremely profitable if you do it right. If you’re new to how to sell starships in No Man’s Sky, the scrapping method is the easiest way to start, as you don’t have to hunt for a specific new ship to buy first. The process is straightforward:
- Summon the ship you want to scrap to any authorized, non-abandoned space station (abandoned stations have no ship technicians, so you won’t be able to process scrap there)
- Transfer all cargo and removable upgrade modules from the ship to your inventory or another ship first, as any items left on the ship will be permanently lost when you scrap it
- Speak to the ship scrap dealer located near the main entrance to the landing pad area, and select the option to scrap your currently summoned ship
- Collect your units, rare upgrade materials, and nanite clusters from the terminal next to the dealer once the 10-second processing animation finishes
Always remove high-value upgrade modules before scrapping or selling a ship, even if it takes an extra minute to transfer them. Good S-class upgrades can be worth hundreds of thousands of units, and you can reinstall them on any other ship in your fleet for free. You’ll get a tiny extra payout for leaving upgrades installed, but it’s never even close to the value of the upgrade itself. If you’re rushing to process a bunch of ships, it’s easy to cut corners and lose a ton of profit when you don’t follow the basic rules for how to sell starships in No Man’s Sky.
Common Mistakes That Cost You Units When Selling Starships
I’ve made every single one of these mistakes myself, so I can tell you exactly how much they cost me, and how to avoid them. The first and most common mistake is selling or scrapping ships in low-economy systems. Low and medium economy systems offer 15% to 25% lower payouts for ship sales and scrapping than high-economy (T3) systems, so it’s always worth warping to a T3 system before you process any ships you want to sell.
Stick to T3 economy systems for all ship sales to get the highest possible payout. You can find T3 systems by opening your galaxy map and filtering for systems with a “wealthy” economy rating, marked with three gold bars next to the economy type. You don’t need to have a base there, just warp in, land at the space station, and process your ships, it takes less than five minutes total.
Another big mistake is leaving cargo on the ship when you scrap it. I once lost 60,000 units worth of activated indium because I forgot to move it off a beat-up hauler I was scrapping, and it’s a mistake I’ve never made again. The game will give you a small warning if you have cargo left on the ship, but it’s easy to click through it by accident, so always double-check before you confirm the scrap.
Finally, don’t waste time selling C-class ships with less than 20 slots. The payout for these ships is barely enough to cover the cost of warp fuel to get to a T3 system, so you’re better off leaving them where you find them unless you’re extremely short on units in the first few hours of a new save. Save your fleet slots for A and S-class ships, which have much higher profit margins.
Pro Tips to Build a Sellable Starship Fleet Fast
If you want to turn selling ships into a reliable unit farming method, there are a few tricks you can use to collect high-value ships for free or very low cost. The first is hunting for crashed S-class ships on exotic or high-value planets. You can use navigation beacons to scan for crash sites, and a fully intact S-class hauler can net you up to 12 million units when traded in, or 8 million units plus rare upgrade materials when scrapped.
Another great way to get free sellable ships is to help defend freighters from pirate attacks. Every time you jump into a new system, there’s a 10% chance you’ll spawn in the middle of a pirate attack on a civilian freighter. If you destroy all the pirate ships before they take down the freighter, the captain will come to your comms and offer you a free ship as a reward, which is often A or S-class. You can farm free ship rewards by reloading the same save before interacting with the freighter captain until you get an S-class ship, then scrap it immediately for a huge payout with almost no effort.
You can also flip ships for profit by buying discounted A-class ships from merchants in low-economy systems, then selling them in T3 systems for a 2 to 3 million unit profit per ship. Merchants in low-economy systems often sell high-class ships for 20% less than their market value, so if you have extra units lying around, this is a low-risk way to make easy money without having to hunt for crashed ships. Just make sure you have extra fleet slots available to hold the ships while you transport them to the higher economy system.
Selling extra ships is one of the fastest and most low-effort ways to grind units in No Man’s Sky, and once you get the hang of how to sell starships in No Man’s Sky without making common mistakes, you’ll be able to afford that S-class freighter or fully upgraded explorer you’ve had your eye on in no time. Don’t be afraid to scrap lower-class ships you don’t use, even if you put a little work into them early on – the resources and units you get back will always help you progress faster. If you have a favorite trick for selling ships for extra units, feel free to share it with other readers in the comments section.
