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Quick Answer

  • Crashed ships spawn on every planet and can be claimed for free. You only pay in repair materials.
  • The fastest method is buying Planetary Charts (Emergency Cartographic Data) from a space station Cartographer for one Navigation Data each.
  • Transmission Towers on planet surfaces also reveal nearby crash sites after solving a number-sequence puzzle.
  • Once at the site, interact with the Distress Beacon and choose "Claim Ship". Your current ship moves to your fleet automatically (up to 12 active ships in your collection).
  • Minimum repairs to fly away: Launch Thrusters and Pulse Engine: everything else can wait.
  • If you don't want to keep the ship, fly it to a space station and scrap it at the Starship Outfitting terminal for Nanites and sellable components.
  • Most crashed ships are C-class, but B, A, and occasionally S-class do appear: the class is fixed per location, not random each visit.

Overview

No Man's Sky scatters wrecked starships across every planet in the universe. These aren't just scenery. They're claimable vessels that cost nothing but a handful of common materials to put back in the air. For new players, a crashed ship can be a significant early upgrade. For veterans, a steady stream of them is one of the best free sources of Nanites in the game.

There are two broad strategies: keep and fly the ship, or do the minimum repairs and scrap it for resources. Both are worth knowing, and the approach you choose depends on where you are in the game. Either way, learning to find crashed ships consistently is a skill that pays dividends across your entire playthrough.

If you're still on your first planet or just got your starter ship flying, check out the guide on how to repair your ship and leave the first planet before diving into crash-site hunting.

How to Find Crashed Ships

This is the most reliable and repeatable method at any stage of the game.

  1. Dock at any space station and find the Cartographer (the NPC at the circular terminal near the back).
  2. Purchase Planetary Chart (Emergency Cartographic Data): each one costs one Navigation Data.
  3. Navigation Data is found by interacting with the glowing orange cubes on desks around space stations and planetary outposts. They respawn, so this is a renewable resource.
  4. Use the chart from your inventory while in orbit or on the surface. It reveals a point of interest. You want a Distress Beacon marker. If you get a different result (a shelter, depot, observatory, etc.), simply use another chart. If you receive an already-visited location or a non-crash POI type, the chart is not consumed, so you can keep trying until you land on a crash site.
  5. Follow the marker to the surface.

Tip: Stock up on 5–10 charts before you start so you can burn through any bad results quickly.

Method 2: Transmission Towers

Transmission Towers are structures you can spot from the air or locate using Secret Cartographic Data charts from the same Cartographer.

Inside, a terminal presents a number-sequence puzzle. Common patterns include:

Pattern Type Example Sequence Answer
Fibonacci 3 – 5 – 8 – 13 – 21 – ??? 34
Factorial 1 – 2 – 6 – 24 – 120 – ??? 720
Decreasing subtraction 99 – 92 – 86 – 81 – ??? 77
Division 5040 – 720 – 120 – 24 – ??? 6

Solve it and the tower reveals the location of a nearby crashed ship or crashed freighter.

Method 3: Faction NPCs

At space stations, trading a high-value gift to an NPC of the system's dominant race (a Gek Relic, Vy'keen Effigy, or Korvax Casing) can occasionally yield useful rewards or information as a gesture of goodwill. This method is unreliable for specifically finding crash sites but costs little when it produces results.

Method 4: Visual Scanning

During low-altitude planetary flight, crashed ships appear as white dots on your starship scope. This is pure luck-based exploration, but it's surprisingly effective when you're already flying around a planet for other reasons.

Method 5: Travel to a Known Crash Site

Crash sites sit at fixed coordinates and keep their original class forever, which makes them the one ship source you can share and re-use. Someone who finds an S-Class Hauler in a canyon can hand you the portal address and you will find the same S-Class Hauler in the same canyon. That is the opposite of the station shuffle, where class is rerolled per player.

It also means the site is worth a base. Drop a Base Computer near a crash you like, and the wreck stays a teleport hop away for as long as that save lives, ready to be claimed again whenever you want a free ship to scrap.

Claiming Your Crashed Ship

Once you reach the crash site:

  1. Approach and interact with the Distress Beacon: a glowing object near the wreck. Reading it gives you lore about the previous owner.
  2. You'll be prompted to Claim Ship. Do so.
  3. Your previous ship is not lost: it moves automatically into your starship collection (stored on your freighter if you have one, or accessible via the Quick Menu). You can hold up to 12 active ships in your fleet.

Important: Do not immediately swap to the crashed ship before doing any repairs, or you'll be grounded. Claim it, then repair it before switching your active vessel.

Repairing the Crashed Ship

Every crashed ship arrives with multiple broken systems. You don't need to fix everything. Just the two systems required for flight:

Minimum Repairs to Fly

System Materials Needed
Launch Thrusters 50× Pure Ferrite, 1× Di-hydrogen Jelly
Pulse Engine 1× Hermetic Seal, 1× Metal Plating

Crafting what you need:

  • Metal Plating: crafted from 50× Ferrite Dust (abundant on most planets)
  • Hermetic Seal: crafted from 30× Condensed Carbon
  • Pure Ferrite: refine Ferrite Dust 1:1 in a Portable Refiner
  • Di-hydrogen Jelly: crafted from 40× Di-hydrogen (the blue crystals common on most planets)

With those two systems repaired, you can launch and fly to the nearest space station. Shields and weapons can wait. You're just getting it off the ground.

Repair Kits (earned from mission rewards) can substitute for harder-to-find materials and are worth saving for exactly this situation.

For a deeper look at managing your growing inventory and fleet, see the guide on how to expand ship inventory and storage.

Keep It or Scrap It?

Keep the Ship

Fully repair all broken slots and you have a free addition to your fleet. Crashed ships can be any class (C, B, A, or rarely S) and any ship type (fighter, hauler, explorer, shuttle, solar). The class and slot count are determined when the location generates and remain consistent between visits, so a site someone shares in the community will always have the same ship.

Most crashed ships are C-class, which makes them better suited for scrapping rather than keeping. A or S-class finds are relatively rare but do happen, especially in high-economy star systems.

Scrap It for Nanites and Units

This is often the better play for experienced players building up resources. The process:

  1. Do the minimum repairs (Launch Thrusters + Pulse Engine).
  2. Fly to any space station.
  3. Go to the Starship Outfitting terminal and select Begin Salvage Analysis.
  4. You receive sellable components worth a portion of the ship's value in Units, plus upgrade modules (typically one to five, depending on ship type and class) that you can sell to the Technology Merchant for Nanites.

The upgrade modules are where the real value is. Higher-class ships yield more and better modules. Scrapping a steady supply of crashed ships is among the most consistent early-game methods for farming Nanites fast.

One caveat: selling large amounts of the same scrap components in the same system repeatedly will reduce the local buy price. Spread your scrapping across multiple systems for better returns.

Tips for Better Results

  • Higher-economy systems tend to produce higher-class crashes. If you're finding mostly C-class ships, try hunting in systems with a "Wealthy" or "Opulent" economy rating.
  • The crash site class is fixed. If you find a great ship but aren't ready to repair it, you can return later and it will be the same class and type, though crash sites can eventually reset over time, so don't leave it indefinitely.
  • Check the slot count before committing. Inspect the ship's inventory before claiming; a high-slot C-class might be worth more scrapped than a low-slot A-class.
  • Pair this with Nanite farming. Combining crash-site hunting with Nanite-earning methods lets you quickly afford proper S-class upgrades.
  • Sentinel Interceptors can also be found crashed after defeating Sentinel Hardframe enemies on Corrupted planets. A different mechanic but equally free.

FAQ

Can I lose my current ship when I claim a crashed one?

Not if you select "Claim Ship" at the Distress Beacon prompt and don't immediately swap your active vessel to the unrepaired wreck. Your old ship moves to your collection and stays there. You can have up to 12 active ships in your fleet at once.

What's the best ship type to find crashed?

Fighters are generally the most useful crashed finds because their upgrade modules (for weapons and shields) have strong Nanite value when scrapped, and they tend to yield more modules per salvage. Explorers and haulers are also worth grabbing if the slot count is high.

Do crashed ships respawn?

Each crash site has a fixed ship class and type. However, crash sites can eventually reset and generate a new ship over time. The timing is inconsistent. For practical purposes, treat a site you've already visited as unavailable and focus on finding fresh locations.

Is it worth fully repairing a crashed ship?

Only if it's B-class or higher and has a slot count that improves on what you're flying. A C-class ship with few slots is almost always better scrapped. An A or S-class find with good slots is worth the repair investment, or you can work toward an S-class upgrade path from there.

Can I find S-class ships crashed?

Yes, but they're uncommon. S-class crashed ships are more likely in high-wealth star systems. Community coordinate-sharing sites are your best bet for confirmed S-class crash locations without grinding through charts.

How many Navigation Data do I need to find a crash site?

It varies: some players find one with their first chart, others burn through several before landing on a Distress Beacon result. Buying around 10 charts before you start hunting gives you a comfortable buffer. Navigation Data respawns at station desks, so you'll never run out.

Key Takeaways

  • Buy charts in bulk before you fly out. Around ten gives a comfortable buffer, and a chart that returns a non-crash location or somewhere you've already visited isn't consumed, so you can keep rolling until a Distress Beacon appears.
  • Craft the repair materials first. Metal Plating, Hermetic Seal, Pure Ferrite, and Di-hydrogen Jelly all come from resources you can gather in minutes, and arriving with them means claim, repair, and launch in a single visit.
  • Claim, repair, then swap. Switching your active ship to an unrepaired wreck before the Launch Thrusters and Pulse Engine are fixed just leaves you grounded.
  • Check the slot count before you commit. Most crashes are C-class, and a high-slot C-class is often worth more scrapped than a low-slot A-class is worth flying.
  • Hunt in Wealthy or Opulent systems if you want something worth keeping, and rotate which system you scrap in so you don't drive down the local price of your own components.
  • Fighters are the pick when you're farming modules for Nanites. Save full repairs for B-class or better that genuinely improves on what you already fly.