No Man's Sky Starship Weapons Guide

Part of the Starships series:

• Starships Guide Hub: Start here.
• Space Combat & Dogfighting: How to fly the fight.

Quick Answer

• There are six starship weapons: Photon Cannon, Positron Ejector, Infra-Knife Accelerator, Phase Beam, Cyclotron Ballista, and Rocket Launcher.
• You cannot fly with every weapon installed. Ship technology space is finite, so pick one primary weapon and build around it instead of fitting a little of everything.
• The Infra-Knife Accelerator is the community's default primary for its rapid fire and sustained output. The Positron Ejector hits harder at knife range but burns through ammunition fast.
• Layout beats weapon choice. The same three upgrade modules produce wildly different results depending on whether they sit in supercharged slots and whether they touch each other.
• The Phase Beam is the specialist answer to enemy shields and the easiest weapon to aim, since a continuous beam needs no lead.
• Survivability is half the loadout. Deflector Shield upgrades keep you in the fight long enough for your damage to matter.
• The Swarm update added critical hit zones, which rewards aimed fire and favours accurate weapons over wide spray.

Overview

Most players inherit a Photon Cannon on their first ship, install one upgrade module, and never revisit the subject. That works until you drop into a high-conflict system and discover your damage stalls the moment enemy shields come up.

Starship weapons in No Man's Sky are not balanced against each other as straight upgrades. Each one solves a different problem: shields, hull, agile targets, or close-range burst. Effectiveness also depends heavily on where you install the upgrade modules, which is why two pilots flying the same S-class ship with the same weapon can get very different results. This page covers the weapons themselves; the dogfighting guide linked above covers positioning and velocity control.

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Every Starship Weapon Compared

Photon Cannon

The Photon Cannon comes pre-installed and is the weapon you should upgrade first, because it is the one you already have. It fires accurately, avoids the ammunition and heat problems the specialists have, and its lock-on assist is forgiving while you are still learning to lead a target.

Its ceiling is lower than the specialists once they are fully built out, but a fully upgraded Photon Cannon in good slots comfortably outperforms a bare Infra-Knife in bad ones.

Positron Ejector

The Positron Ejector fires a spread rather than a single line, which means damage scales sharply with how close you are. Sit on a target's tail and it removes them quickly. Fire at range and most of the spread misses entirely.

Its cost is ammunition. It consumes rounds fast, and running dry mid-wave is a real risk if you are not carrying crafting materials. Treat it as a commitment to aggressive flying rather than a safe default.

Infra-Knife Accelerator

The Infra-Knife Accelerator is the weapon most experienced pilots settle on. Its rapid fire produces high sustained damage across a long engagement, and it stays useful at the medium ranges where most dogfights happen, without demanding the point-blank positioning the Positron Ejector needs.

It builds heat under continuous fire, so short controlled bursts beat holding the trigger down. That habit also improves your accuracy, which matters more since the Swarm update.

Phase Beam

The Phase Beam is a continuous beam with no projectile travel time, so there is nothing to lead. Against a pirate that jinks constantly, that is a large practical advantage over any projectile weapon. It is also the standard answer to enemy shields.

The trade-off is duration. The beam drains quickly and needs a moment to recover, so it works best as a shield-stripping opener paired with a projectile primary rather than as a solo weapon.

Cyclotron Ballista

The Cyclotron Ballista is the middle ground between the Phase Beam and the Infra-Knife: a projectile weapon with solid damage per hit at medium range, and a good pick if you dislike the Phase Beam's short bursts but still want something effective against shields.

Because its projectiles travel slowly, you need to aim ahead of a moving target. Against straight-line runners it lands cleanly. Against erratic fliers it is less consistent.

Rocket Launcher

The Rocket Launcher delivers a large burst of damage and then goes on cooldown, which makes it a supplementary tool rather than a primary. Fire it at a target already committed to a straight line, or as an opening hit before you switch to your main gun. If technology space is tight, it is the first thing to cut.

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You Cannot Fit Everything

Ship technology slots are limited, and a weapon is only worth carrying if its upgrade modules come with it. A ship with four weapons and one upgrade each is far weaker than a ship with one weapon and three upgrades clustered correctly.

The practical rule: one primary, at most one support weapon. Spend everything else on that primary's upgrades and on defence. Roomier ships, compared in the Starship Types Explained guide, can afford a second weapon. Small-inventory ships cannot.

Supercharged Slots and Adjacency

This is where most of your damage actually comes from. Every ship has a small number of supercharged slots that amplify whatever technology sits inside them, and upgrade modules of the same type grant adjacency bonuses when placed touching each other and the base technology.

Stack both effects and the result dwarfs the gap between any two weapons on the list above. An Infra-Knife with clustered supercharged upgrades and a Photon Cannon with upgrades scattered across the inventory are not in the same league, and the difference has almost nothing to do with which weapon was chosen.

Two consequences worth internalising:

1. Choose your primary weapon based on where your supercharged slots are. If the cluster is positioned awkwardly for a three-module weapon block, that shapes the build more than personal preference does.
2. When ship hunting, check slot layout as carefully as class. A ship whose supercharged slots sit adjacent to each other is worth more than one with the same class and scattered slots. The S-class ship guide covers what to look for.

Full placement rules, including how adjacency is calculated, are in the supercharged slots and technology upgrades guide.

Shields and Survivability

Damage you never get to deal is worth nothing. The Deflector Shield and its upgrade modules deserve real space in your loadout, not the leftovers.

In extended fights, particularly against Pirate Dreadnought escorts, shield strength decides whether you hold a firing position or spend the fight running to recover. A common split is three weapon upgrades to two shield upgrades, adjusted toward shields if you are dying and toward weapons if fights drag.

Shield upgrades benefit from adjacency and supercharged slots exactly like weapons do, so cluster them as a block too.

Critical Hit Zones and Aimed Fire

The Swarm update introduced critical hit zones on enemy ships, so hitting a specific part of the target now produces meaningfully more damage than hitting the hull anywhere. Enemy AI also flies better than it used to.

This shifts value toward weapons you can place precisely. The Phase Beam lands exactly where you point it, and the Infra-Knife's fast projectiles are easy to hold on a spot. The Positron Ejector's spread and the Rocket Launcher's cooldown both make deliberate critical hits harder to land consistently.

None of this makes the spread weapons bad, but the old habit of holding the trigger and hosing the general area is worth less than it used to be. The Swarm update guide covers the wider combat changes.

A Recommended Starting Loadout

For a mid-game pilot with a decent ship and limited resources:

• Primary: Infra-Knife Accelerator, with its upgrade modules clustered in supercharged slots and touching the base technology.
• Support: Phase Beam, for stripping shields and for handling targets too agile to lead. Skip it if space is tight.
• Defence: Deflector Shield plus shield upgrade modules, clustered as their own adjacent block.
• Cut: Rocket Launcher, and any weapon you are carrying without upgrades attached.

What to buy with Nanites first

Upgrade modules are bought with Nanites from space station technology merchants and the Space Anomaly, and quality varies from C up to S class on the same module type. Priority order:

1. Three upgrade modules for your chosen primary weapon. Best quality you can afford, since these compound with slot placement.
2. Deflector Shield upgrades, enough to survive the fights you are actually losing.
3. Replacing lower-class weapon modules with S-class versions, once you have full coverage.

Buying a fourth weapon before your primary is fully upgraded is the most common way to waste Nanites. If you are short, the Nanite farming guide covers the fastest reliable sources.

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FAQ

What is the best starship weapon?

The Infra-Knife Accelerator is the most widely used primary because its rapid fire produces strong sustained damage at practical dogfighting range. That said, any fully upgraded weapon in supercharged, adjacent slots beats a theoretically better weapon in poor slots. Placement decides more than the weapon does.

Can I have more than one weapon installed?

Yes, but you should not install all of them. Technology space is limited, and weapons are only strong when their upgrade modules sit alongside them. One primary weapon with a full upgrade cluster plus one support weapon is the standard build. Spreading thin across four weapons weakens all of them.

Positron Ejector or Infra-Knife?

Choose based on how you fly. The Positron Ejector delivers more damage at very close range but consumes ammunition quickly and needs you to be right behind the target. The Infra-Knife is more forgiving, works at medium range, and does not force you into aggressive positioning. Most players find the Infra-Knife easier to build a whole loadout around.

How do I upgrade ship weapons?

Buy upgrade modules with Nanites from technology merchants on space stations and at the Space Anomaly, then install them in your ship's technology inventory. Place all modules for the same weapon touching each other and the base technology to trigger adjacency bonuses, and put as much of that block as possible into supercharged slots. Module quality runs C through S, and S-class modules are worth saving for.

Do I need a Fighter-class ship to make weapons hit hard?

No. Fighters carry a damage class bonus that helps, but slot layout and upgrade quality contribute far more. A well-laid-out Exotic, Interceptor, or even a good Shuttle with clustered supercharged weapon modules will outperform a Fighter with scattered upgrades.

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Key Takeaways

• Six weapons, different jobs. Photon Cannon for reliability, Infra-Knife for sustained damage, Positron Ejector for close-range burst, Phase Beam for shields and agile targets, Cyclotron Ballista for medium-range hits, Rocket Launcher as a supplement only.
• Commit to one primary. Installing every weapon spreads your upgrade modules too thin and makes all of them weak.
• Layout is the real multiplier. Supercharged slots plus adjacency bonuses matter more than which weapon you picked, so plan the build around your ship's slot map.
• Fund shields alongside weapons. Deflector Shield upgrades decide how long you get to keep dealing damage.
• Aim, do not spray. Critical hit zones since the Swarm update reward precise fire, which favours the Phase Beam and Infra-Knife over wide-spread options.
• Nanite priority: primary weapon modules first, shields second, S-class replacements third. Never a second weapon before the first is finished.
• Check slot layout when ship hunting. Clustered supercharged slots beat a marginally better class rating.