No Man's Sky: Engineer's Guide to Starship Maintenance

In No Man’s Sky, your Starship is your life. You will spend the majority of your time in the game aboard your Starship, and as such, you need to know how to fix any issues that can arise at any moment. You live and breathe with your Starship in No Man’s sky, so if your ship becomes hurt, you hurt as well. The process of caring for your Starship is not as complex as you may think, and to emphasize this, we’ve put together a manual on the subject to get you started. 

Without futher ado, here’s the official Engineer’s Guide to Starship Maintenance, or for the layman, how to fix and maintain your ship in No Man’s Sky.

Repairing the Launch Thruster

The Launch Thruster is the part of your Starship that gets you up off the ground. You don’t want to be stranded on a planet like Loxtovac Nashim with no way to get to Orbit. For the Launch Thruster to operate, it needs Plutonium, and lots of it. Keep your sensors primed for any red, pointy rocks near caves, as they hold the most Plutonium.

To keep the Launch Thruster functioning as intended, you will need to craft 3 Carite Sheets. Carite Sheets can be crafted in the Menu and take up one empty tile per unit. Each Carite Sheet requires 50 Iron to create. Find rocks around your crash site and use your Mining Beam to collect 150 Iron.

Once you have the necessary items, craft the Carite Sheets and repair the Launch Thruster by highlighting it and holding X. You will now need to refuel the Launch Thruster by using Plutonium. Again, Plutonium can be mined from the red pointy rocks scattered throughout Loxtovac Nashim, and other planets throughout the galaxy.

Repairing the Pulse Engine

The Pulse Engine is your ticket to exploring neighboring planets. Without a functioning Pulse Engine you will be lonelier than the Voyager 1 capable of doing nothing more than sitting in orbit contemplating the vast reaches of the galaxy. All standard Pulse Engines run on pure Thamium9, a resource that fledgling engineers may have a rough time spotting at first. To make things easier, you’re going to want to keep your eye out for red, flowery plants in addition to asteroids, both of which contain Thamium9.

In order to repair the Pulse Engine, you will need to craft 2 Carite Sheets. You should have familiarized yourself with the process while fixing your ship’s Launch Thruster. Second, you will need to gather 20 Zinc and 200 Heridium. A working Pulse Engine doesn’t come cheap. Zinc is more difficult to find than a sober Australian (trust us, the Captain is an Aussie). But if you’re lucky, you can find some yellow plants in caves that’ll give you the Zinc you need.

Heridium is quite literally everywhere, and can be found in giant purple rocks. Once you have all the necessary items, repair the Pulse Engine by highlighting it and holding X to repair. After that, find yourself some Thamium9 and get it into the Pulse Engine to refuel it.

If you have followed this Engineer’s Guide, you should now have a fully operational space vessel ready to launch and explore the galaxy. Remember, the key to being a good engineer is becoming accustomed to keeping up on your ship’s routine maintenance, as you won’t want to run out of fuel and find yourself stranded.

For more on No Man’s Sky, be sure to read our No Man’s Sky Captain’s Log where we document our first experiences within the game. If you prefer more of a visual example, you can watch us play the game live in our No Man’s Sky launch day livestream, or learn more about the breathtaking art of No Man’s Sky and the inspirations behind it.

Sam Chandler

Editor

Sam Chandler is the Australian piece of the AllGamers puzzle. Out of all his gaming-related passions, collecting N64 games, speedrunning, and Souls games rank among the most important. You can reach Sam through Twitter, @SamuelChandler, or through his email, sam.chandler@allgamers.com, at any time of the day or night on either side of the globe.