No Man’s Sky – Quick Guide to Freighters

How to Farm Freighters & Other Tips

The first freighter warp-in rescue battle in a save will always be a system freighter, and the player can decide to rescue that freighter or not. Every warp-in rescue battle after that first one will feature a capital (venator, sentinel) freighter. Until the player claims a freighter, every freighter rescued will be offered for free as the reward.

A warp-in freighter rescue battle is a scripted event, that only spawns in inhabited or abandoned systems. To trigger the next event, the game requires at least (3) hours (cumulative, unpaused gameplay time) and (5) ship warps since the last event.

• In Expeditions Game Mode, entirely different requirements may apply.
• Customizing combat difficulty settings in any game mode can completely disable the event.

Note: Warping to uncharted systems (i.e. no space station) increases the warp counter, but the event can only spawn in inhabited/abandoned systems.

Freighter farming can be summarized down to three general steps:

1. Locating the system that spawns the desired capital freighter model, and triggering the rescue battle there.
2. Optional: Rerolling desired capital freighter stats (e.g. class).
3. Exchanging/Purchasing.

System Freighters:

System freighters are different in appearance and are much easier to farm. NPC Freighter fleets will spawn in space: land and check if the stats are sufficient for you. If not, exit and pulse in space for 5-10s to despawn that fleet, drop out of pulse again and fly normally for a short time. 2 more NPC fleets should soon arrive. You may need to do this a few times to get more fleets to spawn in.

Locating Your Desired Freighter

Unsure on event time and warp requirements progress? Every time you’re about to warp to another system, create a restore point before the warp.

Without Address

Once you’ve met the three-hour gameplay requirement (3hrs), warp with your ship five times (5x). Preferably, you want to spawn the rescue battle in Tier 3 or Black Market (aka Outlaw) economy level systems, due to better chances at higher class drops. You will spawn flying right into the fight.

• Inspect the Capital Freighter: Fly close to it and check the design/color combo (using Photomode helps). There’s only one (1) capital freighter model per system.

• If you’re happy with the design, decide whether you will keep it or re-roll the RNG freighter stats.
• If it’s not the design you were looking for, reload your last restore point, and warp to a different system to check out a different capital ship model/color scheme.

With Address

• After obtaining the 12 glyph address and galaxy name of the target system that has the freighter model you want, ensure that you’re in the right galaxy, and portal to it.
• Warp to a nearby uncharted system, and build a base computer renamed to something you’ll remember, to easily find it in the teleporter list later.
• Trigger the next freighter rescue battle event, then reload the restore point in the previous system, and teleport to the base computer built in the previous step. Warp out to the target system.

Rescue Battle Event Tips

As of 4.4 Echoes, ignoring the battle and exiting your ship in the space station to re-roll freighter stats in the same system is no longer possible. You must reload a restore point made in the previous system and re-warp into the desired system.

There are two types of rescue battle events, with a capital freighter as the rescue target. The event type is fixed per system. While outlaw systems always spawn the Pirate Dreadnought, non-outlaw systems have been randomly assigned one of the events described below.

Pirate Dreadnought Absent

• Proceed to take out all the enemy ships involved. Be careful not to shoot the freighter in distress or any allied ships. Once the battle ends, the NPC captain will invite you on board. Dock, talk to the Captain to either get the freighter or Request Payment.
• Reward: Requesting payment from the freighter captain will drop one (1) Cargo Bulkhead, Gold, Nanites and Race Standing.

Pirate Dreadnought Present

• It has two trenches on each side of its main deck.

• Fly through them to destroy shield generators to reveal fuel rods, which should be destroyed for massive damage to Dreadnought hull.

• When enough damage has been done, the Pirate Dreadnought will attempt to flee, destroy its warp engines to prevent it from warping away.

• Raiding Frigates will also fire Anti-Freighter torpedoes against the NPC freighter in distress, so be vigilant about its remaining HP.

• Reward: Destroying the Pirate Dreadnought will either drop one (1) S-class freighter upgrade module of a random type OR one (1) A-class or S-class StarShip Reactor, Units, Nanites, and Race Standing.You’ll also be able to approach and recruit any pirate frigates that still remain, as well as dock on the rescued NPC freighter to check stats and possibly purchase it.

Re-rolling Freighter Stats

As of 4.4 Echoes, ignoring the battle and exiting your ship in the space station to re-roll freighter stats in the same system is no longer possible. You must reload a restore point made in the previous system and re-warp into the desired system as described below.

• Save to create a restore point before warping to the desired system.
• After successfully triggering and completing the warp-in rescue battle in the desired system, land on the freighter.
• Exit your ship — notice how this does not trigger a restore point, as this is a freighter you don’t yet own.
• Aim your visor at the hangar walls to check freighter stats, like slot count or class.
• If you’re happy with the stats, go up to the bridge and get it from the captain (*for free if it’s your first freighter).
• If the freighter does not have the desired stats, reload your restore point that you made in the previous system — prior to warping to this system — which will allow you to rinse and repeat the steps above.

Known Bugs & Workarounds

• Being in a multiplayer group may prevent the rescue battle from triggering when expected, even when requirements have been met. Disable multiplayer, save+reload from the main menu using Play Game option.
• Migrating Current Freighter Base: Before pressing Exchange, leave at least 1 item or stack in the current freighter’s core cargo inventory to trigger the needed dialog prompts.

• After successfully rescuing the freighter in distress, it may come under attack by pirates again. This won’t prevent the player from talking to the freighter captain and acquire their freighter.
• Capital freighters might only appear as rescue targets after the 2nd rescue battle event in the save.