No Man's Sky Storage guide: how to get more inventory capacity with your ship, exosuit, and multi-tool

No Man’s Sky storage is a precious commodity, as what else says “major flex” like ensuring that your inventory is basically at capacity all the time? No? Just us? Well, if you’re someone who fancies themselves as a little bit more organised in No Man’s Sky, then we reckon you’ll be interested in learning how to get more inventory capacity across your ship, exosuit, and multi-tool. With everything to be found out there in space, you’re going to need all the extra pockets that you can get, so follow our guide and boost your No Man’s Sky storage.

Storing Items on Your Ship and Frigates

If you’re someone with a bunch of Units to burn, then you’ll probably be already aware of our first tip for all the big spenders out there: use your ships and frigates like expensive backpacks. Each space vehicle has its own inventory space, and you’ll be able to send things to your vehicle if you’re standing close enough to it. It’s just like trading with another player in multiplayer mode – go into your inventory, click on the item, and select to Transfer it to your chosen vehicle. You can amass a fleet of your own ships and have them on a planet like your own, over-complicated series of shelves packed full of composite materials.

One very important thing to note here about the inventories of your respective ships is that they cannot be upgraded. Yes, that’s right. If you want a ship with a bigger inventory, then you’ll have to do a straight up swap for a new ship or shell out the required Units for one that has more space. It’s all about the cash with this storage method.

Buying More Exosuit Inventory Space

Another inventory that’s ripe for upgrading is that of your exosuit. Seeing as how this is where you’ll have to store everything on the go as you’re gallivanting around planets and various solar systems, it makes perfect sense for this to be your first port of call when it comes to inventory upgrades. Because of the vast quantities of some materials that are necessary for crafting, you’ll want to have as much pocket space as possible for stacks of common components.

The easiest way to increase your exosuit inventory space is to actually purchase an upgrade specifically for it. Your exosuit has multiple inventories and all of them can be upgraded – one is for Technology, and another is for Cargo (bulk goods, as the name suggests).

You can buy one upgrade per space station that you encounter, and the vendor for it will be hanging about by the appearance customizer. The cost will increase and scale with each upgrade you purchase, so you’re going to want to find another way to get and keep this extra room without breaking the bank. The first Technology upgrade will set you back by 5,000 units, and this will get you a single extra slot. Each upgrade to the exosuit’s inventory is worth one slot, so it can get quite expensive quite quickly.

The maximum inventory of your Cargo section is 48 slots, so keep that in mind when you’re crunching the numbers on this rather pricey storage option if you’re just starting out in the game. Upgrading your Cargo inventory to 48 is a process that’s not cheap; the first will set you back by 50,000 units and each subsequent improvement will increase by 50,000 units on top of the one before it. You’re going to need a million units for the last couple of upgrades, so plan accordingly if this is how you want to stash your goods. Luckily, throwing money at your galactic fanny pack isn’t the only way around the problem.

Finding More Exosuit Inventory Space

Enter our slightly more cost-effective solution to simply buying upgrades to your exosuit inventory in bulk like some kind of gazillionaire. That’s right, it’s Drop Pod hunting. This is just like bounty hunting – you even get a set of coordinates – but far less dangerous since the most exciting thing you’re going to have to contend with is, well, repairs. Drop Pods appear randomly on planets, and chancing upon them is usually a case of luck unless you have a set of coordinates telling you where they are.

When you find a Drop Pod, you’ll have to plug in one of a few different types of materials. This could be anything from Chromatic Metal (easy enough to obtain with your Portable Refinery) to Antimatter (a lot more difficult to get). Fulfil the requirements of the Drop Pod and it’ll spit out an exosuit upgrade. As long as you keep stumbling upon these little abandoned treasure troves, you’ll keep getting exosuit upgrades so this is a reasonably viable alternative if you find yourself with more materials than you know what to do with.

Increasing Multi-Tool Inventory Space

Last but not least, upgrading your multi-tool inventory is another way that you can free up some extra room for various planetary knick-knacks. Unlike the upgrades to your inventory, you’re gonna be in the business of replacing your multi-tool for one with more slots when you do undertake this endeavor. Sounds like upgrading your ships’ storage capacity, right? It’s basically that.

We’ve noticed that these multi-tools can be acquired in a few ways. You can buy them as direct upgrades from vendors in space stations or on random buildings in planets (heralded by wall-mounted multi-tool compartments). Aside from buying them the old-fashioned way, you can sometimes happen across a member of the Vy’keen species as you’re wandering around the world.

The last one that we came across was just hanging out in a space station and having a good ol’ time when we wandered up and said hello. They hit back with a quip about wanting to see our multi-tool, and we went along for the ride: this will result in the friendly Vy’keen offering you a new multi-tool that you can compare to your current one before accepting it as an upgrade. These gifts aren’t always in tip-top condition, but we’ve found them to be reliably better than whatever you might be wielding at any given time, so they’re worth the gamble.

Upgrading your various inventories definitely isn’t a task for the faint-hearted explorer. It’s going to take a lot of chutzpah and even more cash, but you’re in luck; we have a handy guide for how to make money fast in No Man's Sky so that you can be the best Carbon pack mule in the solar system. Beyond might bring some changes to how these inventories work, so keep your ear to the ground and we’ll update you if this currently onerous upgrade process gets streamlined.