No Man’s Sky: Best Ways to Get Nanites (2024)

Nanites are a secondary currency in No Man’s Sky used for all sorts of upgrades, from upgrading your suit and tools to upgrading your ship. You can’t just find Nanites hanging out and about on a planet; you have to go out of your way to find them and even earn them. Here’s a list of ways you can earn them so that you may get some valuable upgrades going.

Report your discoveries

Reporting your discoveries isn’t going to net you the most amount of nanites as it’s going to vary per system, but it certainly won’t hurt. If you are all about exploring new worlds and cataloging everything on a planet, this will get you some decent nanites for upgrading your ship and gear in general. Just scan creatures on each planet on a system and once done you upload them, you can also name them if you wish to give your own little spin on the system in general too.

Farm for Larval Cores

As you explore planets you might find strange things called Larval Cores. Refine the cores to get 50 nanites, and while it is efficient for the most part, it’s also dangerous. They are fairly rare, but you can still find them regularly during your travels. When you are on a planet, go and scan to look for abandoned buildings. You can also find them via planetary charts and the Excocraft Signal Booster. Sometimes an abandoned building with have a whispering egg nearby.

You’ll want to destroy the egg, which will activate a hostile swarm of monsters that will attack you. I’ve had luck snagging as many as I could carry and running away. Taking on the horde is harder than you’d expect as a solo player, and you can grab a good chuck of these and make a break for it safely fairly easily. They won’t get you a massive amount of nanites, but they also sell well if you need some units.

Destroy Sentinels

The riskiest method of them all is to attack sentinels that monitor the planets you explore. This isn’t guaranteed, but they do have a chance to drop nanites. They’re going to call in reinforcements and be harder to shake off the longer you fight them. But with a group of players with the right gear, this could actually get you some decent nanites. If you are solo, you’ll want to hide in a building or get a nice underground cave going to break their line of sight and wait until the heat dies down.

Refining Other Materials

There are other things besides Larval Cores that you can refine for a good chunk of nanites. Runaway Mould is a good one, as it’ll get you 1 nanite per 1.5 seconds of output in the refiner. Runaway Mould is found in Curious Deposits on some planets and can be received from encrypted missions that you can retrieve on the Nexus. You can also do 1 Hexite, and 1 Faecium will also get you 1 nanite per .5 seconds of output.

You’ll get both of these from animal droppings, so it does require some extra steps, but overall worth it if you’re looking to get nanites. There are other options, like 25 Pugneum or 1 Salvages technology, but they aren’t that great overall. The Runaway Mould and Hexite-Faecium combo are probably the best options, since they won’t set you back too badly.

Conclusion

Getting a good chunk of nanites to spend is going to be somewhat time-consuming, but overall I would say that it’s worth it in order to get some upgrades under your belt for all of your gear. By far the fastest way to get a good number of nanites is going to be by refining, fighting sentinels, and reporting your travels is going to be a good buffer, while you are also seeking more spots to farm those nanite materials.