No Man's Sky Units, Nanites, and what to buy first
Scan money, ship scrap, storm crystals, mould, larval cores, derelicts, and why scanner modules beat a pretty Fighter.
No Man’s Sky has three currencies and no cash shop. Units buy ships, Multi-Tools, cargo slots, and most station goods. Nanites buy technology modules, class upgrades, and some Anomaly blueprints. Quicksilver buys cosmetics from the Synthesis Companion after Nexus missions. Hello Games has not added microtransactions since the 12 August 2016 launch; if a site is selling Units, it is not part of the game.
New Travellers treat Units like the only score and then stall because their scanner still pays pocket change. The correct order is: scan everything, scrap junk ships, spend the Nanites on S-class scanner modules, then watch Units solve themselves. This page is that economy. Pair it with Getting Started if you still cannot leave the first planet, and with Controls if the visor bind is still a mystery.
Units: scanning is the honest printer
Hold the Analysis Visor and catalogue flora, fauna, and minerals. Each first discovery pays Units. Fauna completions pay Nanites on top. Install scanner upgrades in the Multi-Tool — three S-class modules in a connected square if you can — and a lush planet becomes a seven-figure walk. That is not late-game advice. That is hour-five advice once you can reach the Anomaly or a wealthy system’s Multi-Tool vendor.
Crashed ships are the second Unit tap. Claim the wreck, ignore the broken slots, fly it to a space station, and scrap it at the starship outfitting terminal. The payout scales with class and slot count. A C-class Shuttle still pays for several Exosuit drops. An A-class Hauler pays for a shopping spree. Recycle the uninstalled technology for Nanites while you are there. Do not repair a crashed hull unless the ship tier list would actually keep it.
Storm crystals grow on extreme-weather planets during storms. They sell for strong Unit prices and they stack. Land, melee-boost between crystals, hide in a cave or the ship when the hazard bar screams, and leave when the storm ends. You need decent hazard upgrades; this is not a crash-site activity.
Later, Stasis Devices and Fusion Ignitors are the crafted endgame. They need a grocery list of gases, plants, and refined metals. Build that factory after you have a base with extractors, not as a first-day goal. Until then, scans plus scrap plus crystals will fund Corvette modules and Exosuit slots without a spreadsheet.
Nanites: many small taps beat one mythical farm
Nanites drip from several systems. Stack them instead of hunting a single viral farm.
Fauna completions are the cleanest early source. Scan every creature on a planet, upload, collect the bonus. A full system of planets is a quiet Nanite pile and it also levels your explorer rank.
Runaway Mould refines at five to one into Nanites. Curious Deposits — the ball clusters on some worlds — yield mould when popped. Set a Portable Refiner or a base refiner array, dump the mould, and walk away. It is slow per click and excellent per hour of AFK. Five mould for one Nanite sounds insulting until you have four refiners and a stack of 2,000.
Ship and Multi-Tool modules scrap for Nanites at station terminals. Buy cheap C-class upgrades from NPCs and break them, or strip modules off scrapped ships. This pairs with the crashed-ship Unit loop so every wreck funds both wallets.
Salvage Data (Buried Technology Modules) is the base-building currency, but you can also refine it into Nanites if you are drowning in buried caches and already own the parts you care about. Hunt them with the visor; they ping as buried technology.
Larval cores drop from Whispering Eggs around abandoned buildings. The swarm that follows is not a joke. Grab, jetpack to the ship, and sell or refine. Good Nanites, bad first-hour plan, excellent once you can melee-boost out of a horror movie.
Derelict freighters (the paid and the randomly encountered kind) pay Nanites through logs, slime, and boss chests. Run them with a decent Multi-Tool and a stack of Sodium. Dissonant planets add inverted mirrors and dissonant shards; shoot the crystals, refine or sell shards, and harvest Atlantideum. That loop also leads toward Interceptors if you want a sentinel hull.
Pirate systems, suspicious packets, sentinel salvage, and fishing traps all work. None of them beat a scanner that prints Units you then convert into better tools. If a method feels like a job, switch. The resource list names the refined forms when a tooltip is being cryptic.
Spend Nanites on S-class scanner modules first
The Anomaly and wealthy stations sell technology. Your first Nanite sink is the Multi-Tool scanner. A triad of S-class scanner modules, adjacent for adjacency bonuses, multiplies flora, fauna, and mineral payouts. That upgrade pays for every later purchase: Exosuit slots, Hyperdrive modules, a better Multi-Tool, Corvette parts bought with Units the scanner earned.
Second sink: Exosuit hazard and movement upgrades so storms and melee-boost stay comfortable. Third: starship Pulse and Hyperdrive modules on a hull you actually intend to keep. Class-upgrading a C-class starter ship is a Nanite bonfire. Scrap it, as Ships and Corvettes argues, and put the Nanites into scanners instead.
Iteration vendors on the Anomaly sell expansion slots and quality-of-life blueprints. Buy cargo expansions with Units at stations every docking. Save Nanites for technology, not for vanity, until the scanner is done. Quicksilver never buys power; spend it on capes after Nexus missions in multiplayer.
What not to farm in the first week
Do not start a chlorine or cobalt expand loop until you understand refiners and have a base. Do not buy every chart in a pirate system hoping for an S-class Freighter on day two. Do not reset a save because the first economy is poor — warp. Do not ignore Gek trade routes if you like buying low and selling high; standing still helps prices and dialogue.
Cosmos 7.0 added salvage from space hulks, outpost maps, and asteroid-belt resources. Those are Unit and material taps that sit on top of this page, not a replacement. Fly out with a Corvette tractor beam when you have one; until then, the visor on a paradiso planet still prints more money per minute than a confused spacewalk.
The economy clicks when you stop looking for a single best farm. A scanner that pays millions, a wreck you scrap on the way to the Anomaly, a mould patch you refine while making tea, a derelict on a rainy evening — that mix funds a Corvette, a base teleporter, and Expedition 23 without ever opening a real-money store. Put the next hour into base building if you want extractors, or into expeditions if a golden Rasamama sounds more fun than another storm crystal. The Guides Hub lists both. Either path spends better when the scanner is already S-class.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers Travellers search for after Cosmos.
What should I spend Nanites on first?
S-class scanner modules in the Multi-Tool, clustered for adjacency. They multiply Unit payouts from flora, fauna, and minerals. Ship class upgrades can wait until you have a hull worth keeping; see Ships and Corvettes.
Is Runaway Mould still worth refining?
Yes. It refines at five mould to one Nanite. It is slow per click and easy to stack with multiple refiners. Pair it with fauna completions and module scrapping rather than treating it as the only farm.
How do crashed ships make money?
Claim, fly to a station, scrap the hull for Units, and recycle installed tech for Nanites. Repairing a C-class wreck is usually a time sink. Rankings: ship tier list.
When do Stasis Devices matter?
After you have a base with gas and plant extractors. They are late-game Unit crafting, not a first-ten-hours project. Storm crystals and scanning fill the gap.
Can I buy Units, Nanites, or Quicksilver with real money?
No. Hello Games does not sell currency. Quicksilver comes from Nexus missions on the Anomaly. Anyone offering paid piles is outside the game.
Where do I look up a resource I just mined?
The resource list and the Tools Hub. For sentinel weapons that spend Nanites well, use the Multi-Tool tier list.