No Man’s Sky – Definitive Pirate Guide

This is how to become a professional Pirate!

Guide to Piracy

All credit goes to FLUFFCAT_13!

What You Need

For proper piracy, you will need the following:

• Infra-Knife (photon cannons are okay, but the infra-knife is better).
• Rocket Launcher.
• Ship with at least 7 empty inventory slots (I use a maxed-out hauler).
• At least 35 FPS.

The Procedure of Piracy

To carry out effective piracy, simply follow these steps:

1. Wait in an economically stable system until a fleet of freighters arrive.
2. From a fair distance (I recommend at least 1700 U), use the rocket launcher to destroy a cargo pod attached to one of the freighters.
3. Put your ship into full reverse, and wait for the reinforcements to arrive.
4. Using the rocket launcher, pick the enemy ships off one by one while flying backwards.
5. After a few waves of enemies, a large gunship will arrive. Do not shoot this ship! eliminate the small fighters, and leave the gunship intact.
6. The gunship will wait for you to make the first move, so if you don’t hit any of its turrets, you should be okay to just ignore it.
7. Because the large ship is intact and not in combat, no reinforcements will be called, and you should be good to just ignore it.
8. Now that no reinforcements will be called, use the infra-knife to quickly strip mine the fleet. if you only steal from the freighters and avoid the loose cargo pods, it won’t even cost you any reputation, but I prefer to clear out everything.
9. Travel to the nearest space station, and sell all the materials you won’t use. on average, you should turn a profit of around 1.2 to 1.8 million Units per fleet, but if you went that extra mile and collected the enemy ship drops, you can earn up to 4 million from a single fleet.
10. Rinse and repeat. simply exit the system to completely reset the state of all freighters, then strike again.

The End Result

After following this procedure, you have not only learned how to be a big league pirate, but also how to engage NPCs in ship to ship combat efficiently. I prefer not to fight players like this because they adapt quickly, but this method will help you deal with any small NPC ship that troubles you.