No Man’s Sky Desolation: How to Change the Colour of Your Freighter

Explore the Universe in a customised freighter

No Man's Sky Desolation how to change colour of your freighter guide

The new No Man’s Sky Desolation update brings many new features to the game. One of the cool new things you can do in the Desolation update is to change the colour of your freighter.

In this quick guide, I’ll show you where you need to go and what you need to do to customise and colourise your freighter.

Upgrade Control

The first step in colourising your freighter is to locate the Upgrade Control terminal on the bridge of your freighter. Summon your freighter if it’s not already in the system. Dock with it, then head up the stairs to the bridge area.

Once on the bridge, head to the console in the middle. Straight ahead of you will be the Upgrade Control terminal.

No Man's Sky upgrade control terminal
Upgrade Control terminal

Buying colour blueprints

The next step in changing the colour of your freighter is to open the Upgrade Control menu. Hold Square at the prompt and this will open the Upgrade Control menu.

No Man's Sky desolation upgrade control menu
Upgrade Control Menu

Now, you’ll probably go straight into the Customise Appearance menu. But just hold your horses for a second. You’ll first need to buy the colour blueprints using Nanites.

Open the Purchase Upgrades menu and then press R1 to tab to the Freighter Recoulring menu.

No Man's Sky Desolation freighter recolouring
Freighter Recolouring menu

In the Freighter Recolouring menu, you will see the available colour blueprints to purchase for 5000 Nanites each. You can see the number of Nanites you have at the top left of this screen. Buy whichever colours you like then go back to the main Upgrade Control menu.

Note: Nanites can be earned from completing missions at space stations or refined from certain metals.

Colouring your freighter

Now that you have purchased some colour blueprints, you can now go into the Customise Appearance menu. This will open up the customisation view where you can select the colours to apply to your freighter.

No Man's Sky desolation - freighter customisation view

In this menu, you can apply any colours you have purchased to your freighter. You have the option of choosing a different colour for the primary and accent colours.

You can also change the camera view or rotate the camera do get a better look at your freighter as you give it a new paint job.

The way the colours are applied will probably depend on the model of freighter you have. On my capital ship, the colours only changed on certain parts. I thought I could have a completely red freighter for example.


And that is how you change the colour of your freighter in the No Man’s Sky Desolation update. Now, get out and explore and show off your fancy new paint job. Your universe awaits.

For more information on everything new in the Desolation update, check out the No Man’s Sky official website.