The Scrap Dealer is an NPD in No Man’s Sky you’ll find setting up a rather less conventional shop on most Space Stations. If you chat with him, you’ll find a rather curious offer of some coordinates for the not insignificant sum of five million units, along with some other items for sale that require Tainted Metal to buy. It’s a huge sum of money, but those coordinates will provide you with the location of a Derelict Freighter, which is packed with loads of rare resources to scavenge, including some of that Tainted Metal.
The big question, then, is whether you’re going to at least make your money back in order to make it all worth your while ― especially for those starting out for whom money might be tight. In fairness, the short answer is probably no, because it’s something of a lottery and the chances are you will end up running a loss. However, the upside is that you’ll also find a good number of upgrades and other potentially useful items, which can turn it into a rather more rewarding, if not profitable, outcome. If nothing else, the ghost ship exploration makes for a fun challenge — plus, you’ll be able to find more Derelict Freighters for free later on.
How to find the Scrap Dealer and Derelict Freighters in No Man’s Sky
As mentioned, you’ll find the Scrap Dealer on most Space Stations, close to the upgrade merchants. Once you’ve handed over the five million, you’ll receive a single-use Emergency Broadcast Receiver that can be activated from your Exosuit inventory. Then you just need to jump into your starship, head into space and hit your pulse drive for a few seconds until the Derelict Freighter appears in front of you. Land on the top and you can head inside to follow the instructions through to the end.
Be warned, the freighter will be a hazardous environment that will drain your suit pretty quickly, so make sure you’re not short of sodium to keep topping it up. There’ll also be a fair few enemies to take out, but as long as you’re used to dealing with some low-level Sentinels, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. The trick is to make sure you check every crate, cabinet, and corner of the ship in a fast and efficient manner, to ensure you grab as much loot as possible (it’s a good move to clear up some inventory space in advance). Once you’ve cleared every room, and bagged the Captain’s Log, Crew Manifest, and Engineering Unit from the various terminals, you can head back to the Space Station to make good on your haul, either by selling it all to the Scrap Dealer or at the Trade Terminal.
Are the Scrap Dealer missions in No Man’s Sky worth it?
For that five million unit outlay, you’ll be lucky to make your money back simply on selling your newly-plundered hoard of goods, so if you can’t really afford it, you should probably hold out for a while. However, each freighter run will provide you with a number of useful upgrades for your suit, multitool, starship, and/or freighter, including new inventory slots which can be expensive to buy on their own (but have a nominal sell-on fee). If you’ve got room for improvement then it’s a fun way to roll the dice and see what you end up with ― but there are certainly better ways to make money and far more reliable options to ensure you get the upgrades you really need.
The Tainted Metal does hold a decent value, either to be sold on or used to buy some highly-rated modules and other nicely-priced items via the Scrap Dealer’s ‘Suspicious Packages’, with healthy rewards upon delivery of the freighter’s log and manifest (alternatively you can trade them with the Guild Envoy on the other side of the station for a sizeable boost in your faction standing). Along with other rare goods, you’ll also find some unique decor and banner items if you fancy giving your base a somewhat darker look. Tainted Metal can also be refined with Nanite Clusters to double their number, which isn’t a bad way to help finance further upgrades.
It’s worth noting that repeating these missions on the same day increases the Scrap Dealer’s asking price (10 million for the second, up to a maximum of 30 million), so you won’t want to be doing multiple runs in succession unless you’re swimming in disposable cash. The good news is that Helios on the Space Anomaly will offer up an Emergency Broadcast Receiver for FREE once a week, so that’s a very useful Golden Ticket to keep in mind. The only thing is you’ll need to have completed at least one Derelict Freighter to trigger Helios’ help, so you’re going to need to visit the Scrap Dealer and pay up at least once to get that ball rolling, but this should make it well worth it in the long run.
