How to get a Sentinel Ship (FREE) in No Man’s Sky?

In No Man’s Sky, Sentinel Ships are like super-explorers with semi-decent combat capabilities. On paper they are not the best ships in the game, but they are still very desirable mainly because how cool they actually look.

It’s not very hard to get these things and in this post I’ll explain how you get your very own Sentinel Ship for free. But first some comparison to give you a better overall idea about what these ships are like.

• Damage: Higher than exotic/solar, lower than fighters.
• Shields: Comparable to a fighter.
• Hyperdrive: Low base number but long range.
• Maneuverability: Low, better than hauler, similar to shuttle.

Now onto the main part.

How (and where?) to get a Sentinel Ship:

Here’s your step-by-step guide to find and claim a free Sentinel ship for yourself:

1. Look for planets with Corrupted Sentinels: These can be found in dissonant systems, which are visible on the galaxy map. Dead planets typically have corrupted Sentinels but no ships.
2. Fight the Corrupted Sentinels: Defeat them as you would normal Sentinels. After defeating them, you’ll receive a Dissonance spike location instead of a Sentinel tower. Clear out the garbage inside the Sentinel.
3. Take the Sentinel brain to an ancient site: Get the ancient site to accept you by presenting the brain.
4. Take the brain back to the ship and install it.
5. You can now claim the Sentinel ship as you would any other ship.

Alternative Method: Freighter battles

1. Fight Sentinels in space: Destroy freighters to obtain an AI device, which can be used to find a Dissonance spike location.
2. Follow steps 2-6 as described above.

Bonus: Echo locators and new equipment

• Corrupted Sentinels may drop Echo locators, which lead you to a camp.
• At the camp, access the terminal to obtain a new jet pack (first time only), two new multi-tools (pistol and rifle).
• Use your glyphs to unlock the terminal, solving simple math problems to acquire necessary glyphs.
• After unlocking the terminal, you can acquire the multi-tool and locate the Dissonance spike on the planet.

Other ways of acquiring a Sentinel Ship:

For those among you that are lazy and don’t want to go looking for planets yourself, head over to the subreddit /r/NMSCoordinateExchange and search for the term “sentinel ship”. Its a place where other NMS travelers share and discuss interesting in-game locations.

Here are some screenshots of the recently found Sentinel Ships shared on the subreddit:

Good luck, hope this helps.