Since No Man’s Sky’s Voyagers update, players have been obsessed with making some incredible ships. And with the help of some mod tools, the most daring of ship builders out there are pushing the boundaries of Hello Games’ procedurally created universe. One of the most impressive demonstrations I’ve seen of this yet is this NMS player’s tribute to Independence Day.
Built by Vilxir, this build is reminiscent of his epic, and perhaps equally terrifying, No Man’s Sky Death Star I highlighted last month. Like the Death Star before it, Vilxir’s Independence Day “Destroyer” leveraged the power of open-source 3D modeling software Blender and the handy Base Builder mod that allows users to import 3D models from Blender into No Man’s Sky.
While NMS’ in-game ship-building tools can produce incredible results, Vilxir tells me that the ability to use Blender is a game-changer, “Blender has opened up an entirely new level of creativity for me. It lets me make things I genuinely didn’t think were possible in NMS, so huge shoutouts to the creators of the Blender Plugin and the Base Editor.”
© Screenshot: Hello Games / Vilxir
The Destroyer took about four hours to build, according to Vilxir. One of the most interesting challenges? Nailing the dome-like flying saucer structure of the Independence Day ship. “Anyone who’s made a dome in No Man’s Sky or worked with Blender spheres knows the pain,” he told me. “You get merged pieces, overlaps, and a bumpy surface. To get something closer to a smooth dome, I had to build it in individual layered rings instead of using a single sphere.”
Impressive though it may be, the ship isn’t finished. Vilxir now has his sights set on building out the interior of the ship, but he’s not looking to crash anyone’s console or PC with aggressively complicated ship architecture. “I’m aiming for something optimized for performance and fun, especially if I share it publicly,” he said. “Right now my plan is to build dedicated spaces for the core, the hangar, and a command deck. I also want to experiment with making a separate Corvette that acts as a small fleet of the fighter ships that Will Smith and the others flew in the movie.”
Vilxir’s reign of building impressive ships to stalk the procedurally generated vacuum of Hello Games’ galaxy won’t conclude with the Destroyer. “For the next big project,” he told me, “I’m considering tackling Thanos’ Sanctuary II, or the Crimson Dawn ‘First Light’ yacht from Solo. I’ve also thought about the Lucrehulk battleship from The Clone Wars. My goal is to build ships that nobody has tried yet, or that hasn’t been done at this level of detail.”
