Some time ago, when I was relatively new to the game, I was happily building along on my PC and received a “Cannot build – Construction limit reached” notice on the screen, unable to place more parts. This ended up spiraling into a large effort to understand base-building dynamics in the game, using save editors and some scripting. I found, without question, that the base building limit was 16,000 base parts, spread across all claimed base computers and your freighter base. I posted my findings here on reddit and eventually posted my script on github for others to use.

Since that time, I've seen some folks continue to share a different number of maximum base parts – 20k is the common number – and I've tried to share real numbers from actual research to keep truth in circulation.

Building is an important part of the game for me. Casual base-builders are probably not going to run into the limit; it's typically going to be serious builders. For that reason, I want to be sure that people have the facts about the game's constraints so they can plan correctly, and squeeze the last bit of creativity out of a save.

So, in recent months, I saw a few instances of a new piece of information being shared on the interwebs:

The base limit for PC is 16k, but console users can go up to 20k. ^{(Just to avoid this being shared further, i'm going to spoil it here: that's not right.})

Now, I don't have a console. I couldn't refute this statement, not even a little. What I could do is draw upon the community to verify this.

I like to hang out in the official NMS Discord, so I asked for assistance from folks there. And that crew, being the helpful bunch they are, helped get the verification we needed.

Xbox saves will sync between console and PC (when bought via the MS store). Saves hitting the limit on PC don't become unlocked on console. 16k on Xbox.

Doctor Colossus tested this on PS5. He started a new save, made a base, and spammed parts. Because a base will show you your part count if you exceed the upload limit of 3k parts, he kept building until it wouldn't let him build anymore. It stopped at exactly 16k parts. Brute force, and accurate. Thanks, Doc!

DHarhanWulf tested this on PS4. He used used an existing save and built parts until he reached the build limit. He then exported the save to USB, then used the SaveWizard app to extract the contents of the backup to PC, where he used the save editor and the part counting script. That result: 16k parts. Thanks, DHarhan!

So now, with no caveats or unexplored possibilities, we can say with certainty:

The base part build limit, which includes parts built on your freighter, is 16,000 parts per save, regardless of platform.

Happy building, interlopers!