Welcome to the Amanssky SpaceWire 002

In this dispatch I’m bringing you my highlights from Starfield and No Man’s Sky Ship builds, and some concept art I’m obsessing over that features industrial style starships. There’s also the first part of a series on greebling. I’m still finding my feet with this ‘periodical’ thing, so I’d love to hear your thoughts and what else you’d like to read about.

Onward and upward…

What’s new?

The big news since the last bulletin is that Starfield is not dead. After a few weeks of uncertainty, Bethesda announced on July 17 that the game remains an important part of their future and that we can look forward to continued updates, new stories and additional updates. Right now the game and its DLCs are on sale on Steam until 13th August, and by my calculation buying the Digital Premium Upgrade is better value than buying the Shattered Space DLC on its own, but check before you buy.

No Man’s Sky is fast approaching its 10th anniversary, but as yet no emoji from Sean Murray to indicate an update. As always i’m hoping for more parts for Corvette building, bug fixes and more joined up game mechanics.

Whatever happens, we’re all going to log into the game at 18:00UTC on August 9th.

NMS10 — Expedition for the Dreamers

Celebrating 10 years of No Man's Sky. Bases, meetups, milestones, and a synchronized in-game gathering on August 9, 2026 at 18:00 UTC.

See you there?

In June Shiro Games released Spacecraft on Steam as an early access game. It feels like it’s trying to be both Starfield and No Man’s Sky in one game and I haven’t played enough of it yet to try the ship builder. My quick first look hasn’t pulled me into the game yet, but I shall persevere.

The ASC Taiyo mod for Starfield dropped recently and has some very nice smooth structural parts to make ships less brick-like and a couple of new flight deck modules that lend themselves to smaller builds. This issue’s featured ship is an ASC Taiyo build.

SOW: TY-32E Ascendant | Ryujin R&D Vessel |

Build guide is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdC6xA5We0A

I really like the builds that come out of CVL Spaceworks and this one is my favourite of the ASC Taiyo mod builds i’ve seen so far. It’s a great example of how to make a flying brick look sleek and elegant.

CyberVinLouis makes clear and entertaining video build guides that are easy to follow and explain mods and mod order as well. I’ve found them very helpful for build practice.

They also make backstory and lore part of their build video - If you’re anti-AI you might not like that part of the guides, so skip ahead and don’t let it put you off.

Greebling Part One

The art of using greeblies to give visual complexity to an otherwise flat model.

The term became popular in the 1970s to describe the extra details found on the models made for the Star Wars films by the model makers at Industrial Light and Magic.

In those days greeblies were parts that the model makers took from commercially available plastic model kits. Eventually ILM moulded their own greeblies to keep things consistent.

Adam Savage has a great short video on the universal greeblie that’s worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dncRHH9f6MI and if you have time watch this one on his macro greeblie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dn0d4WQ9wY

The Visual Futurist, Syd Mead, once explained his process as “doing the basic shapes and then adding details to make it look like things had some kind of function”.

I love that approach. It always makes much more sense to me when I’m building something if I can imagine why the part I’m adding is there and how it works.

e.g. engine exhausts can’t be blocked by anything else, and any weapons need a clear line of sight to their target. I even go as far as worrying about how the crew will be protected from the reactor.

My top five rules for adding detail with greeblies are:

1 Don’t try to fix a bad silhouette with detail.

If the overall shape of the ship feels wrong, then adding more detail won’t solve it and may just make things worse.

2 Only add detail where it makes sense

If you’re placing vents or intakes, place them where they are needed, add your antennas, satellite dishes and scanners where they can see the sky, add lights and decals where they will be seen.

3 Not every surface needs extra detail

Big ships with big flat surfaces can get away with less detail, and will look better with the detail concentrated in key areas.

4 Match the detailing to the functional scale.

Smaller ships can get away with more detail - they have less room to fit everything in and are realistically going to look more cluttered, but use small scale greeblies to match the size of the ship.

5 Be consistent with your greeblies.

This is a simple one; don’t use all the greeblies you have in the box, pick the ones that go with the ship you’re building and repeat them in the appropriate places.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/1nayybc/voyagers\_scrap\_hauler\_corvette/#lightbox

My current obsession is Industrial Looking Ships.

I found a bunch of concept art by Stanislav Verbitsky here: https://stanverbitsky.artstation.com/projects/yk8qaR and I can’t stop thinking about building them. (no luck yet!)

Build challenge

The r/spaceships challenge for August is nice and simple, Single Engine Ship | Built in ANYTHING!

I’ve made my two entries already, check them out:

This one is a Starfield Build using the biggest engine I could find.

Went back to No Man’s Sky for the first time in a while and built this one.

That’s all I have room for right now, so I’ll be back with more soon.

Thanks for reading!

That's the latest from across the known systems. I've been Alex Rogan, and this has been Amanssky SpaceWire.

Look out for the next issue, coming soon.