Exosuit Slot Expansion — Reaching 120/60 Cheaply
Exosuit inventory is the longest-running bottleneck in the game. You can trade up a starship or a multi-tool, but you only ever have one exosuit — expanding it is the only option. The good news is there are several routes, and one of them is completely free.
Structure and ceilings
The exosuit has two tabs. The old General inventory was merged into Cargo.
| Tab | Start | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo | 24 | 120 |
| Technology | 10 | 60 |
Three of those ten technology slots are permanently occupied from the start — Life Support, Hazard Protection, and Jetpack. So you really begin with seven free technology slots.
Stack size per cargo slot depends on difficulty: 9,999 resources in Normal mode, 500 in Survival and Permadeath. Technology upgrades stack to 10 per slot, and products to 20–40 depending on the item.
The three supercharged slots are in fixed positions
The technology tab has three supercharged slots, and their positions never change:
Row 1 column 5 · Row 2 column 9 · Row 3 column 3
Unlike multi-tools and starships, you can’t shop around for a better layout — there’s only one exosuit. The upside is that the positions are identical for everyone, so you can plan around them.
The size of the boost is disputed. Measurement-based sources report a 25–50% range; the wiki’s Exosuit page says “up to 400% depending on type”. Which reflects the current build isn’t verified. What’s certain is that the effect is large and there are only three cells, so decide what belongs in them rather than filling them with whatever comes next.
Three ways to expand
1. Buying with units (Exosuit Upgrade Station)
Found on space stations and aboard the Space Anomaly. This is the main route.
| Tab | Starting price | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo | 5,000 units | 200,000 units |
| Technology | 1,000 units | 125,000 units |
Prices escalate with each purchase until they hit that ceiling. The exact step between them isn’t published.
The important restriction: you can buy once per location per system. You can’t keep buying at the same station — you have to warp to another system and use its station.
2. Free slots from Drop Pods
Repairing a planetary Drop Pod grants a slot at no cost. Once unit prices have climbed into six figures, this is by far the better deal.
You find them by feeding Drop Pod Coordinate Data into a Signal Booster. The coordinate data comes from cartographers on space stations.
The repair costs:
| Material | Qty | How to make it |
|---|---|---|
| Sodium Nitrate | 10 | Refine Sodium |
| Carbon Nanotube | 1 | Craft from 50 Carbon |
| Antimatter Housing | 1 | Craft from 30 Oxygen + 50 Ferrite Dust |
This is the most important arithmetic on the page. All of that together is worth under 10,000 units. A cargo slot bought with units tops out at 200,000. Late on, one Drop Pod is worth more than twenty purchased slots’ worth of value.
Which is why experienced players stop whatever they’re doing and repair a Drop Pod the moment they find one. The materials are all common, so carrying a few sets means you can handle any pod on the spot.
Each pod can only be used once, so expanding a lot means finding a lot of pods.
3. Nexus mission rewards
Slots also appear as rewards from Nexus missions on the Space Anomaly. If you’re running them anyway, it’s free progress on the side.
What almost everyone misses
When the upgrade screen opens, the default selection is the cargo slot. To expand technology instead, you have to click an empty technology slot before confirming.
This is easy to overlook, and it’s common for players to reach dozens of hours with technology still at 10 slots while cargo has ballooned. If that describes your suit, this is why.
The cheap order
The pricing structure tells you what to do.
- Expand technology first. It starts at 1,000 — a fifth of cargo — and caps lower at 125,000. Technology slots also feed directly into survivability and mining speed, so the early payoff is larger.
- Switch to Drop Pods once prices climb. A free slot is worth the same as a 200,000-unit one.
- Stop at a station every time you change systems. With the once-per-location-per-system limit, buying one slot as you pass through adds up quickly.
- Plan around the three supercharged slots. Their positions are fixed, so deciding what goes there in advance saves rearranging later.