Multi-Tool Classes and Acquisition — Supercharged Slots and Special Tools
With multi-tools, the individual instance matters more than the type. Two copies of the same model perform differently depending on where their supercharged slots sit. Types are covered in The Eight Multi-Tool Types; this page is about acquiring and growing one.
Classes and slots
Classes are the same C < B < A < S as ships, and they set the size of the three bonuses (damage, mining, scanning).
Two things differ from starships:
- Multi-tool inventory has only a Technology section. There’s no cargo tab, so you can’t store resources — slots exist purely for technology and upgrade modules.
- Class doesn’t divide the slot cap. Tools run from 9 up to 60 slots, but you can only expand toward 60 after upgrading to S-class.
Supercharged slots are the real story
Up to four slots are supercharged, and their positions are fixed per individual tool. Two tools of the same model can have completely different layouts, so finding one where the supercharged slots line up with the tech you care about matters more than the type’s damage bonus.
Upgrading class and expanding slots
At a space station’s Multi-Tool Upgrade Station (next to the technology merchant) you raise class with nanites — the equivalent of the starship Outfitting Terminal. Costs are generally cited as 10,000 / 25,000 / 50,000 nanites for C→B→A→S, but they scale with your game’s purchase-cost difficulty setting, so check the terminal for the real numbers.
Slots expand two ways:
- Units, one slot at a time (starting around 100,000 and climbing toward 50 million).
- A Multi-Tool Expansion Slot item unlocks one slot free. Manufacturing Facility puzzles are the reliable source, and they also come from crashed freighter containers and mission rewards. Late slots get extremely expensive in units, so saving these items pays off enormously.
How to get them
Ordinary tools (Pistol, Rifle, Experimental, Alien)
- Buy at a Multi-Tool Purchase Station — beside the technology merchant on stations, at the Space Anomaly, and in settlements.
- Only one tool shows at a time, drawn from a per-location pool of 2–4 tools. Stations and each planet have separate pools, so landing on a planet, teleporting, or using a portal loads a different pool.
- Saving and reloading rerolls the model and type, but not the class or slot count.
- You can own six multi-tools.
- Others come from NPC gifts (arriving damaged), Monolith puzzles, and inspecting crashed ships.
- Trading one in destroys all installed technology — dismantle or move anything you want to keep first.
Special tools each have exactly one source — this is the part people mix up.
| Tool | Source |
|---|---|
| Royal | Sentinel Pillar — claim it after dealing with the Sentinels around it |
| Sentinel | Harmonic Camp — free, but arrives with damaged slots and a numeric puzzle to unseal |
| Atlantid | A Monolith in a Korvax system — requires progress in the “They Who Returned” questline |
| Voltaic Staff | Built at an Autophage Synthesis Terminal |
Royal comes from Sentinel Pillars, not Monoliths — Atlantid is the Monolith one. These two get swapped constantly.
Building a Voltaic Staff
A staff isn’t found, it’s assembled.
- Progress the “They Who Returned” questline to locate Autophage camps at all.
- At the camp’s Autophage Synthesis Terminal, buy parts with Void Motes — head 999, core 646, pole 333.
- Each terminal has a fixed class, slot layout, and colour for whatever staff is built there. If you don’t like the offer, decline, take your parts back, and try another camp. That’s how people farm an S-class staff with four well-placed supercharged slots.