Charon Forge 0.2.1: See-Through Cockpits

release 0.2.1

New cockpit variants

• Vantage-Class Cockpit (NO ROOF): the roof and ceiling are taken off, so you can see the interior from above.
• No windshield versions of all nine corvette cockpits: Hornet, Viper and Mantis, I to III. The dark glass at the front is removed so you can see the pilot seat.
• Each variant is listed under its cockpit's variants in the Asset Browser. It keeps the same part id, so it exports as the normal cockpit.
• The Vantage-Class Cockpit no longer carries a stray dark shell from the game's canopy effect.

Colouring

• Space station decorations can now be coloured. Their painted hull panels take the palette's primary, secondary and ternary colours. Creature, robot, hologram and slime decorations keep their own look.
• Coloured parts show their colour in Solid shading again. Colouring a part switches Solid views on Material colour to Object colour, so each part shows its main palette colour instead of plain grey. Views you've set to Random, Texture or Single colour are left alone.

Fixes

• Limos-Class Generator and Vile Proboscis Generator (B_GEN_4, B_GEN_5) are rebuilt from the current game build
• Mirroring no longer swaps the Medusa-Class Reactor for the Zenith-Class Reactor

Charon Forge 0.2.0: 214 New Parts from the Latest Game Update

release 0.2.0

To update, drag the new charon_forge-*.zip onto the Blender window and click Install, replacing the old version.

New parts from the latest game update

• 214 new buildable parts from game build 26271400, each with its high-resolution model, textures and in-game colours:
  • corvette cockpits, including the Hornet-I-Class and Vantage-Class cockpits;
  • hull plating, such as the Basilisk Casing and Basilisk Aerofoil;
  • wings and thrusters: Gorgon, Eldritch, Plated and Lockjaw thrusters, the Arthropod Wing Module and more, with their left/right and vertical versions;
  • habitation, reactor, turret and decoration parts, the Magmox Joint;
  • Gravitational Flooring, Ramp and Wall.
• The Asset Browser keeps it tidy: left/right and mounted versions are grouped as variants of one part instead of separate tiles. That's 43 fewer tiles to scroll through.
• 25 parts that only had placeholder icons in the game (a red X, a purple square or a "Needs an Icon" card) now show a render of the part itself.

Space stations

• Updated to the latest game build: the new package locker drop-off, plus refreshed shop areas, railings, teleporter, landing platform and exterior core. Station layouts are unchanged.

Mirroring fixes

• The new wings and hull plating mirror to their proper left/right twin, including with the Base Builder addon's mirror and flip tools.
• The Rockhopper wing and propeller no longer swap when mirrored. The Osprey and Arcadia wings now mirror to their twins.

The Forge: Forge Text

• Width slider: make the letters condensed or wide. This changes the letters' shape, not the gaps between them. Italic and Script text keep their slant.
• Spacing is now a slider. Width and Spacing are both in the Forge Text window and in the side panel, so you can change them after the text is made.

Charon Forge 0.1.2: Game Lighting, Forge Text and Import Changes

Charon Forge 0.1.2

✨ New

Game Lighting (The Watchtower)
Light your build the way No Man's Sky does, using the game's own skies, suns and part lamps. It works in EEVEE and Cycles.

• Where: Planet or Space. New scenes start on Space. Importing a base from a save switches to Planet for a planet base and to Space for every other base type.
• Planet skies: 40 generic day skies plus the Frozen, Swamp, Lava and Gas Giant biome lists, each in Clear, Firestorm or Gravity Storm weather. Set the Time of Day (dawn, noon, dusk, night) and the Sun direction.
• Space skies: all 58 of the game's space skies, filterable by star colour, with five Sky Styles: Nebula, Nebula Storm, Galaxy, Starfield and Deep Space.
• Sky picker with a small preview swatch of every sky, plus a Random Sky button.
• Lamps: turns every part's in-game lamps into real Blender lights.
• Presets: save, load and delete your lighting setups.
• Advanced sub-panel for Brightness, Sunlight, Glow, Sky Light, sun size and halo, nebula, stars and more.
• Turning it on switches your 3D views to Material Preview. Turning it off gives back each view's own lights and world.

Forge Text (The Forge)
Writes a line of text out of storage panels. It stays one object, so you can change the text, font and size afterwards.

Import Changes
Reads a build back from the game (from the clipboard or a file) and compares it with your scene. Parts placed or changed in the game go into their own collection, and parts changed or deleted in the game are moved into another, so you can see exactly what changed.

🔧 Improved

• Forge a QR Code now builds one object, like Forge Text. You can change its content and square size in The Forge panel afterwards.
• Mirrored and flipped parts now show their twin's own model, placed by a measured fit. What you see in Blender is what comes back after saving to the game and importing again. Before, many mirror pairs came back rotated or out of place.
• Part accuracy: every part is now placed from its own extracted game asset, instead of being rebuilt from a related part. This fixes 84 variants that were wrong before (some sat up to 3 m from where the game puts them). Scenes saved with the old rebuilt parts fix themselves the next time a part is placed or imported.

📦 Other

• The bundled HDRI files were removed. The game's own sky data and nebula texture replace them, so the download is smaller.
• The Forge's shape code was reorganised internally.

Charon Forge 0.1.1

Importing and Performance

• Faster imports: large bases now import in batches, and each part is copied from one template per ObjectID and UserData instead of being built from scratch every time.
• Merged materials: parts that share a material now share one on import, so scenes stay lighter.
• Loading card: a progress card now shows while an import runs.
• Faster selection: selecting parts in big scenes is quicker.

Themes

• Fixed: themes are now only applied when you pick one, and no longer change your scene without you asking.
• Added additional themes.

Mirroring

• Fixed: flipped some exceptions to mirroring.

Charon Forge 0.1.0: First Light

The first release of Charon Forge: build No Man's Sky bases and corvettes in Blender with the game's real, high-resolution models, then put them straight back into your save.

Requires Blender 4.5 or newer. To install, drag the charon_forge-*.zip onto the Blender window and click Install. Or use Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions, the dropdown, then Install from Disk...

The optional No Man's Sky Base Builder addon works with Charon Forge in version 7.0.0 only: download it here.

Building with the game's real parts

• Every part is the game's own high-resolution model, textured and coloured as it looks in game.
• In-game palettes and finishes, on single parts and on groups. Groups keep their colour, and colouring a group colours every part in it.
• Switch the whole scene between High-res and lighter Simple Proxies. Fix Scene reloads every part and texture.
• Fossils are built from the high-resolution models too.
• Mirrored parts come out facing the right way, in Blender and in game.

Asset Browser

• Every buildable part in its own window, by category, with thumbnails.
• Search, Favourites, Recent Items and Presets. Pin and reorder categories.
• Each part's options list all its variants, the main one first, plus Replace Selected Objects.
• A Charon menu in the viewport header, with quick access to favourites and recents, and a search showing the best eight matches.

Optimiser

• Saves the parts that matter most first, following an editable Priority List of part groups.
  • Rename, reorder, add and delete groups.
  • Preview each group's parts as thumbnails.
• Auto Optimise reorders on every save and export. Optimise Now reorders right away.
• Primary cockpit and landing bay, picked automatically on import and when the first one is placed.

Crossing: import and export

• Import and export .nmsship corvettes, and .json / .txt part lists.
• Import and export through the clipboard: just the parts, or the whole base.
• Importing replaces the previous build. Ctrl+Z brings it back.

The Watchtower

• An overlay in the viewport:
  • the base's name, its type (planet base, corvette, freighter, space base, space station base...) and its part count;
  • the selected part's id, name, colour and material.
• Floating Cockpit and Landing Bay labels over the primary parts.

The Forge

• Forge a Shape: spheres, cuboids, other solids, circles, squares and polygons, made from copies of any part.
  • They stay adjustable, update live, and split back into parts when you're done.
• Forge a Symbol: turn any text or link into a scannable QR code, built from as few storage panels as possible.
• Forge Space Station: build a full space station from the game's own models to design a base inside it.
  • Design your own, or enter a Galactic Address for that system's station.

Helmsman

• Review a batch of ships:
  • import any of them to look at it;
  • add notes, approve or reject each one, and give it a corvette slot.
• Write every assigned ship into your save in one go, with a backup made first. Then export the results.

Works alone, or with the Base Builder addon

• Charon Forge works on its own.
• With the No Man's Sky Base Builder addon installed, its tools place and colour Charon's high-resolution parts.
• Features that need that addon say so when it isn't installed.