Inside Hell Vegas: The 70,000-Piece No Man’s Sky City

When you first open No Man’s Sky’s base editor, it feels like the universe is your blank canvas—until you hit object #3,001. Each base computer enforces a 3,000-piece cap on walls, floors, decorations and more. That hard limit keeps frame rates in check and sessions stable across alien worlds. So when whispers began swirling about a player who built “Hell Vegas,” a 70,000-piece city spanning 15 linked bases, the tale sounded like sci-fi legend. I decided to dive in, separate myth from reality and unearth the clever workaround that bent Hello Games’ sandbox—and ultimately pushed it to its breaking point.

The Origins of the 3,000-Piece Ceiling

No Man’s Sky has always championed creative freedom, from sculpting alien flora to erecting gravity-defying domes. But every construction engine needs guardrails. Hello Games built the 3,000-piece limit into each base computer to prevent runaway creations from tanking performance. Claim as many “satellite” bases on one planet as you like, but each must obey that same ceiling. It’s a simple, elegant solution for curbing massive builds—unless you happen upon a loophole.

Rumors and Reality: How Hell Vegas Came to Light

Stories about Hell Vegas first emerged on Reddit and Discord channels late last year. Players shared blurry screenshots of neon skyscrapers piercing a volcanic sky, glass-domed farms basking in molten light and even a half-buried pyramid temple. Was this a carefully choreographed screenshot or an actual in-game marvel? After tracking down the builder behind the spectacle, Reddit user ReadyPlayerFamily, the city’s scale and backstory proved even more astonishing than the rumors.

Meet the Architect: ReadyPlayerFamily

• Planet: A scorched volcanic world with rivers of magma
• Time Invested: Over 1,400 hours of meticulous planning and construction
• Piece Count: Approximately 60,000–70,000—20× the official cap
• Key Features: Interlocking glass biodomes, towering neon spires, a hidden pyramid ruin
• Method: Linking 15 base computers and exploiting legacy mods plus precise timing glitches (now patched)

Glitching the System: A Technical Deep Dive

Rather than smuggling extra objects into a single base computer, the trick was to scatter fifteen separate bases within walking distance and chain their object counts. Outdated community mods triggered a timing bug: when one computer reached its limit, a fraction of its object tally would “overflow” into the next satellite base. Repeat that process across all linked computers, and you could multiply the total pieces by the number of bases. The result? Hell Vegas spanned roughly 70,000 items—an achievement Hello Games never intended to see on the live servers.

Performance at the Brink

With so many objects packed into one sprawling settlement, Hell Vegas demands patience. On high-end rigs, loading takes around five minutes. Frame rates dip into single digits, pop-in creeps across the skyline, and draw distances collapse under the sheer volume of assets. On consoles like PS5 and Xbox Series X, the metropolis borders on unplayable—and on the Steam Deck, it can still crash mid-session. But for ReadyPlayerFamily, the chaos is part of the charm.

Developer Response and Community Reaction

Within days of Hell Vegas going public, Hello Games released a patch closing the timing exploit and invalidating legacy mods that made it possible. The update restored the 3,000-piece cap per base computer, ensuring future cities must adhere to the original design. Still, players have celebrated ReadyPlayerFamily’s feat as a testament to No Man’s Sky’s enduring spirit of discovery and creativity. Modders and builders continue to push boundaries in safer, community-approved ways, while Hello Games keeps adding quality-of-life tools for base building.

The Road Ahead for Mega-Builders

• Balancing Act: Ambitious mega-builds are breathtaking, but each added piece can destabilize your session.
• Modding Safely: Exploits offer one-off thrills, but they rarely survive official patches—plan for upkeep.
• Developer Dialogue: Hello Games has shown openness to community feedback—official multi-base management tools could be on the horizon.
• Next Challenges: Can someone top Hell Vegas within official limits? Fans are already brainstorming.

In Conclusion

Hell Vegas stands as both a masterpiece and a cautionary tale. ReadyPlayerFamily’s 70,000-piece city shattered expectations and tested Hello Games’ sandbox to its limits. While the timing glitch that made it possible is gone, the spirit of boundary-pushing remains alive in No Man’s Sky’s community. As the game evolves, so will the dreams of architects aiming for the next impossible build—hopefully with a little help from official tools and tighter performance tuning.