Parts make the world (or nebula) go round in Void Bastards, and as the savvy early-game player you've likely already built the Part Finder and been looking at what parts are listed on each ship as you press forward. That much is straightforward, but most ships will also contain other, mystery parts... if you can afford the merits. You can intuit them with some experience, but for sake of not blowing your funds on a part you have 3 spares of, this guide is intended to reduce the nebula's nebulousness. I never quite finished it myself and some info may be incomplete. If you find a part somewhere not listed in this chart and have a screenshot to accompany it, please post in the comments.

Just remember, failure to offer full compliance with WCG guards is punishable by genital torture in accordance with Subsection 484-F.

Loot in Void Bastards comes in several flavors, both loose and in containers; food, fuel, materials, ammo, and occasionally merits. Loot containers primarily offer materials and ammo, but one container per ship will typically have a craftable part that will be the primary focus of your incursion. It looks the same as any other loot container, but if you have the ship's data from the helm (or a certain character trait) it will show up on your full ship map as a double-size star icon.

Some ships, in fact quite a number of them in the late game, do not have a helm. Sometimes you might just not want to bother trying to dodge and weave through a horde of Screws, Zecs, turrets, or environmental hazards to get to it. In these cases it helps to know that the part you're looking for will usually be found in a specific department -- depending on what type of ship you're on (unless the ship description mentions randomized salvage). Some sections are exclusive to certain ships, some are universal, and some parts can be found in more than one section.

In addition to your target part on each ship, there will typically be one or two locked loot containers randomly distributed amongst all the ones visible on your map. These will always contain another part that, as with the ones you don't pay for, will be determined based on what section of the ship they're in, and how deep you are in the nebula. It's entirely possible, if generally rare, to get a duplicate of your target part! It is not possible for locked containers to have other kinds of loot; so don't crack open the locked food tray in the dining hall of a LUX ship expecting a bonus food stash. It's not gonna happen.

Locked containers have the additional distinguishment of costing 12, 25, or 50 Merits to open. This should in theory help to narrow things down, but between changes based on difficulty, depth variance, whether or not you have the Cargo Manager upgrade, and seemingly some outright randomization... it really doesn't. Thus after some failed attempts I've elected not to categorize them. Sometimes you just can't tell which of two possible items you'll get.

All parts have a tier rating from 1 to 5. This is represented by the number of gears displayed next to the part in your Workbench, and on ships on the map screen (for ships that contain a part you currently have use for). A part's tier is indicative of its general value, material cost, and how deep you'll have to be in the nebula to find it. Tiers don't quite correlate to exact depths; you can find parts one tier higher than your current depth, and tier 1 parts can continue to show up all the way to depth 5 but will be progressively less common.

Parts can also be crafted, which is recommended if you really need an upgrade before tackling a ship or are swimming in surplus materials, but looting them is generally how you'll go about things. There's no pressure to use up your materials if you suspect you're about to die; materials and parts remain fully stocked in event of an end-of-life scenario (excluding Ironman mode).

The part tables in this guide are grouped by tier; listing the part, where it can be found, what it builds, and finally the material values to recycle or craft it. A few notes:

- If you're here to identify a locked container, check your map and Ctrl-F the guide for your current ship section. Doublecheck when dealing with GEN versus GENE. If you're trying to find a goal part without accessing helm data, just search by part name.
- Listed ship sections are accompanied by what ship faction they're exclusive to, if applicable. For instance, THEATREs are only found on (XON) vessels.
- Action Items are marked with an asterisk (*).

Good luck, and good looting!