Frigate Buyer's Guide - How to Pick the Best Ships (and ...

Managing Your Fleet

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Initial Team Building for Taking On Expeditions: Once you know what you're looking for in your various Specialty ships and Support ships (low fuel costs, traits spent in primary stats and good utilities), you have the know-how to buy the best ships you can for the money you have on hand. However, in the beginning you'll want to get as much "bang for your buck" as you can, since you probably won't have the units to afford a huge fleet right away.

To start with, try to get at least 3 decent C-class Specialty ships of each type, and 3-4 decent C-class Support ships to tag along with them - 12 Specialty ships and 4 Support ships will cost you somewhere in the range of 20-30 million Units. This will get your foot in the door for each of the specialty mission types, or you can run more than one General mission if they become available.

Assigning Ships to Early Expeditions: 3 decent Specialty ships and 1 Support ship will generally be sufficient to give a 3-star rating on early missions, which tend to be 1-3 star difficulty. Always try to send a fleet at least 1 star rating above the mission difficulty rating - preferably 2 stars above. It's still possible to have ships damaged (and the mission be less successful) if you're 1 star rating above the mission difficulty, but 2 stars above seems to prevent these mishaps entirely. To get a 5-star rating, a fleet must have at least 102 points in the required specialty.

As you build your fleet's strength, you'll eventually want to send less (and more powerful) ships with efficient fuel ratings to reduce the fuel cost of each expedition. If two ships can do the job of three and cost less fuel, so much the better - you can assign the other ships to other tasks. General missions are an excellent choice for ships that are passed over on other missions, but you'll need to ensure that you have at least one of each of the four specialty types for the best results.

If you have plenty of fuel (or efficient ships), you can even "pad" a 3-or-4 ship expedition with an extra ship or two that's not being used to give it a chance to get some additional experience! Support ships used this way add no additional minimum fuel cost, so this is a good way to level these ships up if you happen to have extras in reserve.

Misfit Mobilization Missions: Don't be afraid to use idle ships with an "off-class specialty" to "pad" a specialty mission! Regardless of what ships are sent on the mission, if the mission rating is two stars above the difficulty rating (or "padding" with off-class ships can push the total there), no problem. For easier missions, you might even be able to send a fleet composed entirely of "misfits" to do the job (perhaps assisted with appropriate expendable items)!

Fueling Your Fleet (and Building Your Freighter): Fuel is manufactured from Tritium and Di-hydrogen. Tritium is mined from asteroids (which also yield Silver, Gold and Platinum, which you'll need for building things on your Freighter) - Di-hydrogen can be mined from planetary surfaces from the clusters of blue crystals, or manufactured ex nihilo via a Large Refinery and Di-hydrogen Jelly (a much faster and more convenient method).

Since you'll get plenty of Silver, Gold and some Platinum mining Tritium for fuel, you'll want to use that to upgrade your Freighter with at least five (preferably eight) Command Rooms. You'll also want to put at least one Large Freighter Room in there to allow room for a Large Refinery, and a Galactic Trade Terminal to sell your loot. I recommend exercising restraint when base building on your first Freighter - you won't replace it for a while since really good Freighters are expensive, and disassembling and moving all that stuff over to a new boat will be inconvenient if you've gone whole-hog expanding your ship with huge farms and stuff.

Repairing Damage After Missions: If you're sending your fleets out without a high rating to provide a safety margin vs. damage, it's likely you'll need to make repairs to your ships after they come back. Repairs cost materials, not units - usually things that can be mined in space, such as Platinum, Gold, and Silver. There's also a hidden cost - encounters where your ships are damaged do not give rewards of Units or items!

If one of your Frigates is damaged, you'll need to fly your starship to it, land on one of the damaged ship's landing pads, and follow the waypoints to the affected terminals to repair the ship with various materials. At present this must be done manually vs. using a central station or speaking with an officer, but aside from time spent running around the ships, repairs are instantaneous and reasonably convenient.

Large-Scale Fleet Operations: After you've built a large enough fleet, you will likely find yourself with multiple missions underway at the same time. Some missions are relatively short-term (8-10 hours), while others can be longer term (20-30 hours). However, five new missions spawn once per 24 hours - since some of the previous day's missions may not yet be completed, it's possible to have expedtion fleets in space (and unavailable) when the new missions spawn.

First, this means you will want a few "extra" ships of various Specialty types hanging around to fill gaps in the schedule. Also, these unfinished expeditions will occupy one of the Command Rooms on your Freighter - therefore you'll want more than 5 (preferably 7-8) Command Rooms to allow your leftover long-term missions to wrap up (and not have to wait).

Culling the Flock: As your ships level up, losing bad traits and gaining good ones (and as you acquire new ships), you'll find that some are more useful than others, or even that some of your ships have grown up into "lemons". Unfortunately, you can't assign positive traits to be stripped out as if they were negative and "re-rolled" on level up for a random new trait which may be better. On PC, to dismiss a Frigate you no longer want, mouse over it in the Fleet Manager menu and hold the center mouse button down (same button as discarding junk from your inventory).

Since you're limited to a maximum of 30 Frigates, if you wind up with a "Lemon" (either due to an unwise purchase or simple bad luck leveling up) that is already leveled up to S-Class, it's stuck that way and its traits cannot be improved thereafter (though its stats will continue to slowly improve as normal, assuming it's still going on missions and getting experience that is). If you have something better and/or you don't ever use that frigate, get rid of it! All it's doing is taking up one of the thirty slots in your roster and clogging up your spreadsheet of ships. Clean it out and save yourself the headache unless you think you might have a use for it.

OTOH, you may wish to keep an "extra" Combat Frigate around with your Freighter to provide some cover if you get jumped by pirates while in system with your Freighter. They'll pop in and take care of some of the enemy fighters, leaving you with fewer attackers to deal with, and maybe send some fighters of their own to harass the enemy and keep them from focusing on you.

Once you know what you're looking for in your various Specialty ships and Support ships (low fuel costs, traits spent in primary stats and good utilities), you have the know-how to buy the best ships you can for the money you have on hand. However, in the beginning you'll want to get as much "bang for your buck" as you can, since you probably won't have the units to afford a huge fleet right away.To start with, try to get at least 3 decent C-class Specialty ships of each type, and 3-4 decent C-class Support ships to tag along with them - 12 Specialty ships and 4 Support ships will cost you somewhere in the range of 20-30 million Units. This will get your foot in the door for each of the specialty mission types, or you can run more than one General mission if they become available.3 decent Specialty ships and 1 Support ship will generally be sufficient to give a 3-star rating on early missions, which tend to be 1-3 star difficulty. Always try to send a fleet at least 1 star rating above the mission difficulty rating - preferably 2 stars above. It's still possible to have ships damaged (and the mission be less successful) if you're 1 star rating above the mission difficulty, but 2 stars above seems to prevent these mishaps entirely. To get a 5-star rating, a fleet must have at least 102 points in the required specialty.As you build your fleet's strength, you'll eventually want to send less (and more powerful) ships with efficient fuel ratings to reduce the fuel cost of each expedition. If two ships can do the job of three and cost less fuel, so much the better - you can assign the other ships to other tasks. General missions are an excellent choice for ships that are passed over on other missions, but you'll need to ensure that you have at least one of each of the four specialty types for the best results.If you have plenty of fuel (or efficient ships), you can even "pad" a 3-or-4 ship expedition with an extra ship or two that's not being used to give it a chance to get some additional experience! Support ships used this way add no additional minimum fuel cost, so this is a good way to level these ships up if you happen to have extras in reserve.Don't be afraid to use idle ships with an "off-class specialty" to "pad" a specialty mission! Regardless of what ships are sent on the mission, if the mission rating is two stars above the difficulty rating (or "padding" with off-class ships can push the total there), no problem. For easier missions, you might even be able to send a fleet composed entirely of "misfits" to do the job (perhaps assisted with appropriate expendable items)!Fuel is manufactured from Tritium and Di-hydrogen. Tritium is mined from asteroids (which also yield Silver, Gold and Platinum, which you'll need for building things on your Freighter) - Di-hydrogen can be mined from planetary surfaces from the clusters of blue crystals, or manufactured ex nihilo via a Large Refinery and Di-hydrogen Jelly (a much faster and more convenient method).Since you'll get plenty of Silver, Gold and some Platinum mining Tritium for fuel, you'll want to use that to upgrade your Freighter with at least five (preferably eight) Command Rooms. You'll also want to put at least one Large Freighter Room in there to allow room for a Large Refinery, and a Galactic Trade Terminal to sell your loot. I recommend exercising restraint when base building on your first Freighter - you won't replace it for a while since really good Freighters are expensive, and disassembling and moving all that stuff over to a new boat will be inconvenient if you've gone whole-hog expanding your ship with huge farms and stuff.If you're sending your fleets out without a high rating to provide a safety margin vs. damage, it's likely you'll need to make repairs to your ships after they come back. Repairs cost materials, not units - usually things that can be mined in space, such as Platinum, Gold, and Silver. There's also a hidden cost - encounters where your ships are damaged do not give rewards of Units or items!If one of your Frigates is damaged, you'll need to fly your starship to it, land on one of the damaged ship's landing pads, and follow the waypoints to the affected terminals to repair the ship with various materials. At present this must be done manually vs. using a central station or speaking with an officer, but aside from time spent running around the ships, repairs are instantaneous and reasonably convenient.After you've built a large enough fleet, you will likely find yourself with multiple missions underway at the same time. Some missions are relatively short-term (8-10 hours), while others can be longer term (20-30 hours). However, five new missions spawn once per 24 hours - since some of the previous day's missions may not yet be completed, it's possible to have expedtion fleets in space (and unavailable) when the new missions spawn.First, this means you will want a few "extra" ships of various Specialty types hanging around to fill gaps in the schedule. Also, these unfinished expeditions will occupy one of the Command Rooms on your Freighter - therefore you'll want more than 5 (preferably 7-8) Command Rooms to allow your leftover long-term missions to wrap up (and not have to wait).As your ships level up, losing bad traits and gaining good ones (and as you acquire new ships), you'll find that some are more useful than others, or even that some of your ships have grown up into "lemons". Unfortunately, you can't assign positive traits to be stripped out as if they were negative and "re-rolled" on level up for a random new trait which may be better. On PC, to dismiss a Frigate you no longer want, mouse over it in the Fleet Manager menu and hold the center mouse button down (same button as discarding junk from your inventory).Since you're limited to a maximum of 30 Frigates, if you wind up with a "Lemon" (either due to an unwise purchase or simple bad luck leveling up) that is already leveled up to S-Class, it's stuck that way and itscannot be improved thereafter (though itswill continue to slowly improve as normal, assuming it's still going on missions and getting experience that is). If you have something better and/or you don't ever use that frigate, get rid of it! All it's doing is taking up one of the thirty slots in your roster and clogging up your spreadsheet of ships. Clean it out and save yourself the headache unless you think you might have a use for it.OTOH, you may wish to keep an "extra" Combat Frigate around with your Freighter to provide some cover if you get jumped by pirates while in system with your Freighter. They'll pop in and take care of some of the enemy fighters, leaving you with fewer attackers to deal with, and maybe send some fighters of their own to harass the enemy and keep them from focusing on you.