Question: Favourite Ship Type

[DamienPS]

I really like the Pirate Corsair for it's Cargo Vacuum and Comm Jammer.

Comm Jammer means less enemy race reinforcements.

Cargo Vacuum easy to pick up multiple items.

What do others play and why?

[Narrew]

I haven't unlocked any of the other ships. I take it I have to win the game to unlock one?

[DamienPS]

Originally Posted by Narrew

I haven't unlocked any of the other ships. I take it I have to win the game to unlock one?

You just have to get far enough along with a race's quest line to unlock a ship.

The easiest to unlock is the Stealth Runner, fit a cloaking device on a ship, cloak then uncloak.

The cruiser unlocks when you have a reactor with 3 weapon slots and 6 device slots.

[Kazeto]

Well, my favourite ship right now is the simple trader. Because I can still have the ridiculous gear and at least this ship has a good carrying capacity.

But then again, I'm too much of a loot hound not to put the cargo capacity above all else ...

[DamienPS]

Until I unlocked the corsair, I played the asteroid miner a lot.

[Tim Brooks]

Although I have played all the starting ships, the asteroid miner is my favorite.

[Lord Felix]

For a long time I thought the Cruiser was the best ship. In my current game I started with a Cruiser and upgraded it to great awesomeness. But now, in sector 1028, I finally found the best ship: the Sigorn Hauler. In that sector I found one for sale that was way ahead of my Cruiser in every single category.

Here are the numbers:

Speed 300 (lightning, fastest possible, the most important number for a ship) (with all my bonuses, not needing the Solar Sail)

Shield 128964

Hull + Armor 53195

Supplies 92530 (!)

Crew 384

Cargo 760 (!)

plus the ship comes with preinstalled Trade Beacon and Warp Point Detector. So it's perfect for a quick run to sector 10,000. In contrast, the Cruiser has no preinstalled devices.

Has anybody ever had a ship more potent than that?

Incidentally, inheriting components and bonuses from the Cruiser this ship has Targetting 805 and three very strong weapons that can each, firing one at a time, one-shot just about everything.

[Fennrick]

Right now im flying the tentaculon "observer" class. Pretty nifty ship that starts with a strong shield, lots of supplies and crew. Only drawback: Only one weak shipweapon is preinstalled.

[OrionM42]

Staring Ship, Ship trade-ups, and Final Ships

Having played four games (well, 3 YASD's and only one Victory), I typically start with an Explorer class ship. I generally find galaxy exploration to be the most interesting aspect of the game, so this ship is a good fit for me. I like the fact that it comes with a pre-installed Science Lab; and I especially like that it comes with a pre-installed Immunization Suite. (I explore almost all planets exhaustively, including their cave systems, having cave-dived down 42 levels in my deepest dive, so features that make it safer for my Away Team are a significant plus.) Explorers also come with a pretty good Crew size (hence bigger Away Teams) which also aids my style of play. Downsides include less cargo capacity than I would like, and a single weapon slot which (in my experience) usually comes with a very poor first weapon.

However, in the course of my 90-Sector Victory game, I traded up (purchased) 5 improved ships. The first four were just better Explorers. These trade-ups, individually, provided fairly modest improvements, but over the course of 4, I ended up with a pretty solid ship. I finished with 3 weapons: a Slot-1 weapon delivering 439 damage, with a 1-turn cool-down; a Slot-2 weapon delivering 1,839 damage, with a 3-turn cool-down; and a Slot-3 weapon delivering 5,247 damage, with an 11-turn cool-down. Through 90 sectors, these weapons met my needs. (I kept a fairly weak Slot-1 weapon, in order to have 1-turn cool-down on it.)

My final trade-up was to a Negotiator class ship. It provided at least modest improvements in all categories compared to my last Explorer, but especially Speed (Speed=290, officially qualifying as "Lightning"). This ship finished with a Shield of 12,474; Hull/Armor of 4,024; Sensor/radar with range 6, and targeting of 40; and a Warp-drive with a range of 5 sectors, and a 10 turn cool-down. (I sacrificed some armor, in order to get a speed increase of 15, on this item.)

I crafted a LOT of equipment, in order to get solid equipment in each category. However, I never made a Reactor that had 6 device slots (along with the 3 weapon slots), so I never un-locked the Cruiser class ship. Still, my final Negotiator ship was very satisfactory, overall.

I would be interested in hearing, not only what ships other players like to start with, but also how they typically progress (trade-up), and what kind of ship they typically finish with, in the course of a winning (or at least a fairly long) game.

Thanks! Explore long and prosper!

[DamienPS]

Originally Posted by OrionM42

Staring Ship, Ship trade-ups, and Final Ships

My final trade-up was to a Negotiator class ship. It provided at least modest improvements in all categories compared to my last Explorer, but especially Speed (Speed=290, officially qualifying as "Lightning"). This ship finished with a Shield of 12,474; Hull/Armor of 4,024; Sensor/radar with range 6, and targeting of 40; and a Warp-drive with a range of 5 sectors, and a 10 turn cool-down. (I sacrificed some armor, in order to get a speed increase of 15, on this item.)

Thanks! Explore long and prosper!

Is the Negotiater ship from the Unifiers? I haven't gotten it yet.