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Quick overview of stats.


These numbers are the max possible base stats intrinsic to the starship type. They do not include tech modules whatsoever.

Shuttle
30 30 30 35 16.7%
Common and cheap. Their stats aren't great, but they make up for it in being relatively cheap for a ship with more cargo slots.

• Commonly Found: Everywhere
• Special Features: Low cost per cargo slot when buying the ship.
• Role: Cheap!





Fighter
90 38 0 45 25%
Your starter ship was a fighter. They have the highest potential damage stat, which is mostly irrelevant when any ship can equip an infra-knife and burn anything down in a couple seconds. Their maneuverability is just shy of the best, but every other stat suffers greatly.

• Commonly Found: Vykeen Systems
• Special Features: Not much.
• Role: Early-game Strike Ship





Explorer
0 40 120 32 12.5%
Explorers excel at hyperdrive range and launch cost reduction. Their base damage is always zero, but that really doesn't hold them back.

• Commonly Found: Korvax Systems
• Special Features: Lowest Launch Cost, Longest Warps
• Role: Hopper





Hauler
30 125 58 15 25%
Lowest maneuverability, middling hyperdrive range, the best shields. They tend to be more way more expensive than any other common ship because they start with so many initial cargo slots, but they really just don't do what you need at any stage of the game. They are an artifact of early No Man's Sky when there weren't great options for cargo capacity.

• Commonly Found: Gek Systems
• Special Features: Large base cargo capacity, the best shield stat.
• Role: Tank, Hauler





Solar
75 50 50 40 25%
Fairly middling stats across the board, however Solar ships boast the unique Vesper Sail module which gives some bonuses to stats. While NPC pilots can be found flying them, they are rarer.

• Special Features: Unique Vesper Sail module! Bonus maneuverability, bonus pulse efficiency, and innate launch recharging.
• Role: Balanced





Exotic
75 90 95 50 25%
Maneuverability stat is tied for the best, and the rest of the stats are pretty strong as well. Second best hyperdrive range, second best shields. Damage is still okay! Launch thrusters cost is the main weakness. Generally only one seeded exotic ship can be found per system.

• Special Features: Highest amount of combined stats.
• Role: Balanced, High Stats





Living Ship (Organic)
75 38 95 15 25%
No NPCs fly this ship. The only way to get one is to buy the void egg with Quicksilver at the Anomaly. It will take you at the very minimum four days of Nexus dailies to be able to afford it if you include a weekend mission, otherwise it will be 8 days of normal daily missions. After that, the Starbirth quest takes almost a week to complete with all the built-in wait timers. Once you acquire the Living Ship, it needs uncommon/rare Psychonic Eggs to upgrade its tech. After all that time and grinding, you're left with a ship that has a bad stat spread. It's damage is okay, it's hyperdrive range is relatively high, but not the best. Everything else is terrible. It just flies like a brick. It's not great at anything, and it's barely good in a stat or two. I don't know what role it serves.

• Special Features: Can recharge some technologies with different resources, like oxygen.
• Role: lol?





Interceptor (Sentinel)
80 35 10 50 12.5%
A lot of people think of this ship type as the best, and for good reason. It's maneuverability and launch costs are tied for the best, which makes it excellent to fly and great for hopping around planets. It's damage is the second best behind the fighter, but it's fairly close. It's shields are middling, which is mitigated by being able to recharge them easily. It's hyperdrive stat is low, but you can still approach 2000 ly range with upgrades which will serve you in almost every situation. NPCs do not fly this ship, so you'll need to find them crashed on planets. See the Autophage questline to get an idea of how to get started finding these.

• Special Features: Can hover in place.
• Role: Freighter's Excursion Craft

If your freighter is the mothership, this is the drone that can do all of the work.

Each starship type has a range it can roll for its base stats. Base stats cannot be changed, other than through a save editor. It doesn't 1:1 translate into the in-game stats visible to the player, but it will give you an idea of how the different ship types compare to each other.

These are all for S-Class Ships.

You may only fabricate Fighters, Explorers, Haulers, and Solars.

On the back side of the space station, you can find the Starship Fabricator.



Keep in mind that while fighters only need the parts for a Cockpit, a pair of wings, a thruster, and a reactor core, that other ship types need different parts. An explorer, for instance, needs two wing parts because they can be asymmetrical. Check out what you need before you go part searching.



So how do you find ship parts? You scrap ships at the Starship Outfitting just to the left of the Fabricator.



The Starship Outfitter can upgrade or scrap ships. It will always use your active ship, so don't scrap unless you know for certain you have the correct ship active. When scrapping, you need to select whether you want to scrap for customization parts or for units. If you want a part, you must select that you want to extract a customization module.



If you want ships to scrap, you can buy them from the NPC pilots, or bring in crashed ships you repaired. You can locate crashed ships by using Planetary Charts that contain Emergency Cartographic Data that you can buy from the cartographer in Space Stations. These charts can lead you to five different types of locations. One is a Crashed Ship that is abandoned, another is a Crashed Ship that has an owner present. Only the abandoned ones can be taken and scrapped.



Star systems can only have 21 different types of ship. You may want to explore multiple star systems to find a wider range of available parts.

The likelihood of a finding a ship of a particular class depends on the economy of the system it is in. On the galaxy map, you can see type of economy of a star system with an Economy Scanner in your Ship or a Interstellar Scanner in your Freighter.



Economies will fall into four categories that define the Economy of the System. Outlaw Systems always have Black Market Economies.



The Economy's effect on class chance also applies to Multi-Tools and Freighters. So feel free to use this information for other tasks you're working on.



Each system only has a limited number of seeded starships. You will start to see repeats if you stay in the same system.

These are just opinions. If you like the look of one type of ship, or value other stats, that's perfectly valid. The important thing is you enjoy what you're flying.



In the early game, get an Explorer or a Solar.


Explorer ships spend less on launch thrusters than anything else easily available to you. This will allow you to easily hop around planets for different resources for minimal costs. Make sure to research Launcher Auto-Recharger and you may never need to fuel them yourself. Explorer ships also have great hyperdrive range. You can get around 3000 lightyears of range with upgrade modules and adjacency bonuses.




Solar ships have fairly middling stats across the board. But where they shine is their unique Vesper Sail module which has innate Launch Thruster recharging and bonuses to maneuverability and pulse engine efficiency.





In the late game, you'll want an Exotic or an Interceptor.


Exotic ships have a strong spread of stats, only faltering in launch cost. Their damage is slightly less than the Sentinel, but not by enough to notice. Their maneuverability is tied with the Interceptor. This is the ship you get if you want great stat coverage at the cost of launch cost, which might not be enough to limit you anyway.





Interceptors, sometimes called Sentinel ships, have high damage and as low launch cost as an Explorer. Their maneuverability is tied for the best with Exotics. Their hyperdrive stat isn't high, but you can still approach 2k ly of range with full upgrades. Your fully-upgraded freighter can do 6k of ly if you really need the range. It's shield stat is kind of weak, but what is really threatening you at this point? And you can recharge those shields any time with your endless amount of sodium. If you had to pick some stats to trade, the Interceptor picks the least important to lower in favor of the most important. Interceptors also have the unique ability to hover in place.

• Autophage Questline (Staffs/Atlantids)
• Bobblehead Bonuses
• Extraction Bases and Resource Guide
• Multi-Tool Guide