Freighter Types and Classes — How to Choose
A freighter sits somewhere between a personal starship and a space station. It’s a mobile base that follows you to any system you summon it to, a storage vault, and the home port for your frigate fleet. It effectively defines your mid-to-late game, so it’s worth knowing what to look for before you commit.
How to get one is covered in acquiring a freighter, and upgrades in freighter upgrades.
Normal vs. Capital
There are two families. The game UI calls every freighter a “Capital Ship” regardless of size, but the game files treat these as distinct categories.
| Category | Cargo slots | Tech slots | Price range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 15–19 | 8–12 | 5M – 23M units |
| Capital | 24–34 | 12–20 | 26M – 178M units |
Normal freighters come in eight designs. Capitals come in two families (the long, flat “destroyer” type and the tall “sentinel” type), each in small, medium, and large. Each star system has exactly one super-massive freighter model, so if you find a design you love but can’t afford it, note the system and come back — the same model will be there. The class, however, is rerolled on every visit.
What class (C/B/A/S) actually changes
Freighters carry the same C/B/A/S rating as starships and multi-tools. A higher class improves three things:
- Base slot count may be higher
- Hyperdrive modifier — warp range
- Fleet coordination modifier — frigate expedition performance
The single most important fact: a freighter’s class cannot be upgraded. There’s no nanite path like there is for ships and multi-tools. If you want S-class, your only option is to find and swap into the same model at S-class. That’s why this is one of the most notorious grinds in the game.
Expanding slots
Base slots are set by class and hull, but you can add more later.
- Use Cargo Bulkheads. These are items, not a unit purchase.
- Sources: choosing it as a reward for saving a freighter from pirates, Derelict Freighter rewards, or a Merchants Guild Envoy (requires guild standing level 9).
- The ceiling is 120 cargo / 60 tech.
On top of that, Storage Rooms built inside the freighter add more.
- 20 slots each, up to 10 rooms.
- These share the same storage as the containers at your planetary base. Container 3 at your base and Storage Room 3 on your freighter are the same box.
- Unlike base containers, freighter storage is reachable straight from the inventory screen as tabs — no walking up to the container.
Why your inventory suddenly breathes
Freighter slots hold larger stacks than any other inventory type. An item that stacks to 5 in general inventory holds 10 in cargo and 20 in storage rooms.
Moving things is easier too. Depositing teleports from anywhere; only retrieval requires being aboard — and installing the Matter Beam lets you pull items from anywhere in the same system.
Ship storage and base building
- Owning a freighter lets you keep up to nine starships. Six sit visibly in the hangar; the other three swap in through the quick menu.
- The area behind the bridge is base-building space — 21×21 rooms stacked across multiple floors (sources disagree on 14 vs. 16 floors — unverified).
- You can build duplicates of specialist terminals you already have at a planetary base.
- Each Fleet Command Room raises the number of frigate expeditions you can run at once. You can build up to ten, but you’ll rarely need more than six — five expeditions spawn per day and most take about a day.
What survives a swap
This trips people up constantly.
| Lost | Kept |
|---|---|
| Installed technologies and upgrade modules | The interior base layout (migrated automatically) |
| — | Storage room contents (accessible once you rebuild that room on the new ship) |
- Cargo inventory can be moved through a side-by-side transfer window when you talk to the new captain.
- To start with a clean interior, use Reset Freighter Base from the Upgrade Control — but every material you spent on it is lost.
- You need to rebuild all 10 storage rooms to reach all 10 shared storage slots again.
FAQ
Should I just take the first freighter offered? You can, but the first two you rescue are always Normal freighters (19 slots max). Capitals only start from the third, so if you’re not in a hurry, take the payout instead on the first two. Full conditions are in acquiring a freighter.
Do I really need S-class? Slots reach the same ceiling either way via Cargo Bulkheads. What S-class actually buys you is hyperdrive range and the fleet coordination bonus. If you’re not running expeditions seriously, A-class or below is fine.