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Hey guys

I'm on my first free play run and I was curious about which is the best type of freighter to get first (energy, bulk etc.) or should I go for a mining ship? I have around 10m credits from missions and whatnot.

I did a Google search but it didn't bring up anything particularly helpful.

Thanks! Enjoying the game so far.

Unless the SY in Darn Hot Air is out of resources, I would go with a Styrvok C+E or a Lepton. Both can carry Container and Energy wares and are therefore quite versatile.

Here is a link to the Wiki: Trade Ships

My first freighter has always been: The first marauder Rahanas I can get isolated away from a zone to board it.

TheDeliveryMan wrote: ↑

Fri, 19. Oct 18, 20:01

Unless the SY in Darn Hot Air is out of resources, I would go with a Styrvok C+E or a Lepton. Both can carry Container and Energy wares and are therefore quite versatile.

Here is a link to the Wiki: Trade Ships

Thanks for the tip. I only have access to Gemstone Manufactury at the moment, so maybe I will try the Rehannas C+E.

It seems I cannot get the Rahanas C=E in free play mode? Plot only... oh well!

No, I think only the pirates have them, so you'll have to board one.

Wait, how do you not have access to anything else? If you're in free play then you can go anywhere in the universe! (Well the part of the universe that the Egosoftians have opened the gates up to, anyway.)

I would definitely go container first because that's where most of the money is. Rahanas bulk is actually a pretty good ship, too, though it's going to cost you just about all your money once you arm it and hire a crew. The Teladi ships are good AND cheap but Overwatch often doesn't have the parts to make them and and you don't have a trade ship to get those parts to them.

Of course, once you get some real cash, the Lyranea's are wonderful. Lots of universal cargo space and some decent weapons, too. Once you upgrade your Skunk, the Titurels are... well, pretty slow actually, but the price is right and they are vastily easier to capture than a Lyranea.

atavistuk wrote: ↑

Fri, 19. Oct 18, 20:04

My first freighter has always been: The first marauder Rahanas I can get isolated away from a zone to board it.

Same for me. Marauder Rahanases are only in the game as Training grounds for marines. There is one spot in Ode Monumenti, at the east end of Albert's Theory, where they appear rather regularly. Or you can wait at the jump beacon in the same zone.

Zloth2 wrote: ↑

Sun, 21. Oct 18, 21:06

Wait, how do you not have access to anything else? If you're in free play then you can go anywhere in the universe! (Well the part of the universe that the Egosoftians have opened the gates up to, anyway.)

I would definitely go container first because that's where most of the money is. Rahanas bulk is actually a pretty good ship, too, though it's going to cost you just about all your money once you arm it and hire a crew. The Teladi ships are good AND cheap but Overwatch often doesn't have the parts to make them and and you don't have a trade ship to get those parts to them.

Of course, once you get some real cash, the Lyranea's are wonderful. Lots of universal cargo space and some decent weapons, too. Once you upgrade your Skunk, the Titurels are... well, pretty slow actually, but the price is right and they are vastily easier to capture than a Lyranea.

Just to complete the boarding menu: Styrvoks are easy, and Lyramecrons are even harder than Lyraneas. Oh, and there are the Phoenixes in Fields of Opportunity; easy to disable, more blind spots than a mole, but you need a trained crew, because even with 5% hull they are ~80(?) boarding resistance.

You mean the Pirate Marauder Pheonix.

(It's the only Fight Ship with a cargo hold. 50k Universal I think? it's been a while since I owned one.) Ideal if you are doing any business with the Teladi, since the Pirates will never attack it.

I'm usually a big fan of the Lepton as a first M-sized freighter.
1) You get both container and energy capacity, but as merged storage, unlike the rahannas or styrvok which has segregated storage for both.
2) It's cheap
3) It's fast and nimble. It will finish it's trade operations faster than the other early game trade ships. (Faster than most other ships in the vanilla game, actually)

Sure, it is very weak in term of fighting capacity and resistance, but if you stick to trading lanes it shouldn't get attacked.
And while it has a very low cargo capacity, I usually trade in higher-end wares (drones, fusion reactors and the like) when I'm earlier in the game. They usually yield more profits when traded in the right place. But since they are so expensive, it makes it a little useless to have a bigger ship because you usually don't have the budget to fill up your ship anyway.
The usual problem with the lepton is that the shipyard producing them is almost always out of material to build them.

I usually move to bigger, slower and either more specialised or more versatile transports when I set up my trade empire.

Marauder phoenix is also a good choice, but as RainerPrem mentionned you will need to train your boarding crew a bit before you can attempt boarding one. Plus, since it's a fight ship, it will get attacked on sight by your ennemies, whereas trade ships won't be attacked unless your standing with the station is very low (below -20).

@ Ezarkal: "Plus, since it's a fight ship, it will get attacked on sight by your enemies, whereas trade ships won't be attacked unless your standing with the station is very low (below -20)."

As you later implied, in FOO it is a special case and almost the other way around: FIGHT ships will not be attacked by the many local pirate Marauders unless you are their dire enemy but your TRADE ships will be *regardless* of your even good rep with those pirates. That is why the Marauder Phoenix (a FIGHT ship) is safer to trade in FOO as your other TRADE ships will be constantly attacked by local pirates there. Of course the Xenon will attack anything and everything there too.

This is just to explain any confusion from the apparent complete switch around for FOO versus the rest of the race galaxies.