Tips for first freighter?

[nasojjr]

So I'm still learning stuff about this game. And I jump in here and ask newb questions so thanks in advance for any help. It seems like when I google things, the guides I read seem to assume that people understand things like "crashing the market" make an "Indium farm" but I have no idea what any of that actually means. lol

Anyways, so I just came across a freighter that I saved from pirates and gave it to me for free. So I have this big freighter and not sure when I should do with it. I built that command room for expeditions, but it looks like my one frigate won't be enough to do any expeditions safely yet and I only have 4 million credits so probably can't get another one. Any basic ideas on where to start with the whole freighter experience? :)

[Dirak2012]

The freighter is more or less a flying garage/base, which you can summon to whatever place you want, there is not much to know about them.

[Orion Invictus]

Crashing the market is like IRL, where selling a lot of something causes that something's price to drop considerably. If you have enough money, you can crash the market for a specific good and then buy a ton of it at a considerable discount. When the market recovers, you can sell it again for profit. Rinse and repeat.

An "Indium Farm" (really Activated Indium, because it's the most expensive raw element in the universe) is just finding a mineral hotspot using the visor (these are different from the ones you can harvest with the terrain manipulator), setting up multiple extractors and resource depots, and then just waiting for it to fill up so you can sell. You'll need to sell to different systems because the market will immediately crash when you do this with any noticeable amount of Activated Indium.

Keep in mind, any quick method for getting units will likely drain all the fun out of the game for you. It's common that new players use those methods and then complain they have more money than they know what to do with.

If you only have one frigate, my advice is to just keep playing and wait until you have enough credits for another one. Meanwhile, frigate missions refresh, so you'll likely get one your frigate can handle soon.

Disclaimer: Frigates can be damaged while on missions. Having the fleet strength be equal to the difficulty seems to have the highest chance of damaging them (apart from having the fleet be weaker than the mission requires, obviously). It's not advisable to let them continue on the mission if they are damaged, or they could be destroyed. Going one star over will minimize the danger, and two stars essentially guarantee that no harm will come to your frigates. However, it is still a random process and it can happen.

[Captain Brendig]

Don't waste money trying buy higher class frigates since they will class up on there own with missions. And also look for support frigates since they can reduce frigate fuel costs. If you ever buy a bigger freighter, you will keep all your frigates, but whatever your build inside the freighter will be lost if you don't dismantle it first.

[jbbuzz]

I usually try to get a freighter early on, since in my opinion are the best way to farm, which is where I get most of my money mid game. If you aren't into farming. you may as well for something nice.

[VA gamer]

For frigates, take your time getting the right stats at start. There are combat ships that use less fuel than other combat ships, for instance. Or trading ships that have an extra bump to combat power to better protect themselves. Someone mentioned value of support ship above. Certain ships decrease how long missions take.

There are also ships that have malus at start: use more fuel, less combat power than normal, etc. Obviously, avoid those at start if possible.

As they complete missions, frigates do level up to S class. Buying C class with decent attributes is the way to go, imo.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Make sure the floor is firm. A lot of players report falling through their freighter floor.

[Captain.Jartyk]

One tip is to always skip that first scrap C freighter, some warp later you find a better one.

[japp_02]

My basic advice is to always skip the 1st freighter, there will usually be a much better one 5 warps later, if not, also skip it.
Then for frigates, buy only C-Class ones, they improve after each successful missions.