Freighter hunting

[Abyssian]

I trying to hunt some decent looking freighter, i know about 3 hours of gameplay and several jumps with ship to spawn another rescue battle but... what the guide don't tell is... what happened when you spawn a battle and the freighter is not what you wanted? I ran away from that battle and now the question. Do i need to wait another 3 hours of gameplay? Or the game will be merciful (for once) and when i didn't help the previous freighter, it will spawn another battle sooner? Or is it just one battle per 3 hours no matter what i do? And only in the system where i didn't rescued one or even didn't visit before? This stuff is really confusing.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

I have never stopped helping a freighter respond to pirates, so not sure if that does not trigger another 3 hour and five warps requirement.

Should be very apparent the next time you warp you would get another freighter under attack. If not, probably is reset and you need to wait for the condition to be met again.

There are some sneaky ways to keep rolling the dice by saving just before you travel to the trigger system and reloading and trying again. Given that freighters really don't impact game play much I have never bothered. They are just a parking garage for your ships.

[Comradovich]

Over on the coordinate exchange there's some buzz going around that the old "3 hours of gameplay +5 jumps" spawning method is no longer working. Now it seems to be some kind of random total number of jumps. I'm not completely convinced, but I know when I got my freighter I did way more than 5 jumps before it triggered.

There's another mechanic you should be aware of, though. Know that capital freighters and system freighters switch off every spawn. So, if you're seeing a system freighter that you don't want right now... you need to clear it off the spawn table so the next one can be a capital. Just save it, ask for a reward instead, and then begin looking for that good capital freighter you actually want.

Here's a little trick on freighter hunting that works even if the jumps are now random. Warp to an adjacent system to the one you want and land on its space station. Remember the name of this system, you'll be back here a lot. Now, warp to your target system with the special freighter you're trying to spawn. If it did not spawn, go directly to the station and teleport back to the adjacent system's station. All of your system warps are now going in one direction, directly to the system with the freighter you want. Which should mean that the only freighter mission you can get is the one for that ship you want.

Now, to get it in an S class... once you trigger the mission and have confirmed the freighter at least looks like what you're after, go directly to the station and get out of your ship. You could kill a few pirate fighters first, (that does speed things up on reloads), but you don't have to. Okay, you just created an autosave on the station, in the middle of the mission you want to have happen. Now you can use this autosave to try and spawn in S class of the freighter you want. Finish the combat portion of the mission, and as soon as you land on the freighter, pop your analysis visor and look at the floor. It'll tell you the freighter class. If it's not an S, reload the autosave you made on the station. The mission prevents you from making an autosave on the freighter when you get out, so your last autosave was mid-battle on the station. This is how you get an S class, it's a lottery. Chances are best in "wealthy" systems, (or some other name for a three-star system, I think "prosperous" is one). It'll take a bunch of reloads. S class is earned. I took 23 tries. I've heard of 70+ tries.

[lordoftheapes79]

The 3 hours +5 jumps only applies when you take part in the battle. If you ran away or declined the freighter then you're in totally random territory.

As of this post, if you're looking for an S class, you only have 2 choices. Color doesn't matter, they can be painted. This may change with the new update, and will likely change before the end of the year.

Just do what the guides say. Before you leave a system, hop out of your ship in the space station, then warp to a 3 star system. It's a good habit to be in whether you're looking for a freighter or not. If you get a battle and the ship isn't the one you want, reload your save and find a different system. repeat until you find the model your looking for, then start the grind.

Also, it's good to put a custom waypoint on the system your jumping to, then go back into the space station and save it the game with the custom waypoint marked. it'll be a lot easier to find that specific system.