What do people do that requires a hauler?

[Cesar]

I see a lot of them when I go to the Nexus. What are they doing that requires a ship with a lot of cargo space?

[ΔΙΑΚΟΣΙΑ]

I would say that they just like the ship, since lots of cargo space isn't exclusive to haulers.
Every ship has 3 "sizes" (small, medium, and large). This "size" determines their max slots if they're below S-Class.
Every S-Class ship can be maxed out (48+21), irregardless of "size".

[BlackWater]

I would wager storage on the go or after specific resources that are a bit harder to come by. I have a C hauler that I'm waiting to sell as soon as I free up enough space, 8 free slots minimum. They arent as maneravble as other ships but there not impossible to fly. I wouldnt take on fighting missions with them but they can hold their own if attacked.

[Blind0ne]

When you fully and properly upgrade you ship you are not left with many slots, the high ranking haulers and Exotics can reach max slots making it less annoying to farm items in space combat or asteroids.

[ΔΙΑΚΟΣΙΑ]

Originally posted by Jamie:

...the high ranking haulers and Exotics can reach max slots making it less annoying to farm items in space combat or asteroids.

As can fighters, explorers, and shuttles.

[BlackWater]

Originally posted by Jamie:

When you fully and properly upgrade you ship you are not left with many slots, the high ranking haulers and Exotics can reach max slots making it less annoying to farm items in space combat or asteroids.

indeed, I found an old don't build them like they used to explorer, and right away I thought, I'm totally fixing it up, it had almost as much space as a hauler but that space is now halved, with various shield, pulse engine, hyperdrive enhancements, all the weapons except missle and the shotgun like one, and upgrades to all those. i still have cadmium, Iridium, and wahatever the green one is called hyperdrives to throw in.

[aggressor27]

Preference. Back in the day you'd get the most cargo space out of a hauler before you could do upgrades. I still have mine.

[japp_02]

Starting a hunt for crashed ships, repairing them, then exchange them with other types by paying a little extra will quickly get you in a situation where you can afford a decent hawler. But you only need it when you are in the trading stuff between systems.

[Dirak2012]

I like how they look, also I don't like upgrading ships.

[BlackWater]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

I like how they look, also I don't like upgrading ships.

Unlike alot of other stuff, these upgrades actually work and make a difference.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

There used to be hard choices on which ship to pick back when the game released. You could only have one ship and your play style dictated which type to go for. I really liked to explore on planet for long periods and hated combat so the hauler was a good choice since you could squirrel away a lot of stuff before you had to offload at a station or settlement. The haulers were hard to maneuver but built like tanks so you could take a pounding.

Now it is just a matter of taste and style.

[Happy Monkey]

Haulers require the least grinding for storage slots, so there's still that advantage. But looks are the primary concern these days.

[Mozzy]

As others mentioned, any S class = max 48/21 slots so max size isn't an issue anymore (like in the old days). However, default size the Hauler comes with the most by far. You can pick up a cheap C class with 30-36+ slots really easily.

However, for me, all that aside, one reason I still keep my Hauler despite all S classes having 48 cargo is the Hauler just feels like more a cargo ship than the others, despite same max cargo size.

So I use my Hauler as my on the go construction ship. The ship inventory, if you are in range, is the only inventory that can be auto-accessed in every conceivable inventory situation.

By auto-access, I mean a) you automatically draw from it when doing base building or any crafting, and b) you can select items from it when doing tasks like refining or cooking.

When you are cooking, for example, you can't access your storage containers to drag and drop items into the processor. Same for refining. Backpack and ship are the only universal inventory you can auto access and drag/drop access from other tasks, so I use my Hauler as a construction/cooking barge.

Whenever I land somewhere new with no storage containers or don't feel like calling in my Freighter, I just swap ships to Hauler and I keep 1 stack of all the common mats for base building, non-raw common cooking components like pie cases, butter, etc.

To OPs question, I could do the same with any 48 cargo ship, but Hauler just feels more fitting the scenario.

[NikoRaito]

I have two max storage haulers. In one I keep most of my spare resources so that I can summon them if I need to build/repair something in the middle of nowhere (I dont yet have teleporter in my freighter). The other is full of chlorine that I sell thus destroing its price in a star system and then buy it back for almost nothing (200+mil of profit and ready to go again in less than 5min). But that's it, they are mobile storages for me. Most of the time I use explorer and sometimes a fighter

[null]

space truck.

[𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒶𝒶𝒶𝒶𝒶]

I used mine to haul tons of cobalt and crash economies for profit.