What's the point of having 30 frigates?

[Spocks Toupee]

What's the point of having 30 frigates?

You only get 5 expeditions daily, and each one only really requires 1 to 3 ships.

Why waste fuel sending out 6 ships on each of the 5 missions?

[Jaggid Edje]

You can't send 6 ships on a single expedition. That limit is 5 as well.
You can, however, have more than 5 expeditions out at once if you have more than 5 fleet command rooms and some expeditions haven't returned before the reset.

Personally, my reason for having the full 30 is the same as most things in NMS...it looks cool, especially as a backdrop for photos from a planet surface with your freighter and all 30 frigates hanging low in the sky.

Beyond that, before you get your frigates ranked up to S, it's useful to have more because it does take more than 1 to 3 ships per expedition when your frigates are still leveling up.

[smurfy]

Filling your fleet stops the repeated NPC freighter screen-shaking spawn-in in every system you visit and annoying communicator spam from their frigates.

[gwelty]

Originally posted by smurfy:

Filling your fleet stops the repeated NPC freighter screen-shaking spawn-in in every system you visit and annoying communicator spam from their frigates.

Holy cow, why didn't I think of that? Thanks for the tip!

[ItzaLaggin]

Originally posted by Spocks Toupee:

What's the point of having 30 frigates?

You only get 5 expeditions daily, and each one only really requires 1 to 3 ships.

Why waste fuel sending out 6 ships on each of the 5 missions?

sending lots out gives you better odds of getting salvage mods

[mjvoice]

And once you get to the point of being offered higher-rated/longer missions, they are more than paying for their own fuel, and providing all kinds high value items and crafting materials... and all you have to do is pick'em and send'em. Almost like cheating. :)


No wait... farming sentinel ships is cheating. Which is why I have so many hundreds of millions in the bank - when a C-class can scrap for 20,000,000 I'm not going to bother with crafting and trading to build my fortune. I just jump from one divergent system to the next, fighting sentinels, and seeing what kind of sentinel ship is in each system. :)

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by ItzaLaggin:

sending lots out gives you better odds of getting salvage mods

That's not accurate. The rewards of any given expedition are not affected by how many frigates you send out. The only effect in that regard is that the total stats of an expedition effect whether any given 'encounter' is successful or not.

[lordoftheapes79]

Room to cycle in better ships without sacrificing the ones you have.

It is also possible to have up to 10 fleet missions out at once too. If your missions are all still out when the daily reset happens, it's possible to run a full second batch, tho this isn't always the case. More often than not a couple are still greyed out, but that's still more than the 5 per day.

[dreamrider]

5 missions, each with a well-rounded (or tailored) mix of 5 frigates = 25 frigates.
5 living frigates, to shuffle into the mission line as needed / wanted = +5 frigates.
. You may not want to send out a living frigate with every expedition, for various reasons.
+1 extra combat frigate - to assist with pirate ambushes when your player avatar is operating in the same system as your freighter, and all your other combat frigates are away on expeditions.

So actually 30 frigates is NOT enough. You need 31 slots to cover all eventualities.

[Shadow Strider]

Yeah, it only takes 1-2 frigates per mission when they are S class and you have all your freighter tech, but while raising frigates from C class, you may need to send the full 5 frigates on each mission, so that's 25 frigates right there.
take into account the fact that not every frigate is suitable for any given mission, and the need for extras becomes more clear...
Plus the fact that you may want to have at least one frigate left to provide support if you get ambushed while in the same system as your freighter

Originally posted by dreamrider:

5 missions, each with a well-rounded (or tailored) mix of 5 frigates = 25 frigates.
5 living frigates, to shuffle into the mission line as needed / wanted = +5 frigates.
. You may not want to send out a living frigate with every expedition, for various reasons.
+1 extra combat frigate - to assist with pirate ambushes when your player avatar is operating in the same system as your freighter, and all your other combat frigates are away on expeditions.

So actually 30 frigates is NOT enough. You need 31 slots to cover all eventualities.

I would simply include the 5 organics in the 25... there should always be one in each mission if you want a chance for spawning sacs

[mister_lobos]

i think the simplest answer is.. why not?
you don't NEED 30 sure... but why not have the option if you want to?

i've recently seen people asking for the ability to have more ships and multi tools.. my first reaction was "why?? i use like 2 of each, maybe" then i actually looked at the list of how many unique ships and such... so while i don't really care to have more then 12 ships i could see some might, so, sure why not. same with frigates.
also, if you have your freighter in the system you are flying in and get into a fight, your frigates can help you, which again is NOT needed, but, i can see how it's nice to have your crew / "friends" join you.

[theicewind]

The answer is simple - expeditions vary all the time and you never know what type of frigate you'll need. What if you get 4 expeditions out of 5 focused on exploration? Would you have 20 exploration-focused frigates in your fleet if you only had 25?
So because of this, even 30 isn't enough, it should be like 40 or even 50 to make sure you'll always have enough no matter how the dice roll on expeditions offered.

[Shadow Strider]

Originally posted by theicewind:

The answer is simple - expeditions vary all the time and you never know what type of frigate you'll need. What if you get 4 expeditions out of 5 focused on exploration? Would you have 20 exploration-focused frigates in your fleet if you only had 25?
So because of this, even 30 isn't enough, it should be like 40 or even 50 to make sure you'll always have enough no matter how the dice roll on expeditions offered.

Just to make sure I was clear, you only need more than 2 frigates per mission before they've reached S class and you get your freighter tech...
After that, each mission only needs one organic plus at most one of the specific type.
So that's a max of 5 for each type, plus 5 organics, that's 25 total... plus one as potential combat support.
You may want to fill the other 5 with support class frigates though...

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Frigates hae other purposes beside sending them in expeditions. Having 30 let you keep 5 at home, one of each type if you manage your turf properly, so you can access to the features each frigates offer even when your fleet is busy on expeditions.

[Lindy Bomber]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by ItzaLaggin:

sending lots out gives you better odds of getting salvage mods

That's not accurate. The rewards of any given expedition are not affected by how many frigates you send out. The only effect in that regard is that the total stats of an expedition effect whether any given 'encounter' is successful or not.

The guy who runs NoMansSkyResorces says more frigates will yield more loot but I have not personally texted that.

[Shadow Strider]

Originally posted by Guh~hey~hey~♫:

Frigates hae other purposes beside sending them in expeditions. Having 30 let you keep 5 at home, one of each type if you manage your turf properly, so you can access to the features each frigates offer even when your fleet is busy on expeditions.

I'm curious what purpose do they serve while not on missions beyond providing some support in space combat while in the same system as the freighter? (you only need 1 frigate at home for this)