What are the advantages of owning a freighter?

[Zak]

So I happened across a freighter by luck and I bought it. It was only few million units. I was surprised, I'd expect a freighter to cost tens or hundreds of millions. It's rather underwhelming though. It has far less cargo space and an abysmal warp range compared to my already upgraded spaceship that I bought from some random dude on a landing pad for about the same price and spent exponentially more on upgrading it. It is also missing the teleporter. It looks like fixing it and upgrading it will be a tedious and a very expensive process. It also requires Research Tokens that can't be found anywhere and I can't find any useful information on how to obtain them.

Is it even worth it? I've read the wiki and it just looks like a mobile base basically and it allows you to run expeditions later on , which is cool, but too much work at this point and I'm not ready yet for more complex missions, I'd rather work on upgrading my gear right now and just keep exploring the planets. I think I'd rather invest in few more ground bases on lucrative planets before bothering to fix the freighter later on and maybe I'll find the required tech and upgrades along the way.

I've read that some missions reward you with freighter upgrades too but I'm not there yet, not ready for larger missions. I've only just found the Anomaly base and I'm somewhat overwhelmed with all the options. Is it weird that I was able to find a freighter this cheap relatively early in the game? A tease, LOL? I'm playing in extremely relaxed mode with abundant resources, maybe that's why? I'm just using it for the extra storage now.

[Musashi]

First:
If you would follow the tutorial and do the quests,you would get a freighter for free..

That freighter is useful as a mobile base..more storages..and you may also warp with it..
On the bridge you will see a terminal, where you will find all possible upgrades (f.e.: a teleporter) and it tells what you need for the blueprints..

Next you can transfer your stuff to and from that frighter(as you do it with your ship)

If you have more than one ship…that freighter is a garage for those

Later you may own frigates which you can send on missions,,to get some valuable stuff


There are many more reasons about having a freighter

[Lindy Bomber]

If you find a freighter you like get it. Better class is good, but not super important.

You don't have to do any of those missions or base building right away. You can ignore your freighter for as long as you want.

[Rexxer]

Although cap ships ("freighters") have always been useful as garages for your space ships from the very beginning, they haven't had as much use beyond that until recently. In the past, their functionality was hampered by a lot of time wasting cutscenes, running around, and lack of usefulness as a transport hub. The most you could do in the past was stick an outgoing-only base transporter in it, but to get to it you had to run up from the garage...a huge time waste. With the latest freighter update last year, they not only waste much less of your time in a bad way, but also are more functional all around, and now are something you really should not only get, but develop. Here are five main reasons:

(1) Once upgraded, it can be used for fast exploration. The only drawback is that exploration with a freighter is saddled to the buggy Discovery system. Fast, but buggy. To use it as a fast exploration platform, just stick the scanner room and base teleport room opposite each other in the rooms closest to the warp control panel. Then you can easily and quickly scan systems nearly 5 to 10 times faster than if you flew to the star system in your personal space ship and scanned planet by planet. You could even say it is closer to 20 times faster if you consider that to log planets previously you had to land on them. It's a huge decrease in time spent evaluating planets in a star system.

(2) Freighter group missions bring back essential components for what you need to make money now in NMS. In older versions of NMS, all you needed was an activated indium mine to make more money than you needed, but since the freighter update, the value of mining has been seriously nerfed. Now the best way to make money is to make the highest value trade goods, which are (1) stasis devices (value = 15,600,000 u) or (2) fusion ignitors (value = 15, 600,000). There is no value in making both, just choose one high value trade good and develop the resources for it.

Although freighters have always had access to your storage units, now there is some value to this easy access storage on the freighter. Just accumulate the components for stasis devices or ignitors from your freighter missions there. Making and selling stasis devices or ignitors couldn't be easier. Esp since you can have a trade terminal on board.

The freighter missions drop TONS of one of the high level components for stasis devices, a FEW of some of the other high level components for stasis devices, so I just do the stasis devices. These missions also drop similar intermediate and high level components for ignitors, too, so pick your path and stick with it. For the most part you will just have to do some additional farming of 5 plant types to fill out the component list. Maybe mine some of the gases if you want to make lots of stasis devices. Typically just sell the trade components for the other high value trade good, for example, I sell all the ignitor components directly and put in storage all the stasis device components. If you pick stasis devices as your trade good to make, then you will have a ton of iridescite from freighter missions and won't have to make ANYTHING for that component at all. You only need to make the other two high level components. I am sure a similar drop rate for ignitor parts occurs, but since I don't make those, I can't vouch for it, as I just sell those.

(3) this is related to number 1: when you explore by freighter, you won't get sucked into freighter fights every time you jump to a new star system. The amount of time and frustration you save with this is immense. Freighter fights do not stop once you have your ideal freighter, and are just pure annoyance after you have a freighter.

(4) this is also related to number 1: freighters are now base teleporter destinations, and even better, the freighter is listed first in the base teleporter listing. This makes exploring a particular galaxy very easy. For example, I put 1 base in each galaxy, so now, if I want to check on something in a particular galaxy, I just use the base teleporter to get to my base in that galaxy, summon the freighter overhead, then base teleport to the freighter and start exploring. No flying around necessary, no wasted time flying around, no wasted hyperdrive fuel.

(5) You can summon exocraft from the freighter if you have the special summoning room for it installed, and if you have summoned that freighter to the system you are in. I don't use exocraft that much, so it's not a huge benefit for me, but might be if you are into exocraft. I just don't find them that useful, except maybe as extra storage containers.

[CRCGamer]

Freighters are great as a long term storage option and because of various other quality of life features that one builds upon them as things get unlocked. When you build the additional numbered storage bays or things like the grow rooms or orbital access vehicle bay the real value is seen.

Plus you can summon them into a system you are exploring the same way you can call the anomaly. Meaning you can simply call your base to you to make setting up a mining facility on a planet stupidly easy.

[NZ.Zero]

Originally posted by ZakTheEvil:

It looks like fixing it and upgrading it will be a tedious and a very expensive process. .

correct

Originally posted by ZakTheEvil:

I'd rather invest in few more ground bases .

good idea.

[LazerRay]

Once you install the item teleporter and storage rooms, you can use is as a mobile warehouse for parts, materials, and exotic items.

On top of that you can use the refiner and nutrient rooms to process a lot of stuff. The Cultivation Chambers work like the Biodomes for bases, to allow you grow the various plants, plus the rooms that have the leaves on the walls can provide an endless supply of carbon to use for recharging and crafting.

Having the teleporter room you can claim crashed ships, fly to your freighter in a working ship, swap to the one you just claimed, and teleport to the space station to scrap it. The teleporter room as helps when you loot derelicts in outlaw, abandoned, or uncharted systems, since you can go to a normal system to turn in the crew manafest and captain's log, then come back to the system you first found them.

The Galactic Terminal room comes in handy when you discover uncharted systems, since you will be able to buy and sell stuff from your freighter since there will be no trade terminals on any of those planets.

[jacobellinger]

Originally posted by ZakTheEvil:

So I happened across a freighter by luck and I bought it. It was only few million units. I was surprised, I'd expect a freighter to cost tens or hundreds of millions. It's rather underwhelming though. It has far less cargo space and an abysmal warp range compared to my already upgraded spaceship that I bought from some random dude on a landing pad for about the same price and spent exponentially more on upgrading it. It is also missing the teleporter. It looks like fixing it and upgrading it will be a tedious and a very expensive process. It also requires Research Tokens that can't be found anywhere and I can't find any useful information on how to obtain them.

Is it even worth it? I've read the wiki and it just looks like a mobile base basically and it allows you to run expeditions later on , which is cool, but too much work at this point and I'm not ready yet for more complex missions, I'd rather work on upgrading my gear right now and just keep exploring the planets. I think I'd rather invest in few more ground bases on lucrative planets before bothering to fix the freighter later on and maybe I'll find the required tech and upgrades along the way.

I've read that some missions reward you with freighter upgrades too but I'm not there yet, not ready for larger missions. I've only just found the Anomaly base and I'm somewhat overwhelmed with all the options. Is it weird that I was able to find a freighter this cheap relatively early in the game? A tease, LOL? I'm playing in extremely relaxed mode with abundant resources, maybe that's why? I'm just using it for the extra storage now.

passive income, more storage, ability to summon exo craft from it, mobile teleporter.
you're welcome.

[Zak]

Originally posted by Rexxer:

Although cap ships ("freighters") have always been useful as garages for your space ships from the very beginning, they haven't had as much use beyond that until recently. In the past, their functionality was hampered by a lot of time wasting cutscenes, running around, and lack of usefulness as a transport hub. The most you could do in the past was stick an outgoing-only base transporter in it, but to get to it you had to run up from the garage...a huge time waste. With the latest freighter update last year, they not only waste much less of your time in a bad way, but also are more functional all around, and now are something you really should not only get, but develop. Here are five main reasons:

....

Wow! Thank you for your in-depth answer! This is way better than any Wiki. I saved it for future reference:)

Thanks to everybody else too. Your replies were very helpful.

So I think I'm too early in the game to worry about the freighter right now. They seem definitely useful but later in the game. There is so much else still to figure out now and I'm having lots of fun just exploring the planets and I also need to figure out now what's up with the Anomaly base missions too. I don't want to start too many missions and goal and go in too many directions because I get overwhelmed if there is too much going on. I'm a very casual player so I'm keeping it easy.

I nerfed the space combat by turning it off in the difficulty settings. I have traumatic memories of constant interdictions in Elite Dangerous that spoiled the fun of exploration for me and I have no interest in space combat at all. I was only attacked once so far and it was a weak opponent. So I'm not seeing any battles that I'm aware of. I must have warped over 10 times by now to new systems and I saw no combat. Perhaps this takes away some depth from the game and removes some chances for extra rewards but I just don't like space fighting and I was so relieved to see the option to turn off space combat in the new version of the game.

I found an acidic, stormy planet in an abandoned, unpopulated star system with barely functioning, derelict space station, with abundance of Storm Crystals and those buried, salvageable alien pods that contain extremely valuable ancient tech artifacts, some selling for millions and Metal Fingers rich with gold. I've set up another base there and going to explore it some more. A single haul of crystals, gold and artifacts can net 5-10 million units.

I also need to explore Anomaly more, lots of useful tech there.

The freighter will wait:)

Originally posted by LazerRay:

Once you install the item teleporter and storage rooms, you can use is as a mobile warehouse for parts, materials, and exotic items.

On top of that you can use the refiner and nutrient rooms to process a lot of stuff. The Cultivation Chambers work like the Biodomes for bases, to allow you grow the various plants, plus the rooms that have the leaves on the walls can provide an endless supply of carbon to use for recharging and crafting.

Having the teleporter room you can claim crashed ships, fly to your freighter in a working ship, swap to the one you just claimed, and teleport to the space station to scrap it. The teleporter room as helps when you loot derelicts in outlaw, abandoned, or uncharted systems, since you can go to a normal system to turn in the crew manafest and captain's log, then come back to the system you first found them.

The Galactic Terminal room comes in handy when you discover uncharted systems, since you will be able to buy and sell stuff from your freighter since there will be no trade terminals on any of those planets.

Strangely, I was able claim and later summon those broken, crashed ships, then teleport to a space station and scrap them for a nice amount of units. But it no longer works, I get a message that the ship is broken and can't fly when I try to summon it. Oh well, will figure something else out.

[frazzled]

Main thing for me is the ability to add a fleet of frigates to send out on frigate expeditions. These take 4-24 hours, and recover all sorts of resources, for very little effort on your part.

You can also summon it anywhere, also at no real cost, in order to have a base of operations without needing to build a base. (albeit you need to build in the special hyper modules for stars of different colors.)

Plus its just cool to flying into this big honkin' ship saying to yourself "I own this!"

[poppetshadow]

Originally posted by ZakTheEvil:

Strangely, I was able claim and later summon those broken, crashed ships, then teleport to a space station and scrap them for a nice amount of units. But it no longer works, I get a message that the ship is broken and can't fly when I try to summon it. Oh well, will figure something else out.

You should still be able to switch your current ship for the crashed ones at the Anomaly and then portal over to the space station from there. Trying to summon them on a planet takes launch fuel (and has most likely run out).

[NZ.Zero]

The freighter data modules are the problem really.. it takes a lot of grinding for the freighter to become useful for transporting yourself.

In order of usefulness (versus data module cost) I unlock things in this order (not the exact names but you get the idea)
- system scanner
- remote item teleporter
- teleporter room
- exocraft summoner
- hyperdrive upgrades


The system scanner is the biggest timesaver because it scans every planet in the system. The item teleporter means you can use the freighter as a portable storage container without visiting it, and the teleporter means you can get back to it easily.

Once you have those three and the exocraft summoner and.plant farms, the freighter makes a great tool that follows you, but not so much to travel around in.

It's not til youve unlocked all the hyperdrive upgrades (which takes a very long time) that the freighter can become your primary way of warping.

[Mathias Giovanni]

I used the freighter to drop exocraft before the updates. With a freighter in system and the right upgrades to it you can launch any exocraft you own as long as the freighter is in the same system. You can summon the freighter while on the planet as well and then drop the exo-craft you desire.

This was the main reason I used freighters before the update as well as for bank storage.

[Mathias Giovanni]

At least on survival which is all I normally play the other good thing for a freighter maybe mid to early game depending on luck is to have a fighter on board that just has system modules upgrades. This means you can make your freighter your warp transport. This let's you diversify the modules out without having to find and upgrade a great ship. It let's you specialize early on so your fighter ship can defeat pirates easier as you run into them instead of having warp modules eat up a ton of space you may not have.

Also dropping exo-craft is nice. You don't have to carry resources around for that and can pick whatever one you want.