Best place to buy a new ship?

[BigSexy]

I know that picking a star port rating 10 is the first step, but what else should I consider when looking for a place to buy a new ship? A faction that I belong to? Have the best reputation with? I know there's discounts from some of my contacts as well.

[Trese Brothers]

Very often, you want to upgrade the ship where you buy it, so consider the components that are available there as well.

[Gilmoy]

The new ship discounts you can get are:
1. Engineer T8 Hard Bargain (max. -10%)
2. a High Prince Contact in that zone with the New Ships discount (max. -15%)
These stack, so eventually you can get -25% for a new ship.

The zone's faction matters in two ways.
1. A faction-specific ship obviously must be bought at that faction's world.
2. Alta Mesa starports give -10% upgrade time for all components.
That matters for a new ship because every new ship needs 5-15 component upgrades before it's worthy even to fly to orbit.
3. All other factions' starports tie for equally average.

Faction reputation matters a little bit, but it's completely binary: either you can do business with that zone's starport, or you can't at all. If you can't, then you don't even have the option.

More deeply, every fully-upgraded ship will want 3-8 faction-specific components from different factions. So you'll inevitably need to take your new ship on a spread-out tour to visit 1 world each from 2-5 different factions. Then it doesn't really matter where you begin, since that zone's faction covers only 1 of the 2-5 you need. Buy wherever it's convenient, and upgrade as much as you can before you start its finishing tour.

[Tuidjy]

In my current game, I have bought a dozen ships, and I have upgraded half. The rest I use as shuttles, to fly to another 'real' ship, until upgrades are performed.

Here are a few things that I have decided hold for my style of play:
- time is way more valuable than money.
- purchase price is trivial compared to upgrade prices.
- waiting for upgrades is insane, as you could be earning cash and experience in the meantime.
- you should fully upgrade at least a couple of ships.
- flying unupgraded ships is dangerous, at least later in the game.
- to be fully upgraded, ships have to visit multiple ports.

For example, I just moved a ship from a Javat starport to a Cadar one. The Javat starport installed a Hauler Hold and a number of Defense matrices. The Cadar starport will install a Battle Prow 5 and a Bridge 4. And then I will move the ship to a Zenrin starport, for some C-Tac modules. Then I'll go look for the best interceptor under the stars. This ship will be, one day, my mightiest fighting platform... but it is not there yet.

Once I dropped off the ship, I bought a temporary ship to fly back to a fully upgraded trader ship with 325 ton hold capacity. Once I got back into my 'real' ship, I sold the 'courtesy shuttle'. You may want to keep it there, though, if you plan to upgrade more ships at that location.

So the best place to buy a ship is wherever there are multiple factions with well developed planets, close to each other. On the default map, I like Farfallen Rim, which has highly developed planets of most factions, and its neighbors, Orion Expanse and Thog's loop, have great Alta Mesa and Zenrin starports, respectively.

[BigSexy]

Thanks! Some great information. I didn't even think that each faction had it's unique components. So don't sit and wait for upgrades to happen, get another temporary ship to use so you don't lose time?

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by BigSexy:

Thanks! Some great information. I didn't even think that each faction had it's unique components. So don't sit and wait for upgrades to happen, get another temporary ship to use so you don't lose time?

That's my advice, if only because so many of the really rewarding quests are time sensitive, and frankly, no very generous with their expiration periods.

At this point, my routine is something like this:
1) I start with a terrible ship, and walk on eggshells - I do not upset anyone too much, I make amends through patrolling and intel brokerage, submit to inspections, do not ferry anything I would hate losing, etc.
2) With the money I earn, I buy a 5 officer, 30 crew, 3400 ton ship, and upgrade it with with pilot and defense components, as well as a 29 speed engine. It lets me complete missions quickly. While it is being upgraded, which takes about a millions and a couple of years, I keep flying the alleged ship I started with.
3) Once I move to the second ship, I buy a 7000+ ton ship and upgrade it for escape capabilities, cargo capacity, and speed 15. Adventuring in wilderness generates a ton of stashed goods. Once this ship is ready, I go around, collect the stashes, and keep an eye for lucrative trades.
4) With the money earned by trading, I buy and start upgrading a combat beast. Sword Battlecruiser with all the components set for combat. A bay for an interceptor, anti-small-craft C-Tac modules, defense matrices, battle prow, reinforced and shielded components, enough medical facilities to cover the whole crew and host a bunch of my officers, and a few big guns. I do not go overboard with guns. Two big pairs, that cover all ranges.

One day I may build an exploration or salvage ship, but frankly, I have not had the time for this yet. At Hard and Brutal difficulty, I usually do not have time for so much messing about.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Originally posted by BigSexy:

Thanks! Some great information. I didn't even think that each faction had it's unique components. So don't sit and wait for upgrades to happen, get another temporary ship to use so you don't lose time?

It honestly doesn't matter. As long as you don't die from combat then game never ends.

Some people overly concern themselves with time because of stories/missions or difficulty curve in combat.

If you are focused on combat then it doesn't matter. By level 12-15 you should be able to best level 40 xeno in crew combat. And pretty much all faction ships in space combat.

Only space combat that is troublesome is special purple xeno snake guys story missions.

In 400+ hours of various different campaigns I've only had a handful of ships at same time on only a handful of captains.

Other then that it's starting ship then 2nd ship. That's it. Sometimes if I go small 3400 small ship I might go 3rd 9000m ship for those purple xenos.

Most of the time I sell my starting ship and just do the upgrades instantly because I don't want to wait in real life time for my ship. I can careless about in game time.

When I get my 2nd if I'm space n crew combatting I know my crew combat can't be best. So instant time forward doesn't bother me at all.

Again that is just me. Stf is all about what each of us like. Nothing has to be 100% done. Well except military officers on a space combat ship.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by BigSexy:

Thanks! Some great information. I didn't even think that each faction had it's unique components. So don't sit and wait for upgrades to happen, get another temporary ship to use so you don't lose time?

A quick way to see them all is use the filters "Ignore Mins" and "Any Faction." This will show you all components ever.