Ships

Ships are used to traverse space. As with previous Elite games, [1][2][3][4] there will be a variety of designs.

Currently there are 15 ships, with each manufacturer having its own unique style.^[1] There are plans to have a total of 30 playable ships and some variants in addition to some non-playable ships. Each ship has access to a range of different modules which they can fit to help specialize as traders, smugglers, bounty hunters, pirates, etc.

All commanders begin the game with a Sidewinder. The player may upgrade components or purchase an entirely new ship based upon their needs. New ships can only be purchased at stations with the Shipyard service and modules can only be changed or upgrades at stations with the Outfitting service.

Released Ships

Upcoming Ships

Ship Types

Multi-purpose

Multi-purpose ships are a jack-of-all-trades in that they can easily be fitted for whatever role the player needs; whether it be hauling cargo, shooting ships, or exploring the stars the multi-purpose ship can do it all.

Combat

Combat ships are typically faster, more agile and heavily armed than other ships of the same size. The exception to this would be gun boats, which have more weapon mounts designed for turrets, but sacrifice their agility for them.

Freighter

Freighters are typically slow, cumbersome and lightly armed, but provide extreme hauling capabilities. Useful for traders and smugglers alike.

Explorer

Exploration ships typically come with large default jump ranges, large fuel tanks for ships of their size, and lots of low class internal compartments for scanners. These ships are designed to be able to equip the multitude of scanning equipment needed for an expedition, then fly long distances into the void without the need for regular refueling.

Passenger

Couriers who fly passengers and valuable items with small storage requirements have a special class of ships available to them. These ships are elegant and fast, designed to quickly and comfortably get from one system to the next. You can think of them as giant limousines for space. However, as of now, passenger ships have no significant use in the game as passengers themselves have yet to be implemented.

Ship Stats

Sidewinder can be obtained for free.

Model	Role	Unladen Jump Range (LY)	Laden Jump Range (LY)	Manoeuvrability	Cargo (T)	Speed [Boost]	Armour	Value (CR)
Sidewinder	Multi-purpose	7.56	6.96	8	4	220 [320]	60	32,000
Eagle	Combat	8.47	8.27	10	2	240 [350]	40	44,800
Hauler	Freighter	9.87	8.08	6	8	200 [300]	50	52,720
Adder	Freighter	9.12	8.47	8	6	220 [320]	90	87,808
Viper	Combat	6.92	6.66	6	4	320 [400]	70	142,931
Cobra Mk. III	Multi-purpose	10.46	9.78	6	18	280 [400]	120	379,718
Lakon Type 6	Freighter	12.39	10.07	3	50	220 [350]	90	1,045,945
Asp Explorer	Multi-purpose	13.12	12.07	6	38	250 [340]	210	6,661,153
Lakon Type 7	Freighter	10.72	9.06	2	104	180 [200]	120	17,472,252
Imperial Clipper	Multi-purpose	8.98	8.05	2	74	300 [380]	270	22,295,860
Federal Dropship	Multi-purpose	7.25	6.77	0	56	180 [300]	300	37,814,205
Orca	Passenger	7.44	6.81	2	72	300 [380]	220	48,539,887
Python	Multi-purpose	8.23	7.36	6	82	230 [280]	260	56,978,179
Lakon Type 9	Freighter	7.71	6.62	0	220	130 [200]	240	76,555,842
Anaconda	Multi-purpose	9.00	8.52	2	114	180 [240]	525	146,969,451

A-Class Frame Shift Drive, Thrusters and Power Distributor and lowest mass on everything else except Fuel Tank. All Internal Compartments are Cargo Racks. Power Plant is the lightest available with sufficient power.

Model	Unladen Jump Range (LY)	Laden Jump Range (LY)	Manoeuvrability	Max Cargo (T)	Speed [Boost]	Armour	Value (CR)
Sidewinder	22.08	17.21	8	10	220 [320]	60	370,550
Eagle	22.36	18.58	10	14	240 [350]	40	1,112,225
Hauler	29.64	16.14	6	22	200 [300]	50	408,096
Adder	26.14	18.15	8	26	220 [320]	90	1,165,413
Viper	18.58	14.69	6	22	320 [400]	70	1,318,860
Cobra Mk. III	25.59	20.23	6	60	280 [400]	120	3,777,946
Lakon Type 6	29.10	18.62	3	112	220 [350]	90	4,591,030
Asp Explorer	32.82	24.47	6	128	250 [340]	210	17,510,743
Lakon Type 7	24.42	16.73	2	232	180 [200]	120	28,578,265
Imperial Clipper	23.04	15.74	2	248	300 [380]	270	48,165,783
Federal Dropship	17.34	14.08	0	164	180 [300]	300	63,014,052
Orca	17.63	13.83	2	192	300 [380]	220	71,855,023
Python	22.62	14.72	6	292	230 [280]	260	88,412,096
Lakon Type 9	17.69	12.38	0	532	130 [200]	240	151,834,448
Anaconda	27.82	17.46	2	468	180 [240]	525	242,845,219

A-Class Frame Shift Drive and lowest mass on everything else except Fuel Tank. Internal Compartments contain biggest size A-Class Fuel Scoop, Advanced Discovery Scanner and Detailed Surface Scanner. Power Plant is the lightest available with sufficient power. Prices to be added soon.

Model	Jump Range (LY)	Manoeuvrability	Value (CR)
Sidewinder	21.47	8	2,269,702
Eagle	23.27	10	3,238,135
Hauler	28.55	6	2,907,482
Adder	27.40	8	3,277,509
Viper	19.57	6	3,488,690
Cobra Mk. III	26.43	6	6,615,091
Lakon Type 6	30.19	3	13,443,388
Asp Explorer	34.91	6	42,070,652
Lakon Type 7	25.08	2	52,899,028
Imperial Clipper	26.48	2	119,691,555
Federal Dropship	19.21	0	73,115,656
Orca	18.97	2	84,086,745
Python	28.31	6	91,533,081
Lakon Type 9	19.30	0	381,482,393
Anaconda	38.48	2	254,041,466

A-Class everything, Bulkheads as Reactive Surface Composite which is the most expensive part of a ship. Hardpoints, utility mounts and internal compartments empty except Shield Generator which is highest possible size.

Model	Jump Range (LY)	Manoeuvrability	Speed [Boost]	Armour	Value (CR)
Sidewinder	17.84	8	220 [320]	60	845,792
Eagle	18.23	10	240 [350]	40	1,981,838
Hauler	22.14	6	200 [300]	50	1,365,147
Adder	20.76	8	220 [320]	90	2,520,740
Viper	14.98	6	320 [400]	70	2,841,388
Cobra Mk. III	21.21	6	280 [400]	120	8,070,829
Lakon Type 6	23.49	3	220 [350]	90	12,459,258
Asp Explorer	25.45	6	250 [340]	210	55,553,113
Lakon Type 7	19.87	2	180 [200]	120	86,929,434
Imperial Clipper	18.22	2	300 [380]	270	133,254,728
Federal Dropship	14.11	0	180 [300]	300	184,925,684
Orca	14.27	2	300 [380]	220	209,958,627
Python	14.47	6	230 [280]	260	306,891,736
Lakon Type 9	15.31	0	130 [200]	240	505,433,857
Anaconda	27.82	2	180 [240]	525	825,479,951

Ship Outfitting

All ships are highly customizable through outfitting. Each outfit slot has a maximum class that can be put into that slot. This only lists what type of outfit slots are available for each ship, their exact content has to be put on some other page. For example: Internal compartments can contain cargo space, where class 1 = 2t, class 2 = 4t, class 3 = 8t, class 4 = 16t... But Internal compartments can also contain shield capacitors, scanners, etc. Apart from classes, outfits also have a quality rating A-H, and other characteristics such as energy drain, armor piercing, etc.

Max class for each outfit slot in table below (more info on respective ship page):

	Sidewinder	Eagle	Hauler	Adder	Viper	Cobra	Type-6	Asp	Type-7	Imperial Clipper	Federal Dropship	Orca	Python	Type-9	Anaconda
Small Hardpoints	2	3	1	2	2	2	2	4	4	0	0	0	0	2	2
Medium Hardpoints	0	0	0	1	2	2	0	2	0	2	4	2	2	3	2
Large Hardpoints	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	1	3	0	3
Huge Hardpoints	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Utility Mounts	2	1	2	2	2	2	3	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	8
Bulkheads	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
Power Plant	2	2	2	3	3	4	3	5	4	6	6	5	7	6	8
Thrusters	2	3	2	3	3	4	4	5	5	6	6	6	6	7	7
Frame Shift Drive	2	3	2	3	3	4	4	5	5	5	5	5	5	6	6
Life Support	1	1	1	1	2	3	2	4	4	5	5	6	4	5	5
Power Distributor	1	2	1	2	3	3	3	4	3	6	6	5	7	6	8
Sensors	1	2	1	3	3	3	2	5	3	5	4	4	6	4	8
Fuel Tank	1	2	3	3	2	4	4	5	5	4	4	4	5	6	5
Internal Compartment	2 C2 1 C1	1 C3 1 C2 1 C1	2 C3 1 C2 1 C1	2 C3 2 C2 1 C1	2 C3 1 C2 1 C1	3 C4 3 C2	2 C5 2 C4 1 C3 2 C2	1C6 1 C5 3 C3 2 C2	2 C6 2 C5 2 C4 2 C2	1 C7 1 C6 2 C4 2 C3 2 C2	1 C6 2 C5 1 C4 2 C3 1 C2	2 C5 1 C4 1 C3 2 C2	3 C6 2 C5 1 C4 2 C3 1 C2	1 C8 1 C7 1 C6 1 C5 2 C4 2 C3 1 C2	1 C7 3 C6 3 C5 3 C4 1 C2
	Sidewinder	Eagle	Hauler	Adder	Viper	Cobra	Type-6	Asp	Type-7	Imperial Clipper	Federal Dropship	Orca	Python	Type-9	Anaconda

Manufacturers

Core Dynamics

Eagle
Condor
Farragut
Federal Dropship
Federal Corvette
Vulture

Faulcon DeLacy

Sidewinder
Viper
Cobra
Anaconda
Python

Lakon

Asp Explorer
Type 6 Transporter
Type 7 Transport
Type 9 Heavy

Gutamaya

Imperial Clipper
Majestic Class Interdictor

Saud Kruger

Dolphin
Orca
Beluga Liner

Zorgon Peterson

Adder
Hauler
Fer-de-Lance
Panther Clipper

Faction Ships

Frontier are developing a family of ships for the navies of each faction in the game. Examples:

Empire Fighter - Empire Fighter
Imperial Courier - Empire Scout
Imperial Cutter - civilian version of Empire Light Warship
Majestic Class Interdictor - Empire Capital Ship
F63 Condor - Federal Fighter
Farragut - Federal Capital Ship

The fleet-class ships that are available to the game’s major factions follow a hierarchy.^[2]

Cruisers (Battlecruisers, Battleships, Interdictors)

Long range, independent ships that are capable of controlling entire systems. Heavily armed and capable of deploying large fighter squadrons. The capital ships already shown are an example of this class. In the Empire they are usually known as “Interdictors” – named after the first successful class of cruisers. Currently the most common and most successful is the Majestic class – generally referred to as a “Majestic class Interdictor”. As ships that can also carry out ambassadorial missions they can be used for ‘soft’ power projection, as well as hard.

Frigates

These are large ships designed for escort duties. The actual vessels vary greatly between navies, but are all designed to engage multiple small, fast enemies (typically fighters and missile swarms) and are loaded with point defence batteries. They will also have some anti-ship capability, but are not designed to go up against other warships.

Destroyers

These are anti-warship vessels, but are generally no longer used in the front line, though some are still in service.

Carriers

Designed for the deployment of fighter squadrons. Obsolete in the fleets of the major factions due to the popularity of Cruisers, but small navies still make use of them and some have even been converted into transporters.

Transporters (Couriers)

Armoured warships designed specifically for transporting valuable assets and cargo quickly and safely.

Corvettes (Cutters)

Light multi-role warships, capable of reconnaissance, incursions and escort missions. These small warships are also popular with smaller factions, organizations and even wealthy individuals due to their adaptability. The Imperial Cutter is a lighter and faster Corvette-class ship, which players will be able to get their hands on in the final game (assuming they can make the right contacts).

Fighters

Small short-range craft that generally cannot operate independently due to having no jump capability. Their main roles include the defence of stations and the large warships that they are deployed from. Commercial fighters are typically jump-capable and are therefore much more flexible than their faction-specific counterparts.

Drones

Small automated ships that have largely been phased out due to the existence of effective counter-measures.

References

[1] Newsletter #5

[2] Newsletter #7

[1]

[2]