Best Freighters In No Man’s Sky

Ever since the Omega update last year, freighters have been a huge part of the No Man’s Sky gameplay loop. Not only were freighters and freighter classes revamped in that update, but it was made much easier for players to own one. Players are now guaranteed to run into a freighter in distress fairly early in their journey in No Man’s Sky and can claim the freighter for free if they fend off the pirates attacking them.

Freighters can also be recruited for money and appear much more frequently, with a handy icon to indicate a recruitable freighter to players. Each freighter can have several frigates in its fleet, and frigates are usually recruited from the same locations as freighters. That’s important, as frigates are used for expeditions, which can be a valuable source of passive income and resources for players.

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Freighters can be outfitted with several modules to give them the same conveniences as a player base, like trading terminals, agriculture, and storage. They’re a huge advantage for a player in terms of quality of life in-game, and they can be summoned at will when the player is out in space. There are a number of reasons that every player will want at least one freighter, but not every freighter in the game is made equal. These are the best classes of freighter in No Man’s Sky.

8

Regular Freighters

11 basic types

The first type of freighter that players will come across in No Man’s Sky is the regular type. These capital ships all come with 19 storage slots and can appear in any system. This is the first type of freighter that players will find in distress and can be obtained for free by rescuing one. There are 11 classes in the regular freighter type, but they all have the same capacity.

They can all spawn with a random combination of Bow, Stern, and Keel parts, so there are a lot of varied visual designs for this freighter type. The type and its combination of parts can affect the freighter’s combat effectiveness, as these basic types can spawn with defense turrets, but none of these regular freighters can compete with the larger types for damage output.

7

Sentinel

Gothic Capital Ships

The Sentinel is the smallest of its family of capital ships. These capital ships share some visual influence with the large gothic space hulks of the Warhammer 40K universe, giving players an interesting visual style for their freighter. The turrets of a Sentinel-class freighter are lined up and positioned like the broadside cannons of a ship, giving them formidable firepower coverage everywhere except the rear.

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Unfortunately, this gap in coverage does make this freighter type overall weaker than its Venator family counterparts. The turrets being aligned means they can actually block each other’s angles of fire if ships approach from the correct direction. Other than that, Sentinel ships have the same capacity and capabilities as the Venator class ships.

6

Venator

Star Wars-Inspired Capital Ships

The Venator family of capital ships shares more than a passing resemblance with the Imperial Star Destroyers of the Star Wars universe. The smallest version of these ships, the Venator is the most visually reminiscent of its inspiration. Since the last update to how freighters work, all visual sizes of these ship classes can be upgraded to have 34 inventory slots.

That means the main difference between having the smaller versus the larger capital ships is their combat capabilities. That can still be a significant difference though. The largest Venator family ship, the Resurgent, can spawn with up to 23 turrets. That makes it a much more effective backup in a fight than the Venator and means there’s still a reason to seek out a larger capital ship.

5

Battleship

Enemy Technology

The Battleship class is the mid-sized capital ship of the Sentinel family. This is also the design of ship that carries the Sentinel Interceptor fleet, so players may well have seen this design before they encounter a neutral one. It’s no longer just the Sentinels that use these ships, other races have repurposed them as capital ships and the player can too.

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The only difference between the Battleship and the Interceptor class is an extended mid-section with additional turrets. The larger ship will have 5 segments instead of 3. If players are having trouble differentiating the two, they can count the number of cargo pods underneath the mid-section, as each section has its own pods.

4

Imperial

A Bigger Star Destroyer

The Imperial is the mid-sized version of the Venator class ship. The only real difference is that the mid-section of the ship has two additional segments, which will add additional turrets as well as an elongated visual design. If players are having trouble telling the sizes of the ship apart, count the fins on the midsection. The Imperial will have four fins compared to the Venator’s two.

The larger visual design loses a little of the Star Wars aesthetic and begins to look more like a giant weapons platform, but retains the Star Destroyer-esque control tower. As with all the other capital ships above the regular class, the Imperial can be upgraded to 34 slots using Bulkhead Expansion modules.

3

Dreadnought

The Biggest Sentinel Ship

The Dreadnought is the largest and most deadly of the Sentinel family of freighters. These ships have a seven-part mid-section and a total of 20 turrets aligned along each side of the ship. While the largest Venator ship has a slight combat advantage, The Dreadnought can still provide devastating fire support when exploring space.

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These ships are huge in scale, dwarfing even regular freighters when placed side by side. These larger freighter designs are quite rare to come across, and players who do find a ship of this class will have to pay a high premium to recruit them, running into hundreds of millions of credits.

2

Resurgent

The Biggest Venator Ship

The largest type of Venator capital ship, the Resurgent might have the best combat capabilities of any freighter in the game. They can spawn up to 20 defensive turrets, and the turrets have much freer angles of fire than the comparative placements on the Dreadnought. This means these ships are only really vulnerable from below.

The Resurgent is one of the only other freighters comparable to the Dreadnought in size, visually speaking. The ship is longer than the Imperial-class, with six fins on the midsection. The max upgrade of 34 inventory slots still applies just like any of the other large capital ships in No Man’s Sky‘s expansive universe.

1

Pirate Dreadnought

Prepare To Be Boarded

Outside of the two families of large capital ships that can spawn, there’s one other type of large combat-ready freighter that players can acquire. The Pirate Dreadnought isn’t outright stronger than the other two largest freighters, but due to the way it can be obtained, it’s a lot easier for players to get a hold of one for their fleet.

Pirate Dreadnoughts regularly spawn when warping to outlaw systems once players have played a certain amount of the game. These large enemy freighters can be defeated in battle by first taking out the engines at the rear and then destroying each of the large turrets on top of the ship. Once this is done, players will be prompted to land on the Pirate Dreadnought where they can speak to the captain and take command of the vessel for free. Despite the battle requirement, this is actually the easiest of the large freighters to obtain.

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Released

August 9, 2016

ESRB

T for Teen: Fantasy Violence, Animated Blood