Frigates

How do you get a class S frigate? Buy it from the fleets of a system, and keep looking. A frigate's traits come from the spot where it flies, so every new fleet brings new frigates. Class S needs four good traits on top of its own, which happens to at most 9.8% of them. Or take a weaker one and send it out: a frigate gains levels on expeditions, and they clear its bad traits and add good ones.

The types

Five types fly in the fleets of any system, one as likely as the next: Combat, Exploration, Industrial, Trade, and Support. The pirates bring a sixth, the Raider. The rest come from a space whale or as expedition rewards.

Buying one

Your fleet holds 30 frigates. 60% of the frigates flying with a fleet are for sale. The frigates that roam a system in groups of their own never are.

The same system shows different frigates each time a fleet arrives, so you can keep looking without leaving.

Raiders

Raiders fly only with a pirate dreadnought. They go on sale once the battle has paid its rewards, however it ended, under the same rules as other frigates.

Traits and class

Every frigate starts with the trait of its type, such as Combat Specialist, and main stats inside the ranges of its type.

Then it may draw more traits: each round goes on 56% of the time, and a trait can be good or bad. A frigate has five trait slots, its own trait and four more. A trait adds to one stat, and a bad one takes away; no stat goes below -10 or above 50. Every trait, with what it does and which types draw it, is under Frigate traits below.

The class letter counts the traits: good ones, its own included, minus bad ones, minus two. So class S means its own trait and four good ones, and a bad trait cancels a good one in the letter.

A Combat frigate appears at class S 2.5% of the time, a Raider 3.5%, an organic frigate 9.8%, because it never draws a bad trait.

A good frigate

A frigate works on the stat of its own type, and its own trait is the only one that gives the big boost. So two new frigates of one type start close, and the other traits make the difference. Look for, in this order:

• no bad trait: it stays until a level takes it away, and that level brings nothing new;
• good traits on its own stat, the larger the better;
• the letter last: a class C can arrive with three or four traits, a good one cancelled by a bad one.

Frigate traits

The good traits are those on the frigate's own stat: a Combat frigate wants Combat traits, an Industrial frigate Industrial ones. A good trait adds 1 to 6, a bad one takes up to 6 away, and only the trait of the frigate's type gives 15.

The largest good traits come only to the type they belong to: Combat traits of the largest kind to Combat frigates and Raiders, Industrial ones to Industrial frigates, and so on. A type draws the small traits of the other stats more rarely. Fuel traits save fuel, Speed traits shorten an expedition, and a trait that says Never damaged keeps the frigate safe on every expedition. A Support frigate never draws a bad fuel trait, and a Raider draws its bad traits only on Industrial, Trade, and Exploration.

A level never gives a frigate the trait of its type, so the big boost comes only with the type.

Reward frigates

The three reward frigates always come with the same five traits.

Sending them out

Send frigates of the expedition's kind. Most of its events, 75% to 80%, are of that kind, and on those the whole fleet's stat counts. On the other events it counts at 25%, and on a Balanced expedition at 40% on every event. Each frigate adds its stat up to 50, each matching boost, a frigate module a Starship Pilot sells, adds 10, and the fleet modules of your freighter multiply the sum, up to 150.

Every event rolls 0 to 25 and adds the fleet's stat; it goes well if it reaches the event's difficulty. The first event starts near 10, each later one is 2 harder, every frigate you send adds one, and each expedition adds a hidden difficulty of 0, 15, 30, 45 to all its events. When the fleet's stat reaches the difficulty, the event always goes well; each point short takes one chance in 26 away. So the late events of a long expedition fail whatever you send, and a strong fleet pays most on the long ones.

The stat decides only how many events go well, not what they bring. Each event that goes well pays one reward of its kind; one that fails pays nothing. Until you have bought 3 frigates, expeditions are easy and pay far less.

A Speed trait cuts the time: each event takes about 1.5 hours, less a share for each point of Speed.

Damage and loss

Only a failed event damages a frigate, and only once you have finished more than 3 expeditions; the chance grows until 10.

The weakest frigate in the event's kind is the likeliest to be hit. A frigate with a trait that says Never damaged, and an organic frigate, is never hit.

The first hit damages the frigate, and you choose to let it go on or send it home; sent home, it still counts the expedition. A second hit while it is damaged destroys it: it is gone from your fleet for good. So send a damaged frigate home. If no frigate is left, the expedition ends at once. You always keep the rewards it won.

Damage is not a bad trait. You repair it for resources, and it never adds or removes a trait.

Levels

A frigate gains a level when it has finished 4, 8, 15, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 expeditions, whether they went well or not. The number of Successful Encounters on its card is only a tally of events that went well; it does not move the level.

Each level gives 5 stat points on Combat, Exploration, Industrial, and Trade, and changes one trait at most:

• if the frigate holds a bad trait, one of them goes, picked at random, and nothing takes its place in that level;
• if it holds none and has a free slot, it gains one good trait of its type's list, never a second trait of its type.

So a frigate keeps its bad traits until levels remove them, one a level, and the free slot is filled by a later level. A frigate can reach S if its bad traits and the good traits it lacks fit in the levels it has left; a frigate you buy has already spent some, one for every trait it drew beyond its own.

The ring on the card fills short: it counts the expeditions since the last level against the whole count of the next. Trust the count of expeditions, not the ring.

Price

A frigate's price is set by its type and class: a base with a spread, times a multiplier of its class.

An organic frigate draws from a list of its own and never a bad trait: organic frigates says how to call a whale and pick the kind of its frigate.