How to upgrade a ship
Should you upgrade a ship or find one at S? Upgrade for the slots, and find one at S for the stats. The slots an upgrade gives are known before you pay. Its stats are one roll for the new class, where a ship found at S keeps the better of two.
What an upgrade changes
The class goes up and the supercharged slots fill towards four. The slots a ship holds stay where they are, and each step adds the next slot from a list that belongs to the ship. That list is fixed, so upgrading from C or from B ends on one result, and you cannot get another by paying again.
| Class | Of wrecks | Slots found | Slots an upgrade adds | Adjacent at S | Interceptor, adjacent at S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class C | 54% | 1 | 3 | 0.87% | 1.2% |
| Class B | 31% | 2 | 2 | 0.87% | 1.3% |
| Class A | 14% | 3 | 1 | 0.87% | 0.74% |
| Class S | 1.2% | 4 | 0 | 0.87% | 0.72% |
An ordinary ship draws all its slots from one list, so every class of one ship ends on the same four. That is why the class changes nothing here: 0.87% are adjacent at every class. An Interceptor takes its first slots from the wreck and the rest from a list of its system, so two wrecks of one system can end apart. It reads 1.2% at class C and 0.72% at class S.
Where to upgrade
Any inhabited or abandoned space station will do. An abandoned station sells no technology, but it still offers the upgrade.
Stats after an upgrade
Each step of an upgrade rolls the ship's stats again for the new class and replaces the old ones. The roll belongs to the ship, so a ship raised to S ends on the same stats from C or from B. A ship found at a class rolls twice and keeps the better of the two, as ship stats shows; an upgraded ship holds only one of those rolls, so its stats are usually lower than those of a ship found at that class. A multitool's upgrade also rolls again from the item itself, as how to upgrade a multitool shows.
So if the stats are what you want, find the ship at class S. If the slots are what you want, any class will do. Modules add on top of either, and station technology merchants says where class S ones are sold.
An upgrade fills the empty supercharged slots, and you cannot choose where they land. Ship figures shows where they fall, and the square on a ship how rare a square is: class changes nothing there.