 |
The subject of this article is from the Worlds Part I update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 3 September, 2024. |
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 3 September, 2024.
Frigate types clockwise from top left: Support, Exploration, Combat, Trade, and Industrial.
Frigates are mid-sized starships.
Summary[ | ]
Frigates are ships larger than a single-user starship, but smaller than a freighter. They can usually be found surrounding an NPC freighter. A player can own up to 30 frigates once they command a freighter. Frigates can then be sent on expeditions to other star systems.
The frigate fleet is controlled by the Fleet Command Room, located on the freighter that commands the fleet. Building more than one Command Room allows the player to have multiple active missions with different frigates at once.
A list of documented frigates is available at Starship Catalogue - Frigate.
Hiring[ | ]
In order to hire a frigate the player must travel close to the frigate's position and, once the frigate captain is open for communication, use their intercom (via quick menu) to talk to the captain and choose the option to hire their services. Not all frigates that spawn are available for purchase: those that are are marked with green icons.
The fleet can have a maximum of 30 frigates. Frigates can be dismissed/deleted from your fleet in the same manner as deleting a tech or item from your inventory (Consoles: hold R3/hold right stick click, PC: hold middle mouse button).
The five types of frigates are as follows:
Combat Specialist - Higher Combat capabilities. Can assist the player during space combat by warping nearby and sending out friendly ships. This only occurs if the player's Freighter is in the same system and the Frigate is not on expedition: the responding Frigate will be the one with the highest Combat stat out of those present. The deployed vessels are normal starships and are distinguished by having gold engine trails like Squadron pilots rather than green ones like standard NPC ships.
- Exploration Specialist - Higher Exploration capabilities. Can activate its Artifact Scanner to find the location of an Ancient Ruin in the current system.
- Industrial Specialist - Higher Industrial capabilities. The vessel produces 2 Magnetised Ferrite every 30 seconds up to a maximum capacity of 100 Magnetised Ferrite after 25 minutes. These can be collected by the player by boarding the vessel when it is not on an expedition.
- Trade Specialist - Higher Trade capabilities. The vessel produces 1,000 every 30 seconds up to a maximum capacity of 125,000 after 62 minutes and 30 seconds. These can be collected by the player by boarding the vessel when it is not on an expedition.
- Support Specialist - Specializes in fuel supply instead of abilities. Useful on shorter expeditions to conserve fuel or small improvement of fleet strength in all areas without increasing fuel requirements. The vessel produces 2 Condensed Carbon every 30 seconds up to a maximum capacity of 100 Condensed Carbon after 25 minutes. These can be collected by the player by boarding the vessel when it is not on an expedition.
Bargains and Pitfalls[ | ]
With over 60 potential points in their lifecycle and growth, it would seem unimportant which frigate to buy. However, there is a difference of more than 15 points between the best and the worst frigates. Additionally, some frigates consume considerably more fuel than others, which can cripple your fuel supply by as much as 50%, weaken the entire armada by approximately 50% early on, and then remain weaker by up to 20% over the long term.
Glitched Frigates[ | ]
IMPORTANT: Always check the base stats of frigates before purchase. Some frigates are glitched. Frigates with negative base stats are likely glitched. Frigates with an Expedition Count EQUAL to a Rank Up level are definitely glitched. (See "Calculating Base Stats" and the Rank Up table, below).
- Glitched frigates have an Expedition Count that exactly corresponds to a Rank Up level. For instance, they may have completed 4, 8, 15, 25 expeditions, and so on (see the Rank Up table, below). These glitched frigates will fail to receive their most recent Rank Up level. These frigates may have negative base stats and tend to reliably score 2-6 base state points (putting them in the lowest tier).
- The cause of this glitch is likely the same type of array misalignment that bugged out other game systems, like the portal network bug that led to the existence of Shadow Stars. It appears that the automatic frigate creation system forgets to level up the frigate one more time, because it is expecting one more expedition. Thus, you gain -6 total points or max 9 level ups. Do NOT buy these frigates.
Calculating Base Stats:
- TOTAL BASE STATS = MAIN STAT - (BONUSES + RANK_UPS*6)
- Where MAIN STAT is the sum of the 4 main stats listed on the right (combat, expedition, industry, and trade)
- BONUSES is the sum of bonuses to the 4 main stats as pictured on the ship in the left. Other bonuses such as -2% duration or -15 expedition fuel cost are not to be included.
- RANK_UPS is the number of times the ship has ranked up. This can be computed by looking at the table below in the "Ranks". If 0-3 expeditions have been completed, the ship has had 0 rank ups, 4-7 expeditions means 1 rank up, 8-14 is 2, 15-24 is 3, 25-29 is 4, 30-34 is 5 rank ups, and so on (every 5 expeditions corresponds to another rank up)
Typical Frigate Stats by Rank[ | ]
Specialized frigates:
- Rank 1: 1-12 base stats (after deducting the bonuses)
- Rank 2+: (-5)-14 base stats (after deducting bonuses and ranks; frigates with negative stats are likely glitched)
- Fuel: 8-12 tonnes (without negative traits, may be as high as 16 with negative traits)
Support frigates:
- Same base stats as above
- Fuel:2-5 tonnes (without negative traits)
| Frigate Base Stat Calculation Examples | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frigate | Stats | Bonuses | Rank ups | Base stats | Comments |
 |
7+11+7+4 = 29 | 1-6-4 = -9 | 28 exp. = 4 | 29-(-9+4*6) = 14 | 14 Base stat frigate is the highest known possible frigate.
It can't be found as rank 1, only pre-leveled. |
 |
1+3+1+2 = 7 | 0 | 8 exp. = 2 | 7-(0+2*6) = -5 | -5 Base stat with 5 fuel cost. Worst support EVER! |
 |
2+3+4+3 = 12 | 0 | 3 exp. = 0 | 12-(0+0) = 12 | Best rank 1 support frigate with 12 base stats and 2 fuel |
Expeditions[ | ]
Your navigator presents five new expeditions per day (0:00 UTC reset) on the freighter bridge for up to 5 frigates each. Since the duration of some expeditions is greater than one day—and since you could take all the available missions just before the daily refresh—it is possible to have more than five of them active at the same time.
The main goal of expeditions is to gather units, artifacts and rare items for their player owning the dispatching freighter. Expeditions can be accessed by talking to the Navigator standing next to the star map and existing expeditions can be managed by visiting the Fleet Command Room assigned to that fleet. Each Fleet Command Room build allows an additional concurrent expedition. Each expedition itself can take anywhere from 1 to 28 hours in real time, and progress even while the game is not running. Critical events that can lead to the loss of frigates also happen in real time. If the player is not there, they can not intervene in time.
Certain frigate traits affect other frigates in their party and make the journey easier and less costly; or with certain traits harder and more expensive.
Frigate expeditions are rated in difficulty between 1 and 5 stars. While the frigates have lights shown on the fleet management menu, those are not their star rating, but the amount of positive traits. The actual point values matter here! It is recommended that the total star rating of the frigate team after calculation is at least 1 star higher than the difficulty of the expedition. If the team rating is equal to the expedition difficulty there is a chance that the frigates will be damaged, and if the team rating is lower than the expedition, frigate damage is very likely and a loss could occur. Also note that lower class frigates are more likely to be damaged than higher class ones. If a damaged frigate continues its mission and gets damaged again, it will be destroyed and cannot be recovered.
Note that at the beginning when you have 1, 2, or 3 frigates, the missions will be easier, take less time, and give fewer rewards. The difficulty, time required, and rewards increase once you have your fourth frigate. If you get your fourth frigate while an expedition is underway, the rewards will increase without having to wait longer.
Expeditions focus on one of the five areas:
- Combat - The crew brings back mostly units and various items looted from enemies, or salvaged, such as Geodesite and Iridesite.
- Exploration - The crew brings back discovered items (i.e. a Gravitino Ball or even an Artifact) and earned units.
- Industrial - The crew brings back units, refined stellar metals (i.e. Activated Copper) and curiosities, such as Carbon Crystal and Rare Metal Element.
- Trade - The crew brings back units from trade deals made during travel, along with a number of trade items.
- Balanced - A random sum of all above. A mixed frigate fleet works well for this type of expedition.
Game files show that, even during expeditions of any of the four specialist types mentioned above, expeditions will randomly include occasional encounters of other types, which means that all expedition fleets should avoid leaving extreme weaknesses in any stat.
If failed, each encounter has a chance to damage any or all frigates in your expedition and potentially add a negative trait to any of them. Sending out frigates that have negative traits on them can cause encounters to fail more easily, and therefore pass negative traits onto other frigates.
Loot Earned[ | ]
Known Bugs/Mishaps[ | ]
- The debrief will often depict fantastical events outside of the reality of No Man's Sky. However, sometimes they even report trade and life on planets in dead and abandoned systems. Do NOT use your expedition infos to judge worthy systems nearby. They are sadly unrelated.
- Any system an expedition visits will show the original names of the systems and planets, even if discovered and uploaded to the HG databanks or recorded in your own discovery log.
- A frigate expedition will be spawned and be present in the system they are told to be. Those systems ALL exist and the events take place on actual planets. However, this actual traffic can lead to the player meeting their own expeditions... sometimes in question worthy positions. Surely a story to be told!
- The player will not die if they are on board a frigate which is currently on an expedition, but in the meanwhile it warps to its next destination. Instead the player will be transported back to their ship and receives a message saying that the frigate has left the system.
Who said there are no underwater expeditions?
This... should not work. It does.
Stats and Traits[ | ]
Each frigate will have base stat values for each of the 5 areas that will start at zero for fresh frigates that have not yet been to an expedition, and will then slowly increase the more expeditions the frigate has been to, see "Ranks" section below for more details.
Each frigate will have its base stats augmented by between 1 and 5 traits. The combination of base stats and trait-sourced stats will be combined into the overall stats of the frigate that will determine the success or failure chances of any expedition this frigate will be assigned to. Note that eventually with more expeditions any negative traits will be removed and replaced by positive ones (but possibly from a different area. Also, a small negative trait in some cases could well be outweighed by a large base value for a stat, thus resulting in a net positive stat in that area.
Each frigate will always have 1 out of 5 mandatory beneficial traits corresponding to the specialism of this frigate:
- Combat Specialist (+15 Combat)
- Exploration Specialist (+15 Exploration)
- Industrial Specialist (+15 Industry)
- Trade Specialist (+15 Trading)
- Support Specialist (-15 Expedition Fuel Cost)
Combat Specialist (+15 Combat)
Exploration Specialist (+15 Exploration)
Industrial Specialist (+15 Industry)
Trade Specialist (+15 Trading)
Support Specialist (-15 Expedition Fuel Cost)Additionally, each frigate will have up to 4 other random traits (including both beneficial and detrimental ones) from the following list of known traits (the list is work-in-progress), grouped by trait category. Note there are no frigate-type restrictions for optional traits, so e.g. a Combat Specialist could well have a trait boosting Trading etc., and also there are no restrictions on duplicate trait categories (so e.g. multiple Combat-impacting traits including multiple beneficial ones on a single frigate are possible). Click Expand to view the table:
| Optional Traits |
|---|
|
Combat-detrimental traits:
Exploration-detrimental traits:
Industry-detrimental traits:
Trading-detrimental traits:
Cost Per Warp-detrimental traits:
Expedition Duration-beneficial traits:
Ranks[ | ]
Over the course of many expeditions, the frigates lose negative traits and gain more positive abilities and base stats. The rank up hereby is based on the number of expeditions with an ever increasing demand early on and a static drop to 5 expeditions later. This can be checked on the Manage Fleet panel, where each frigate keeps track of how many expeditions they have been on.
| Expeditions | Rank up | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | - | 0 |
| 1 | - | 0 |
| 2 | - | 0 |
| 3 | - | 0 |
| 4 | yes | 1 |
| 5 | - | 1 |
| 6 | - | 1 |
| 7 | - | 1 |
| 8 | yes | 2 |
| 9 | - | 2 |
| 10 | - | 2 |
| 11 | - | 2 |
| 12 | - | 2 |
| 13 | - | 2 |
| 14 | - | 2 |
| 15 | yes | 3 |
| 16 | - | 3 |
| 17 | - | 3 |
| 18 | - | 3 |
| 19 | - | 3 |
| Expeditions | Rank up | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | - | 3 |
| 21 | - | 3 |
| 22 | - | 3 |
| 23 | - | 3 |
| 24 | - | 3 |
| 25 | yes | 4 |
| 26 | - | 4 |
| 27 | - | 4 |
| 28 | - | 4 |
| 29 | - | 4 |
| 30 | yes | 5 |
| 31 | - | 5 |
| 32 | - | 5 |
| 33 | - | 5 |
| 34 | - | 5 |
| 35 | yes | 6 |
| 36 | - | 6 |
| 37 | - | 6 |
| 38 | - | 6 |
| 39 | - | 6 |
| Expeditions | Rank up | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | yes | 7 |
| 41 | - | 7 |
| 42 | - | 7 |
| 43 | - | 7 |
| 44 | - | 7 |
| 45 | yes | 8 |
| 46 | - | 8 |
| 47 | - | 8 |
| 48 | - | 8 |
| 49 | - | 8 |
| 50 | yes | 9 |
| 51 | - | 9 |
| 52 | - | 9 |
| 53 | - | 9 |
| 54 | - | 9 |
| 55 | yes | 10 |
Each time a frigate's rank is increased one negative trait is removed, if the frigate has any, or a beneficial trait is given. Further each of the four stats is increased by 1 with an additional 2 points being randomly distributed over all categories. The total growth per rank is 6 points. These points are unrelated to the class, type, race or flavor text of the frigate. The seed for their growth however is static and can not be circumvented by reloading.
Remaining Rank Ups[ | ]
Class upgrade (from C to B and so on) depends on the total number of the beneficial traits, hence it is possible to calculate how many ranks up are needed to reach class S.
| Class | Beneficial | Detrimental | Total | Remaining rank ups until  |
Completed Missions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
1 | 4 | -3 | 8 | 14 or fewer |
|
1 | 3 | -2 | 7 | 24 or fewer |
|
2 | 3 | -1 | 6 | 29 or fewer |
|
1 | 2 | -1 | 6 | 29 or fewer |
|
2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 34 or fewer |
|
1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 34 or fewer |
|
3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 39 or fewer |
|
2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 39 or fewer |
|
1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 39 or fewer |
|
3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 44 or fewer |
|
2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 44 or fewer |
 |
4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 49 or fewer |
|
3 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 49 or fewer |
 |
4 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 54 or fewer |
 |
5 | 0 | 5 | - | - |
Rank-up Cap[ | ]
Even after a frigate is promoted to S-class, it can still continue to improve its base stats (6 randomized points per rank), but it will no longer gain new traits. It will reach its maximum stats when 55 expeditions have been completed. Once that happens, the total stats difference between a maxed out frigate and another will be mainly due to their traits. (Max stat condition is indicated by the disappearance of the "Progress to Next Rank" percentage dial)
- See also: Frigate Traits
Crew mood[ | ]
Each frigate has a starting mood for their crew and its changes only on the frigates returning from expeditions. There is no information about whether this would affect the expeditions in any way.
The following examples for crew mood changes were documented for successful expeditions:
- Bubbly → Harmonious → Chipper → Resourceful → Exemplary → Happy → Aggressive → Peaceful
- Lively → Docile → Fussy → Grateful → Harmonious → Obsessive → Peaceful → Grateful
- Industrious → Zealous → Aloof → Hungry → Thoughtful → Jolly → Strong willed → Jolly
- Rambunctious → Dynamic → Agreeable → Delighted → Welcoming → At peace → Pragmatic → At peace → Industrious → Jumpy
- Happy → Dedicated → Unflappable → Rowdy → Poetic → Content → Dutiful → Delighted → Bloodthirsty → Pragmatic
Consumable Upgrades[ | ]
Each expedition provides three slots for consumable frigate upgrades that provides a bonus and lasts for one expedition.
- Explosive Drones - improves Combat effectiveness
- Fuel Oxidiser - reduces the expedition's duration of a frigate fleet
- Holographic Analyser - improves Exploration effectiveness
- Mind Control Device - improves Trade effectiveness
- Mineral Compressor - improves Industrial effectiveness
Designation[ | ]
The designation of the frigate changes with class.
| Class |  Combat |
 Exploration |
 Industrial |
 Trade |
 Support
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Interstellar Frigate | Science Vessel | Mining Vessel | Merchant Vessel | Supply Vessel |
|
Interstellar Corvette | Expeditionary Cruiser | Industrial Hauler | Trade Clipper | Fuel Bulker |
|
Interstellar Battleship | Deep Space Surveyor | Industrial Galleon | Merchant Cruiser | Mobile Supply Platform |
|
|
Interstellar Dreadnought | Data Harvesting Platform | Orbital Factory Platform | Trade Galleon | Advanced Outfitting Platform |
Fuelling[ | ]
Use the screen on the freighter bridge to see the frigates fuel consumption. Fuel consumption is given in X tonnes per Y light-years.
The frigate fuel blueprints are rewards for finishing the Freighter Command mission. After crafting and storing them in the freighter inventory, will allow the frigates to use them. Frigate fuel is made of 1 part Di-hydrogen and 1 part Tritium, and comes in 3 flavours; 50 tonnes, 100 tonnes, and 200 tonnes. When using fuel, smaller quantities stored will be used first. If the expedition requires 200 tonnes, the game will consume 4 units of 50 tonnes, or 2 units of 100 tonnes first. Excess fuel is kept as smaller quantities. If a 200 tonnes unit is consumed for a 150 tonnes expedition, the player will receive a 50 tonnes unit given if the freighter has space to hold it.
Fuel cost calculation for missions[ | ]
The fuel costs per expedition depends on three points:
- Expedition distance (in light years): The distance is rounded to the nearest multiples of 250.
- All ships' fuel costs (in tonnes / 250 LY).
- Fuel cost reductions of traits (in tonnes), e.g. from Support specialists.
Formulas:
"Effective distance" = round("Expedition distance" / 250) x 250
"Total fuel costs" = ("Effective distance" / 250) x "All ships' fuel costs" - "Fuel cost reduction"
And because the shortest value for frigate fuel is 50 tonnes, total fuel costs must round up to the next multiple of 50. Note that this means that 50 tonnes per ship is an irreducible minimum, except for Support ships.
Support specialists[ | ]
This section only concentrates on support specialists' fuel (dis)advantage and ignores benefits from all other stats.
Every trait with fuel cost reduction decreases expeditions' total fuel cost by an absolute value and not X tonnes / Y light-year. Therefore support specialists reduce total fuel costs of expeditions till a certain distance, after this distance they increase missions' fuel costs, because they need more fuel than they reduce. But they only affect expeditions' fuel costs if they increase total fuel costs over or decrease it under a multiple of 50.
For the game it means:
- A support specialist in every expedition is not always a good deal.
- Shorter expeditions profit more from support frigates.
- Longer expeditions' fuel costs can be increased by support frigates.
- Support ships nonetheless use little fuel, none at all on shorter expeditions, making them good "filler" ships to get a flotilla's star-rating up to the next rank. All-Support flotillas can handle some Balanced expeditions on their own, often for zero fuel cost.
Repairing[ | ]
If a frigate was damaged during an expedition, the damaged frigate returns to the freighter and is marked in red. This means that a frigate's subsystem is critically damaged and sending the frigate in this state on another expedition may lead to further damage and a loss of the frigate.
To repair the frigate, the owner needs to fly over in their spaceship and land on one of the frigate's landing pads, at which point the frigate's captain contacts the player and marks the Damaged Components. Alternatively, Frigate Teleporter can be used from the "Manage Fleet" console while viewing the frigate in question. Follow the red marks to find the damaged components, which can be inside or outside the frigate, on various ramps, but will always be accessible by foot. Some may be accessed through doors or up ladders. When you reach the damaged component, a repair interface will appear. The required materials for the repairs should be stored in the player's freighter, starship or exosuit inventory to be usable during the repair process.
The "Times Damaged" counter tracks the number of times each frigate required repairs. The value may be checked on the freighter's Bridge.
| Name | Repair cost |
|---|---|
 Cooling System
|
 Gold x20 Oxygen x5
|
 Master Circuit
|
 Platinum x5
|
 Photovoltaic Panel
|
Gold x20 Sodium Nitrate x10
|
 Power Distributor
|
Gold x10 Silver x20
|
 Pressure Chamber
|
Silver x50
|
 Servo Arm
|
 Pure Ferrite x25
|
 Solenoid
|
Silver x25 Ferrite Dust x10
|
 Thermoregulator
|
Gold x20
|
 Tiny Motor
|
Platinum x5
|
| Transmission Box
|
 Tritium x15
|
Additional information[ | ]
- If the player jumps off a frigate's landing bay into space, they will "fall" for a few seconds[1], then take damage and quickly die. The player will respawn in the nearest space station, and a grave marker will be created in the place where they died, to retrieve the inventory. When flying to the grave, the inventory items will be added to the starship's inventory instead of the exosuit inventory. If there are more items than there are free ship slots, then the player has to move the items from the ship and fly back to the grave multiple times until all items are retrieved.
- However, death in space can be prevented by constantly refueling one's Life Support, allowing one to "fly" in space for an indeterminate amount of time and even fall to a planet's atmosphere, if close enough.
- The resources given when boarding are accumulated over time and there's a cap to how many resources a ship can store. Ships with a higher class rating can store more resources. The collected resources are transferred to the player's freighter inventory.
- Frigate research can be viewed here.
- The pricing of a Frigate can vary from approx. 1,500,000 to 12,500,000 depending on the class.
- Obtaining 30 frigates will earn a player the title of Admiral.
- Expedition loot has been extracted from the 3.75 version of the EXPEDITIONREWARDTABLE.MBIN game file.
- If the player's frigate fleet does not exceed 3 frigates, all expeditions will be much shorter (between ~1-4.5hrs).
Release history[ | ]
- NEXT - Frigate was added.
- NEXT 1.51 - Fixed a crash when fleet expeditions end without their capital ship present.
- NEXT 1.52.2 - Fixed an issue with expeditions where, under very specific circumstances, a certain pattern of loading and reloading within a limited timeframe could cause saves not to be loaded (Fix to recover saves for those affected will follow).
- NEXT 1.53 - Fix to restore savegames for players affected by a specific issue with freighter expeditions. Fix for frigates not reporting their damaged state correctly.
- NEXT 1.55 - Fixed a number of issues where expeditions would reward the wrong player in multiplayer. Fixed an issue where a fleet of frigates would return to the wrong location on the completion of an expedition.
- NEXT 1.57 - Fixed an issue that prevented Exploration Specialist type frigates from charging their scanners. Fixed an issue that prevented damaged frigates from being completely repaired. Fixed an issue that could cause expedition rewards to artificially increase after save/loading.
- NEXT 1.58 - Fixed an issue that caused expedition length, difficulty and rewards to scale incorrectly relative to the power of the player’s fleet.
- NEXT 1.60 - Fixed a number of collision issues onboard frigates.
- NEXT 1.63
- Fixed an issue where frigate cargo would be lost if inventory space wasn’t available upon landing on the frigate.
- Fixed an issue where expedition upgrades were not refunded when the expedition was cancelled.
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to land on frigates owned by other people in multiplayer.
- Added the ability to cycle between frigates when viewing the fleet.
- Fixed an issue where frigates would revert their colours to blue and white.
- Abyss 1.70
- Improved spawning of frigates in multiplayer games when players are onboard them.
- Fixed cases where specific frigates would always take the same type of damage.
- Added ability to scan frigates and freighters using the Analysis Visor.
- Added ability for players to repair their friends’ frigates.
- Prevented dust being permanently active on frigate landing pads.
- Fixed an issue where frigates failed to reset their resource collection after giving resources to the player.
- Made frigate icons less intrusive.
- Abyss 1.71 - Fixed an issue where the interior of the science frigate could be missing.
- Unknown update - Combat Frigates supporting the player now deploy normal starships with gold engine trails rather than System Authority ships with red engine trails.
- Endurance - Added Short-Range Teleporters to Frigates.
- Update 3.98 - Hidden change: expeditions durations reduced by 2-3 times.
References[ | ]
- ↑ What Is Microgravity? Editor: Sandra May at www.nasa.gov