Which is the BEST Starship for your Playstyle? (Stats are outdated with Waypoint 4.0 Update) 

I know everyone hates shuttles but they are my favorite. To me a shuttle looks like technology made by a civilization that has just discovered warp travel, it's not sleek or elegant or advanced. They can look klunky and seem to just barely work, but that is the appeal. Exotics look sleek and highly advanced, they look very alien. A shuttle looks like something we humans would make.

Another bonus for the Living Ship is it doesn’t take damage from using black holes to warp. Which I find pretty useful to get to galactic cores without just using portal glyphs. This is actually what made me use a living ship as my main for the longest time but now with the new solar ships those are now by far my favorite. Been grinding my heart out to get my new solar ship to S class.

About fighting other ships with a hauler: If you don't like dogfighting, the hauler is a good choice, especially now that you can regenerate your shield with the Phase Beam. You just sit in one spot and beam hopeless fighters and positron/infra/photon/rocket them if they get too close. Some times I don't even swap away from the beam if I'm feeling brain-dead. I have never needed to use starshield batteries on my hauler when fighting this way.

The explorers also get a built in 50% launch thruster fuel reduction iirc, and I think that it shouldn't be understated how efficient the solar ships are with the pulse engine. A full minute of pulsing is like 1-2% fuel usage; I think I have only ever put 30 tritium into my solar ship and I've used it as my main ship since the update came out and it's still at like 80% fuel

Yeah fell in love with my first solar today, sleek red with white trim. Honestly, if you love the look of the ship it is worth going through the process of upgrading it, just like you would souping up your favorite muscle car.

I’ve been playing for roughly 1000 hours, and have collected all ship types, and for my Bounty Hunter play style, I love my S Rank Hauler more than anything. It’s got the full 48 slots, is aesthetically pleasing, and decked out with a few S-Rank mods on shields, pulse drive, and weapons… it’s an absolute beast.

Super-interesting. I focus nearly exclusively on exotics, and judging by your analysis, it really does suit my play-style. I don’t look for combat, but they can really hold their own in battles. Mostly I explore. I have been tempted to look for a Solar … I really like the look of them. Thanks for the video.

So I decided to max out an S-class fan hauler and use it as my main ship for awhile to see how it compared day-to-day with an exotic which is my usual main ship. While I still have room for more upgrades, I'm getting close to max (Dmg:178.9, Shield: 367.7, Hyperdrive: 2080.8, Maneuverability: 397.9). I have 3 upgrades to the Infra Knife. So far I have to say it's quite viable as a main ship. Storage is the best in the game. Shields are the best in the game. Infra Knife melts sentinels in a couple of seconds (I never feel I don't have adequate firepower, even when fighting pirates and sentinels at the same time). If you want to test your ship's fighting capability (real world), when you warp into a freighter rescue, destroy a friendly ship, wait till you get the sentinel scanning message, then shoot the space station. If you have a squadron of four, you are looking at a lot of enemy ships! I do notice the limits to maneuverability means I can't turn on the sentinels fast enough sometimes in the way a maxed fighter or even an exotic can, but hitting reverse always does the trick to get them in my cursor/reticle. The warp distance is really just fine for every day use. The only time I would want max hyper range is if I'm wanting to get to the core of a galaxy asap (which I've only done once in 1,500 hours). For that my freighters maxed out are always 6,000ly+ which no ship can touch. I'm working on a maxed explorer now to see how that works as a main ship.

To this day, I have no idea why everyone hates the shuttle. If you start a new game play, you will occasionally find ones with a very Unique wing design, A~S class and at a very cheap price. If that isn't the selling price, then think deeper: PERMADEATH/Survival. Shuttles are very unique in those modes, as they help with slot issue. They're a very cost effective transition ships and can be collected as part of the 7-Type ships collection.

I've noticed the solar ships seem to be crazy maneuverable compared to my other ships. So far as reactive. Move the mouse, instant motion from the ship, where as my other ships have lag time. It takes me a bit to adjust for over-correction even because of it. I'm really enjoying them! I would say the only other ship I have that compares is an S-Class Royal Ball.

Great & informative overview. I was just looking for some of the information the other day when ship hunting & nice to find it all in one spot!

I really like this guide. I'd love to see a more in-depth guide going over each ship like what you did for the shuttle, then comparing all the advantages and disadvantages of each. There's a lot of info there and definitely potential for more content in a deep dive. I love how you break it down and want more!

I think you picked the best details to share. And, your following picked up the rest of the stuff I didn't know in the comments. Your videos are great, thanks again for your work!!

Another thing to take into consideration: Landing time. Explorers (and exotics, as they use the explorer interior) take several seconds of hovering before finally touching down and letting you exit the ship. Fighters and Haulers appear to have the fastest, belly-flopping onto the ground quickly. Solars appear to have a little delay more than Fighters, but land much quicker than Exotics and Explorers still.

As always, another great vid with lots of useful information. I have found my favorite is now the solar ships - Look great, and seem to be a nice jack of all trades. Add a hauler for those times when you want to crash economies and I am good to go. :)

Great video sir! Explained everything I needed to know, and didnt take too long to watch. Thanks very much!

So very helpful! Thank you!

Thanks for the detailed data on which ship might be better for each style of play

I was a fighter main until the solar ships came out. Sure no S-class solar is gonna have the same damage output as an S-class fighter, but considering the other boosts the solar gets I think it makes up for it and is generally a better choice than fighter unless you strictly do space combat.

Excellent guide BB. Love the comparison tables.

I always went Explorer. Early game the launch reduction comes in real handy and there was nothing dangerous enough to worry about firepower so it would last you the while game. The only other ship that had an advantage over it was the hauler for cargo space. Now there's a bit more of a threat so maybe have a fight handy for farming sentinels but I have not seen the need, I have a sail ship now and it hasn't been taxed by anything even without being upgraded.

Solar ships have served me very well. Maxed out, they're faster than my fighters, will kick just as much @$$, and are surprisingly cheap to get into early in the game. And they look NOICE. 😁

Great video, thanks for fleshing this out

I just started playing, I sat at an outpost for a while watching the ships come and go and saw one I liked and was able to afford, it was a solar ship that came with an s class solar sail. I don't know if that comes with all of them but it's my new favorite ship

Insightful with some great dry humor! Thanks for the video!

Best explanation out there, earned yourself a sub.. good job and keep'em coming

A very concise & scholarly piece of work - awesome !!

Done what I've seen here, I would say that my fighter is beyond over upgraded. With a 1600 light year hyper driver range, maximum possible efficiency, maxed out maneuverability, and extremely high shield strength with fully upgraded infra knife accelerators. Yeah, I'm ready for some [facium].

Amazing! Really informative ive been playing since 2020? And i still learned something!

Beeblebum hello I recently returned into nms after a big absence and to be honest this guide helped me a lot. Thank you!

Of great help Sir! TY

Showing the charts at the end was very helpful. I can’t wait to play this game again, especially on the Nintendo.

Thanks for this. Really helped. 🙂👍

Great video Beebs, nice and clear and simple to understand 😀👍

Got every type of ship and still can’t tell which one I like the most

Living Ships have no possibility of more slots. Well, this part of the video aged like milk. To be fair, I don't think anyone expected this coming on the endurance update, after so long without Hello Games adding it, besides, it is a timed grind that takes way to long to fully unlock all the slots, unless you have fully kitted your freighter for expedition speed, including consumables.

Excellent!

Living ship got a great boost now with endurance.

You have done good works ...thank you

Nice little summary. It helped me decide something I was already thinking. Gonna use my solar for exploring and going from planet to planet, but I'm also going to outfit a fighter for pure combat and a hauler for portable storage. Since you can summon ships to you in most cases there isn't much reason to not specialize.

I play almost exclusively in VR, and if you do too the Solar ships are a must. The animated mechanical workings of the ship are so satisfying to watch from within the cockpit. Before those came out I had a different ship for everything I do, getting the maximum performance at whatever I'm doing. Now I just want to putt around in a solar ship no matter where I go lol.

Extremely helpful

My favorite is Solar. I like bouncing between planets doing adventures, and the baseline pulse engine efficiency is INSANE. On the other hand, now that I'm doing a fresh non cheaty playthrough, I lucked out in the second system had a blue exotic guppy with basically no wings for a lil over 7 mil, and I like ORB.

I tried to swap ships for different purposes but just always end up back in my squid on the saves that have them but at least now I know what I'm missing out on

Terrific video. I especially loved “a warp in the park”. Very Punny 😀 New Sub+ here.

I'm new in the game! Love your guides thank you!

Good stuff Beebs!

I came back to the game a few days ago and really never understood the ship types, except the hauler and explorer being obvious. So thanks for clearing this up, I actually never used a shuttle (unless the starter is one), I just thought they were too ugly. I kept the starter ship until I found a crashed hauler and repaired it. I cannot wait to see what other ship types we will get in the future!

I have a 1st wave: Mothra ball Hauler: Large Marge Large fighter: bone wrath Red Squid: Crimson shadow Golden Vector: No name Explorer: No name Solar: No name Alien: Max "after the movie flight of the navigator " 😁 And I'm using my last slot to sell S class ships for cargo slots then I'll go on the hunt for my last ship maybe a red Alien Hammerhead!

Nice video beeblebum!

So it's interesting to see that the base values of the solar ship as far as maneuverability are the same as the fighter. In reality if you load up your solar shift with 6s class modules and then also attach the solar sale to one of those groupings you end up with over 1,000 maneuverability, easily the most maneuverable ship in the game

I’ve been using an explorer since 2018, but recently got a solar ship. It’s definitely better in combat, but I’m still fond of my dinky explorer.

Every No Man's Sky player needs to see this video. Thank you so much for doing it. And regarding the core damage potential on a fighter? The highest I've ever seen is in a ship I have and is 251.5 and after all S Class Max Upgrades come out to 384.6. Photon cannons do 10,449 DPS, It outclasses in combat any other ship in my hanger. Idk if it works that way all the time, or if I just got a Unicorn of a ship.

Thank you

First time player. Just got my first base going when I stumbled on a crashed S class Shuttle. Perhaps it's not the best but for an early game noob, I'm happy

Nice guide! A tip calculating % : 20 then multiply with 1.20 : That is 100% + 20% divided by 100.

Please tell me where you got that yellow and white solar ship in the intro I've been looking for one like it for ages

Excellent.

Shuttles by default use less launch fuel, so I use my shuttle to get from place to place on the same planet if I'm not expecting landing pads :)

Something I have found and it's a bit of a glitch but, if you're flipping ships at a station, sometimes one of your ships will spawn alongside the one you took to the station, when this happens it will sometimes pull the class info and the inventory including mods over to your main ship, so it is possible to have an exotic (S) be converted into a hauler (A) class whilst still retaining the look of the exotic, this can also be used to your benefits say you want a hauler with a fighters stats, go out and find a S fighter that looks bad and hasn't been upgraded, take your hauler to a station flip some ships until you see your fighter spawn and check the haulers inventory if it's dropped and mods have been reset you know it's worked, now you have a hauler with stupid high firepower, again it can work with a solar you can swap the stats with another class of ship until you get your desired grade (C,B,A or S) and stats, it does take a while and is a tad annoying when you aren't going out to do this, had it happen to me 3 times, I was flipping ships to get nanites and money and then my S class solar because an A class explorer and it reset all of my hard earned mods and storage upgrades 😑

I'm a Fighter woman myself. I like the way the maneuver and of course easy to fight in when necessary. I appreciate the extra shield and fuel efficiency of the solars. But the solar fins make it impossible for me to see clearly (I'm vision impaired). I've yet to do the living ship questline. Got an active void egg. Just haven't done it yet. Got several exotics. I have them because I like the way they look. I usually don't fly them.

That solar ship pulse fuel reduction is great. I haven’t had to refuel my pulse drive for almost 4 days now, and I’m only at 26%.

Where do you get that first solar ship in the intro?

Great video Beeblebum. One question, if I may ? Why does jump range even matter, now that our freighters can jump huge distances and are easily upgraded ? I find it to be a useful way to avoid the almost constant "Rescue the Freighter" mission that pops up after every 2nd jump now. Back in the day, I used to count the number of jumps I had performed, so I could quit and then restart to avoid the hassle, or just pulse away to jump somewhere else and leave the battle behind. Sadly, that no longer works, the battle follows you around now, no way to avoid it, until you quit and restart. At least when using a freighter to jump you don't get them, until Sean realises his mistake, of course. lol

My main ship is a fighter but it was an A class to begin with and it came with bonus large cargo capacity. Now it's maxed out and I never run out of space, it will kill anything it wants to in about 3 seconds flat, and can still make huge jumps.

I'll switch before every mission thanks brother

I’ve never gotten a shuttle yet, always loved the vykees ships. My main is Reflection of gravity because it reminds me of a GTR r34

I got a free Hauler from the Artemis quest and it's my fave, I love storage space and despite it being a fat hog I do pretty well against pirates!

The living ships do have storage upgrades, since the Endurance update. You can get them by sending organic frigates on expeditions.

I just fly the ones that look cool and stats be damned. Gives a bit of a challenge

I like pirate hunting, so I tend to go S-class fighter. However, I do have a hauler around for emergency resource transport.

Thx

Haulers are love, haulers are life

I'm a new player and got an S class solar early, rarely needing to put fuel on it helps a lot since I don't have many resources yet, also, it is actually pleasantly strong, maneuverable and sexy

Another bonus of the living ships, they dont need antimatter for warping, they use chromatic metal, a simple material you can buy in bulk or refine on the go, its bassically infinite warp, no geting damaged by black holes is another plus. The only downsides to the living ship are the fact that you cant upgrade their inventory nor get better weapons (as far as i know).

First time ship hunting I was looking for a good fighter class my first S class ever? A shuttle. I used it to trade for an A class fighter

We need an updated one! Great video tho!

Is there any chance of getting an updated version of this video for Waypoint update, as you already stated in the title it's outdated. I'm trying to Min/Max a starship but are overwhelmed by the pure stats and their formulas. I'm willing to dig into this myself, you got any sources where I can look up the values etc. The wiki isn't that helpful in this regard.

Hi Beeblebum, I was linked here by Colmatt as I’m wanting to know the brackets for each of the stats. Eg dps xxx min - yyy max. I’ve only been playing a week and I can’t fix this information anywhere. All I tend to see is the % that you ah e talked about. However a % can be very misleading if the base stat is larger on a lower % ship. Moreover, if I buy an S class ship, strip the components to get the base stats, how do I know if I should upgrade it or wait for another S class with better seed stats? When modules give a huge bonus %, understanding or just plainly knowing these base stats become more important. Eg, I buy a fighter and remover all mods. The dps is 85. If we knew that the dps bracket was between 80-100, I would scrap the one I had and wait for a better one with a figure of something like 95-100. I hope you can help me with this as it’s painful watching these videos and coming away not really able to make real in-game decisions on whether to upgrade or not. As I say, I’ve only been playing a week so I don’t have the credits to waste as some of you billionaires! 😂 Thanks and I hope you can share the bracket figures with us. That information would cement a lot of confidence. As it is at the moment, the given stats in %s don’t really mean anything as we don’t understand the base. Many thanks.

I main a blue squid ship. It has great hyperdrive range and the other stats are great as well.

I began with fighters since i love being a pirate, the only problem i ever had with Alec 2 (my fighter ship name) was it's fuel efficiency, since i had to look for tritium all the time. Than solar ships got in the game, combat got even more fun, and when i got my first solar ship, alectric boogaloo (s class bizarrely, yeah i had to make the pun), i was crusing and shooting all the time, never noticing that i was never in need of fuel. Just noticed after looking at my inventory and seeing like 2000 tritium laying there, since i was aways low on fuel before. Till i find an explorer that i like, alec 2 have been put in the "time to warp" spot, since my msin ship is the solar one

I'm rather new and still haven't gotten my hands on an exotic or living ship, but I'm in love with Solar ships. Solars are just good "go anywhere, do anything" ships that feel pretty strong to have early on in a save. They basically combined aspects of the Explorer and Fighter class to make a new one and threw in its own unique mod to further differentiate it from the Explorers.

Dam the solar is the winner here

This is why I'm glad I own a Solar. what people don't take into consideration is the turning speed and reaction time. maneuverability-wise, the Solar has mostly all others beat, with it's maneuverability being crazily over 1k.String that with a decent attack kit, and you got yourself a massive beast in terms of hit & run, and chaser. it may not beat an exotic in dmg, but it's as good as they get if you want to chase a brotha like a heatseeker.

Finally someone who cares about gameplay and own style instead of meta, thanks! Pretty useful

I like to explore, system to system, and try to avoid conflict if possible, but when conflict finds me, I want to decimate in short order. For this I like a good fighter, but I just wish it had longer legs. As of right now, I use the Freighter to shuttle my fighter over longer distances.

What's that first ship in your intro?

I didn’t hear you mention launch thruster efficiency on shuttles and explorers. Sure at a certain point you have plenty of launch fuel and the auto recharge, but for early game it’s great! Also the explorer launch distance is great to reach those 3 star economy systems when you’re freighter hunting

1. Exotic 10/10 good general use ship 2. Shuttle 11/10 favorite travel ship 3. Living ship 9/10 it looks cool 1. I just use a basic guppy. It has 3k warp distance, 1k maneuverability, 16k DPS on the positron weapon, and shields are ok. It handles pirates very well, so not really any point in me upgrading to a fighter. Its warp distance is on the same level as a basic explorer, so I don't need an explorer. Overall just a decent ship to use. 2. For galaxy jumps I use a shuttle because I won't use it for any other purpose. I just move all the tech into the tech slot to avoid needing repairs on it. I might look for a better looking shuttle to use for my galaxy jumps. I'm on galaxy 5, Hyades. 3. I have a living ship that's fully upgraded, but I don't use it often. It's more of a trophy ship.

i would say that solar is my favorite ship type. it was the first ship i found and i used it a lot.

I run a maxed out exotic with full upgrades for jumping around galaxies, I have a solar ship I use for planet exploring and as a shuttle basically. Then I have a hauler for farming materials and transporting or storing stuff. My exotic is my pride and joy, all my crap is S class blue

I'm debating between explorer and solar. I'm going for a more nomadic playstyle, in which I'd be setting up small outposts for resources then jumping to a new system. I feel like explorer would be best for that, but the solar seems good too because of the pulse engine efficiency. Also, if it helps, I'm going for a more realistic-ish astronaut appearance, which the shuttle would be best for but.. it's a shuttle

Um belo vídeo, parabéns. Pra mim, as missões deveriam exigir um tipo específico de nave. No final, todas acabam igual.

All living ships need is scanners and I'll use them forever.

Thanks great video. The Fighters are just too cool to resist though :/

ngl the mini cubic shuttles are so cute tho

Solar ships should have an extra table for Style Points

Solar is my choice of pirate runner ship. great with a infra knife.

Does a ship’s base damage potential effect dps of the infra-knife?

Honestly they all pretty much feel interchangeable to me. Pick the one you like the design of the most, as all of them feel pretty great to use once fully upgraded. The worse one is probably the living ship due to not having access to good guns and key tech like scanners , having limited slots (although you can level them up using the freighter module upgrade glitch), and Shuttles are pretty meh both in terms of looks and stats, but the rest are all pretty much fine for your needs. If you want to do very large jumps like if you need to reach the core, use an explorer, if you really want cargo space, get a Hauler and fully upgrade it's cargo space, although honestly by the time you have a fully upgraded cargo tab, you'll probably have a fully kitted out suit inventory and freighter inventory anyway, so it becomes kinda moot. WPN dmg isn't all that important since I feel like most upgraded weapons will kill enemies really quickly regardless of min-maxing, and tbh I feel like Fighter, Exotic and Solar are pretty equivalent, so just pick the one you find the coolest looking and mod it as best you can for max hyperdrive / dps / shield and you should be good for all the content.