¶ Ship Designs
Ship designs are blueprints. You design a ship once, then any planet in your empire can build copies of it. Each design is a frame plus a curated set of components that fit inside the frame's space budget.
You'll find the editor under Command → Ship Designs.
¶ The frame
The frame is the hull. Every design has exactly one frame, and that frame's space is the budget all other components draw from. Bigger frames hold more capability but cost more production to build. See Components catalog below for the full frame list and stats.
Each component you add consumes some mass from the frame's space — once you've filled the budget, you can't fit more.
¶ Component groups
| Icon | Group | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
 |
Frame | The hull. Exactly one per design. |
 |
Engine | Provides thrust; combined with the design's mass that determines max speed. Multiple engines allowed. |
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Weapon | Adds attack vs. ships and/or attack vs. planets. Multiple weapons allowed. |
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Shield | Adds shield strength — a damage buffer absorbed before HP. Multiple allowed. |
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Armor | Increases hit points (raw durability). Multiple allowed. |
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Scanner | Detects enemy ships, planets, and nebulae at range. One per design. |
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Repair | HP regenerated per day outside combat. Multiple allowed; stack for noticeable speed. |
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Special | Mission-specific gear (Colonization Pod, Nebular Harvester, etc.). One per design. |
See Stats Reference for what each emergent stat actually means in combat and on the map.
¶ Special components — the mission gear
A handful of components live in the Special group and give a ship a specific capability:
- Colonization Pod / Advanced Colonization Pod — required to settle uninhabited planets (the Settle command is greyed out without one). The Advanced version starts the new colony with extra population.
- Nebular Harvester — required to extract ore from a nebula. The hardware is enormous: only one Nebular Harvester fits per design, regardless of frame size. See Nebulae.
Only one Special component fits per design, so a single ship can either settle, harvest, or do something else — never several at once.
¶ Emergent stats
Once you've placed components, the editor totals up the design's combat and travel stats:
| Hit Points |
Shields |
Attack vs ships |
 Attack vs planets |
|---|---|---|---|
 Thrust |
 Mass |
Max Speed |
Repair |
| Scanning range |
 Production cost |
Frame size |
Most of these are simple sums of what each component contributes. Two exceptions:
- Max speed is derived from thrust and mass — a heavy hull with weak engines tops out at a low speed even with high thrust.
- Scanning range uses the best scanner you fitted, not a sum.
¶ Editing & lifecycle
- A design can be freely edited until a ship is built from it. After the first ship rolls off the line, the design is in use and locked. Existing ships keep working; you just can't change the blueprint.
- Clone an existing design to start a new variant — the easiest way to "edit" a locked design.
- Rename is always available (it's just a label).
- Export / Import lets you share designs across games or with other players.
- Delete is only available before any ships are built (or once they're all gone).
¶ Components catalog
Every component currently reachable in-game, grouped by type. Costs are in production; mass eats into the frame's space budget. Components not yet wired into the tech tree are omitted.
¶ Frames
| Component | Space | HP | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Small Frame | 50 | 5 | 8 | Starting |
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Large Frame | 200 | 20 | 20 | Inertia Control Systems |
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Giant Frame | 450 | 40 | 60 | Dark Matter Physics |
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BattleStar Frame | 1200 | 30 | 250 | Dreadnoughts |
¶ Engines
| Component | Thrust | Max Speed | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Rocket Engine | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Starting |
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Fission Drive Reactor | 6 | 2 | 4 | 4 | Nuclear Energy |
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Plasma Thruster Array | 12 | 4 | 7 | 8 | Plasma Physics |
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Impulse Control Plasma Drive | 18 | 6 | 10 | 16 | Inertia Control Systems |
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Antimatter Thruster Array | 24 | 8 | 12 | 32 | Antimatter Thruster |
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FTL Jump Drive | 30 | 10 | 14 | 64 | FTL Travel |
¶ Weapons
| Component | vs Ships | vs Planets | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Nuclear Bombs | — | 2 | 3 | 2 | Starting |
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Electromagnetic Bombardment Array | — | 5 | 5 | 4 | Electromagnetic Field Manipulation |
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Asteroid Bombardment Array | — | 12 | 10 | 8 | Asteroid Bombardment |
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Quark-Gluon Bombardment Array | — | 25 | 20 | 16 | Superdense Structures |
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Black Hole Devastator Array | — | 60 | 40 | 32 | Artificial Black Holes |
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Lasers | 1 | — | 2 | 2 | Starting |
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Plasma Disruptor Cannon | 2 | — | 4 | 4 | Plasma Integration Systems |
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Particle Beam Cannon | 5 | — | 8 | 8 | Energetic Particle Containments |
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Antimatter Gauss Gun | 12 | — | 16 | 16 | Antimatter Missiles |
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Micro Black Hole Emitter | 25 | — | 32 | 32 | Black Hole Array Miniaturization |
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Temporal Laser System | 60 | — | 64 | 64 | Temporal Mechanics |
¶ Shields
| Component | Shields | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Basic Shields | 2 | 2 | 2 | Starting |
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Plasma Deflector Shield | 5 | 4 | 4 | Plasma Integration Systems |
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Energy Containment Shield | 12 | 8 | 8 | Electromagnetic Field Manipulation |
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Mass Dampening Barrier | 25 | 16 | 16 | Mass Dampening Shields |
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Gravitational Deflectors | 60 | 32 | 32 | Gravity Field Generators |
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Tachyon Flux Shields | 140 | 64 | 64 | Temporal Mechanics |
¶ Armor
| Component | HP | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Reinforced Hulls | 5 | 2 | 2 | Starting |
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Plasma Infused Armor | 11 | 4 | 4 | Plasma Integration Systems |
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Nanofiber Reinforced Armor | 25 | 8 | 8 | Nanotechnology |
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Dynamic Response Armor | 60 | 16 | 16 | Molecular Destabilization |
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Adaptive Armor | 150 | 32 | 32 | Molecular Printed Materials |
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Neutronium Composite Armor | 350 | 64 | 64 | Dark Matter Physics |
¶ Scanners
| Component | Range | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Tactical Array | 10 | 2 | 2 | Starting |
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Deep Space Scanner | 15 | 4 | 4 | Advanced Optics |
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Quantum Field Scanner | 25 | 8 | 8 | Quantum Gravity Theory |
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Energy Wave Sensor Array | 30 | 16 | 16 | Higgs Boson Manipulation |
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Graviton Resonance Scanner | 35 | 32 | 32 | Neutrino Physics |
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Particle Spectrum Analyzer | 40 | 64 | 64 | Subspace Communication |
¶ Repair
| Component | Repair/day | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Nanobot Repair Matrix | 1 | 8 | 16 | Nanotechnology |
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Infused Repair System | 3 | 16 | 32 | Molecular Printed Materials |
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Temporal Reversal Field | 8 | 32 | 64 | Dropium Processing |
¶ Special
| Component | Mass | Cost | Unlocked by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Colonization Pod | 10 | 5 | Starting |
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Advanced Colonization Pod | 70 | 250 | Mass Dampening Shields |
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Nebular Harvester | 400 | 500 | Strange Matter Storages |
¶ Tips
- Match the design to the job. Anti-ship hunters, planet bombers, scouts, settlers, and harvesters are all different ships. A "do everything" design wastes space.
- Weapons must hit something. Every ship in a battle fights individually (see Battles) — fleets aren't averaged, so a shield-only "tank" can stalemate a battle if the other side also has no relevant weapons.
- Bigger isn't always better. A Supermassive frame is enormous, but 10 cheaper Medium hunters often punch above one Dreadnought, and they're harder to wipe in a single engagement.
- Stack repair components — a single repair module is barely felt. Several add up to meaningful battlefield recovery.
- Settler ships need scanners too. Without a scanner, a settler flying to a star won't reveal its planets — send a scout first or fit a scanner into the design (you only get one).