“Two identical hulls are never the same ship. The difference is the fit.”
— Fleet Admiral Selene Voss
Fitting a module
Open Ship Outfitting, pick a ship and fill its slots with Ship-scope modules from your inventory. Ships have four kinds of fittable slots: Weapon, Armor, Shield and Special. A module fits if:
- the module allows the ship's class (some modules are restricted);
- the ship has a free slot of that kind;
- you own a copy in your inventory, at the Mark you want to fit;
- the ship's mass stays within its Max Mass.
Mass is the main trade-off: heavy weapons and plating fill a hull fast. Removing a module frees its mass and returns it to your inventory.
Five chips over the module cards filter your stock by kind: ALL MODULES, WEAPONS, ARMOR, SHIELDS and SPECIAL, each with how many stacks you hold. The FACTION chip beside them opens a list of the eleven factions, each with how many of your stacks are of it; pick one and the cards and counts show that faction only, together with the kind you chose. ALL FACTIONS shows everything again. The ship card down the left side lists the ship's stats on three tabs, DEFENSE, MOBILITY and CHASSIS.
The EQUIPPED MODULES strip at the bottom groups the weapon slots by the firing arc they fire through (FORE ARC, AFT ARC and so on, each with its width), then armor, shields and specials. The diagram beside it draws the ship's arcs; point at a slot and its arc lights up. A gun fitted in an AFT slot can only fire at a target behind the ship.
Every ship card shows its status. A ship that is in a fleet, damaged, being repaired or still being built is locked: you can't fit or remove modules or upgrade its Mark until it is out of its fleet and fully repaired. You can also reach this screen from the Shipyard: select a READY ship on MY SHIPS and press OUTFIT.
Hangar and Screen slots appear on the ship card but can't be fitted yet.
Ship Marks
Every ship starts at base stats and can be upgraded through Mk1 to Mk5. Each step costs Coins and needs a minimum amount of player XP (the XP isn't spent). Each Mark raises health, shields, speed, max mass and damage, and the higher Marks add slots. For example, the Scrap Bulwark:
| Mark | Health & shield | Speed | Max mass | Damage | Extra slots | Coins | Min. XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mk1 | ×1 | ×1 | ×1 | ×1 | — | 0 | 0 |
| Mk2 | ×1.15 | ×1.05 | ×1.08 | ×1.15 | — | 200 | 120 |
| Mk3 | ×1.32 | ×1.1 | ×1.16 | ×1.32 | +1 W | 440 | 264 |
| Mk4 | ×1.52 | ×1.16 | ×1.25 | ×1.52 | +1 W +1 Sp | 968 | 581 |
| Mk5 | ×1.75 | ×1.22 | ×1.35 | ×1.75 | +2 W +1 A +1 S +1 Sp | 2,130 | 1,278 |
Every hull's own Mark table is on its ship page. W/A/S/Sp = extra Weapon, Armor, Shield and Special slots.
Module Marks
Modules have Marks too. Upgrade a stack in your inventory with Coins (plus the same kind of XP minimum). You can fit a module at any Mark up to the one you own, and a Mark you buy also reaches every copy of that module already fitted to your ships (a fitted copy is never lowered). A higher Mark weighs a little more, so the ship's mass rises with it. How Marks scale every stat is explained in the Stat Scaling guide.
The Relic Forge
Past Mark 5, a ship module of Tier 4 or 5 can be forged into a Relic, with the Tide cores and fragments you bank from bounties, medals and incursions. Open the forge with RELIC FORGE on the Weekly Bounties panel, or from the RELIC tab of a module in this screen (between MARK and FIT; it is there for a ship module of Tier 4 or 5 you own at Mark 5). It lists every ship module you own at Mark 5 of Tier 4 or 5.
A Relic has three ranks. Each raises the module's main stat over its Mark 5 value (damage for a weapon, health for armour, strength for a shield, the effect of a special); range, speed and mass stay at Mark 5. It also carries a trait that works in battles against the Tide only. You choose the trait when you forge Relic I.
| Rank | Main stat | Tide cores | Fragments | Minerals | Helium-3 | Antimatter | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relic I | +5% over Mark 5 | 20 | 100 | 200,000 | 200,000 | 5,000 | 4 h |
| Relic II | +10% over Mark 5 | 40 | 200 | 400,000 | 400,000 | 10,000 | 8 h |
| Relic III | +15% over Mark 5 | 80 | 400 | 800,000 | 800,000 | 20,000 | 16 h |
| Module | Trait | Relic I / II / III |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Tidebane: more damage to Tide ships | +10% / +15% / +20% |
| Weapon | Carapace Breaker: shots ignore part of a Tide ship's resistances | 10% / 15% / 20% |
| Armour | Chitin Weave: Tide weapons do less damage to armour and hull | 8% / 12% / 16% |
| Armour | Living Plate: the armour regrows part of its health every 10 seconds | 0.5% / 0.75% / 1% |
| Shield | Resonant Ward: recharges faster | 15% / 22% / 30% |
| Shield | Spore Filter: Tide damage through the shield is cut | 10% / 15% / 20% |
| Special | Hive Echo: a shorter cooldown | 10% / 15% / 20% |
| Special | Brood Bane: a stronger effect | 10% / 15% / 20% |
A Relic belongs to the blueprint, like a Mark: every copy you fit at Mark 5 becomes that Relic, on every ship. A copy fitted at a lower Mark is an ordinary module. In the Outfit screen a Relic's tile and its sockets are gold and say its rank; the RELIC tab shows its main stat against Mark 5 and its trait, and the ship's card lists the trait under DPS.
One forging at a time. CANCEL stops it and gives back what it cost: the cores and fragments always, the minerals, helium-3 and antimatter as far as your stores have room, as with any cancel. To change a Relic's trait to the other one of its kind costs 5 Tide cores and 50 fragments and takes no time. Several copies of a defensive trait on one ship add up to at most 40%.
Starting values. The ranks, the traits and their prices may change.