Ship Components

The player's ship is only the shell or chassis of the space vessel; what actually makes each player's ship unique are the components within it. Each ship comes with a limited amount of large, medium and small component slots which - with the exception of core components - players can freely replace with another component of the same size (e.g swapping a cargo bay for a weapon).

## Buying & Upgrading

Ship components can be brought and installed on any planet with an accessible Starport level 6 or above. Higher level Starports on planets with a particularly high Military rating will have the most options for you to select from.

Components cannot be added or removed - only replaced or upgraded with a component of equal size. In other words; no component slot can be left empty and you cannot store spare components. Every component you buy begins to be installed straight away but typically takes a few weeks to finish. A small component will only fit in a small slot and cannot be placed into a large slot etc. Your ship determines how many large, medium and small slots are available. If you trade in an expensive component for a significantly less expensive component, you might not have to pay anything for the trade-in other than 2,500 credits for the labor.

Ships also come with different maximum mass limits. Every component has a mass; with larger components being heavier than smaller components. The total mass of all the components on a ship cannot exceed the maximum support weight of your ship. There are components that can make your ship components lighter thereby allowing heavier components to be slotted. Higher mass components resist Cascading damage but, of course, require more available mass on your ship.

A ship must always have certain Core Components: a bridge, engine and hyper-warp drive. Ships must also include at least one cargo bay. Unlike Core Components, a cargo bay may be placed in any size slot and some unique components (like the salvage bay) count for this requirement. With the exception of Core Components, you can replace any component with any type of component of the same size. For example; you might want to swap a cargo bay with a weapon for more firepower, or replace that prisoner cell for some extra defense.

Note that some components do things outside of your ship, such as the Weapons Locker, which enables you to upgrade your crew's gear.

## Component Types

*For the complete raw data set: see Ship Components Reference and Ship Components Core Reference.*

*Core Slots by Mass*
Every ship must have 3 Core Components, a Bridge, a Void Engine, and a Hyperwarp Drive. Since the Bridge and Hyperwarp Drive occupy larger slots in larger ships, when comparing ships of different sizes, you might make the following adjustments to their Component Slots shown when viewing the hull.

 7000+ | -3 | -0 | -0

* (The Scout Bridge requires 1 SMALL component slot, however, it also provides 3 officer slots instead of 1, effectively providing a net increase of 1 small slot when compared to other bridges; albeit without the option of armored officer's quarters, etc. But as long as you plan on running your ship with more than 2 officers - which seems pretty basic - the scout bridge effectively increases your customizable SMALL slots by 1, taking one for itself, but freeing up 2 that would've held officer quarters)

### Weapons

To see specific weapons components select [S] for small weapons components, [M] for medium weapons components and [L] for large weapons components.

### Faction Unique Components

Use the in-game filter of the Starport ship upgrade screen to see the latest and complete up to date list of faction specific components. Simply select the "multi-faction" flag from the filter menu to view the list. Please note that you will not be able to install the component unless you are on the appropriate faction's world, and other requirements may apply.