No Man's Sky: How to get freighters and frigates

 We teach you how to get freighters and frigates and we reveal everything you can do with them in your possession in No Man's Sky.

Among the ships and vehicles that exist in No Man's Sky, one of the most important that every player should have are freighters and frigates. If you don't know how they work, in this section of our guide we are going to tell you how to get a freighter and its fleet of frigates.

How to get a freighter?

Keep in mind that you can only have one freighter at a time in No Man's Sky and the first one can be obtained completely for free by completing a special rescue mission, although there are other ways to get freighters.

Rescue a freighter in a space battle

The main way to get your first freighter is to do a space battle to rescue it. These space battles occur approximately every 3 actual game hours and every 5 jumps between systems (the first of them should occur when you jump to another system for the third time).

You will be able to identify one of these rescue missions when you travel with your ship because you will receive a distress signal with the coordinates (you may also see the battle immediately after making the jump to the new system). These battles are easily recognized because there are pirate ships attacking a freighter.

• What you must do is come to the rescue and eliminate all the pirate ships.
• If you have a good reputation with the freighter race, there may be ships to help you in the task.
• Try not to shoot at the freighter's defenses or the allied ships so as not to turn them against you.
• When you're done, the captain will call you and invite you to come up to the freighter's hangar.
• Dock and go to the command room to speak with the captain.

When speaking with the captain you will be given the option to keep the freighter by clicking on "Inspect freighter", and you can accept to receive it for free. This first freighter will be a regular type, however, you can decline the offer and click on "Request payment instead" to later redeem a second freighter and keep that one, which will be a superior capital type.

Alternative ways to get freighters

Although the main way to obtain freighters is by rescuing them from pirates, it is also possible to obtain freighters through these two methods :

• Negotiate with the captains: sometimes you will find freighters on your travels, you can land in their hangar and go up to talk to the captain to negotiate the purchase of the freighter.
• Repair freighters: which you may find crashed, once repaired it is possible to claim them for yourself.

How to get an S Class freighter?

As with spaceships, freighters can also be better or worse in their attributes depending on the type of class they have. We already know that the largest class is the S, but how do you obtain one of these freighters?

Like so many other things, it's a matter of chance and patience. S-Class freighters appear more frequently in rich economy systems, meaning those with 3 stars (a 2% chance). Therefore, our recommendation is that you look for them in those systems. If you follow the pirate rescue method, you can always do calculations to know when you will encounter one.

• Remember, you must play 3 hours and jump systems 5 times for a freighter rescue battle to appear.
• Save manually before making the fifth jump to a system.
• Thus, if the freighter that appears is not Class S, you can load the game and try again until you find the one you want.
• If a freighter does not appear, repeat the process of saving on a planet and jumping again to another system until you find one.

Get a fleet of frigates

Frigates are the ships that accompany freighters, they are normally found next to them. Players can have a maximum of 30 frigates and their services can be hired after owning a freighter by traveling near them and contacting the captain through the ship's intercom (some frigates are not available for purchase).

Types of frigates

There are 5 different types of frigates, they are the following:

• Combat frigate: specialized in combat, it can help you in space battles and send allied sentry ships.
• Exploration Frigate: Specialized in exploration, you can activate artifact scanners to find locations of ancient ruins.
• Industrial frigate: superior industrial capabilities, can produce materials more efficiently.
• Trading frigate: greater commercial capacity, can produce more units.
• Support Frigate: Specialized in support, it can provide fuel savings or a small improvement in fleet strength in all areas.

Send frigates on expeditions

Frigates can be sent on expeditions, which are special missions intended for the frigates themselves. In order to participate in expeditions you need to create a fleet command room on your freighter. From there you can check the available expeditions.

• There are 5 new expeditions: available every day (reset is at midnight).
• In each expedition: up to 5 frigates from your fleet can participate.
• The duration of the expeditions: is counted in real-time, even with the game closed.
• Difficulty levels: Expeditions can range in difficulty from 1 to 5 stars.

The objective of the expeditions is to send frigates to complete the mission so that if they do so successfully they return and report rewards such as resources, nanites, and more. It must be taken into account that frigates can be damaged during expeditions. Frigates can increase their level after completing expeditions.