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What is the cheapest and easiest cap ship to get?

Apr 08, 2019 SkeezyGreedo link
I've only been playing for about 10 hours and Ive just learned that I can build a cap ship eventually and fly it! I can dock with it in my main ship to access it and fly it. It sounds so cool! What's the easiest one in your opinion to get? I know it's probably gonna be a long time before I actually get one.
Apr 08, 2019 Nick_9137 link
Okay, so there are a couple things to know about before diving into capships into VO.

Ohe most important of these things, is the license requirement to build a capship, which is 5/-/-/9/4. The reason this is important is because, to reach this license level, you need to pay for the monthly $10 subscription (It's cheaper in the long run to pay for multiple months at a time), or receive a game key from someone.

There are currently two manufacturable capships. The Goliath (Goli) , and the Trident Type M (TTM).

The Goliath is the easiest capship to build at the moment, with less than half the Trident's requirements, but also lower statistics.

The Goliath has:
1 Large Port
3 Turret Ports
600 cu
4000 Energy
55 Grid

Compared to the TTM which has:
1 Large Port
4 Turret Ports
800 cu
4000 Energy
125 Grid

(I left out some stats, but that's because I can't remember them off-hand and someone can probably fill that in for me)

Yes, it will take a while, and most players either don't build one because of the huge requirements and grinding, or they just aren't able to invest time, etc.

Now of course, the 5/-/-/9-/4 license isn't the only requirement. You need to have access to the three hidden, conquerable stations in Gray space which a new player will not be able to pull off when they just start out, so to do so you will need to join a guild. The process of building one take's a lot of time too, and I mean several months. (I clocked in around 3000 hours before building both of the capships, but some people have done it in 12 days). And lastly credits. lots and lots of credits. A Goliath build is around 100-250 Million Credits for all of the various Items and Widgets if you buy and mine them all yourself. A Trident is probably closer to 500 Million and up.

So to summarize: Goliath is the Easier/Cheaper Build, Trident Type M is the harder/Expensive build
Apr 09, 2019 SkeezyGreedo link
Yikes. Well um. There goes my hopes and dreams of getting a capital ship. As it is getting a behemoth heavy miner is gonna take hours and hours. This game seems to be wayyy grindier than elite dangerous. Holy shit 3000 hours.
Apr 09, 2019 yodaofborg link
To be fair, you are setting your goals to what it considered end-game content here. I mean, the heavy behemoth might be quite hard to get, but it's contemporary counterpart can be gotten without much grind... and a subscription.

The capitol ships as mentioned are also far from a finished product and were added only due to the community asking for them and saying things like "make them hard to get, we do not care if they are finished NEED CAPSHIPS!" so yeah, they might seem like a lot of grind to get, fact is though, you do not need one.
Apr 09, 2019 SkeezyGreedo link
You are right. I don't need one. But I want one. It's such a cool concept. Like the freighters from no man's sky. I also don't want to pay for a subscription since I payed $3 for the game already. $10 a month on top of my other subscription based services is just a bit much.
Apr 09, 2019 Phaserlight link
You do need to be subscribed to fly a cap ship, but you don't need to be subscribed to work on building one.

Some of the components will require a Behemoth XC, which has 200 cu cargo; this is where the trade and mining license requirements come from. However, not all components are this big. Fluid Formable Silksteel Alloy is only 50 cu, Fused Composite Plating is 120 cu, Merged Cybernetics Arrays are 22 cu, etc. Synthetic Silksteel is ubiquitous, but you will need a lot of it, and each unit only takes up 4 cu.

You can collect all of these while on the free-to-play tier. Synthetic Silksteel is everywhere; there are some pirate Tridents in Greyspace that drop other cap ship components, you can trade with or pirate other player pilots as well.

The conquerable stations have Combat 5 as the requirement to manufacture the components, but you can get them from other players that have already built/acquired them or pick them up from big targets in Grey. These last two do not require a subscription.

There is a long chain of missions that will eventually lead to you having a unit of Samoflange (Leviathans also drop this); this is necessary in a cap ship build, and it's currently valued by players at tens of millions of credits. You don't need a subscription to get this.

All this is to say don't worry about the sub; play on the free tier if that's what you're comfortable with, and work on acquiring things you will need for your cap ship build. Try bombing the conquerable stations or flying escort to see what it's like. Once you have a certain level of wealth with respect to capital ship components and/or credits, maybe then look at subscribing.
Apr 09, 2019 SkeezyGreedo link
Ok cool. Thanks for the info. YouTube and Google are almost info barren when it comes to this game. I've gotten all my help from chat and here. If you can answer another question, about that subscription behemoth. Where do I get it if I subscribe? How much cargo can it hold? Seriously though thank you
Apr 09, 2019 Luxen link
the Behemoth XC can be bought at all TPG faction stations [look in UIT territory or Latos] once you have obtained licenses equal to -/-/-/9/4.

We should put it that a full subscription removes the license level cap of 4, and lets you purchase anything without requiring "crystals", as well as allowing you to use the PC platform. It does not give you any ships; you still need to meet the license requirement.
Apr 17, 2019 elfridaauston87 link
Well Explanation Nick