As much of a spoiler as it is, I found out, as I know many did before me, that there’s a quick route to the center of any galaxy. No, it’s not looking up a portal address close to the center from someone who went before, it’s just spamming the first glyph at any portal. Apparently, in this golden age without portal interference, the first glyph will always drop you within a few thousand lightyears of the core. This actually made me feel more connected to the community. Playing on the Nintendo Switch I don’t get to run into players at the Nexus, so seeing all the communication stations around the portal at the other end of the jump was a fun reminder other players had gone before.

Thanks for your reply, I think it really puts some things in perspective. If that 150 hour figure is accurate, and I don’t doubt that it is, it really changes the lens I’m looking through on what efforts one must go to to get an S class freighter, let alone one in your preferred make and model.

I know we collectively call it save scumming, but I’m not so sure it rises to that level. The first game I ever put any real time in was Nethack, where save scumming is reason enough for apostasy if not excommunication! I might not do it, but unlike with the folks doing it in Nethack, I won’t bring out my torch and pitchfork against anyone in this community.

I picked up an A class, and now when I’m hitting derelicts I’m fabricating bulkheads instead of tech. If I wasn’t on Switch, and multiplayer was a consideration, I think I could see my way to resetting for an S class. At this point my freighter is a platform for sending organic frigates out to get living ship upgrades. If a future update changes freighters in a big way, the way the recent update brought Nexus missions to Switch, I may regret not just putting in the effort to get an S class, but that for another time.

For now though, I’m happy with my A class but I still enjoy hearing what others went through to get the freighter of their dreams. Oh, and I think the increased frigate capacity may be a reason for me not to get an S class. Could be unrelated because stability on Switch has always been a bit off, but with three pages of frigates I think I’m seeing more crashes when I’m in the same system as my freighter.

Thinking about it more, I think it’s maybe even bleaker. Forget the galaxy hopping for a moment. We have two modes of travel, portaling and faster than light warping. Lets say portaling is some sort of instant quantum entanglement something, but faster than light travel is going to have relativistic time dilation effects. Because we can still find the same people after a warp, everyone must be functionally immortal. Otherwise we’d have never see the same NPC twice, if we traveled by starship.

We’re for sure in a high economic disparity universe. Like we’re the 1% of the 1% living in a hopepunk wonderland and then the crews of our frigates are indentured servants living in the grimdarkest grimdark. I read all those expedition debriefs and, well, I’m glad I’m not crew. I don’t know if that qualifies as a head-cannon or if it’s just an observation. We and all the other NPC’s we encounter are for sure extremely high net worth individuals though.

I’ve noticed that on some missions I’m getting multiple eggs and storage enhancements and this could just be down to most of my organic frigates being tier C at this point (but gradually they’re getting better) the upgrades are also tending to be tier C. The few space encounters I’ve had snagged an S and an A (as well as a couple C’s). It’s certainly slower going compared to just buying upgrades, feels more satisfying though.

Playing on Switch I don’t see other players ships at all but I do wonder, how popular are living ships, like I’m sure most folks have one but are they common “daily drivers” or are they more of a have it just to have it ship?