The player can unlock access to using their extra Ships as a Fleet. Each can be assigned a pilot and crew and will follow the player through space and help them in combat.
During the main quest, Gren will introduce the player to the Fleet Command Terminal. This can be used to assign companions and crew to the player’s other Ships.
Accessing the Fleet Command Terminal will list how many Ships and crew the player has, and how many Ships their Fleet has - which represents the Ships that will follow their Home Ship when in space. At the start, the player’s Fleet can have one Ship. Each of the entries on the Terminal is one of the names of one of the non-Home Ship’s, with the current crew and max crew count listed.
Selecting one will take the player to a details menu for that Ship. It depends on the Ship type and the number of Fleet slots available to the player that will determine what options appear.
Assign Crew - This option will appear if additional slots are currently available in the player’s Fleet, and allows for selecting from known crew members the player has available and assigning them to the Ship. The first crew member assigned is made the pilot.
Unassign Crew - If the Ship is one of the player's active Fleet Ships, this option will appear, allowing for unassigning specific crew members from that Ship. If all members are unassigned, that Ship will be removed from the Fleet, and the player will be able to assign crew to any non-Fleet ships again to make those active in the Fleet.
Follow Distance - This allows setting how close to the player’s Home Ship this one will fly.
Combat Behavior - This allows changing the type of behavior the Fleet Ship will engage in during combat. As of this writing, the two options are Defensive (the Ship will defend itself, the player, and the other Fleet Ships only if they are attacked first), and Offensive (the Ship will attack any hostile Ships in the loaded area on-sight - this is the default setting).
After the player returns to Stardock the first time after the quest The Stars Have Eyes, speaking to Gren will result in unlocking buildable Fleet Command Terminals on the player’s Ships, which will have the same options available.
One of Gren’s dialogue options after the quest The Stars Have Eyes will allow for expanding the max size of the player’s Fleet in exchange for Computer Cores.
Each additional ship slot costs one Computer Core.
The player's Fleet will always jump wherever the player does, but will remain in orbit when the player lands on a planet or docks with a Starstation (with the exception of Stardock).
They will automatically engage in combat alongside the player based on their Combat Behavior setting (see Starting a Fleet section above).
Ships in the Fleet will gain the benefits of their corresponding crew members, and the Skydrops installed on each of those Ships will become available as options when the player programs a Skydrop Flare.
The player is free to dock with their Fleet Ships in space, board them, and interact with the crew.
As the player's Fleet gets more powerful, certain space encounters in the base game can start to become fairly trivial. For this reason, we've added a setting that allows the player to prevent them from showing up except against Watchtower encounters - which are tuned with the assumption the player will have multiple Ships helping them.
This option has two modes.
| Setting Value | Description | XP Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Always (Default) | This will cause the player's Fleet ships to always follow them while in space. | N/A |
| Limited | This will cause the player's Fleet ships to only jump in when the player is facing a Watchtower encounter. | +5% |