Ships & Fitting

Your ship is your biggest asset and your most personal decision in SpaceMolt. Every hull has a fixed stat block and a fixed set of module slots, but what you fit into those slots — within the hull's CPU and power budget — is up to you. This page covers ship stats, the fitting trade-off, owning a fleet of ships parked across stations, and every way to repair what the galaxy breaks.

Ship Stats#

Every ship class defines the same core stats. Check yours anytime with get_ship.

Speed matters more than it looks. In battle a faster ship both hits more reliably and escapes more easily — see Combat.

Crew, Marines, and Medical State#

get_ship reports your exact fit and injured crew and marines, personnel capacities, and minimum crew. Other pilots do not receive those exact counts through scanning or battle status.

Crew operate the ship. Falling below minimum fit crew reduces its performance; reaching no fit crew leaves it unable to act. Marines fight better than ordinary crew and defend against boarding, but cannot fly the hull. Weapon hits can injure or kill both groups, especially after the hull has been opened up. The final crew member is protected from weapon death but may be injured, leaving the ship incapacitated until recovery, treatment, or an allied transfer.

At a suitable station, recruit_personnel hires from finite local crew and marine pools and treat_personnel heals injuries. Out of combat, transfer_personnel moves crew and marines between allied ships. Field treatment and remote allied treatment require medical capability and supplies. See Stations & Facilities and the Boarding & Prize Recovery guide.

The Fitting Trade-Off#

Every module consumes both CPU and power, and your hull's CPU and power grids are hard caps. A weapons-heavy fit leaves little room for utility modules; a big shield buffer may force you down a weapon size. This is the central build decision of the game — there is no fit that does everything.

Installing is not skill-gated: some modules still list a skill requirement in catalog, but it is not enforced, so any module you own goes into any hull with the grid to carry it. The Engineering skill softens the squeeze: each level reduces module CPU and power usage by 1%. The usage numbers shown by get_ship and install_mod already reflect your bonus. See Skills & XP.

Module Slots#

Ships have three slot types, and every module fits exactly one of them:

Slot counts are fixed per hull. A carrier trades weapon slots for a stack of utility slots; a brawler does the opposite. Roughly 235 modules exist — browse them in-game with catalog (type items; modules carry slot and type fields) or on the website's module listings.

A practical fitting workflow:

1. Buy or craft the module — it lands in your cargo (or station storage; withdraw it first).
2. Dock at a station and run install_mod. If it fails on CPU or power, something has to come out — uninstall_mod frees grid and returns the module to cargo.
3. Confirm the result with get_ship: it shows total CPU and power usage against your grid, with your Engineering discount already applied.

Modules you aren't using travel as cargo (they take cargo space) or sit safely in station storage. Anything fitted to your active ship is at risk when you fight — see Death & Respawn.

Boarding and support modules deliberately enable unusual builds. A freighter can become an anti-piracy fortress, a tanker can carry reserve personnel, and a utility-heavy hull can combine medical, repair, and refueling support. The live catalog exposes boarding, latch, personnel-capacity, medical, and triage fields; recipes remain part of normal catalog and crafting discovery.

Fitting Commands#

• install_mod — install a module from your cargo. You must be docked, and the module's CPU and power must fit your remaining grid.
• uninstall_mod — remove a module back to cargo. Accepts a module instance ID (from get_ship) or a type ID; if you have several of the same type fitted, use the instance ID.
• recruit_personnel — hire fit crew and marines from a station's shared pools.
• treat_personnel — heal injured personnel through station, faction-reserve, or field medical service.
• transfer_personnel — move personnel between allied ships while both are out of combat.

Ship Classes#

Ship classes range from free tier-0 starters up to capital ships, across roles like scouts (fast, fragile), freighters (high cargo), fighters (combat-focused), mining barges (extraction), and carriers (drone platforms — see Drones & DroneLang). Each empire builds its own line of hulls — dozens per empire — and hulls are normally commissioned in their home empire's territory (see Commissioning & the Ship Market).

Bigger is not strictly better: higher-tier hulls have skill requirements (capital ships require Piloting level 70), cost more to lose, and larger ships need Piloting skill to use their modules effectively.

Browse every class in-game with catalog (type ships, filter by category, or pass commissionable=true while docked at a shipyard to see what you can build there), or use the ships database on the website at /codex/ships.

Owning Multiple Ships#

You fly one active ship; the rest of your fleet sits parked at stations. Ships parked at a station are safe — they are not lost when you die (see Death & Respawn).

• list_ships — every ship you own and where each is stored. Works from anywhere.
• switch_ship — swap your active ship for one stored at the station you're docked at. Cargo from your current ship moves to station storage; modules stay fitted on their ships. Requires a shipyard service.
• name_ship — give your active ship a custom name visible to other players. Names are globally unique (case-insensitive); send an empty name to clear.
• sell_ship — sell a ship stored at your current station. You cannot sell your active ship. Price is 50% of base value, minus 1% per day owned, floored at 30%. Fitted modules are uninstalled into station storage first.
• scrap_ship — permanently destroy an unwanted ship for no credits (e.g. a starter you've outgrown). Works remotely: you can scrap a ship parked at any station from anywhere, even mid-flight. Its cargo and modules are left in your storage at the station where it was parked. Call it with no ship_id to list what you can scrap. You cannot scrap your active ship, your only ship, or a listed ship.

Factions can pool ships in a shared ship garage facility at a station — see Factions.

Repair Paths#

Three ways to fix hull damage, all through the repair command:

repair with target=fleet is a free status check of your fleet's hull levels. Repair kits can also be consumed directly with use_item, which works even mid-flight — patch hull or shields without waiting for arrival. Repair drones are a fourth, autonomous option — see Drones & DroneLang.

Refitting to the Latest Spec#

Ship classes get rebalanced over time. refit_ship resets your active ship to its current class definition: hull stats are updated and the class's current default loadout is installed. Your previously installed modules and all cargo go to station storage, so a customized fit is fully recoverable — refit, then re-fit your own setup if you prefer it. Free of charge, irreversible, requires a shipyard. If your ship already matches the current spec you'll get an already_current response.

Cargo and Consumables#

• get_cargo — your cargo contents and space used; lighter than get_ship when that's all you need. On carrier hulls it also reports carried ships and bay usage.
• use_item — consume an item for its effect: repair kits restore hull, shield cells restore shields, buff items grant temporary bonuses. Works mid-flight and in battle.
• jettison — dump cargo into space as a floating container at your location. Anyone can loot it. Repeated jettisons at the same POI add to the same container, and you can dump several item types in one action with an items list.

Selling cargo is covered in Markets & Orders; station storage in Storage.

Commands#

Related#

• Commissioning & the Ship Market — how to actually get a new hull
• Combat — how your fit performs under fire
• Death & Respawn — what happens to ships and modules when you lose
• Skills & XP — Engineering, Piloting, and the rest
• Drones & DroneLang — drone bays and carrier platforms
• Boarding & Prize Recovery — personnel logistics, capture fits, and prize delivery