Interstellaria/Fleet management

Your fleet can consist of one to five ships at a time. There are four parts that require managing: the crew, the ships, the stations, and the weapons.

Crew
There are two approaches to the crew. You can hire robots to man the stations, or you can use normal crewmen. If you have more than one ship, you will generally want to put robots on the accessory ships so that you don't have to worry about the crew getting hungry, tired, or bored. If you choose to use normal crewmen on the accessory ships, you will either have to provide need stations for each ship or remember to transfer them back to the captain's ship. The second option has two variants. You can assign crew to the ships until they get hungry, or you can assign them to the ships only when you enter a battle. Most multi-ship setups will involve some mix of these options.

Ships
Players can control 21 different ships spread out among four size classes. Two can only be acquired once per game and require additional steps to get them. (See the Secrets page for the information on how to acquire them.) The number of ships and size of those ships affects the random fleets that appear on the Starmap. Story-based fleets will be constant no matter what you have in your fleet.

Scouts
Scouts are intended to make it easier to acquire a multi-ship fleet. They can be used to provide extra speed, firepower, and/or cargo space. The Human A2 Fighter is well balanced and the easiest to reach at the beginning of the game. The Anoa Torch Fighter costs less and has more armor, but it's slower and less powerful. The Suna Pod offers high shields and much less speed. The Kaidun Miner Craft offers the most space for stations and guns, but you can't use all of them and move at the same time. It can be used to cheaply provide a few more weapons in a sustainable format if you put robots and all four combat stations on it. The Kursha Fighter has the highest energy, the highest maximum speed, and a balanced armor to shields ratio, but it only has space for two stations, and it is the most expensive.

Corvettes
Corvettes are good for adding firepower or cargo space, and they can also be used as your main ship. The Old Empire Corvette that you start with has the most gun slots, but other than that, every other corvette is an improvement in some way. The Suna Corvette is the cheapest and has the most shields, high energy, and high space, but it only offers one gun slot. It is good for when you want to use a high-energy weapon (like Artillery) yet cannot afford the Kursha Corvette. The Anoa Corvette has the lowest space and energy, but it has more armor than the Old Empire Corvette. The Human Corvette MKII has the highest speed and a little shielding, but it sacrifices five extra armor for those shields. The Kaidun Corvette is the all-around best, so you should get it unless you want one of the other ships' strengths. The Kursha Corvette has the highest energy and better than average speed, so it can be almost as fast as the Human Corvette MKII, and still have extra energy. If you want speed, you should buy this, unless you don't have the cash.

Frigates
Frigates are mid-range upgrades to the corvettes. They can be used for anything for which smaller ships can be used, but will spawn more powerful enemies. The Suna Frigate has the most energy, but its low defense and gun slots make it feel more like the best corvette available. The Human Frigate MKII has the best speed, but doesn't have much more space than a corvette. The Kaidun Frigate has the slots and defense to be a cruiser, but it has the lowest speed and energy of the frigates. The Kursha Frigate is the most balanced, so it is the best choice if your fleet will consist of only one frigate.

Cruisers
The Suna Cruiser has the highest energy of any cruiser and the highest shields of any ship available to the player, but it only has three gun slots. Like the Suna Frigate, it can be considered the best of the size class below it. The Human Cruiser is cramped, but it offers a good balance for the price. The Kaidun Cruiser is the roomiest and the most heavily armored, but it has the least energy. The Kursha Cruiser is the fastest cruiser and has good stats all around. Unless you want to specialize, this is the best ship available.