I started my save as a rookie and just accepted the first freighter I was offered. It was a B class and had plenty of base built with parts I hadn’t even unlocked yet which was great for me ‘cause I was so early-game. Finally decided to get around to upgrading to a top of the line freighter, and after a couple weeks just casually checking out every freighter I happened to see the best I saw was a couple A’s.
Today I pretty much exclusively hunted for freighters for four hour (not contiguous hours, I can’t game for that long all at once!) without finding an S class. Finally, I caught an A I liked the look of, so I settled. Before I start spending bulkheads, is it worth it to keep casually looking for an S? Like, is there really any bonus beyond more supercharged slots? Searching gives me few results and most of it is 2-3 years old so may not even apply anymore.
I’d love to hear the groups advice, anecdotes, and other random freighter knowledge.
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.
No problem! I don’t mean to discourage you, I just don’t want you getting frustrated with the game when an S class never appears. I believe I have a combined 250-300 hours between main save and expeditions and I’ve seen a ‘natural’ S class freighter exactly once, and it was on an expedition file.
I use the term ‘save scumming’ but not in a derogatory way. It’s just the best way to get a lot of things done in NMS. I used it to get my S class venator freighter, and several community find ships at S class (prior to setting up my nanite farm - not worth it if you have one). I mainly spent the time to get the freighter because it felt bad to me spending bulkheads on anything that wasn’t S class. More of a FOMO type thing than anything else. These days my freighter is my sole base of operations, with my bases purely existing as markers and resource farms. (On pc though, bummer to hear that it’s unstable on switch)