The hauler
One ship, and you will fly it for the whole campaign. It is a 4,200 kg VTOL cargo airframe with four pods, a bay that takes 130 units of ore off the line, and no landing gear worth the name — which is why setting it down is the hard part.
Stock specification
| Figure | Stock | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Dry mass | 4,200 kg | Before fuel, before ore. Mass is what makes a landing hard. |
| Main thrust | 46 kN | Enough to lift the ship plus a full hold with headroom to arrest a descent. No upgrade ever sells you more of this. |
| Boosters | 35 kN | Aft. How you cover ground, and how you empty a tank. |
| Retros | 18 kN | About half the boosters. A hauler is not meant to be good at going backwards. |
| Fuel | 1,400 kg | Roughly half an hour of real flying. Pinned boost spends it in about six minutes. |
| Hold | 130 units | Ore units, not tonnes. Osmium is dense; aggregate is not. |
| Max tilt | 32° | The limit on the lift vector, and therefore on how hard you can translate. |
The upgrade lines
10 lines, 26 levels, bought with credits at the workshop — shut the ship down on the paint of a base pad and press U. A full fit-out is 51,200 credits and the campaign pays 29,700, so roughly the last third of the ship is job-board money. The question is which ship you want, not how long you are willing to grind.
Note what is not on this list: lift. Upgrades buy range, speed, capacity and tolerance, never the thing that makes the core interaction hard.
| Line | Group | What it is for | Levels | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auxiliary tanks | Systems | More fuel, and the far claims stop being a calculation. | 1. +300 kg fuel 1,200 cr 2. +300 kg fuel 2,000 cr 3. +400 kg fuel 3,200 cr | 6,400 cr |
| Booster overhaul | Airframe | Harder aft units. Gets you there sooner and burns for the privilege. | 1. +3.5 kN boost 1,200 cr 2. +3.5 kN boost 2,000 cr 3. +4 kN boost, +2 kN retro 3,200 cr | 6,400 cr |
| Bay extension | Airframe | A deeper bay. More ore per trip, and a heavier ship to set down. | 1. 175 units 1,200 cr 2. 225 units 2,000 cr 3. 290 units 3,200 cr | 6,400 cr |
| Reinforced skids | Airframe | Take a firmer arrival without paying for it at the hull shop. | 1. Safe descent 2.2 → 3.0 m/s 1,200 cr 2. Safe descent 3.0 → 3.8 m/s 2,000 cr 3. Safe descent 3.8 → 4.6 m/s 3,200 cr | 6,400 cr |
| Landing floods | Systems | Brighter, wider. Night pads stop being a matter of faith. | 1. Brighter floods 1,200 cr 2. Brighter still, wider spread 2,000 cr | 3,200 cr |
| Approach computer | Systems | A wider bubble to hand her over in, and a computer that will take her hotter. | 1. Hand over from 54 m, 18 m/s 1,200 cr 2. Hand over from 66 m, 20 m/s 2,000 cr 3. Hand over from 78 m, 22 m/s 3,200 cr | 6,400 cr |
| Burner rebuild | Systems | Cleaner burn. The same tank goes further, which is cheaper than a bigger one. | 1. −6% fuel burn 1,200 cr 2. −12% fuel burn 2,000 cr 3. −18% fuel burn 3,200 cr | 6,400 cr |
| RCS package | Airframe | Quicker to tip and quicker to level. She answers the stick instead of thinking about it. | 1. Faster tilt, yaw and auto-level 1,200 cr 2. Faster still 2,000 cr | 3,200 cr |
| Storm fairing | Airframe | Panels over the ribs. The gusts get less of her, and so does the air. | 1. Gusts cut by a quarter 1,200 cr 2. Gusts cut by nearly half 2,000 cr | 3,200 cr |
| Hardened suit | Systems | Layered scour cloth. The dust takes longer to get through, and so does the cold. | 1. Scour and cold cut by 30% 1,200 cr 2. Scour and cold halved 2,000 cr | 3,200 cr |
What to fit first
Auxiliary tanks, if you are running out of fuel. The far claims stop being an arithmetic problem the moment you can reach them and come back without planning it. This is the upgrade that opens the map.
Reinforced skids, if you are paying the hull shop. The safe descent rate goes from 2.2 m/s to 3.0 and then upward, and every step of that is a landing that used to cost money and now does not. If you keep arriving hard, this pays for itself faster than anything else on the list.
The approach computer, if you use the autopilot. It widens the bubble you can hand over inside and the state you can hand over in — 50 m becomes 100 m, 16 m/s becomes 22. A bigger circle alone would only move the refusal from "TOO FAR" to "TOO FAST", which is why it buys both.
The bay, if you are hauling ore for money. More units per trip is straightforwardly more credits per trip — and a heavier ship to set down, which is the trade.
Most of an upgrade is a merge over the ship's configuration, so nothing in the flight model knows upgrades exist — it is handed a config and flies it. That is why a fitted ship feels like the same ship, only further along. The credits guide covers how to pay for all this.