How many ships are there?

Outer Directive launches with 13 ship classes spanning 5 size categories. Each class has a distinct role, slot layout, and stat profile. Future updates will add faction variants and specialized hulls, but the core 13 classes cover every combat, industrial, and logistics role in the game.

How does ship fitting work?

Each ship has high, mid, low, and rig slots. You drag modules into slots from your hangar. Each module consumes Power Grid (PG) and CPU. If you exceed your ship's PG or CPU capacity, you cannot online that module. Rigs consume Calibration points instead. The fitting screen shows real-time stats as you add modules so you can optimize before undocking.

What's the biggest ship?

The Dreadnought is the largest player-flyable ship at XL size class. It has 15,000 base HP, 8 high slots, 6 mid slots, 6 low slots, and 3 rig slots. Dreadnoughts require capital-class modules and take days of factory time to manufacture. They can enter siege mode for massive damage bonuses but cannot move or receive remote repairs while sieged.

Yes. When your ship's hull reaches zero HP, it is destroyed. You eject in an escape pod and can dock at the nearest station. A portion of your fitted modules and cargo drops as loot that anyone can scoop. Ship loss is permanent, so you will need to buy or build a replacement. This is what gives combat its weight and makes every engagement meaningful.

SYS.HANGAR // HULL.CONFIG

Ships & Fitting

Thirteen hull classes. Sixty-five modules. Thousands of possible configurations. Your ship is not a preset loadout. It is a puzzle you solve differently for every situation. Then you take it into combat and find out if you solved it right.

5 Size Classes: XS to XL

Ships are organized into five size classes. Larger is not always better. Each size class trades agility and signature for raw power and durability.

XS: Frigates & Corvettes

CLASS.XS

Probe (100 HP) • Interceptor (180 HP) • Tackle Frigate (220 HP)

Tiny, fast, nearly impossible for large weapons to track. Frigates are the eyes and hands of any fleet, handling scouting, tackling, and electronic warfare. Cheap to build, expendable by design, lethal in packs.

Slot layout: 3 High / 3 Mid / 2 Low / 2 Rig

S: Destroyers

CLASS.S

Gunship Destroyer (600 HP) • Missile Destroyer (550 HP)

Anti-frigate specialists with bonus tracking on small weapons. Destroyers put out withering damage against anything their size or smaller, but their thin defenses make them vulnerable to cruiser-class fire.

Slot layout: 5 High / 3 Mid / 3 Low / 2 Rig

M: Cruisers & Battlecruisers

CLASS.M

Combat Cruiser (2,200 HP) • Logistics Cruiser (1,800 HP) • Battlecruiser (3,500 HP)

The backbone of fleet warfare. Cruisers balance firepower, defense, and mobility. Logistics cruisers keep fleets alive with remote shield and armor repairs. Battlecruisers add extra firepower with battleship-class weapon mounts on a cruiser-speed hull.

Slot layout: 5-6 High / 4-5 Mid / 4-5 Low / 3 Rig

L: Battleships

CLASS.L

Fleet Battleship (8,000 HP) • Marauder (9,500 HP)

Heavy hitters that anchor fleet formations. Large weapons deal devastating damage to anything cruiser-sized or larger. Marauders can activate bastion mode: double damage and tank but cannot move. Slow to align and warp, vulnerable to frigate swarms without escort.

Slot layout: 7 High / 6 Mid / 6 Low / 3 Rig

XL: Capital Ships

CLASS.XL

Carrier (12,000 HP) • Dreadnought (15,000 HP)

War-defining assets that take days to build and alliances to deploy. Carriers launch fighter squadrons that act as independent damage-dealing units. Dreadnoughts enter siege mode for extreme damage against structures and other capitals. Both require cynosural beacons to jump between systems.

Slot layout: 8 High / 6 Mid / 6 Low / 3 Rig

65+ Fitting Modules

Modules define what your ship does. The same Cruiser hull can become a long-range sniper, a close-range brawler, a logistics platform, or an electronic warfare nightmare, all depending on what you fit.

SLOT.HIGH // WEAPONS

Weapons (High Slots)

Autocannons: High rate of fire, short range, selectable ammo for kinetic or explosive damage.
Railguns: Long range, high alpha strike, kinetic damage. Slow cycle time.
Beam Lasers: Consistent thermal damage, no ammo consumption, moderate range. Crystal lenses degrade over time.
Pulse Lasers: Short-range thermal with faster cycle than beams. Excellent tracking.
Missile Launchers: Selectable damage type via ammo. Ignores tracking (uses explosion radius/velocity instead). Travel time delay.
Torpedo Launchers: Capital-grade explosive damage. Massive burst against large targets, nearly useless against small ones.

SLOT.MID+LOW // DEFENSE

Defense (Mid & Low Slots)

Shield Extenders: Increase shield HP pool. Increases signature radius as a trade-off.
Shield Hardeners: Boost shield resistances to specific damage types. Active module, consumes capacitor.
Armor Plates: Add flat armor HP. No signature penalty but reduces agility.
Armor Hardeners: Boost armor resistances. Active module.
Armor Repairers: Restore armor HP over time. High capacitor cost. The core of active armor tanking.
Shield Boosters: Active shield restoration. Faster cycle than armor repairers but less efficient per capacitor.

SLOT.MID // UTILITY

Utility (Mid Slots)

Afterburners: +50% speed. Does not increase signature. Good for range control.
Microwarpdrives: +500% speed. Blooms signature by 500%. Indispensable for positioning but makes you easy to hit.
Warp Scramblers: Prevent target from warping. 9km range.
Stasis Webifiers: Reduce target speed by 60%. 10km range.
Sensor Boosters: Increase lock range and lock speed. Essential for snipers.

SLOT.RIG // PERMANENT

Rigs (Rig Slots)

Weapon Rigs: Improve rate of fire, damage, or optimal range for specific weapon types.
Defense Rigs: Boost shield or armor HP, resistance, or repair efficiency.
Navigation Rigs: Improve warp speed, align time, or afterburner/MWD performance.
Engineering Rigs: Increase power grid, CPU, or capacitor capacity. Enable tighter fits.

Rigs are permanent once installed. Removing a rig destroys it. Choose carefully.

Fitting Resources

Every ship has four fitting constraints that limit what you can equip. Building a good fit means optimizing within these boundaries.

Power Grid (PG)

Measured in megawatts (MW). Weapons and active defense modules consume the most. A Combat Cruiser might have 1,200 MW total. Fitting four medium railguns (180 MW each) leaves only 480 MW for everything else.

CPU

Measured in teraflops (tf). Electronic warfare, sensor modules, and utility modules are CPU-hungry. Running out of CPU before PG is the classic fitting puzzle.

Capacitor

Your ship's energy pool, measured in gigajoules (GJ). Active modules drain capacitor continuously. If your cap empties, active hardeners, repairers, and propulsion modules shut off. Cap stability, where recharge rate meets or exceeds drain, is the gold standard for sustained fights.

Calibration

pts

Rig-specific resource, typically 300-400 points per ship. Each rig consumes 50-200 calibration. You cannot exceed your ship's calibration budget, limiting you to 2-3 rigs depending on their size.

Learn how to build your first fit in the Ship Fitting Guide.

Stacking Penalty

To prevent degenerate fits that stack five identical modules, Outer Directive applies a stacking penalty to modules that affect the same attribute. The penalty follows a diminishing-returns curve:

FORMULA.STACKING_PENALTY

1st Module

100%

2nd Module

87%

3rd Module

57%

4th Module

28%

By the fourth module of the same type, you are getting barely a quarter of its listed benefit. This encourages diverse fits that combine different module types rather than brute-force stacking a single stat. A well-rounded ship will outperform a one-dimensional one in almost every scenario.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Balance

No single ship or fit dominates. The combat meta is built on hard counters that ensure fleet composition and adaptation matter more than individual ship quality.

Frigates beat Battleships because they are too small and fast for large weapons to track. A swarm of frigates can pin down and slowly dismantle a battleship that lacks escort.

Destroyers beat Frigates through bonus tracking and high rate of fire that shred frigates. A single destroyer can clear a frigate wing.

Cruisers beat Destroyers because medium weapons track well enough to hit destroyers while absorbing their return fire with superior defenses.

Battleships beat Cruisers with overwhelming alpha damage and tank. Cruisers cannot break a battleship before it destroys them.

Capitals beat everything in raw power but they are slow, expensive, and vulnerable to dedicated anti-capital tactics like bomber wings and energy neutralizer squads.

See how these dynamics play out in the combat system.

Frequently Asked Questions

Build Your First Ship

Pick a hull, fit your modules, and undock into a galaxy where your choices define your power.

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