Knowing where to find upgrades and new ships to buy but also how the different upgrades will affect them is vital for a successful playthrough.
Where to Buy Ships?
There are specific space stations in the X4 Universe from where you can buy new ships and upgrades. These space stations are labeled as Wharfs and Shipyards and offer different ships.
Wharfs have a variety of small and medium size ships while Shipyards offer large and extra large ships. Each faction has a shipyard and a wharf, where you can find unique models to them. Inside these space stations you can also upgrade your ships.
Equipment Docks also offer upgrades for your ships but you cannot buy new ships there.
Every faction will have some special ships for you to buy that will be locked at first. To unlock them you have to build up your reputation with the appropriate faction.
Faction Shipyards, Wharfs and Equipment Docks also offer unique modules, like shields and weapons that you again have to unlock first.
How to Upgrade Your Ships?
Upgrading your ship with new modules is a very easy and straightforward process. The UI highlights the most important modules so you can quickly upgrade those and move on. Of course you can go through the list and the different categories one by one.
In general there are six categories of equipment to choose from, as well as a consumables and crew options.
These categories are :
Engines, further divided in All-round, Combat and Travel. Travel engines will help you travel faster, combat will increase your performance when fighting and All-round will try to find a balance between the two.
Thrusters, that affect your pitch, yaw and roll values and are divided in All-round and combat.
Shields, that protect your ship and the better they are the higher their hit-points and protection they offer.
Weapons, that offer a variety of offensive or defensive options.
Turrets, that work like weapons but are mostly used in larger ships.
Software, from where you can pick important and in some cases mandatory tools for your ship. In the software category you can find the Docking Computer, Flight Assist, Long-range Scanner, Object Scanner, Targeting Computer and the Trading Computer Extension.
Consumables include many items that will help you in your journey, like satellites that are very useful for Trading and not only, nav. beacons and resource probes that are useful for Mining.
Crew, from here you can hire a pilot for your new ship, service crew and marines.
How to Build a Ship?
When you are docked in a Shipyard or Wharf you can build a new ship.
First you need to choose the size of the ship you wish to build, small, medium, large depending on the station you are and the offered variety.
Then you can pick the model that you like the most and will help you achieve your goals in the game. There are dedicated fighters, miners, traders etc so if you are interested in a specific activity, you should choose the right chassis.
The initial cost includes only the chassis. You have to add everything else and this is why we are using the term build. Depending on your needs and budget you can equip your ship with modules and software, buy consumables and hire crew. Create like this your own personal loadout. The final cost will depend on how expensive are the modules you have bought.
Alternatively the game offers several preset loadout options to choose from. Once you are done, order your ship and wait a couple minutes for the station to build it.
the pictures are from rdr1