Living Ship (Starship) (2024)

The subject of this article is from the Echoes update. The information from this article is up-to-date as of 13 February, 2024.

The subject of this article is from the Echoes update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 13 February, 2024.

A Living Ship is an organic starship.

Summary[ | ]

A Living Ship is an organic starship; much like a fusion between a traditional starship and a creature. The player may naturally develop their first Living Ship via the Starbirth quest free of charge, or purchase one with Nanites after the quest has been completed.

Living Ships can only be piloted by the player and not by NPCs. They always come in S class and a 22+21 storage configuration. However, it is possible to trade a Living Ship with an NPC's Starship, and then recruit that NPC to your squadron, allowing the player to assemble a full fleet of Living Ships, although at a heavy price of 12,800 Quicksilver and 40,000 Nanites - combined with unlocking squadron member slots with additional Nanites, making assembling a full Living Ship fleet an extremely expensive operation.

In some cases, Living Ships may be the best class of starship, and for many reasons:

• They are capable of warping to any star system of any color without a Cadmium, Emeril, or Indium Drive.
• They are very easy to maintain as "recharging" their organs requires very basic and easily obtainable materials such as Silver, Oxygen, Chromatic Metal, etc. instead of tedious materials such as Starship Launch Fuel or Warp Cells.
• They do not ever appear in a class other than S, guaranteeing the best statistics.
• All upgrades acquired from Psychonic Egg can be "grown" into S-class with nanite.
• Once an upgrade for the ship's brain [the Neural Assembly] achieves S-class, it will allow the brain to automatically "recharge".

However, Living Ships also have some drawbacks in comparison from a traditional metal starship:

• Not compatible with most traditional technology, such as additional weapons, upgrades, and Storage Augmentation.
• Psychonic Eggs for upgrades and Spawning Sacs for slot expansion can only be randomly obtained from sending a frigate fleet with one or more Organic Frigates to an expedition.
• Their organs and their upgrades, when damaged, may require rare materials such as Hypnotic Eyes, Living Slime, Larval Cores, etc. that may not be immediately available.
• Lack of weapon variety. Come with only two innate weapons; Spewing Vents (Living Ship counterpart of Photon Cannon) and Grafted Eyes (Living Ship counterpart of Phase Beam) and has no other craftable weapon available.
• Living Ships cannot be scrapped, they can only be traded for other ships.

Obtaining[ | ]

To obtain the first Living Ship, a player will need to purchase a Void Egg from the Space Anomaly for 3,200 Quicksilver and complete the Starbirth quest.

Should the player wish to acquire a second Living Ship after the completion of the quest, they will need to purchase and activate another Void Egg by pulsing with their starship. The encounter seems to trigger faster when pulsing with a Living Ship compared to a normal starship. The player will then encounter a living ship in deep space, which will communicate with the player, prompting them to hatch the egg or to not. Should the player hatch the egg, the Void Egg will be removed from the player's inventory, and the location of a Living Ship will be marked. The player then needs to fly to the location, and must sacrifice 10,000 to claim the Living Ship. Reload an autosave if it does not show up correctly as a Living Ship, but rather as a normal crashed ship, or if you are not satisfied with its appearance.

Each planet has multiple living ship models. To get a specific ship, follow these steps:

1. Go to a very distant system (e.g. in another galaxy).
2. Hatch the egg to get the questmarker.
3. Then don't go to the marker, but back to the system where the ship you want is.
4. Fly to the crash site of the ship.
5. When you are at the crash site, restart the quest in your log. The ship should turn into a living ship. If not, save and reload and try again.

For a list of documented Living Ships, see Starship Catalogue - Living Ship.

Organs[ | ]

These biological ships have their own set of unique organic pseudo-technologies, all procedurally generated for a customized, evolved loadout.

• Neural Assembly - near-equivalent of the Launch Thrusters. The difference is that S class upgrades give you both guaranteed -20% launch cost plus automatic recharging per upgrade, while A class ones give you a guaranteed -20% launch cost. There are no boost values granted like in the more recent Launch Thruster Upgrades.
• Pulsing Heart - equivalent of the Pulse Engine
• Singularity Cortex - equivalent of the Hyperdrive
• Scream Suppressor - equivalent of the Deflector Shield
• Spewing Vents - equivalent of the Photon Cannon
• Grafted Eyes - equivalent of the Phase Beam

Upgrades[ | ]

Procedural upgrades, excluding inventory, can be achieved by using Psychonic Eggs.

Upgrade Modules for Living Ships may be obtained via a special Void Egg space encounter or by hatching Psychonic Eggs, and are incompatible with normal upgrades.

The upgrades can be developed to higher classes with Nanites.

Notes:

1. Damage Stats visually indicated on upgrade in-game do not appear to reflect actual in game results.

2. Upgrade modules should be added adjacent to the core system where possible, to a maximum of three upgrades in each type of inventory slot (eg. cargo and technology slots). This is best achieved by arrangements in a 2x2 box, or as a slightly lower cumulative gain as a line of 3 vertically or horizontally adjacent to the core system.

Stats[ | ]

• Base Launch Cost:
  • Creative: 0%
  • Relaxed: 10%
  • Normal: 25%
  • Survival: 30%
• Maneuverability: Average (~200)
• Inventory:

• Type bonus (+%):

Class	Damage		Shield		Hyperdrive
	min	max	min	max	min	max
	35	50	10	25	50	65

Body Designations[ | ]

Heads[ | ]

• Anvil
• Hammerhead
• Shark
• Tusked
• Compact

Armor[ | ]

• Long Arm
• Short Arm
• Bigfoot
• Fruitbowl Feet
• Pedestal Feet

Thrusters[ | ]

• Triple Thruster
• Single Thruster

References[ | ]

Living Ship part names - Reddit post

Release history[ | ]

• Living Ship - Introduced into the game.
• Endurance - Added the ability to upgrade living ships.