Ulite: Transporting goods to your station

Most modules - especially when you're building one of the higher levels - require a vast quantity of raw materials to build. The obvious solution to getting the materials there is to buy a gigantic ship, say, an Imperial Heavy Cruiser. However, this has some drawbacks:

• Unless you've been playing for years, you probably don't have the Manoeuvring and Navigation skill to captain such a ship.
• You might not be able to afford such a giant ship, and to kit it out.

The first point is probably the biggest stumbling block, especially if your alliance has some money and is helping you out finance-wise. As you've already found out - money is really only a small part of the battle when buying a large ship.

Option 1. Recruit help from your alliance

Assuming the rest of your alliance isn't busy building their own stations, you might be able to get help from alliance members. Make sure you have enough space at your station to deposit raw materials - a warehouse is very useful to have, as well as making sure you build an adequate basement. Make sure your Police Control is set up to allow alliance members to deposit goods (and of course, your police control grants them permission to dock in the first place).

Option 2. Use of Fleets

Fleets (other ships you own, but don't captain) can not only be used to trade independently of your ship, but they can also join your ship in a convoy. There are a number of advantages to building some fleet ships, and using them in a convoy with your ship instead of flying independently:

• Strength in numbers - when attacked, all the ships in your convoy will defend.
• Convoy members don't need a hyperdrive/wrap drive - they can have a tiny little Interplanetary Drive so long as your ship uses a wrap drive. This frees up lots of space for cargo.
• The crew on a ship that's in your convoy needn't be particularly highly skilled, since they will have the protection of your ship.
• Since non-player ships attack the best equipped ship first (i.e. yours!), convoy ships don't need much in the way of defensive equipment (unless of course you go looking for trouble with other players). This frees up even more space for cargo.

For example, if your ship is a 7200 tonne Lynx Bulk Carrier, you'll probably find that after equipment, you've around 4500 tonnes to spare. Add a Panther Clipper as a Fleet, and have it join a convoy with you, and most of the Clipper's 2000 tonnes of space is free for you to use - an Interplanetary drive and a small amount of weaponry and shields (just for insurance) won't take up much room - you'll probably gain at least another 1700t in capacity. The important point is that the next bigger ship after a Lynx Bulk Carrier requires you have a higher manoeuvring skill - or you'll heavily damage the ship on each landing - but adding a Clipper to your convoy will add capacity but without demanding any higher skill level.

The biggest problem with larger fleets is finding a crew with sufficient leadership skill. Leadership is likely to be the only skill you're going to find wanting - however, visit a few Class 7 or Class 8 population systems, and you can probably find enough crew members with a higher Leadership skill rating to provide a captain and senior crew. Don't forget you can hire crew members you don't need in advance of buying another ship to add to your raw materials convoy - so hire in advance.