For a more formal description, this guide aims to provide a comprehensive usage guide for each ship. Some uses mentioned here may not be the most effective way to utilize a vessel, or may be very boring, but still, one way that they can be used.

The ships will be sorted by their vessel line (e.g. all K37s and variants will be grouped together, all Prospectors will be grouped, etc.) Ships without a line will be appended on the end, and if I get requests for them, modded ships will be organized by mod and put after all vanilla ships.

These are purely my opinions, so many may see some as objectively wrong or inefficient, and I do respect that any comments on what I see as more or less useful than another usage please be constructive. I also ask that if a particular style you like to use isn't mentioned here, let me know so I can add it and compare it with others.

This will contain some spoilers, so please be warned.

What better to start with than a ship everyone is familiar with? The K37 is the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none vessel of the rings, capable of any task you can perform in the rings, so I'll only be going over a few of the more common or unique uses of this vessel.

More so an equipment choice than a playstyle, but very prevalent nonetheless. Both standard microwave generators and the point defence variants are equipment options that nearly every captain tries at one point or another. They might be some of the slowest equipment to break down rocks, but even with optimal tuning, they still are some of the softest, which translates to easy-to-catch ore chunks.

This is an equipment choice that most people use, and what makes the K37 line so core, is the use of a manipulator arm. This single piece of equipment is a vital part of most loadouts, as not only does it work to align ringroids to be more easily broken by your weapons, and to catch the resulting ore chunks, but it can also be used to salvage derelict vessels or pirates, letting you keep the ship even if you failed to salvage it with crew. This is where it's vitality comes into play, as a derelict can be worth a few hundred thousand Encelado up to several million with a derelict EIME, which can be turned into even more after repairing and stripping it.

Drones aren't utilized anywhere near as much as they are on other vessels, but they still have a good place with the K37, however, that still doesn't mean that you can't use them. Drones come in two categories: nanodrones and vessel drones. Nanodrones operate directly from your hardpoint, and have a direct effect on ore chunks around you, while vessel drones are a bit more of the inverse and are more passive, either mining by itself or providing storage to your own ship.

Nanodrones are much more suited to an active playstyle as they will aide more immediately, as well as not being as much of a mass balancing issue as vessel drones. Out of these, tugs are better for very active/manoeuvrable units as they only need to stop the ores for you, and won't make as many velocity changes to the chunks as hauls do, which also makes them much more efficient on the relatively pricey nanodrones. Hauls are better for slower builds and/or builds equipped with cargo containers, as they do a lot of the work for you and effectively can feed you ores.

Vessel drones come themselves into two categories: companions and cargo containers. Mining companions are good for a release and let be sort of drone, as once released they'll go mine for you, and you can manage them remotely for dropping off their cargo, refuelling, or other management. Cargo containers are more passive, and provide additional processed mineral storage while connected to the cradle, being 15 tonnes per mineral with THICCs, or 90 tonnes of one mineral with THIMCs. You can release them once you're satisfied with their fill level to fly back on their own, significantly reducing the ship's mass to make it more manoeuvrable and save remiss and potentially time for the return burn. One note for all vessel drones is that the empty cradle can also be useful to catch lifepods or rogue vessel drones.

The K37 is also pretty effective at racing, having a reliable thruster layout and decently light mass. Racing can extend to not only with the racer themselves, but also to making a good ship for refreshing astrogation markers, or flying at speed through the rings.

The K37 holds a decent combat capability, evident by their use via militant factions. Not much else is really needed to be said with this, although fitting any damaging tool will make it combat-capable.

The KR37 is a research variant of the K37, sacrificing a portion of the cargo bay and processed mineral hold for a 100MW Faraday Cage instead. This shifts the focus of this vessel closer to a more combat or exploration orientation.

The 100MW shielding protects your ship's computers from an EMP effect up to that power, which in terms of combat allows you to be zapped by a single microwave without issue, however you still may be vulnerable when having another microwave come into play, or being affected by external EMP forces such as ringstorms or the chargeback from the Gungnir.

On the subject of the Gungnir, it does allow you to use it much more freely, especially in close quarters. This can be used for mining as well, but combat will be a large portion of its use.

The EMP shielding will also prevent issues through the occasional ringstorm, especially if you're following it to collect the rocks.

It can also mitigate the effects from the singularity core, which removes half of the issues from it and means you can focus on having to handle the gravitational distortions it produces instead

The KTA24 is a smaller, more nimble variant of the K37. It's the smallest vessel with the capability of a high-stress hardpoint, and is the second smallest vessel in the game. As a result, it has significantly reduced raw and processed cargo holds, and as a result limits it's mining capability. It also holds a unique thruster layout, with the K37's usual front-facing thrusters having moved to the sides of the ship.

Due to it's thruster layout in combination with gimballed thrusters, this ship performs well in salvage operations due to the lack of thrusters that would otherwise push against and heat up the ship. Do note that thrusters with an excessive gimbal angle can still affect a vessel in the same ways.

The smaller vessel size, unique thruster layout, and overall lighter frame can make it much more nimble vessel than a stock K37, which can let it excel in racing and astrogation contact renewal.

The same reasonings behind the KTA24's racing capability can also be applied to combat, although do note that unlike the KR37, there isn't the Faraday cage for protection.

The KX37 is an "extended variant" of the stock K37, which provides an extra portion of cargo space and roughly a 40% improvement to the size of the processed cargo storage, all at the cost of a few tonnes added to the dry mass. This variant holds the fewest changes to the K37 out of the entire line of TNTRLs.

As you'd likely expect, the only thing you'd be doing slightly differently with this ship to the K37 is handling ores and other resources that can fit in the bay. Not much else equipment wise other than holding more.

Uranium Caving

Due to the increased cargo bay volume, you have a higher capacity to fitting Torbernite into your ship. Which would allow you to hit up multiple caves if you have access to any still with crystals.

The K44 MHFTR is a very unique vessel in the K37 line, and holds the most extensive modification of any variant ship in the game. It replaces the high-stress hardpoint with two rear low-hardpoints, extends the cargo bay, and doubles the processed cargo hold. In my opinion, it handles like a cross between a Cothon and a K37.

Many of the advantages the KX37 had do move over somewhat well to this ship as well, so that section can add as a partial extension on applicable parts.

I'm packaging drones and MPU usage into the same category as they fit a very similar bill. The addition of two low-stress hardpoints that are much more limited than their front-facing counterparts opens up more use from nanodrones, cargo containers, and the like. Nanodrones are a good choice to make collection of ores easier, especially without the ability to fit an arm, and because the K44 is much lighter and more manouverable than a Cothon, it lends itself well to using tugs instead of hauls, which lets you save up on nanodrone use. Cargo containers also provide extra storage for processed minerals, and considering the number of hardpoints that can fit them has doubled, you can very easily add one or two without much of a difference to the K37 methods of mining.

The Cothon is a relatively hefty vessel, with a large sacrifice to the manoeuvrability of the ship to give it incredibly large cargo and processed mineral holds.

The huge storages of this ship lend to a very high potential for what can be stored in it. Alongside the 4 low-stress hardpoints, it has a good capacity for 1-2 containers, alongside a nanodrone emitter to help compensate for the manoeuvrability issue.

The large bay of the Cothon can easily lend well to extracting torbernite crystals from a cave. The more aft thrusters can help with avoiding detonation. However, due to the lack of an arm, and the sheer mass of the ship, it can be less optimal to collect over another vessel.

Additionally, the Faraday cage can help with the collection of other oddities, such as mines or a singularity core. The excavator may struggle on some of the larger objects however

The ship may not be manouverable, however the faraday cage it provides can help, as it allows for a protection against any microwave wielding enemy.

The Chonker further emphasises several of the benefits of the 212. An even larger cargo bay and excavator lends to make for an even more capable ship, at the cost of being misaligned.

The additional 10 cubic meters of raw storage of the ship, and a larger excavator, can make for a better mining experience, and allows for more ore to fit in the ship.

The larger excavator can make nearly all oddities fit into the cargo bay to make for a better experience collecting them, as well as being less restricted to holding the larger ones. As for the few oddities that can still not fit through, it allows to have a better hold on them.

The Triplet is a unique modification of the Cothon, trading out the Faraday cage for two more main torches. This greatly improves the manoeuvrability of the vessel, and a properly outfitted 213 can exceed 150 m/s/s.

Something that most Cothons don't usually do is to race. With the tripled forward thrust capability and a proper outfit, it makes for one of the more capable racing vessels.

Even despite the lack of a Faraday cage, the 213 can still be an effective fighting ship with its thrust capability.

The Bender leads itself to be the most unique of the Cothon variants. it converts the internal processed hold into a varable processed storage, which translates to being able to store any amount of any mineral, given that the total of all of them isn't at the limit of the hold. The total mass is 2/3 of the total of any other cothon, however it can store a higher content of the more valuable minerals like Tungsten or Beryllium. It's one of the three ships capable of this, and has the highest storage of them.

Given the nature of this modification of a Cothon, there isn't too much different from a stock Cothon-212 outside of MPU based mining. A proper filter from the geologist allows you to more selectively choose what is processed, allowing for a more reliable selection of desired minerals.

The Eagle Prospector is a decently common sight in the rings, and usually a ship most captains aim for. It follows a loadout using two low-stress hardpoints and two complementary hardpoints, with the low-stress rear hardpoint complementaries replaced with nanodrone bays. This does somewhat restrict what you can do with an eagle over say a Cothon, however the overall design of the Prospector series does lend well to nanodrone usage.

This section will combine a lot of the mining processes into one section, as a good few of them will aide with one another.

First off, with one of the main focuses of the ship: nanodrone mining. Naturally with two drone points provided on the vessel, it's uncommon to see a loadout not make use of them. All 3 nanodrone types can be fitted to either, and can be used pretty well with the aid of the ship's grinders. Both hauls and tugs are well viable with this ship. Hauls can make the collection easier, and tugs can be pretty useful as well, as this ship is incredibly manoeuvrable.

Second, MPUs are well worth it on this vessel. The processed storage is twice that of a K37, and even after those storage spaces are full, the cargo bay is a good size larger than the K37, so it can fit a lot of raw cargo with the MPU disabled as well.

The lack of a central hardpoint can be slightly annoying to deal with, so it may be beneficial to use gimballed (e.g. AEMD-14, CL-200AP) or turreted (e.g. PDMWG, NDPT) equipment to counter the offset.

The Eagle boasts an unstable but high-performance layout of thrusters, which gives it a high enough manoeuvrability to allow it to race with relative ease. The dual torch arrangement also provides it with unparalleled thrust.

The Eagle's manoeuvrability lends to being also pretty effective in combat. The drone points can also be helpful with tugs to stop any high-velocity ore chunks or lifepods, or maintenance drones to repair damage on the fly.

The Peacock is a luxury variant of the stock Eagle. As a result, it has a smaller crew compartment, however it provides very good conditions for your crew, and a crew that works diligently. Functionality wise, this vessel is identical to a stock Prospector outside of the crew portion.

Given the similarity to the stock Eagle, the Peacock lends itself to a more crew-oriented play style. Flying with this vessel long enough will mean that they work more efficiently, and never ask for raises from the good conditions.

The Pelican is the Prospector equivalent of the KX37. It boasts an extended bay that almost doubles the size of the Eagle's, and replaces the grinders with a large excavator. The processed storage isn't changed in any form, so it benefits a lot more through raw cargo or anomalies.

Obviously, a larger cargo bay can lend to more raw storage to fill up on after filling up the processed storage, but can also lend to making it easier to process stuff as lifepods are less likely to make an impact with the size.

The raw storage size lends to more space to fit oddities, especially in the likes of mines and lifepods. The larger excavator size, similarly to the Cothon-211, makes it especially easier to grab mines, and can also get a good grip on large objects like the singularity core.

The Vulture is a unique modification to the Eagle. It replaces the two drone hardpoints with a high-stress hardpoint and reduces the cargo bay size. The modification that adds the high-stress does go through the cabin, so expect reduced crew morale when using this ship.

This ship mirrors a lot of the capabilities of the K37, and does a good job at it in the process, so the utilisation of this vessel listed in this section will be at what it does effectively over the K37.

The unique thruster layout is one of the few ships with a high-stress hardpoint that can be almost guaranteed not to thrust on a derelict in an arm. This itself makes the Vilture an incredible salvage ship, although it is very unstable and does rotate really quickly, so it can lose grasp of the ship if you're not careful.

The high-stress hardpoint can be useful for racing. The three equipment items that are unique to the high-stress hardpoint can make racing easier. Both plasma throwers can allow a quick brake in the event you want to do more risky plays, and the arm can be useful to grab onto whatever you're chasing.

The Bald Eagle is the most unique modification to the Eagle line. It's the only vessel dedicated purely to racing, and excels in areas outside of racing as well.

Getting the obvious out of the way, the two side torches provide unparalleled manoeuvrability and can make for a very responsive vessel.

Due to the nature of the vessel, it lends itself well to updating astrogation POIs. The manoeuvrability of the vessel, combined with the fact it is the only vessel allowed to astrogate faster than 100 m/s, lets itself update more in a significantly smaller period of time, and a good captain can update over a dozen POIs within a couple of in-game hours.

Despite the vessel having the smallest cargo bay volume of any ship, tied with the Kitsune, it still holds onto the 14 tonnes of mineral storage of the stock Eagle. This can make for a quick bit of extra cash after a run with the Baldie, as long as you're willing to bring along the extra mass, which this ship shouldn't have as much of a problem to deal with.

The K225, aka Titan, is one of the super-heavy vessels in the game. It boasts an impressive 8 hardpoints to fit equipment to, albeit a good majority of them are more limited than most hardpoints you'd see on other vessels. It is effectively a larger and more refined variant of a cothon, and many of the strategies used on the 212 can work well on this ship.

It lends itself to a slower gameplay, and nanodrone use is very frequently seen on builds to aid with the collection of ore.

The titan series of ships have a very small internal processed storage for the size of the ship, being 7 tonnes, equivalent to a K37. However, the six docking bays that the ship comes installed with will greatly aide with it. These bays are very limited in what it can hold, being limited to most cradled equipment (beacons are only able to be fit in the front two bays, and impact absorbers cannot be fitted), turrets, and nanodrone emitters. This provides access to up to 540 extra tonnes of processed mineral storage, which can be split in a myriad of ways with combinations of THICCs and THIMCs. This effectively means that, unless you intend for a more specialist build, a mineral processor is almost required. A stock titan comes with a Rusatom-Antonoff MPU, which is the easiest MPU to use based on its sheer processing area, but lacks in terms of speed and efficiency. The Nakamura MPU is a good choice for well rounded efficiency, and has the largest processing bay of the MPUs past the RA. the Starbus MSU is a little unique, and it acts like an opposite to the Antonoff Ore Purifier in the fact it can process minerals with insane speed and efficiency, at the cost of that it cannot reclaim remass, and that it has the highest power usage of any processor; typically this is used with remass tanks at least 200 tonnes in size. The Voyager RSLS is a unique processor, as it has well rounded efficiencies and speed, and can print mass driver ammo and nanodrone components, but has a very awkward shape that many players do complain about jamming.

Most titan users opt to use nanodrone, predominantly hauls, with their ship as the sheer mass of it can make for a lack of manoeuvrability. The predominant layout I have seen involves swapping out two of the cargo containers (usually the front two or rear two) out with haul drone points, and swap out the rest of the containers with monocargo containers to collect the common valuable ores (tungsten, vanadium, platinum, palladium) and ignoring the other two (beryllium is rare and not dense, often you don't get more than 7 tonnes anyway; iron has a lot of water so is slow to process, and is worse than any other ore to store), or just collecting only tungsten. A properly tuned set of filters on the drones, combined with a dense enough region of the rings (basically propellers), you can fill up the processed storage in well under an hour.

Even for load outs that don't make good use of an MPU (mothership builds using 6 companions, or turret only builds to make a battleship), or if you are and you have to turn off the MPU due to full storage, the titan can still be effective at raw bay mining. The titan has the third largest cargo bay in the game (behind the OCP and Break Bulk variant of the titan), and is slightly larger than the Cothon-211. The excavator is also about as large as the 211, which makes for easily bringing oddities on board, and can easily take a mine swarm or two.

The lack of manoeuvrability of the titan also extends to rotating the ship, so many players use turreted or equipment with gimbals to help aim. Gimbals (AEMD-14 and CL-200AP) help aim for the user by providing a few degrees of leeway that the weapon will provide; turrets (PDMWGs and NDPTs) on the other hand aim for you in an angle greater than 130 degrees, however are either limited in range or requires ammo to use.

The break bulk titan is a unique modification to the titan that replaces four of the docking bays to expand the cargo bay to nearly three times the stock size. It for the most part makes MOUs obsolete, and I see nearly all players using it with the Antonoff Ore Purifier.

Not too much to say about this other than the cargo bay is enormous. Being the largest bay in the game, it can fit most things in with ease, and fits it without much in the way of problems. Like I said earlier, the AOP is very good to use here, as it has one of the largest processing areas and can reclaim remass without the risk of losing cargo.

The modified titan, at least in my opinion, is the most unique ship modification in the game. It replaces all docking bays with a torch mounting, making for a ship with unparalleled manoeuvrability, and for potentially one of the priciest ships to outfit.

This ship behaves almost like a cross between a Bald Eagle and a Cothon-213, and decided to put it on a titan

The thrust potential of this vessel makes for a very good racing ship. It's larger excavator can also make it easier to make money from the racer, and the fact the titan is such a durable ship means you can almost never worry about slamming into rocks as you can just go straight through them.

A feature I don't see mentioned too often about this ship is the Faraday cage, which automatically makes it a little more viable for combat. Combined with the racing capabilities of this ship, it can make for a good ship to fight in.

Once again as with all the other titans, the modified titan also works well for raw bay mining. You don't have the equipment options of the other two, only having two low stress hard points, but a laser and haul drone mounting can work well in my opinion.

The kitsune is one of the more unique ships of the game. It's the smallest vessel in the game, however it can expand itself vertically to just over double the available cargo bay volume. It's also another one of the few vessels with a variable processed storage.

The kitsune's small size and low mass makes for it being really manoeuvrable, and makes it good for Astrogation POI updating due to how well it can dodge rocks and obstacles.

Again, the high manoeuvrability of this ship lends itself well to racing. It is also able to catch the racing drone, despite its size, which makes it effective at racing as well.

Despite its small size and low cargo bay volume, the variable storage of the processed hold lends itself well to focusing on one mineral for habitats, which can be traded pretty quickly with the manoeuvrable nature of the ship.

The OCP is likely the most unique stock ship in the game. It's unique layout will turn how you use ships on its head as it's such a different experience to anything else. It's the only ship with two high-stress hard points, and is balanced with the fact the cargo bay is positioned on the right hand side of the ship. It also is the third ship with a variable processed hold.

It can absolutely be annoying to fly, if you're not ready to fly a vessel this different, there's nothing wrong with ragequitting on it and going back to a more traditional vessel (certainly how I did when I first tried it), however once you can get past the initial awkwardness, it can be great to fly. Two high stress hard points can be pretty fun to use, and can help bring back two ships if you desire. Combined with the second largest cargo bay, it has a lot of potential, especially when in the right hands.

Starting off with one of the more obvious uses of this ship. Raw bay mining is relatively easy with it; not only does it have the second largest cargo bay by volume, it also has the largest bay door of any ship. This means that it can easily take in any ore chunks or oddities, as well as less obvious uses as it can hold onto most ships, and even swallow some of the smaller ringroids. The latter can also be used to more easily contain ore chunks when breaking down rocks, and if not broken down directly, they can provide a lot of remass through the large bay coverage processors like the AOP and RA.

Many pilots also choose to use the Antonoff Ore Purifier to avoid the hassle of processed ore, while having a constant ability to reclaim remass with the sheer coverage of it (it covers the left 70% of the bay), as well as being pretty easy to eject ores that you're done getting remass for if you're getting ore only for the water content.

The OCP does only have a variable storage of 50 tonnes, however that 50 tonnes can be filled with whatever you like, so with a mixture of good geologist filtering, selling to habitats, and using the Tetsuo HMX to eject unwanted iron, you can collect only valuable ores like beryllium and tungsten in the processed hold. Most people choose to use the RA MPU as they find that most of the other MPUs are awkward to use, although many who say against the pricier MPUs are focusing on getting the processed ore storage filled; I personally find that the 50 tonne storage is not worth focusing on, and you'll reach it naturally while trying to fill the rest of the bay regardless.

Rather obviously, but the ability to fit two arms will guarantee a spot for two derelicts that failed crew salvage. However, do note that due to the positioning, piloting the OCP with even one derelict in tow can be painful, especially considering that some thrusters can affect ships, and that it's also heavy before the derelict. Many pilots recommend either disabling specific thrusters and/or flying purely manual.

The fact that the OCP can fit so much ore also helps for trading with habitats. Being selective and filling the processed storage and then cargo bay with their desired mineral can provide with a lot of ore that can be sold. I personally recommend the RA MPU for the pure inconvenience with trying to rotate the ship while on it's arm.

The Model E (or EIME for short) is a rather underutilised ship from what I've seen. It's a ship that, functionality wise, crosses a lot of the benefits of the K37 with those of the Vulture prospector, alongside a few other gimmicks involving a splitting bay door, and a fusion reactor that provides admittedly an over the top amount of power for a K37-like vessel.

It's also the second lightest vessel in the game, seconded only by the tiny silhouette of the Kitsune. This itself also lends to a huge thrust potential given it has a dual torch layout, which even the fact they're angled can help with rotation and/or strafing.

Most people see issue with this vessel from it's insane repair costs, which I do agree with. It's pretty much an upgrade to the K37 in most ways, and in many ways is closest to the Vulture Prospector more than anything, if it's major downside didn't exist it would immediately break the game's sidegrade mentality.

The EIME has a sizeable cargo and processed storage bays. 11 tonnes of processed storage puts it right in-between that of a K37 and Eagle lines, and the bay's size is decently larger than that of an Eagle. The downsides to both of these come from the layout. The bay splitting open can come to be somewhat problematic when it becomes too full and can't close properly, which if you're not careful can let things fall out (something I only really experience when extracting torbernite from several uranium caves); many players I've seen also complain about the awkward placing of MPUs (outside of the huge processing area of the RA MPU), which again is a similar case with the OCP that you're best leaving it be and not focusing on it. Stuff will process with time, and especially with a fuller bay; the splitting bay does also, contrary to my previous point, also helps unjam any clogs.

The EIME is also a pretty good racer in the right hands. Going off of the comparison to the Vulture, it's not as good in terms of manoeuvrability, however it's considerably more stable than the Vulture, especially when it comes to rotating the ship (again, the angled torches can help with this, especially with PNTRs' vectored thrust). The reactor also ends up as a double-sided benefit. On one hand, it'll provide more power than you'll ever be able to use (I frequently use uptuned NPMPs, which have the highest thermal cost of any thruster), however if you hit a 'roid wrong, it'll cost you a pretty penny, even with maintenance drones (which I highly recommend using if you don't have the expendable income)

Again with any good racing vessel, it fairs well with combat too. One thing many people will lend you to believe with the EIME is that it's a bad combat vessel because it'll cost you a fortune, and while that's true, it'll only cost you if you fit expensive gear or hit a 'roid bad. Nearly everyone I've seen don't know this, but the reactor (basically the most expensive part of the ship) does not get damaged by mass driver rounds or microwaves. period. This basically means that repair costs depend on how costly the equipment you install, and whether you're using maintenance drones.

The reactor also lends to being able to use a lot more high-power equipment than you would on most ships. The EIME is able to use a single uptuned CL-600P and charge a Gungnir at the same time, without even an auxiliary power unit. Most vessels will fail to achieve this without using an SMES unit, even a town-class MPDG combined with a military turbine will fail to meet these requirements while being able to manoeuvre the ship at the same time, without increasing the reactor temperature to let the turbine over-perform.

Like the Vulture, this ship excels at salvage. No thrusters can touch the derelict while it's securely held, and the more stable rotations also means it's considerably more reliable to fly with one in tow.

This section is a set of tips that can be used on multiple vessels without too much deviation (and if so, any will be noted)

If you're struggling to collect some objects, such as serenity torbernite (uranium) crystals, floating bodies, or Elon's ride, you may benefit from equipping a manipulator arm onto an applicable ship.

With it (and the unidentified toggle is enabled in the geologist menu), it will attempt to grab any small or medium objects in the immediate area. Do know that it's targeting is a little finicky, so do be careful around uranium on a K37 model ship.

I hope this guide helped you decide on any loadouts to use for your ships, especially for any ships you may have discarded because it was too unlike something you were looking for in a ship.

If you have any loadouts that you like to use that weren't described in the guide, feel free to commend it. I'll give it a try and write it up as well, plus make sure to properly credit.