Starports

Accurate as of v1.22.0 (July 2026).

Starports are the most advanced facilities in the galaxy. They are where you bank your credits, repair and upgrade your ship, buy and store vessels, take on contracts, post and collect bounties, hire personnel, and stock up on equipment. Every starport has eight places inside, each run by someone with a story and an agenda.

Finding Starports

There are exactly two starports in every galaxy:

• The Federation starport sits at Sector 0 — the galactic center, where every captain starts the season. You have been to a starport whether you realized it or not.
• The pirate haven sits deep in pirate territory (its name varies by galaxy — Pirate Haven, Black Harbor, Skull Port…), out in the middle of the outer rim, in a sector where nobody is checking credentials and the concept of a maintenance schedule is theoretical.

The Federation runs its starport like a corporate campus. Everything is labeled, everything is audited, and the staff will answer your questions with a smile that does not quite reach their eyes. The haven is run by people who found a need and filled it, no questions asked. The services are the same. The ambiance is considerably different.

When you’re in a starport’s sector, a Starport tab appears on the Nav screen. Tap it to dock.

Docking Rules

Not everyone gets in. Two checks run every time you dock:

Bounty arrest. If the starport’s own faction has a bounty on you — a Federation bounty at the Federation starport, a Syndicate bounty at the haven — docking triggers an automatic arrest. The full bounty amount is seized from your wallet only; your bank balance is untouched and cannot be seized. Your record is cleared, the arrest goes out on the public feed, and you can dock on your next attempt. If your wallet can’t cover the bounty, you’re simply denied docking — and since the arrest never touches the bank, banking your credits elsewhere first means you can’t pay and can’t dock. See Bounties for how faction bounties work.

Alignment. The Federation starport denies docking below −300 alignment. The Pirate Haven denies docking above +300. Captains in the middle can use both; captains committed to one side get one door.

Prices Vary With Your Standing

Nearly every price at a starport is adjusted by your standing with the facility’s faction and your trader reputation — good standing earns a discount, hostile standing pays a markup, and the same service costs a different amount at the Federation starport than at the haven. A banner at the top of the starport screen shows your current pricing modifier.

Some service cards display the base price, so the amount charged can differ from the number on the card — at hostile standing, expect to pay more than the sticker. The purchase confirmation shows the pricing breakdown.

The flat exceptions — the same price for everyone, everywhere: ship rename, ship repair, the limpet sweep, the Tesseract Drive, and banking.

The Eight Places

Every starport has the same eight places. The names change with the faction. The services do not.

Read row 5 and 6 twice if you’re at the haven. The pirate place literally named “The Bounty Board” is the missions office — contracts, not bounties. Actual bounty business — posting bounties and collecting them — happens at the Bounty Hunter Registry. Pirates think this is funny.

Bank

Federation Reserve Bank The Reserve Bank occupies the cleanest corner of the federation starport, which is saying something given how clean the federation starport already is. Marble-effect panels, a queue system that actually works, and tellers who have never once dropped a credit.

The Vault The Vault does not advertise. There is no sign out front, just a reinforced door and the understanding that you knock twice. The quartermaster sees the books and nobody else does. What goes in stays in, which is why it has been operating in the same location for eleven years without being raided.

What banking does: Deposit credits to protect them from combat losses and arrest — a faction arrest seizes wallet credits only, never the bank. Withdraw when you need them. No fees, no limits. Two things worth knowing:

• Banking isn’t starport-exclusive — you can deposit and withdraw at ordinary trading ports too.
• Shipyard repairs are the one service that can reach into your bank: if your wallet is short, the yard auto-draws the shortfall from your bank at a 10% fee.
• The bank is arrest-proof, but remember the docking rule above: if a faction wants you and your wallet can’t cover the bounty, that faction’s starport won’t let you in at all. An all-bank, no-wallet strategy has a door problem.

Shipyard

TriStar Shipyard and Maintenance Bay TriStar runs the largest certified shipyard in federation space. The bays are clean, the diagnostic equipment is current, and the technicians are licensed. When a TriStar yard tells you your ship is repaired, it is repaired.

Blackheart Shipbreakers Blackheart does not ask what happened to your ship and you do not need to explain. They have seen worse. The tools are salvaged, the techs are self-taught, and the repair bay smells like someone burned something they should not have. It works anyway.

The shipyard is the biggest place in the port. Everything it sells:

Two clarifications that save credits:

• Repair restores shields only. Fighters and torpedoes are consumables — spent ones don’t come back at the repair bay, you buy replacements at the fighter and torpedo bays (75 / 150 cr each).
• Everything here except rename, repair, the limpet sweep, and the Tesseract is priced by your standing.

Ship Sales

Nebula Ship Sales and Acquisitions Nebula has been in the ship business long enough that half the vessels currently running federation routes passed through their lot at some point. The sales floor is organized by class with clear pricing and no pressure.

Prize Vessels and Salvage The inventory here changes constantly and the provenance of any given vessel is best left unexamined. Ships come in from captures, from salvage, from deals that went sideways for someone else. They are cleaned up, the more obvious damage is addressed, and they are priced to move.

What ship sales does: Browse and buy the hulls in stock — Federation hulls at the Federation starport, Pirate hulls at the haven. Each ship shows its stats, XP requirement, and your standing-adjusted price. When you buy, your old ship moves to the Hangar (it is not traded in) and any cargo that doesn’t fit the new hold is lost at purchase time. The View Full Ship Catalog button shows every class in the game, including ships that are XP-locked or out of stock here.

Stock is finite for the season. Each starport opens with a limited allocation per tier — only one or two hulls at Tiers 4 and 5 — and sold ships are not replaced. Don’t assume the flagship you’re saving for will still be on the floor when you qualify.

See the Ships Guide for the full catalog, prices, and buying mechanics.

Hangar

Both factions call it the Hangar, because even pirates run out of jokes eventually. This is where every ship you own but aren’t flying is stored.

What the hangar does:

• Switch your active ship — free, any time you’re docked. Your incoming hull appears here at the starport with you.
• Sell a stored ship — pays a flat 64% of the original purchase price (each hull shows “Paid X · Value Y”). You can never sell your active ship or your last ship.

There’s a Hangar at your own (or your corp’s) Starbase planets too, but it’s switch-only — selling is starport business.

Contracts

Federation Contract Office The Contract Office handles official mission postings on behalf of federation interests. Trading runs that need a reliable captain, patrol requests, deliveries. The work is legitimate and the rewards are posted upfront.

The Bounty Board The Board is a corkboard, literally, near the entrance of the haven. Jobs are posted on paper, payment is on completion, and the person who posted the job is not always someone you will ever meet. Raids, courier runs, and things described in sufficiently vague language that you can decide for yourself how you feel about them.

One more time, because it costs people credits: at the haven, “The Bounty Board” is where you take missions. Hunting bounties happens next door at the Bounty Hunter Registry.

What contracts does: Browse and accept missions. You can hold one active mission at a time — complete or abandon it before taking another. Abandoning costs nothing except your progress (the mission can’t be re-taken). The selection changes as new contracts are issued, but there’s no fixed posting schedule. See the Missions Guide for mission types and rewards.

Bounty Office

Federation Bounty Registry Official warrants, official payouts, official paperwork. The Registry posts the Federation’s wanted list, accepts new bounty postings from private citizens, and pays out claims to hunters who bring in results — provided the results were against people the Federation wanted.

Bounty Hunter Registry Same business, fewer forms. The Syndicate’s hit list on one wall, player postings on the other, and a clerk who pays claims without asking how the target ended up dead.

What the bounty office does: Post bounties on other players, review the faction wanted list, collect your faction bounty claims (each faction’s claims pay out only at that faction’s own starport), and pay off a bounty on your own head. Full mechanics in the Bounties Guide.

Recruitment

Vanguard Colonial Recruitment Vanguard runs the official personnel placement service for federation planetary operations. Workers are vetted, trained, and placed with a guarantee of basic competence. Fighters come with combat certifications.

Crimson Crew Recruitment The Crimson office does not vet anyone. Loyalty is optional and skills are demonstrated on arrival or not at all. What they have is availability. If you need bodies quickly, the Crimson office will have someone for you by the time you finish your drink.

What recruitment does:

• Fighters — 500 credits each. These are combat personnel for planetary operations: they garrison your planets and fight in your ground engagements. They are not ship fighters — the escort craft your ship launches in combat are restocked at the Shipyard’s fighter bay for 75 cr each. Different product, different counter.
• Workers — 300 credits each. Deploy them to planets as colonists to grow population and production output.

Supply

CoreStar Tactical Supply CoreStar sells certified deployable equipment for territorial operations. Documented, tested, and shipped with paperwork, which matters if you ever need to prove you purchased it legally.

Black Market Supply The back room at the haven, accessible through the supply counter if you know the word, which everyone does because it is always the same word. Equipment here does not come with documentation, which is fine because nobody is asking for it.

What supply sells — exactly three items:

• Navigation Beacons — 2,500 credits. Mark and monitor sectors.
• Proximity Mines — 5,000 credits. Area denial for sectors you’d rather people stayed out of.
• Limpet Trackers — 4,000 credits. Attach to another captain’s hull and follow their movements.

See Deployables for how to deploy and use all three.

What About the Tavern?

The Tavern — mercenaries, drinks, intel for sale — is not a starport place. It’s a service at ordinary trading ports, reached through the Nav screen’s port view. See Locations for port types and their services.

Tips

• Bank excess credits before heading into dangerous territory. The bank can’t be looted in combat and can’t be seized at an arrest.
• Starport repair restores shields only and costs a turn. Budget for fighters and torpedoes separately — they’re 75 and 150 credits each at the bays.
• The limpet sweep charges its full 10,000 whether or not anything is found. Have a reason to suspect a tracker before you pay for the sweep.
• Build standing with the faction you shop at. The same shipyard bill can differ substantially between a favored regular and a hostile stranger — and some cards show the base price, not your price.
• If you plan to fly a Tier 4 or 5 hull this season, keep an eye on stock. There are only a couple per starport and they don’t come back.
• Both factions offer identical services at identical base prices. What changes is the name on the door, which hulls are on the sales floor, and which of your reputations sets the discount.