Part of the series:

No Man's Sky Freighters Guide Hub: Start here for the full freighter roadmap.

Freighter Guide: Upgrades & How to Get an S-Class Freighter: Get the capital ship that commands your fleet.

Freighter Base Building Guide: Set up the Fleet Command Rooms your frigates need.

Quick Answer

You need a freighter and at least one Fleet Command Room before you can send any frigates on expeditions.
Frigates come in five types: Combat, Exploration, Industrial, Trade, and Support. You can own up to 30 frigates total.
Each expedition takes up to 5 frigates and runs passively. Even while you're offline.
Five new expedition missions refresh daily at 00:00 UTC; you need one Fleet Command Room per simultaneous mission.
Keep your fleet's combined star rating at or above the expedition's difficulty rating to avoid damage and negative traits.
Industrial expeditions are the best source of Salvaged Frigate Modules, which unlock freighter technology upgrades.
Frigates level up with use, shedding negative traits and improving stats over the course of many completed expeditions.

Overview

Frigates are the support ships that orbit your freighter, not vessels you fly yourself, but a fleet you command remotely. Once you own a freighter, you can recruit frigates by approaching them in space and hiring their captain. From there, your Fleet Command Room on the freighter becomes mission control: you select a roster, pick an expedition, and send them off while you go about your own adventures.

The payoff is real. A well-managed fleet generates Salvaged Frigate Modules (the currency for freighter technology upgrades), Storage Augmentations, units, rare crafting materials, and more: all passively, on a roughly daily cadence. It's one of the steadiest forms of passive income in No Man's Sky once you've invested a little time into building the right roster.

Getting Started: Prerequisites

Before you can run a single expedition, you need two things in place.

1. Own a Freighter

If you don't have a freighter yet, the fastest route is to trigger a free rescue encounter in any star system after you've completed a handful of warps. Full details are in our How to Get a Free Freighter guide.

2. Build Fleet Command Rooms

Fleet Command Rooms are the consoles from which you launch expeditions. Each one supports one active expedition at a time, so building several is worth the investment.

Build cost per room: 120 Silver + 40 Gold + 10 Tritium

The five daily missions refresh every 24 hours, and most expeditions complete within a day, so building five or six Fleet Command Rooms is a practical ceiling for most players.

Recruiting Frigates

Frigates spawn as part of NPC freighter fleets you encounter in space. Look for ships tagged with a green "Recruitable Frigate" nav point. Fly close, open your Starship Communicator, and negotiate with the captain to bring them into your fleet.

A few notes on recruitment:

Not every frigate in a fleet is available for hire. Check each ship individually.
Organic/Living Frigates are a special case: you need to craft a Dream Aerial (crafted from Living Glass x3 + Solar Mirror x1, obtained as a reward from high-difficulty frigate expeditions) and carry it in your inventory, then pulse through space until one appears. Organic frigates belong to the same five expedition types internally but are visually distinct biological vessels.
Outlaw/Raider Frigates join after you destroy their pirate freighter commander. Surviving crew surrender and offer to enlist.
You can hold a maximum of 30 frigates in your fleet.

When evaluating a frigate for purchase, look at its class tier (C, B, A, S) and its stat spread across combat, exploration, industrial, and trade. Don't fixate on class alone: frigates improve as they level up, and a C-class with strong positive traits can outperform a poorly-rolled A-class early on.

Frigate Types Explained

There are five frigate types. Each has a passive ability you can benefit from by boarding the ship, and each performs best on its matching expedition type.

Type	Passive Ability	Best Used For
Combat	Deploys ships to assist you during space battles	Combat expeditions; fleet defense
Exploration	Activates an Artifact Scanner to locate Ancient Ruins in the current system	Exploration expeditions
Industrial	Produces Magnetised Ferrite passively (collectible on boarding)	Industrial expeditions; passive materials
Trade	Boarding awards Chromatic Metal to the player	Trade expeditions; passive income
Support	Produces Condensed Carbon on boarding; reduces fuel costs during expeditions	Any expedition — especially longer ones

Support Specialists are particularly valuable because they reduce fuel consumption across the whole fleet. That said, they still consume fuel themselves, so don't send them solo on long missions expecting a net fuel gain.

Running Frigate Expeditions

How to Launch

Enter your freighter and access a Fleet Command Room.
Interact with the Navigator inside the Fleet Command Room. Five expedition options are presented each day.
Select an expedition and assign up to 5 frigates to it.
Confirm fuel (crafted from Di-hydrogen and Tritium) and launch.

Expedition Difficulty & Star Ratings

Expeditions are rated up to 3 stars in practice. Your assembled fleet's combined star rating needs to meet or exceed the expedition rating to avoid failures. If your fleet rating equals the expedition difficulty, there is a chance frigates return damaged; if your rating falls below it, damage is very likely. The community consensus: keeping your fleet rating at least 2 stars above the expedition difficulty means frigates almost never come back damaged.

Expeditions consist of multiple encounters, and each mission mixes encounter types, so you'll face challenges outside the expedition's listed specialty. This is why a balanced fleet (not five pure Combat frigates on every run) performs more reliably across all mission types.

Duration

Mission length varies considerably, from under an hour to well over a day depending on the expedition tier and any freighter upgrades you have installed. The Fuel Oxidiser consumable upgrade (crafted from 2 Quad Servo + 50 Gold, unlocked via Salvaged Frigate Modules) cuts expedition time meaningfully.

Mission Complications

Frigate commanders can contact you mid-expedition with a problem that requires a decision. Your choice affects the final outcome: sometimes improving rewards, sometimes aborting the mission entirely. Pay attention to those notifications if you want to maximize returns.

Expedition Rewards by Type

Expedition Type	Key Rewards
Combat	Units, resources from pirate encounters
Exploration	Antimatter, ancient relics, Vortex Cubes, biological samples, units
Industrial	Salvaged Frigate Modules, Storage Augmentations, activated metals, semiconductors
Trade	Cultural artifacts, Cryo-Pumps, Fusion Accelerants, Storage Augmentations, units

Industrial expeditions are the go-to for Salvaged Frigate Modules. Higher-difficulty industrial missions have the best drop rates, so prioritize leveling up your industrial frigates. These modules are what unlock the freighter tech tree, including hyperdrive upgrades that let you jump further across the galaxy.

Frigate Progression & Leveling

Frigates improve with every expedition they complete. Each rank-up removes a negative trait or adds a positive one, and a frigate goes through up to ten rank-ups over the course of its career. Rank-ups occur at specific expedition completion thresholds: early rank-ups come quickly (around 4 and 8 missions), while later ones require significantly more runs. After enough expeditions, a frigate reaches its peak performance with all negative traits eliminated.

This matters for fleet building: don't discard a frigate just because it has a negative trait or mediocre class tier early on. Keep sending it out and it will improve. Negative traits can also spread to other frigates if you dispatch a damaged ship without repairing it first. Always repair before re-deploying.

Repairing Damaged Frigates

Frigates that fail encounters return flagged with a red nav point. Fly your starship to the damaged frigate, land on it, and repair the indicated damage. Common repair materials include Oxygen, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Pure Ferrite, Ferrite Dust, and Tritium, all fairly easy to stockpile.

Consumable Fleet Upgrades

Once you've earned some Salvaged Frigate Modules, you can unlock consumable upgrades via the freighter tech tree. These are crafted and applied before launching a mission:

Upgrade	Effect	Craft Cost
Fuel Oxidiser	Reduces expedition duration	2 Quad Servo + 50 Gold
Explosive Drones	+10 combat points for that mission	1 Walker Brain + 50 Gold
Holographic Analyser	+10 exploration points	1 Quantum Computer + 50 Gold
Mineral Compressor	+10 industrial points	1 Hydraulic Wiring + 50 Gold
Mind Control Device	+10 trade points	1 Solar Mirror + 50 Gold

Use stat-boosting consumables when pushing a fleet slightly below the recommended rating for a higher-difficulty expedition. They bridge the gap without requiring you to recruit entirely new ships.

FAQ

How many frigates do I need to start?

Technically one, but sending a single frigate on an expedition is high risk. If it fails an encounter, it comes back damaged with no backup. A practical starting fleet is three to five frigates with at least one of each specialty type represented. That gives you flexibility and redundancy from day one.

Do frigates progress while I'm offline?

Yes. This is one of the biggest advantages of the fleet system. Expeditions run in real time, so you can log off, sleep, and return to completed missions waiting to be collected. It's genuinely passive, no input required until you pick up the rewards.

What's the best expedition type to run repeatedly?

Industrial for Salvaged Frigate Modules (used to upgrade your freighter and unlock technology). Trade for consistent unit income. If you're building out your freighter base and freighter tech tree, prioritize industrial expeditions until your technology upgrades are maxed.

Can frigates die permanently?

No. Frigates can take damage and develop negative traits from failed encounters, but they cannot be permanently lost. The worst outcome is a damaged ship with degraded stats, which you fix by landing on it and repairing. The only way to remove a frigate from your fleet is to dismiss it intentionally.

How do I get Salvaged Frigate Modules outside of expeditions?

Three reliable methods: looting Derelict Freighters (the abandoned space hulks you can board, reached via an Emergency Broadcast Receiver purchased from a Scrap Dealer), completing Nexus missions at the Space Anomaly that list modules as a reward (rewards rotate roughly every ten minutes), and destroying cargo pods on NPC freighters during space encounters (low drop rate, but fast to do in bulk near Outlaw Stations). Expeditions remain the most passive method, but derelict freighters often yield the highest single-session haul.

Does frigate class (C/B/A/S) matter at purchase?

Less than you might expect. Class affects base stats, but all frigates level up through expeditions regardless of starting class. A high-class frigate with poor traits can underperform a leveled-up C-class with strong positive traits. Focus on the trait list and overall stat spread rather than chasing S-class frigates at recruitment.

Key Takeaways

Build your freighter first, then construct five or six Fleet Command Rooms to run parallel expeditions.
Recruit a balanced roster covering Combat, Exploration, Industrial, Trade, and Support specialties. Mixed encounter types appear in every expedition.
Keep your fleet's star rating at or above (ideally 2 stars above) the expedition difficulty to protect your frigates from damage.
Industrial expeditions are your best source of Salvaged Frigate Modules, the key to unlocking freighter upgrades.
Frigates level up over many expeditions, dropping negative traits along the way. Patience pays off more than chasing perfect recruits.
Always repair damaged frigates before redeploying them, or you risk spreading negative traits to the rest of your fleet.
Pair your fleet grind with other passive income methods so units, materials, and modules all accumulate simultaneously.
For more on what to do with the Salvaged Frigate Modules your fleet earns, see the Freighter Guide: Upgrades & S-Class.

No Man's Sky Frigate Fleet & Frigate Expeditions Guide