Every ship in STFC falls into one of four roles. Interceptors, Explorers, and Battleships form a rock-paper-scissors triangle: each type gets a combat edge over one of the other two and a disadvantage against the third, so matching your ship type to what you're fighting matters as much as raw power. Survey ships sit outside that triangle -- they can technically fight, but they're built for mining and hauling resources, not slugging it out. Check a ship's class in its hangar entry before you send it into a fight it wasn't built for.
Blueprints are the gate to every ship -- construction can't start until you've collected enough for that hull, and some ships add a second gate on top of that: a minimum Shipyard level or a research prerequisite even once you're blueprint-complete. To build, open the Ships panel from map view and tap BUILD, or INSTANT to rush it with premium currency. Where the blueprints themselves come from varies a lot by ship -- missions, faction stores, events, PVE chest drops, or scrapping an older hull. See our ship unlock order guide for the specifics at each Shipyard level.
Your Ship Hangar, built above the Shipyard, caps how many ships you can own at once. Hit that cap and BUILD greys out until you upgrade the Hangar or free up a slot. From Operations level 20 you can also build the Scrapyard, which lets you permanently dismantle ships you no longer need -- see our dedicated Scrapyard guide for what that returns and which ships are exempt.
A ship only does anything once it's assigned to a Drydock, and each Drydock holds exactly one ship at a time -- to swap, recall the current ship home first, then use SWAP SHIP from the drydock's management screen. Upgrading runs on two tracks: Ship XP levels the ship up, while individual components (weapons, hull, and so on) take dedicated materials and unlock a tier-up once every component is maxed. Tiering up takes real time and locks the ship in drydock until it finishes, so don't start one right before you need that ship in a fight.
In System view, tap any point to send your selected ship there, or tap a target -- a mine, another ship -- to auto-route an action like MINE or ATTACK. Zoom out to Galaxy view to plot a course between systems: SET COURSE queues a warp, and once a ship enters warp it's untouchable by other players but also uncontrollable until it arrives. Fat-fingered a GO or RECALL? You can cancel a warp -- tap the X during the 5-second charge-up, or use Emergency Stop mid-flight to drop out at the next system on the route instead of finishing the jump.