Ostranauts Starting Ships — Which One to Take
✔ Last checked: 2026-08-12
Your starting ship is the single biggest difficulty setting in the game, and you don’t get to pick from a catalogue — you take what the offers give you. Here’s how the choice actually works and what to look for when two hulls are on the table.
How you get one
Ship acquisition happens at the end of character creation. The SEEK SHIP option spends one year of your character’s life and yields one or two offers. You can keep spending years until you like what you see, but there are two costs:
- Every year ages you, and aging hands out negative traits at 29 and 42.
- Hit 47 and the game stops negotiating — you’re forced to accept the first offer and character creation ends.
So “shop until perfect” isn’t a strategy. Two or three looks, then commit.
What to actually compare
Documented starting hulls include the TU-series (TU-70a, TU-77a, TU-76a), the Melody, the Lilliput, and a hotrod option added in a later update. When you’re staring at two offers, rank them on these, in order:
| Priority | What to check | Why it matters more than size |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Repairs needed | A cheap hull that needs work eats your startup cash and your first ten hours. TU-70a and TU-77a are both documented as needing minimal repairs |
| 2 | Expansion potential | You will rebuild this ship. The TU-series and Melody are all noted for good expansion room — see expanding your ship |
| 3 | Airlock position | The Melody has good hardware but its airlock is blocked by the layout. An awkward airlock is a tax you pay every single EVA |
| 4 | Transponder placement | Matters for legal flight and for later refits — the TU-76a is specifically noted for a well-placed transponder |
| 5 | Size | Bigger is not better early. More tiles means more air to heat, more hull to seal, more mass to push |
The trap: bigger, cheaper, broken
The classic new-spacer mistake is taking the largest hull offered because it looks like more value. In practice a large, damaged, badly-laid-out ship costs more to make flight-legal than a small clean one, and you start the game in debt either way. Take the boring, intact, mortgage-able hull. You’ll rebuild it into whatever you want soon enough.
Before you accept
Make sure you understand what a legally flyable ship needs (transponder, antenna, nav) — that’s covered on the ships page, and being unable to legally fly is a much worse opening than a small cabin.
Hull details above come from the official wiki’s ship pages; some entries date from the Early Access era and 1.0 may have adjusted specifics. The selection priorities hold regardless.
FAQ
What is the best starting ship in Ostranauts?
There's no single best — the TU-series hulls (TU-70a, TU-76a, TU-77a) are the safest picks because they're documented as needing minimal repairs and having good expansion potential. Avoid anything whose airlock or transponder is awkwardly placed; that's a problem you'll be paying for all game.
How do I get a starting ship?
During character creation, spend a year on SEEK SHIP. It yields one or two offers. You can keep spending years looking, but every year ages your character — and at 47 you're forced to accept the first offer you get.
Does my starting ship decide the difficulty?
Largely, yes. The wiki puts it plainly: your starting ship is the primary indicator of how hard your start will be. Repairs, air-tightness and expansion room matter more than size.