Ostranautes – How to Repair and Sell Ships for Cash

This guide will be showing you how to easily earn money in Ostranauts by simply repairing and selling derelict ships. This method has been tested on version 0.12.1.16 of the game but I believe it will still work in the future updates.

Find a Broken Ship

Qu'est-ce que tu’re searching for is a big, abandoned spaceship with lots of walls and rooms. Il’s even better if it has a navigation computer, propulseurs, and enough N2 in RCS to take it back to the port. These things aren’t essential right away, mais toi’ll need them if you want to sell the ship.

If you have a large enough spaceship to start with, il’s a good idea to hide important parts in another storage area. Aussi, gather important repair stuff like motors, motherboards, and carbon fiber.

Remember Its Location

If you leave the area near Ganymede, tu as gagné’t be able to see the ship anymore. It seems like you can only track ships that are close by. Donc, toi’ll want to remember where it is. Si vous le pouvez, attach a towing brace and pull it closer to the shipyard, in a spot you can easily remember, then make sure it stays in orbit: Idéalement, tow it closer to OKLG using a towing brace.

By that, I mean you need to select Ganymede as your navigation target, then gently use the thrusters until the relative speed and side speed are as close to zero as possible. Par ici, when you come back to repair the ship (which will take some hours), tu as gagné’t have to worry about it crashing into the moon or drifting away into space.

Si vous avez’t seen a towing brace:

The towing brace can be easy to miss. Il’s attached to the outside airlock of a derelict ship, and when you remove it, it comes in two parts. Installing it on your ship might be a bit tricky because you might have to remove a couple of walls and make some adjustments to fit it into your airlock.

Once you have the towing brace, you can use it to manually extend the tow cables, which takes quite a while in an animation. Alors, when you want to release the docking clamps, toi’ll need to go through the same long animation. If you attempt to move your ship while towing another without these cables, it will cause massive damage to your ship. I once tried boosting a bit to prevent a ship from crashing into Ganymede, and it ended up causing significant damage to almost all my walls and floors. toutefois, with the tow cables, there seems to be no damage at all, even if you apply a good amount of thrust, except for perhaps a bit of wear on the airlock.

Actual conversation from Discord:

• « I thought you could tow without a brace? »
• « Tu peux, mais toi’ll damage both your ship and the derelict if you do. »
• « Ouais, comme je l'ai mentionné, I boosted at about 100 meters per second and it ended up seriously damaging almost half of my ship’s hull. »

Get a Good Deal

You should aim to buy these ships at a low price. Smaller rundown ships can go for less than 100k, while larger ones might be around 200k. I once sold a mostly intact derelict for about 1 million credits after I stripped it down completely. It seems that the condition of the floors and walls matters a lot, and there might be a bonus if the ship is still pressurized (meaning the atmosphere isn’t vented into space).

It seems that adding things to the ship or repairing it before purchase can make it more expensive. D'un autre côté, removing valuable equipment and ensuring it’s vented before buying might decrease the price.

Price seems to be based on quality, the number of rooms, maniabilité, et la taille. So when you fix up a ship, try to add as many doors and thrusters as you can manage. Inversement, if you find a nice derelict, uninstall all the doors and thrusters before buying it. My freighter had a top-notch quality rating but a poor maneuverability rating, possibly because I didn’t have enough thrusters. With more thrusters, I might have sold it for over a million credits with a much smaller investment, mais ça’s just speculation.

NOTE from Disgo on Discord: « It seems to be just stuff value * room multiplier and maybe an extra for having atmo. »

Ensure You Have a Transponder and Antenna

If the derelict you find doesn’t have a working transponder, toi’ll need to buy one. En outre, if it lacks a functioning antenna, toi’ll have to install one. This is why I always keep at least one antenna in my cargo hold, just in case I encounter this situation.

Gardez à l'esprit:

• Transponders can break if you move them and cannot be repaired. Broken transponders are worthless, so once you place one or find one that is intact, enfiler’t move it!
• Pendant que tu’re making repairs, at least one of your two ships must be broadcasting a transponder code (c'est-à-dire, using power) or security will forcefully collide with your ship. This could make it difficult to return to port unless you use a lot of fuel immediately. As the navigation computer, antenna, and transponder combo consumes a decent amount of power, il’s wise to plan ahead so you don’t s'épuiser. I ended up creating a separate power circuit in the cockpit with a battery just to keep that combo active. It appears that this setup should last at least 8 heures.
• Note that reactors might have issues in the latest build, pour que tu puisses’t always rely on them for extra power.

Return to the Derelict and Activate a Towing Cable

Having a towing cable isn’t absolutely necessary, mais ça’s incredibly useful.

Fixing Up the Ship

This part is going to be tough and risky.

D'abord, make sure to power up only one navigation computer, antenna, and transponder and nothing else!

• Start by methodically repairing all the walls and floors throughout the ship. Une fois que vous’ve finished that, pressurize the hull so you can take off your EVA helmet. This not only saves oxygen and battery but also allows you to better hear proximity warnings from your navigation computer, etc..
• Suivant, repair all the critical components and install everything in your « refurbish derelicts » stockage. If you have extra parts, install them too! It seems (not confirmed) that this has a greater impact on the final selling price than what you’d get from selling them on the black market, et ça’s almost certainly more profitable than selling them to the licensing or scrap stores. I ended up with extra air pumps on my latest derelict, so I just installed two more in the cockpit!
• Pay attention to DOORS! The number of rooms in the ship seems to be a significant factor in the final price. Donc, create additional « chambres » by dividing larger spaces with walls and installing doors in them.
• Use the Auto button to repair ALL the floors, conduits, et les murs. I have a personal preference for replacing jumper cables with quality conduits, mais ça’c'est juste moi. Ce processus peut prendre du temps, so feel free to fast forward to 16x speed.

UNCONFIRMED: I believe that the repair level of the walls and floors plays a major role in the final quality rating.

• Once everything inside the ship is repaired and installed, power it up and exit through an exterior airlock door to repair all the external walls.

This will take a LOT of TIME! Make sure you have enough battery power and oxygen to handle all of this.

Fly the Ship Back to OKLG and Make Big Profits

Techniquement, you can sell the ship remotely, but depending on the distance, it will fetch only a FRACTION of the price you can get when selling it while it’s currently docked.

Interesting Note: My regular survey vessel (Paladin) was worth 2 million credits when docked, but the price to sell it remotely is around 700k. This means there’s a significant price cut if you don’t personally bring the ship to OKLG, no matter how well you’ve fixed it up. I probably could have paid off my mortgage much sooner if I hadn’t sold my original vessel from space.

Use the Shuttle Service to Return to Your Main Ship

Random Observation: I was curious if you could dock two ships at OKLG at the same time. No luck – it gives you a « NO CLEARANCE » warning… right after granting you clearance.

NOTE: Switching to a new ship will erase the IDs of all the ships you’j'ai déjà visité. If you want to keep those records, you must reinstall your original navigation console into the new ship.