EVERSPACE 2 - All Ships Overview and Abilities Guide (2024)

This guide will show you the list of ships available in EVERSPACE 2. At the same time, we will also cover the ship’s abilities post-armed and dangerous updates.

Ship Dealers Overview

Ship Dealers are easy to spot on the map – just look for the arrow in a circle icon. Their stock changes randomly over time, but if you want to see new ships, you’ll need to jump in supra light. The rotation schedule is like this: half the ships switch out in 14 minutes, three fourths in 28 minutes, and the full stock refreshes every 56 minutes. Initially, there are 5 dealers, but you can unlock 2 more with perks. One in Ceto, two in Union, two in Drake, one on the Flying duch*ess (needs perk), and one at Kato Palace (final perk).

When you decide to buy a ship, you’ve got three choices: buy and sell current, buy and move current to your base, or buy and send the new ship straight to your base. Don’t worry about experimenting because ships sell for nearly the same amount you bought them for.

As you advance in the game, higher tier ships will become available, each offering better speed, handling, hull points, armor bonus, shield bonus, and cargo capacity. The higher the tier, the more random passives the ship will have. Additionally, tier I and I+ ships come with 2 device slots, tier II and II+ have 3, and tier III or higher boast 4 device slots.

Now, for the level 3 and 5 ship dealer perks: Ships come with an alternate set of passives, which means you can press a button at the ship dealer menu to swap to a second, non-overlapping set of ship passives. If you have the “Replace the full inventory every 10 minutes” perk, you can hold down a button on the dealer menu to wipe out the current batch of ships and roll a new set.

Ship Type Overview

Ships come in three weight classes: light, medium, and heavy.

Light ships are nimble but fragile, while heavy ships are sturdy but less agile. Medium ships strike a balance between the two. Many players find heavy ships easier to handle due to their higher durability, while light ships require precise piloting skills and often rely on the “play it safe” pilot perk for brief invulnerability.

When it comes to firepower, heavy ships offer clear advantages. Gunships have extra hardpoints, Bombers come with free missiles, and Vindicators can summon drones for added damage. These straightforward perks make heavy ships popular among new players, although Interceptors excel in endgame rifts speedruns.

Medium ships present a more nuanced approach. Interceptors’ weapon overdrive may seem temporary, but with ample enemies, it can remain active almost constantly. Strikers’ close combat bonus may appear small, but when combined with quantum tether, it spreads boosted damage across multiple foes. Unfortunately, Sentinel falls short, as its static overload struggles to keep pace with tougher enemies.

Light ships vary widely in firepower. Scouts boast the potential for the highest damage multiplier with their passive and ultimate abilities, but they require open sight-lines, which can be challenging in cave-based missions. Vanguard’s baseline increases critical chance, while its random passives can be devastating. Stinger claims to enhance warfare devices, but its primary damage source is the temporary bonus hardpoint.

Scout

• Specialty: Grants a 4% damage buff per 100 meters away from the target. This seemingly substantial boost compensates for the inherent weakness of Rail Guns, essentially correcting their underperformance and making sniping a viable strategy.
• Expertise: Provides a bonus to weapon range, which naturally complements your specialty. Additionally, it allows short-ranged, low-spread weapons like Autocannons to match the range of unbuffed Coil Guns, enhancing versatility in combat.
• Ultimate – Shadow Strike: Activating this ability renders your ship invisible and grants a damage buff of up to 300%. Initially, the buff is at its maximum, but it begins to diminish 1 second after you start firing. However, simply charging Rail Guns and Scatter Guns does not trigger the buff reduction; only releasing the trigger does. While the buff can be maintained continuously, it’s often beneficial to rapidly toggle your ultimate on and off. This strategy maximizes damage while minimizing meter consumption. You can optimize this further by timing your attacks to refill the meter with kills, particularly effective with slow-moving projectiles like explosive mines.

Possible Passives

1. 30% increased weapon range.
2. 100% increased boost energy regeneration during Shadow Strike.
3. Shadow Strike prevents detection by mines.
4. Gain 5s of invincibility after Shadow Strike ends.
5. 25% reduced enemy detection range.
6. 20% increased device activation range.
7. 20% increased cloak duration.
8. 50% increased velocity to all primary weapon projectiles. [Exclusive]
9. 50% reduced spread to all primary weapons. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. The first passive stacks with your expertise and can be combined with either the velocity bonus or spread reduction to significantly enhance short-range primaries. Remember: Scatter Gun, Blaster, and Gauss benefit from reduced spread, while Auto Cannons and Pulse Laser benefit from increased velocity.
2. Due to the existing incentives to toggle Shadow Strike on and off frequently, the fourth passive is particularly advantageous, while the second and third are less impressive.
3. Reduced detection range could aid in sniping, although shooting enemies may still provoke them to charge you even if you’re outside detection range.
4. Increased device activation range offers a quality-of-life improvement, especially for devices like the Corrosion Injector and EMP Generator, which have shorter ranges compared to most primary weapons.
5. Increasing cloak duration extends the duration of a single charge of the cloaking device from 15 to 18 seconds. With a full stack of three charges, this extends the duration from 45 to 54 seconds, providing longer-lasting stealth capabilities.

Vanguard

• Specialty: Overcharge grants up to 200% base shield capacity when moving quickly. Boosting, using cruise drive, employing energized boost devices, or utilizing fusion hook devices all contribute to gaining speed. This effectively boosts your tankiness to near-medium weight ship levels. However, maintaining the bonus capacity requires maintaining a decent speed; flying at standard speeds gradually depletes it.
• Expertise: Provides a critical bonus for rear attacks, augmenting your base critical chance from the precision stat by a percentage determined by your expertise stat. Initially, this allowed easy attainment of 100% crit chance, but a recent patch has made achieving this less practical, though still possible.
• Ultimate – Time Extender: Activates bullet time, slowing down time and offering all the expected benefits. Ideal for intense dogfights, but speedrunners may dislike it for the same reasons they typically avoid bullet time mechanics.

Possible Passives

1. Can activate cruise drive with enemies nearby.
2. 50% reduced Web effect.
3. Up to 20% support device cooldown reduction depending on overcharge percentage.
4. Time Extender immediately restores all weapon and boost energy.
5. Flying closely behind an enemy grants 20% increased weapon damage.
6. At 200m range, primary weapons gain 20% shield and armor piercing.
7. While shields are overcharged, gain 25% increased critical hit damage.
8. Overcharge is gained 25% faster. [Exclusive]
9. Overcharge never deflates. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. Activating cruise drive near enemies poses a risk, even with the perk, as taking damage can interrupt the charge-up process.
2. Reduced web effect is a valuable survival perk, particularly since webber drones often pose a significant threat to lightweight ships.
3. Shorter cooldown on support devices offers convenience, especially considering that many support devices provide movement or tanking benefits.
4. Ultimate restores weapon and boost energy, akin to an energy injector consumable. This is most effective when rapidly toggling the ultimate, similar to similar perks on other ships.
5. The next three perks all enhance damage in different ways and stack together for optimal effectiveness. Each provides a unique boost, but the shield and armor piercing perk is often considered the most advantageous if you can only choose one.
6. Finally, the two overcharge perks offer quality-of-life improvements. However, since overcharge already functions effectively by default, these perks hold lower value compared to others.

Stinger

• Specialty: Grants a +1 to all device levels, and using a device creates a temporary third gun. This additional gun boosts your DPS by 50% while consuming 50% more energy. It significantly enhances primary effectiveness, particularly favoring multi-charge devices and device cooldown reduction due to the need for constant device activation.
• Expertise: Increases the duration of the temporary third gun, improving uptime and overall effectiveness.
• Ultimate – Void Swarm: Releases a cloud of nanobots that drain enemy life and then return to heal you. Additionally, it instantly resets all device cooldowns. While the damage output is relatively low, the optimal strategy is often to toggle the ultimate on and off to reset device cooldowns while minimizing meter consumption. This approach makes long device cooldowns more manageable and allows for more frequent use of the ultimate ability.

Possible Passives

1. 20% reduced cooldowns for support devices.
2. 20% reduced cooldowns for warfare devices.
3. Void Swarm radius increased by 25%
4. Become cloaked for 5s after shield is depleted.
5. Using a device restores 15% shields.
6. While the third hardpoint is active, gain 33% reduced weapon energy consumption.
7. Using a device restores 25% boost energy.
8. 25% increased corrosion damage. [Exclusive]
9. 25% increased EMP duration. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. The two cooldown reduction perks are essential for maintaining high uptime on devices, crucial for triggering your specialty effectively.
2. Increased ultimate radius is less impactful due to the low damage of Void Swarm, making it a mediocre choice.
3. Cloaking on shield break offers a valuable tanking perk, while shield restore on device use has an interesting synergy with the Castiel’s Protection legendary. Boost energy restore on device use also aids in survival.
4. Reduced energy on bonus hardpoint allows you to effectively gain three guns for the energy cost of two, making high energy consumption weapons more practical and efficient.
5. The two exclusive perks prompt you to choose between Corrosion Injector or EMP Generator. Note that they work with other sources of corrosion/EMP, such as missiles and mines, providing versatility in combat strategy.

Interceptor

• Specialty: Weapons consume boost energy when out of weapon energy. However, this is actively detrimental, as boost energy is typically more valuable than weapon energy. It’s advisable to switch to another weapon when one runs out of energy, as they all have independent energy gauges.
• Expertise: Reduces primary energy consumption, which may seem useful but becomes less impactful when considering your ultimate ability.
• Ultimate – Weapon Overdrive: Activates unlimited weapon energy and boost energy, along with a 1.8x damage multiplier and 1.5x fire rate multiplier. Kills during the ultimate refund meter, allowing you to potentially keep the effect going indefinitely with enough enemies around. It’s important to note that the damage buff applies to both primary and secondary weapons.

Possible Passives

1. When flying toward a locked enemy target beyond 1500m range, gain 15% increased speed.
2. 10% increased primary weapon damage.
3. Collecting an energy orb grants +1% increased critical hit chance for 6 seconds, up to 20%.
4. Primary weapon hits refund 30% of energy cost.
5. Critical hits have a 20% chance to recharge Weapon Overdrive by 1%.
6. When entering a location, gain 20% increased boost and fire rate for 60s.
7. While firing primary weapons, gain 1% increased critical hit damage every second to a maximum of 20%.
8. While Weapon Overdrive is active, gain 100% increased energy orb collection range. [Exclusive]
9. While Weapon Overdrive is active, gain 50% chance to refund secondary weapons upon use. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. Increase boost when far away benefits short-ranged weapons, providing a helpful boost in maneuverability.
2. Increased primary damage and energy refund perks offer modest benefits when your ultimate isn’t active, providing a slight edge in combat.
3. Orbs give crit chance combined with trigger-holding for crit damage synergizes well with Gauss Cannons, making them formidable. Crits recharge ultimate similarly to the “Critical Faculty” pilot perk, stacking for added effectiveness.
4. Increased boost and fire rate when entering a new location proves advantageous in endgame rift farming, as each stage of a rift counts as a new location.
5. Increase orb collection range, while useful, is overshadowed by the Stratocumulus shield from the Stormchaser Set.
6. Secondary ammo refund during ultimate can transform the Interceptor into a superior version of the Bomber. With the baseline buffs from Weapon Overdrive, you can deal 3.6 times the secondary damage for every one ammo used.

Sentinel

• Specialty: Grants a 20% increased fire rate based on shield percentage. While it provides a modest DPS increase, it also leads to higher energy consumption.
• Expertise: Provides damage resistance on shields, enhancing your tanking capabilities significantly. Strengthening your outermost defensive layer makes you more resilient in combat.
• Ultimate – Static Overload: Unleashes chain lightning beams, offering strong area-of-effect clearing on normal difficulty but struggles in rifts.

Possible Passives

1. 20% reduced cooldowns for warfare devices
2. 15% increased shield hitpoints.
3. Killing an enemy using Static Overload restores 10% of shield hitpoints.
4. Static Overload has a 10% chance per second to apply EMP to affected targets.
5. Instantly reset all support device cooldowns when shield depletes (once every 2 minutes).
6. Each kill reduces the cooldown of a random device by 1s.
7. Collecting an energy orb deploys an energy shield for 2s.
8. Using a consumable immediately triggers the shield to recharge.
9. While shields are at least 50% charged, gain corrosion immunity. [Exclusive]
10. While shields are fully charged, gain 20% reduced boost energy and weapon energy consumption. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. Cooldown reduction perks are beneficial, with the kill-based version likely being the best choice as good devices tend to have short cooldowns already.
2. Increased shield hitpoints may seem appealing, but the energy orb passive is much stronger. However, to fully benefit from orb-based passives, you need to level up Dahlia’s perks. Shield recharge on consumable use is high maintenance and doesn’t offer much help if you’re constantly under attack.
3. The two ultimate passives are adequate for normal difficulty but may struggle against stronger enemies.
4. Corrosion immunity at 50% shield charge can be replaced by the Hazard Shield from the Blightmonger Set. Reduced energy consumption at 100% charge works best with the overshield on orb pickup, providing a synergistic benefit.

Striker

• Specialty: Grants a 5% damage bonus for each nearby enemy, capped at 30%. This provides a small but significant buff when engaging in close combat, which is facilitated by the ship’s high handling for a medium-sized vessel.
• Expertise: Increases boost speed, primarily beneficial for completing the racetrack quest efficiently.
• Ultimate – Quantum Tether: Links your target to nearby enemies, spreading damage across the link. While there is a cap on the number of links, it’s rarely an issue. Remember that the link is one-way, so choose the most durable enemy in a pack to maximize effectiveness.

Possible Passives

1. 30% increased boost speed while under missile lock.
2. Locked enemy targets suffer 20% speed reduction.
3. Can grab and throw drones.
4. Activating Quantum Tether instantly repairs 50% of armor.
5. Enemies within 300m cannot regenerate shields.
6. 60% reduced self-damage.
7. Enemies within 1km range deal 20% less damage.
8. 20% debuff duration reduction. [Exclusive]
9. 20% hull damage reduction. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. Increased boost speed aids in evading missiles but may not be as effective as simply shooting them down.
2. Locked target speed reduction is useful for targeting scouts and triggering the “exploitation” pilot perk. It also works on enemies immune to web missiles, like capital ships.
3. Grabbing drones is more of a novelty than a practical strategy.
4. Activating the ultimate repairs armor, serving as a useful panic button in dire situations.
5. Nearby enemies cannot regenerate shields pairs well with the EMP device with the energy damage perk.
6. Reduced self-damage sounds significant but may not provide much protection against point-blank mine explosions if you’re careless.
7. Nearby enemies dealing less damage is a valuable tanking perk, although watch out for outlaw bombers and their long-range missiles.
8. Reduced debuff duration is advantageous, particularly in the Drake system.
9. Hull damage reduction is less useful than perks that enhance shields or armor because hull damage can cause module damage.

Gunship

• Specialty: Equips double primary guns, doubling DPS for double energy consumption. Works best with low power consumption weapons like Pulse Lasers and Autocannons.
• Expertise: Provides damage resistance on armor. While the percentage may seem smaller than similar perks on other ships, it’s worth noting that some armor modules have built-in damage resistance, which stacks with this perk.
• Ultimate – Turret: Deploys an auto-targeting dorsal gun. Without the right passive to swap the weapon type to a Coil Gun, it’s not particularly effective.

Possible Passives

1. Turret will also attack mines.
2. 30% bonus damage against drones.
3. 15% increased boost speed.
4. After 10s of not being hit, gain 2% armor recovery every second, up to half total armor.
5. When using a consumable, restore 8% armor.
6. Instantly reset all warfare device cooldowns when armor depletes (once every 2 minutes).
7. When hull is 50% or lower, gain 40% hull damage reduction.
8. 20% increased armor repair per kill.
9. Pulse Laser Turret. [Exclusive]
10. Coil Gun Turret. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. Turret clearing mines is interesting but can be redundant if you have a missile defense device with a similar mode.
2. Bonus damage against drones is useful against teleport drones but may not be impactful against other drone types.
3. Increased boost speed is highly beneficial for a slow ship like the Gunship.
4. Among the armor repair passives, free recovery outside combat and increased repair per kill are both effective in their own right. However, repair on consumable use may not be as useful due to the small amount of repair provided and the Gunship’s limited consumable slots.
5. Damage reduction on low hull may not be as effective since taking hull damage also means taking module damage, which can be expensive to repair.
6. For the turret passives, Coil Gun is generally the better choice over Pulse Laser due to reliability.

Bomber

• Specialty: Secondary weapons use energy instead of ammo, allowing for relentless spamming of homing missiles or proximity mines.
• Expertise: Kills repair hull damage, providing added sustainability in combat, especially considering that armor modules already have armor repair on kill.
• Ultimate – ARC-9000: Unleashes a powerful attack, but scales poorly and is primarily used to trigger passives on higher difficulties.

Possible Passives

1. Target lock-on duration reduced by 50%.
2. 20% reduced damage from enemy explosives.
3. Convert mines instead of triggering them when flying close without boosting.
4. Take 50% reduced damage from ARC-9000 explosion.
5. ARC-9000 damage increases by 2% every second after being fired.
6. Target lock-on is maintained off-screen.
7. 20% reduced energy consumption for all secondary weapons.
8. Activating ARC-9000 fully restores secondary weapon energy. [Exclusive]
9. When ARC-9000 is manually detonated, gain 40% increased ARC-9000 shockwave damage. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

1. Reduced lock-on time is beneficial for missile builds and can free up modifier slots.
2. Maintaining target lock off-screen aids in handling swarms of enemies.
3. Reduced damage from enemy explosives is valuable against high DPS explosive weapons.
4. Convert mines simplifies minesweeper missions and distress calls, while reduced self-damage from the ultimate is a convenience feature.
5. Reduced energy consumption for secondaries and energy restoration on ultimate cast facilitate relentless missile or mine spamming, making them highly effective choices.
6. Damage increases to the ultimate skill may be overkill on normal difficulty and underwhelming in rifts.

Vindicator

• Specialty: Turns space trash into drones. Overpowered on normal difficulty but nearly useless in endgame activities. The death explosion passive can somewhat mitigate this, although it’s unconventional.
• Expertise: Enhances drone damage and hull, but maximum expertise struggles to keep up with maximum difficulty. It also doesn’t scale the explosion passive. Items that buff drone effectiveness provide limited help in this regard.
• Ultimate – Phalanx: Summons temporary drones up to your cap and buffs existing drones for the duration. Has a fun interaction with the explosion passive if toggled on with most drones dead, then quickly switched off.

Possible Passives

1. Maximum number of active drones increased by 1.
2. Drones are invulnerable during Phalanx.
3. Drones regenerate 1% hull per second.
4. 50% reduced damage from enemy drones.
5. Drones violently explode on death, damaging and slowing nearby enemies.
6. When a drone is destroyed, gain 20% increased weapon damage for 6s.
7. Drones are immune to all debuff conditions.
8. Collecting wreckage restores 10% shields.
9. When a drone is destroyed, the drone has a 20% chance to be instantly reconstructed.
10. Locked enemy targets suffer 20% increased damage from drones. [Exclusive]
11. Enemy support drones within 2km range have passive abilities disrupted and disabled. [Exclusive]

Picking Passives

Let’s address the elephant in the room: “Drones explode on death” is undeniably the best passive. It’s the only one capable of effectively dealing with enemies in the most challenging activities. While keeping drones alive is feasible on normal difficulty, no amount of itemization can maintain their pew pew guns’ relevance against the toughest content in the game. This discrepancy is unfortunate, as the power fantasy of a ship like this is supposed to be commanding your legion to victory, not waiting around for your minions to get splattered so they can explode.