Ships

There are various Ships in The Long Journey Home.

The Daedalus-7 is your ship (chosen out of three possible at the start). In combination with one of three landers, the choice of the ship has a huge impact on the exact survival strategy on the journey home.

Technology
The Daedalus-7 uses a space folding drive, the Alcubierre drive. Due to its experimental design and the lack of knowledge about the target system, the D-7 relies on gravitation for its navigation, which causes them to always enter systems near the sun. To avoid a deadly crash with a sun, their navigation most likely uses an enforced shift from the gravitational center to spawn some degrees away. The only thing they didn't expect was that something other than the galaxy's center would have the highest gravity well past the solar system and would roughly be on the same axis from Sol during their jump.

Many alien nations already know about the 'Forbidden Systems' and use according star maps to avoid aligning their jump trajectories with them. Too bad nobody told humanity about them...

Ships
There are three different ships available, with unique jump and tuning properties. All ships come with a preinstalled Schiaparelli Corp Mining Laser and a free Experimental IASA Shielding is obtained on Mars

Be careful: Once the fuel tank is empty, the crew will start suffocating and once everybody died, or the ship is destroyed, the journey ends. So choose wisely!

ISS Ulysses
The ISS Ulysses is the most balanced ship available and also the fastest ship on a straight line. It is probably the only ship, that can win the Asteroids race. At the same time, the speed makes it very hard to handle in asteroid belts and demands a lot of skill to avoid crashes.

With an intermediate jump range, fuel tank and hull strength, it is a good all-rounder for a balanced journey home. The cargo space provides room for 5 containers of 4 different resources. Take this ship, after you have made your first gameplay attempts and finally want to reach earth.

ISS Endurance
The ISS Endurance is the first choice for absolute beginners, since its large fuel tank excuses a lot of mistakes during starflight. But be careful, it is the most difficult ship to master, because the short jump distance significantly prolongs the journey home. Choose it for your first attempts until you know the game a bit, then change to another ship with a greater jump distance to avoid frustration by always getting stuck in the first two sectors.

Its bulky nature makes it very slow during combat and in asteroid belts, but its high health also helps to survive a lot of fighting mistakes and exotic matter refueling at the sun. The big fuel and exotic matter tanks are necessary to compensate for the short jumps. The big cargo space makes the ISS Endurance the only ship, that can always save all Reeve refugees during the ...For The Inconvenience rescue mission. It provides room for 6 containers of 5 different resources.

ISS Discovery
The ISS Discovery is the most agile ship in the game. It makes flying through asteroid fields easier than any other ship and the ISS Discovery also a great ship for combat, once you have learned how to avoid the opponent's projectiles. Beginners though will struggle a lot during combat, since the weak hull does not forgive many mistakes. The small fuel depot makes the ISS Discovery the most difficult ship for beginners, navigation mistakes will quickly make this ship a death trap for your crew!

Experienced players will love this ship, because its long jump range and the available space for 3 additional modules (next to weapons and shields) provide maximum flexibility to solve quests. A tuned ISS Discovery is undoubtedly the most versatile ship in the game. The small cargo space with 4 containers for only 3 different resources make this ship together with only 2 EM tanks the most difficult ship in terms of resource management.

Ship stats
The basic ship stats are displayed by the game, when choosing a ship. They are misleading though, since they do not represent all stats correctly. The values for hull strength and the fuel tank are (luckily) equal to the amount of Credits, that is required to repair/refill it. The number of device slots includes the 2 slots for weapons and shields, since they can in principle be removed and be replaced by something else. The maneuverability is just copied from the in-game graph and has to be handled with care.

Landers
Landers are used for planetary expeditions. Just like ships there are three landers available, that have quite different resource harvesting and tuning properties. The first lander always comes with a pilot ejector. The pilot ejector can and should be removed, once better modules can be installed. If a lander is lost, due to explosion or the death of the pilot, the game will help the player with Looking For A new Lander.

You should keep in mind, that the geometry of a lander has an impact on its maneuverability, as a trapezoid for example is not that easy to recover if fallen on one of its sides (I'm looking at you ISV Serenity).

ISV Odyssey
The ISV Odyssey is the heaviest lander and is therefore less influenced by convection, especially on low gravity planets. It has the most efficient drill for minerals and metals and is therefore the best choice for collecting a lot of resources. Overall a good beginner's choice.

The drawback is the limited capacity of only 2 resources at a time which might force the player to land on a planet several times to harvest all resources.

ISV Serenity
The ISV Serenity is the most balanced lander and probably the best choice, wouldn't there be one big disadvantage: The ISV Serenity is much harder to land on its feet and easily flipping over.

It has the largest cargo space with each 3 containers for up to 3 different resources. The best lander for everybody, who mastered the art of landing.

ISV Pathfinder
The ISV Pathfinder is perfectly made for gas planets, but also the weakest of all landers. With its small cargo space and hull strength, it could be considered the worst lander, but the possibility to add 4 additional modules can make the ISV Pathfinder a real performer.

Lander stats
The basic lander stats are displayed by the game, when choosing a lander. They are misleading though, since they do not represent all stats correctly. The values for hull strength are equal to the amount of Credits, that is required to repair it. The number of device slots includes the slot for the Pilot Ejector, since it can be removed and most likely will be replaced by something more useful. The drill and probe efficiencies are just copied from the in-game graph and have to be handled with care.

Trivia

 * The name "Serenity" is a reference to the space ship from Joss Whedon's space Western drama TV series Firefly.