Flying

Fitting

Slots, tiers, powergrid and CPU — and the two slots in the game that are reserved.

A ship is a hull plus what you put in it. Every module you fit has to clear three separate checks, and a fit that fails any one of them is refused with a reason rather than silently ignored.

1. The category. A gun goes in a weapons slot, a plate in a defence slot, a scrambler in a utility slot. There are six categories: weapons, defence, utility, engines, reactor and computer.
2. The tier. Every slot has a ceiling, written per hull. A Fighter's gun rack is T2 T2 T1; a Titan's runs to T5. A T3 gun does not go in a T2 slot however much grid you have.
3. The budget. Powergrid and CPU are both spent by every module and both are the hull's. This is the check that decides most fits, and it is the one you can do something about — a reactor raises grid, a computer raises CPU, and the Power Grid Management skill multiplies what the hull starts with.

Reserved slots

Most slots on most hulls accept anything of the right category and tier. Two classes have exactly one slot each that does not, and both are the last slot in their rack — the cheapest one, so reserving it costs you the least.

Everything else is open, and the rule behind that is deliberate: anyone can mine badly and only a barge mines well. The weak version of a specialised job fits anything; the strong version wants the hull built for it.

Two things that cannot be fitted together

A warp scrambler and a boarding clamp are refused on the same ship. Robbing a flying pilot takes one ship to hold them still and another to board — and it is a stated rule with its own refusal rather than something you might squeeze past with enough powergrid.