Complete Guide to All Things Alien

Overview

There’s more than just humans in Endless Sky! Highly advanced alien races wait quietly in hard-to-reach zones of the galaxy. Explore their systems and acquire their tech and warships to become stronger than any human fleet. This guide will provide an overview of all alien races in the game, including how to reach them and what notable items/ships they offer. Note that this guide is intended for late-midgame to end-game players as these races are intentionally designed to be the strongest enemies in the entire game and will easily destroy any smaller human fleet. By the same token, once you conquer these races, nothing else in the game will present a challenge to you, as they are the final frontier of Endless Sky exploration. Needless to say this guide contains SPOILERS, as these alien races are normally hidden and require some exploration to find, and a few races are tied in with the final events of the campaign questline. Continue reading at your own risk!Last updated: Jan. 12, 2016

Introduction

So you’ve done it. You’ve reached the mid- to endgame. You have a powerful fleet of ships at your disposal and dozens if not hundreds of millions of credits burning a hole in your pocket. You’re starting to conquer planets just for the challenge of it. Maybe you’ve even beaten the campaign, at which point you’ve already probably met and perhaps even fought against several of the factions about whom you’ll soon be reading.

And so you set your sights on the extravagant: with budget no longer a concern, what’s the strongest ship you can build? Where can the strongest outfits be found? What mysteries lurk in those unconnected galaxies visible on your map but so frustratingly just out of reach?

This guide is here to answer all those questions–and the answer is the same to all of them: aliens!

The Races & Their Specialties

There are four alien races and one alien-influenced group (humans, but highly advanced as a result of early alien intervention) in Endless Sky. Each of these 5 factions possesses technology more advanced than nearly all of what humanity has to offer, though their specialties differ–that is to say, each group has certain kinds of outfits (shields or engines, for example) that are best-in-class, unrivaled by anything else in the galaxy, while their other outfits are lacking in comparison.

These five factions are presented below roughly in order of technological advancement (i.e. difficulty beating in combat), from least advanced to most advanced, along with their notable outfits and ships:

• The Humans of the Deep (engines, beam weapons, ramscoops, Bactrian)
• The Pug (hand-to-hand defense, jump drives)
• The Hai (blaster weapons, missile weapons, small shielding, Shield Beetle)
• The Wanderers (beam weapons, small shielding, hybrid outfits, Deep River)
• The Korath (cooling, reactors, beam weapons, anti-missile, jump drives, Raider)
• The Quarg (beam weapons, anti-missile, large shielding, batteries)

Since each faction specializes in different outfits and lives in different corners of the map, in your endeavor to construct the strongest fleet in the galaxy you will therefore be traveling frequently between the far edges of space to access these factions, purchasing and plundering their strongest outfits and (where possible) ships, combining their tech to create a fleet stronger than any.

On the matter of traveling, while the Deep humans and the Quarg have their homes connected contiguously with the rest of human space, the other four factions occupy systems without direct links to human territory. To that end, the fastest way (in the case of the Hai) and the only way (in the case of the Pug, Wanderers, and Korath) to reach those factions’ home systems is with the use of the almighty Jump Drive–a device so central to lategame space-travel that I’ve devoted an entire section to it below.

The Jump Drive

Jump drives are an advanced alien form of hyperdrive, taking up an equal amount of outfit space (20). While they consume twice as much fuel as a regular hyperdrive for each jump, they allow jumping between two nearby systems regardless of whether or not they’re connected by hyperspace links. This technology is essential for accessing the Pug, Wanderer, and Korath home systems, which have no hyperspace links to human territory, and in general it makes traveling around the map much more quick and efficient. For example, let us say a ship begins in the Delta Velorum system and wishes to travel to the Men system. With a regular hyperdrive, the route required would take 12 hops, as shown below:

But with a jump drive, the route is reduced to a mere 4 hops, as jumps are achievable between nearby systems even without a hyperspace connection between them, shown below:

Notice how, with the jump drive, none of the four hops are along a designated hyperspace route. By being able to hop between nearby systems regardless of whether or not they are connected, a 12-day trip (not including days spent landing on a planet to refuel) becomes a 4-day trip. Ultimately therefore even though a jump drive demands twice as much fuel per jump, it usually allow you to travel in 1/3rd or less of the time, meaning it’s still a much more fuel-efficient means of travel than the regular hyperdrive.

This additional efficiency, combined with its unique potential to reach otherwise-unreachable areas of the map, establishes the Jump Drive as a crucial first step in lategame shipbuilding and exploration. One jump drive is provided to your capital ship late in the campaign. As the in-game description suggests, the only way to get more is to steal them from other aliens. Regardless of method or circumstance, a top priority for any new alien-hunter should be to outfit their entire fleet with jump drives (and perhaps extra fuel tanks to power them), as they are the key to lategame navigation and efficient travel.

Below is a description of each alien (or alien-influenced) faction, including which ones of them have jump drives and tips for defeating them and acquiring their jump drives.

The Humans of the Deep

Ironically the first “alien” faction covered in this guide isn’t actually an alien faction at all–the humans of the Deep are still merely human. Early in the game, though, certain quests suggest a deeper mystery to their background. At some point in ages long past they were visited by the Pug, another alien race (covered below), who provided them with previously-unknown beam technology and launched Deep society far forward past the rest of humanity. That is supposedly why, at the present time of Endless Sky, the Deep produces stronger laser weapons than any other human group (electron lasers) as well as the strongest engines in the entire galaxy (atomics), beating out even alien engines. As well, their signature ship, the Bactrian, is powerful enough to stand toe-to-toe with alien cruisers and makes for an excellent flagship with its high crew capacity and cargo space for easy raiding.

Notable Outfits

A-series Atomic Engines — Best engines in the entire game. Available in a variety of sizes to accommodate ships big and small. Hai ships use atomic engines by default, and besides Deep territory they’re also sold in Hai space. The other four races (Pug, Wanderers, Korath, and Quarg) each have their own alien variants of engines which can be plundered, but in terms of size-to-output efficiency nothing beats atomics.

Electron Lasers — Hugely eclipsed by alien lasers, but still the best non-alien lasers in the game, as well as the second best forward-gun lasers in the game (besides the Wayfarer Sunbeam, all other alien lasers are turret-mounted). Electron Lasers are installed by default on Republic ships and are plunderable from them, but they are also later sold at Deep outfitters once a certain point in the campaign has been reached.

Catalytic Ramscoop — The most efficient ramscoop in the game, made available early in the campaign questline. 7x more efficient than a regular ramscoop for only 1.6x as much space. This item was nerfed in the recent update; it previously consumed the same outfit space as a regular ramscoop (10) and was thus strictly better. Now that this one’s outfit cost was raised slightly to 16, you’re giving up 6 outfit space with the upgrade, and the only difference is that it works faster–which is to say, if you’re extremely patient a regular ramscoop can do the same thing for 6 fewer space, it just takes more real-world time. Still, in the late-game you’ll be jumping through uninhabited systems enough that I still recommend investing in a catalytic ramscoop just to save yourself real-world time flying around in circles, unless you’re so badly hurting for space that the extra 6 somehow makes all the difference.

Notable Ships

Bactrian – An excellent all-round flagship because of its high crew capacity and cargo space (for boarding and plundering). Cargo space can be converted to additional outfit space. 6 turret slots and large outfit space leaves ample room for advanced alien turret weaponry. Relatively weak shields/hull (compared to alien ships) but large outfit space makes up for it as it allows for the installation of multiple shield generators to keep shields high.

Summary
While not technically aliens, the humans of the Deep were provided technological advancement by the Pug and therefore offer weaponry to the Republic and its allies on the equivalent of an weaker alien level, presumably so the player could purchase such weaponry during the campaign and fight the Pug (who are themselves weak aliens) on roughly equal footing. That said, while their weapons may be introductory-level, their atomic engines are the best engines available in the entire game, while their Bactrian makes for a flagship like none other.

The Pug

Unlike the Korath and Quarg, you won’t encounter the Pug while occasionally flying around nearby systems. In fact, you won’t see the Pug at all until you either acquire a jump drive and hop into their single star system south of Sol–or advance to a certain point in the campaign where the Pug begin expanding into and conquering their neighboring systems. The image on the right shows their isolated home system Deneb and the surrounding map prior to the Pug war.

In-game lore suggests they’re a very ancient race who has intervened in the affairs of other species (most notably the Wanderers and the Deep humans) for millennia, mysteriously uplifting them and guiding them for reasons no one fully understands. In Endless Sky they’re designed as an “entry level” alien race, only slightly above humans in terms of technology, as unlike the other alien races where confrontation is completely optional it is mandatory that all players fight and beat the pug in the course of the campaign. Worthy of note is that once you beat their portion of the campaign, the Pug become much harder to reach and their outfits become unplunderable until you’re able to find them again, which won’t be until after you’ve obtained jump drive tech and met the Wanderers (see the Wanderers section for more info on this).

The good news is, most of their outfits and ships are rather weak, with their strongest and biggest ship, the Maboro, about on par with a human Falcon. So, you don’t lose much by their temporary departure–they are, however, the best race for farming jump drives early on, so to make your later space exploration much easier you may wish to grab several of their jump drives before completing their section of the campaign and causing them to flee.

Their alien engines–Afkar (small), Cormet (medium), and Lohmar (heavy)–are weaker than similarly-sized atomic engines, but more energy efficient. Atomics remain the superior choice, however, as the added energy efficiency isn’t a noticeable difference on bigger ships.

They possess two main kinds of weapons: Pug Zappers, available in both forward and turret form and about on par with electron beams (shorter range, more damage); and Pug Seekers, which function as hybrid blaster-missiles (damage of a blaster, but 3,000 range and homing capability like a missile launcher, with no ammo). Neither is worth equipping on any of your ships, but they sure do look pretty when they fire.

Notable Outfits

Jump Drives — As mentioned above, the Pug are far and away the easiest source of Jump Drives in the game. Even their biggest ships are rather easily disabled with only a modest fleet, and each ship (big or small) comes equipped with its own jump drive. Once again it is strongly recommended to farm up on jump drives BEFORE defeating the Pug, as once they retreat from human space the only reliable source of jump drives in human space becomes the Quarg, who are massively more difficult to defeat.

Pug Biodefenses — Can’t be plundered from Pug ships, but can be transferred to your other ships after pug ships are captured by buying and reselling them. Each unit of Pug Biodefenses costs zero outfit space and gives a whopping 250 capture defense rating (compare 0.8 defense per crew on Nerve Gas). Now that pirates and aliens don’t try to raid your ship anymore this is less useful, but it’s still the best “Hand to Hand” defensive item in the game. It’s because of this outfit that Pug ships are difficult to capture without casualties, and the large Pug ships are practically impossible to capture, despite how easy they are to disable.

Summary
In almost all areas the Pug offer roughly the same kind of technology you’ll find at a Deep outfitter (appropriate, considering the Deep got their tech from the Pug in the first place). Their ships and weapons, while visually cool-looking, are nothing special, though their Pug Blaster is unique in being a blaster weapon/missile launcher hybrid. All that said, their weakness makes them ideal for farming jump drives to equip your fleet, and their biodefenses, while less useful with the current patch, are still unrivaled.

The Hai

The Hai are the first of the “big league” aliens. Unlike the Pug, who were pretty much on par with if not slightly inferior to the Deep humans in terms of technological advancement (which was likely intentional by design), the Hai represent a significant tech jump: they possess certain weapon and defensive outfit capabilities beyond anything found in human space, as well as arguably the strongest combat ship available to the player in the entire game.

The Hai are also unique among alien races in several respects. Despite their advancement they do not possess jump drive technology; instead they use regular hyperdrives, and while there is no direct link from human space to theirs they are able to interact with humankind through the wormhole indirectly connecting human space at system Ultima Thule to hai space at system Waypoint (see picture to the right). Importantly, Ultima Thule is only accessible through a large cluster of uninhabited systems, thus in order to reach the wormhole in the first place one needs ships with ramscoops or large enough fuel tanks to make the journey. This was designed as a natural barrier to make reaching the Hai a little more difficult, but since they don’t require a jump drive you can still get to them very early on, and in all likelihood they will be the first or second alien species you meet.

Because of this connection, the Hai are the first alien race willing to openly engage in trade with humans–you can land on their planets to refuel like any normal human planet and visit their shipyards and outfitters to purchase their goods with (lots of) credits. This means that, unlike with nearly every other alien race, if you’ve got enough credits you don’t need to resort to piracy with the Hai–nor should you, as you need to be friendly with them for certain quests later on.

Besides, as their ships are considerably stronger than Pug ships, fighting the otherwise-friendly Hai is a dangerous endeavor anyway. If you’re really up for the challenge of the fight, there’s a sub-faction of pirate Hai known as the “Unfettered” who control the northernmost systems in Hai space. These pirate Hai behave just like regular human pirates–they simply pilot Hai ships, and defeating them improves your reputation with normal Hai.

As a final piece of trivia, as of the current patch, the Hai are one of only two alien races, the other being the Wanderers, whose technology is provided with in-game visual icons (all Pug, Korath, and Quarg tech is identified with only a <?> in the outfitter screen, with images presumably to be added later).

Notable Outfits

Ion Cannons – Best forward-mounted blaster weapons in the game. Longest range (800) with solid damage. Equip on AI-controlled escort ships for best use as they have aim prediction and can snipe the full 800 range. Low heat generation means lots can be equipped on the same ship (Hai ships are usually loaded to the max with these). Ion effect is kinda gimmicky but can completely drain energy of victim ships with enough sustained fire.

Hai Tracker Pod — Like a Meteor Missile Launcher on steroids. Fast firing speed, HUGE range (8,400 units, longest range of any weapon in the game), “excellent” homing, good damage and solid missile strength (harder to kill with anti-missile than most other missile types). When fighting Hai, they will generally fly as far away from you as they can and spam you with hundreds of tracker missiles from miles away; you can make use of the same tactic yourself. Arguably best missile launcher in game.

S-970 Shield Regenerator — Nearly twice as much shield regeneration as the best human regenerator (138 Hai vs 78.6 human) at a fraction of the outfit space (37 Hai vs 60 human). It comes at a cost of slightly increased heat and energy drain, but for such huge efficiency it’s well worth the trade, and they’re small enough to fit on practically any ship. Third-best shield regenerator in the game behind Wayfarer shields and Quarg shields, both of which are much harder to access (and Quarg shields in particular are too large to fit on smaller ships).

Notable Ships

Shield Beetle — Strange-looking ship, but arguably the best combat ship in the entire game available to the player, and to date the only alien ship directly purchasable from a vendor. Highest max health of any ship in the game at 32,000 shields/9,800 hull allows it to tank pretty much anything, even Quarg ships. Same weapon capacity as a Bactrian with nearly twice the agility. Only drawback is its low crew capacity, meaning it’s not a great flagship for raiding, and its whopping 31M pricetag. But if you can afford it, nothing really beats it for a combat ship.

Summary

Minor barriers to access (requires enough fuel/ramscoop to navigate to Ultima Thule), but huge tech jump up from Deep humans and Pug. Their missile launchers, blasters, and especially S-970 regenerators are significantly better than anything to be found in human space, and for those ships too small to fit a stronger-but-larger Quarg regenerator the S-970 is one of the best options in the game. Shield Beetle warship makes for arguably the strongest combat escort in the entire game, especially in multiples when they can surround your flagship to tank massive damage and also dish it out with ample weapon slots and outfit space. Steep pricetag but worth every credit.

The Wanderer

While the other races covered in this guide have all been a part of Endless Sky from the game’s original release, around the beginning of January 2016 the Wanderers were the first alien race to have been added in a patch, and to date they are the game’s newest race. A tall and bird-like species occupying remote space northwest of the Unfettered Hai systems, the Wanderers presently hold a rather peculiar place in the game’s tech ladder: their combat ships and most of their other outfits are trumped by the Hai and Korath. And yet, merely accessing their space requires both navigating Hai territory and using a jump drive, meaning they likely won’t be available to most players until the end of the campaign or afterward–by which point the player will already be able to obtain superior and more easily-accessible Hai ships and Korath outfits.

Still, the Wanderers do offer a few things. Their gun-mounted laser weapons (Sunbeams) are the second-strongest weapons in the game in terms of pure damage output and the strongest gun-mounted weapon in the game. Their shielding systems are a very small upgrade from Hai shields at the cost of slightly more space. Uniquely, the Wanderers are the only race to offer hybrid outfits, which generally fill two categories at once but with lower efficiency (for example, their reactors also boost energy capacity like a battery, though they are not as efficient as other batteries or other reactors). While none of these outfits are “best-in-class” per se, they offer more options for tweaking and fine-tuning because of their varying space requirements, and fill some vacant if rarely-encountered niches. They also offer the best Freighter-class cargo ship in the game with the Deep River, though as of the current patch their ships appear unobtainable; while easy to capture, pirating a Wanderer ship causes all the systems to turn unfriendly, meaning they will not let you land to park the stolen ship or access an outfitter to equip a jump drive. And they refuse to sell their ships in shipyards without a special license which is currently not in the game.

Finally, the addition of the Wanderers also saw the return of the Pug, who prior to this patch disappeared from the game forever after the conclusion of the Pug War during the campaign (so any enterprising pirates who want consistent access to Pug tech now no longer need to leave the campaign unfinished). Once again we find the Pug subtly, invisibly directing the progression of other races, in this case observing and manipulating the expansion of the Wanderer throughout the galaxy from their current nebula of Pug Iyik (located southwest of Sko’karak via jump drive, as shown on the above map). Peculiarly, they are friendly to the player by default even after their defeat in the Pug War, though they still refuse to trade with you–and be warned, there appears to be no legitimate way to restore your reputation with these Pug once you turn them hostile.

Notable Outfits

Sunbeam – While significantly weaker than the Quarg Skylance, the Sunbeam still offers the second-best dps of any weapon in the game, all while being smaller, less energy-hungry, and gun-mounted unlike its Quarg counterpart. For those ships too small to power a Skylance or those with few or no turret slots, the Sunbeam is the best available choice.

Dark Storm Shielding – Slightly larger than the Hai S-970 Regenerator at 41 outfit space (S-970 requires 37) but also more efficient at 4.1 regen/outfit point (S-970 gives 3.73/outfit point). Thus the Dark Storm Shielding has overtaken the Hai Regenerator as the second-best shield in the game overall and the best for any ship too small to fit superior Quarg shielding.

Hybrid outfits – Notable primarily insofar as no other race offers anything quite like these–engines which are also coolants (Radiant engines), reactors which are also batteries (Sun Reactors). As long as you have the space, however, you’re always better off equipping two specialized outfits than two hybrid outfits (i.e. a Quarg battery and a Korath reactor, rather than two Wanderer battery-reactors). Still, when space is at a premium, like in smaller ships, and you really need both a battery and a reactor, hybrid outfits fill that niche.

Notable Ships

Note: As of the present patch all Wanderer ships are currently unobtainable outside of Wandere space, as they can’t be purchased from shipyards without a license (which doesn’t yet exist) and can’t be pirated without turning the Wanderers hostile to prevent landing and outfitting with a jump drive.

Deep River – The first large alien Heavy Freighter, and the first ship in the game with 6 different sprites (each one shows the River carrying a different amount of cargo). Bactrian is still a superior cargo ship, since with cargo expansions it can achieve slightly more cargo space (813 vs the Deep River’s 760) with the same outfit space left over and more speed/turning. That said, the Deep River sports equal shielding to the Bactrian but with a colossal 47,500(!!) hull durability, many times more than any other ship in Endless Sky, for unparalleled damage-tanking if you somehow really need a big cargo ship that won’t get fried in combat.

Strong Wind – The primary Wanderer combat ship. Oddly classified as a medium warship despite having higher stats than some human heavy warships. More resilience than even a Shield Beetle, but 6 gun slots and 0 turret slots cripples it as it can support neither anti-missile nor the almighty Quarg Skylance (compare: Shield Beetle has 8 gun slots and 4 turret slots). My vote still goes to Shield Beetle for the best obtainable combat ship in the game.

Summary

A new and flavorful alien race with great potential for future quests (particularly involving the rediscovery of the Pug), but ultimately one that currently offers limited gameplay utility to the consummate alien-hunter. Shipyards are just a tease without any way to obtain a Wanderer license, and limited opportunities for piracy with no way to restore reputation for future quests (if/when they are implemented). Biggest selling point is the Dark Storm Shielding, which has supplanted the Hai S-970 as the best small shield in the game.

The Korath

Exiled to the core of the galaxy at some point long ago, the Korath inhabit a group of 7 systems to the far right side of the in-game map, unconnected with the rest of space and therefore only accessible via jump drive. There is only one planet in Korath space that can be landed upon called Far’en Lai in the Kor Nor’peli system, but it is uninhabited–landing on it for the first time will trigger a short “dialogue” of sorts with the Korath (unlike the other aliens, the Korath do not speak English, but you do get to interact with them and get to know them a bit through this event). In this event the Korath basically explain that they were exiled to their current location and that their whole race lives entirely on their ships, thus explaining their lack of inhabited planets and the designation of their massive cruisers as “World-Ships” (shown below, to right).

Critically this means there is no place to refuel or heal your ships in the entirety of the Korath systems. To make matters worse, the Korath are hostile by default, and there appears to be no way to become friendly with them. Therefore, if you jump into Korath space, it is highly recommended that you do so with a fleet capable of surviving repeated confrontations with them, and with enough fuel/ramscoop to be able to jump back out into human space. If you get caught in Korath space with no fuel and no ramscoop, there are no friendly merchants around to provide emergency refuel, so you’ll have to load an earlier save.

After the Pug, the Korath are the second-weakest race that uses jump technology. However, only their Raider ships are equipped with jump drives–the World-Ships use hyperdrives only. And since you need a jump drive just to get into Korath space in the first place, it can be a hassle for novice alien-hunters who neglected to farm Pug when they were available to access the Korath right away without first raiding Quarg ships (which are much more difficult to defeat) for their jump drives.

As of the current patch the Korath are the only alien race to use fighters. These fighters are capturable but generally not worth the effort, as like all fighters they die fast and there’s no way to replenish them without stealing more directly from the Korath. It is, however, still useful to disable the fighters and loot them for their efficient small reactors.

Besides reactors, the Korath specialize in cooling systems and turret-mounted weaponry, including the only weapons in the entire game with the power to pull other ships toward you like a tractor beam or push them back away.

Notable Outfits

Korath Heat Shunt — Best cooling outfit in the entire game. The second most-efficient cooling outfit is the human-made Liquid Helium Cooler, which provides 4,140 cooling at a cost of 40 outfit space. The Korath Heat Shunt, meanwhile, is strictly better, providing 4,680 cooling at only 34 outfit space, rendering all but the smallest of human alternatives completely obsolete. And with the massive heat output of the high-end reactors needed to power large ships and their weaponry, you’ll want at least one Korath Heat Shunt on every single large ship in your fleet (and usually just one is enough to take care of all heat issues).

Korath Tek’nel Reactor — Best large reactor in the game. Found on all non-fighter Korath ships, the Tek’nel provides 1626 energy generation with a cost of 140 outfit space. Compared to the second-best large reactor, the Armageddon Core, which offers 1452 regen for 130 space, the Korath reactor provides nearly 200 more regeneration–the equivalent of an extra fuel cell normally worth 40-60 outfit space–for a mere 10 extra outfit space. The one drawback is the Korath reactor’s 4800 heat compared to the ‘Geddon Core’s 4500 heat, but with the efficient cooling of the Heat Shunt that is a non-issue.

Korath Tek’far Reactor — Miniature version of the Tek’nel found on Korath fighters. Best small reactor in the game, providing 234 generation, roughly the equivalent of an nGVF-DD Fuel Cell at 246 generation, but only costing 25 outfit space to the fuel cell’s 60. As with the above reactor, this one produces more heat than its non-alien counterpart, but heat is easily regulated with a Heat Shunt.

Korath Warder — Excellent anti-missile turret, tied in my opinion with Quarg AntiMissile. Shorter range than Quarg AM and slightly less anti-missile damage, but fires considerably faster and is small enough that one can sometimes fit two Korath Warders where there would only be room for one Quarg AM.

Korath Grab-Strike — Unique turret-mounted blaster weapon. Damage isn’t great (though still better than most human blasters), but the yellow “S” projectiles have a long range (1,000) and actually pull the target closer to your ship when they hit, functioning as sort of a “tractor beam.” No other weapon in the game has the same pulling effect, great for yanking back into range those pesky missile ships that try to flee and shoot missiles from long distance.

Korath Banisher — Another unique weapon, also turret mounted but this time a laser. Just like the Grab Strike, the damage is better than most alternatives though not the best, but the laser itself has a long range and actually pushes targets it hits away. Since ship combat is usually about staying close to other ships I don’t rank this weapon as highly as the Grab-Strike, but it’s still the only weapon in the game that does this and is sometimes fun to play around with (but very annoying when the Korath use it on you and push your flagship way off into nowhere).

Notable Ships

Korath Raider — The only capturable Korath ship (the World-Ships are supposedly capturable too, but since they lack jump drives it’s impossible to get them out of Korath space and so they are useless). Most readily comparable to a Bactrian with its 6 turret slots and a high crew capacity, but the Raider trades the Bactrian’s 4 gun slots and extra cargo/outfit space for increased agility, max health, and a cool alien appearance. They also feature two fighter slots, and are the only alien ships in the game to employ fighters.

Summary
With their plethora of useful outfits, any dedicated alien raider will be visiting the Korath systems quite often. Their Raider warships are on par with other high-end human ships (Bactrians, Dreadnoughts, Kestrels, Carriers, etc.). Their reactors and Heat Shunt cooling systems are the best in the game and belong on every large ship in a player’s arsenal, while their selection of turret-mounted beam weapons (in particular their tractor beam Grab-Strike and Warder anti-missile) offer great combat utility not found anywhere else.

The Quarg

This is it–the most technologically advanced race in the known galaxy, and the toughest to defeat in combat. In terms of pure damage output, their weapons make all other weapons in the game look like water guns, and a single one of their weakest warships is more than a match for an entire human fleet. It is strongly recommended not to take on the Quarg until you’ve amassed a fleet worth at least 80-100m, or unless you are properly equipped with a large quantity of disabling equipment like flamethrowers or ion cannons. One particularly easy way to “cheese” the fight is to purchase about 120 Furies; many of them will die in the fight and will need to be replaced so this is a highly expensive method in the long run, but with their combined laser damage you’ll be able to disable one Quarg ship before they’re all dead. And even then, until you’ve bested the Quarg and taken their outfits for yourself to level the playing field, you only want to fight one Quarg ship at a time–if you are unlucky and a second Quarg ship warps in after you’ve started battling the first, you mind as well reload your last save, as together they will promptly shred your entire armada.

By the same token, once you acquire Quarg outfits and reach the point where your fleet can consistently beat the Quarg in fights, you have essentially “beaten” Endless Sky in its current state, as all other confrontations in the game, including the entire story campaign and the tribute battle with Earth, are trivially easy by comparison. You should be aware that beating the Quarg and stealing their outfits means activating godmode. Proceed at your own risk.

In a twist of irony, Quarg space is available right at the beginning of the game, adjacent to Tarazed, and they are a peace-loving, friendly race (the only reason they’re shown as hostile in the first picture is because I’ve farmed them so much :p). As of the most recent patch a second Quarg system was added connected to the Hai systems, as shown in the second image, called Hevru Hai; notably, even if you’re hostile with the Quarg near Tarazed, these new Quarg will start friendly. They are more than happy to refuel you on their space stations, and can offer you advice on several occasions throughout the story campaign. In fact, unlike other friendly races, which will immediately turn hostile when you attack them, the Quarg won’t even bother to fight you unless you deplete their ship’s health to 90%–meaning, if your fleet can’t do enough damage in a short enough time, the Quarg ship will simply jump away, ignoring you completely. As a result it’s actually a little easier to fight the Quarg once you’ve beaten enough of them that they’re hostile to you, as they’ll engage you on sight rather than fleeing.

Even when friendly, they will not however sell you any of their weaponry or ships, unlike the Hai. Whatever you get from the Quarg you must take by force, and needless to say they won’t be happy with you for it.

Like the Pug, Quarg ships are equipped with powerful biodefenses that make capturing them extremely difficult if not impossible. There appear to be a few reports both here on the Steam forums and on reddit (google to find them) suggesting that the weaker of the two Quarg ships is capturable with dozens of hours of patience, but I for one have yet to see it done, so I can’t independently verify any of them. You’re the alien-hunter though, so you’re welcome to try!

Notable Outfits

Quarg Skylance — This is the god weapon. At 3,000 shield dps, it’s nearly 7 times as powerful as the 2nd strongest beam weapon (Sunbeam). Combined with its very long range and ion damage (like the Hai ion cannon), the Skylance is hands-down the strongest weapon in the entire game. With Skylances in your arsenal, all other weapons in the game (with the exception of utility weapons like anti-missiles and Korath Grab-Strikes) are rendered pretty much useless; you mind as well save their outfit space to make room for another Skylance. You eventually reach the point where you stop caring about forward-gun slots altogether when comparing ships and only consider turret slots, because more turret slots = more great turrets (Skylances, Grab-Strikes, Anti-Missiles), and no other weapons are needed. If there’s any drawback, it’s that this gun has tremendous energy drain and heat generation, meaning you’ll need other alien outfits (Korath shunt/reactor, Quarg battery) to compensate, also meaning it won’t fit on any smaller ships.

Quarg Anti-Missile — The other excellent anti-missile, rivaled only by the Korath warder. Massive range and enough anti-missile power to destroy any missile in one shot, but slower firing speed and larger outfit requirement. Mixing and matching Quarg AM with Korath AM can help meet the space needs of your ship, and moreover they complement each other (Korath’s shorter-range, faster AM is better for heavy barrages of weak missiles, while Quarg’s longer range, slower AM is better for smaller barrages of stronger missiles).

Quantum Shield Generator — A whopping 600 shield generation in 120 space, with zero heat cost or energy drain. The strongest shield in the game by a wide margin (5 times more efficient than the strongest human shield, ~35% more efficient than the Hai regenerator), any ship that can fit this, should fit this–and if your ship is big enough, like a Bactrian, you can sometimes even fit two. With these regenerators, smaller groups of enemies won’t even have the firepower to outpace the regeneration, meaning your shield literally won’t drop past 99%.

Nanotech Battery — 30,000 energy capacity in only 50 outfit space, this battery is over 4 times more efficient than the second-strongest battery (LP576a Battery, with 23,000 capacity in 160 outfit space). You’ll want at least one of these batteries on every ship equipped with a Skylance–for all their damage, Skylances chew up a ton of energy, and without a battery it’s unlikely you’ll be able to keep them firing and your ship moving at the same time. But this battery solves the problem–fights are over long before you’ll ever deplete it, and a Korath reactor charges it back up quickly.

Notable Ships

Quarg Skylark — Despite being bigger in size and more menacing in appearance than the colorful Quarg Wardragon (pictured above), the Skylark is actually the weaker of the two Quarg ships. There’s only been a few reports to date of Quarg ships being capturable through any legitimate means, but whenever there was one, it always had to do with this ship–the Skylark. It carries fewer biodefenses and fewer crew than the Wardragon and even then it’s nearly impossible (if not actually impossible) to capture, so it’s safe to say at this point that capturing a Wardragon (legitimately anyway) is firmly in the realm of impossibility.

Summary
The Quarg are the endgame of Endless Sky. With the exception of their engines, which are surprisingly still weaker than atomics, their outfits are many times more powerful than human outfits and even other alien outfits. In fact it’s pretty safe to say they’re overpowered; once you reach that level, the game basically becomes Endless Skylance, because no other weapon even comes close. To beat the Quarg, take their weapons, and combine them with Korath and Hai tech is to achieve godmode. Do so at your own risk.

Conclusion: The Strongest Fleet?

And so you’ve done it. You’ve befriended the Hai, formed an uneasy alliance with the Wanderers, beaten the Korath, conquered the Quarg. Boy, remember back when those Pugs seemed like a challenge during the campaign? Or even way back when the sight of a pirate Falcon was enough to have you tensing up for a close fight? No longer. The strongest weapons, defenses, and ships in the game are at your disposal. You envision yourself so powerful that even conquering Earth, with its massive Republic defense fleet, becomes a cakewalk. And with your fleet entirely equipped with jump drives, you see yourself traversing the span of the entire map–a journey that would previously have taken you weeks–in only a matter of days.

But how to configure your fleet to achieve that end? Unlike all the alien races described above, who remain isolated in themselves and only carry their own technologies, you, the player, have the benefit of mixing and matching, making up for one’s weakness with another’s strength.

To recap:
– Deep humans give the best engines, ramscoops, and an excellent ship in the form of the Bactrian
– Pug give the best Biodefenses and are the easiest sources of Jump Drives
– Hai give the second-best small shields and best blaster/missile weapons (though Skylance overpowers them), as well as the outstanding Shield Beetle, arguably even better than the Bactrian in pure combat
– Wanderers provide the best small shields and best gun-mounted laser weapons (though, again, Skylance wins), as well as hybrid outfits which can save space in smaller ships
– Korath offer their Raider ships, as well as the best reactors, heat shunts, and utility beam weapons
– Quarg offer godlike damage and shield regeneration on any ship large enough to fit them and power them, as well as another great AM

Ultimately it will be up to you, your playstyle, and your preferences as to how you build your god-fleet. And with so many great battleships in this game and so many ways to tweak outfits within each one it’s impossible to say that there’s one absolute best configuration or ship. But without a doubt, a mixture of alien technologies is the key to success.

For your inspiration, the two main kinds of ships I use are featured in the pictures to the right. Besides my flagship (details not shown, but you can see it in the other photos in this guide), which is a Bactrian outfitted for raiding, my two primary combat ships are Shield Beetles and Raiders, with Beetles to dish out and sponge damage and raiders to cover with extra anti-missile support and grabby-beams. Even though the Shield Beetle has 8 gun ports, I end up using zero of them to make room for 3 Skylances and supporting equipment, which is more than a worthy trade (3 Skylances = 9,000 shield damage per second, that’s the damage equivalent of a nuke every single second). I used both a Hai shield and a Wanderer shield to squeeze usage out of every outfit point I could get (I was just a few points short for a second Wanderer shield).

In the photos to the right you can see the fleet in action. Here my fleet is trying to capture the planet New China in the Merak system. I’m using the “Gather around flagship” command (G by default) to order my escort Shield Beetles and Raiders to gather around my flagship. As usual the Republic ships fly a long distance away and use missiles to try and destroy me from afar. But, with my ships in a tight formation, none of the missiles can make it past all the anti-missile lasers (notice how all ships in my fleet are at full health and shields), and even if a few missiles did get past they’d hit the tanky Shield Beetles on the outside of the cluster and barely leave a scratch.
Notice how the long-range, slow-firing Quarg anti-missile (faint blue lasers) destroy most of the incoming missiles, while the shorter-range, faster-firing Korath anti-missile (red lasers) mop up the few that manage to slip past, providing complete missile immunity. Meanwhile the Korath Grab-Strike beams (yellow S projectiles) draw the fleeing Republic ships back in range, and finally the Quarg Skylances (bright blue lasers) destroy them in seconds when they get close enough. This is the exact same fleet–13 Shield Beetles and 6 Korath Raiders plus flagship–that I used for the tribute battle with Earth, and it was a piece of cake. Note that alien worlds currently can’t be fought for tribute as they will always say “Please don’t joke about that,” so the Earth fight is currently the hardest battle in the entire game, and even that one becomes completely trivial with a pimped out alien fleet.

All that said, I hope this guide has been helpful to you, fellow alien-hunter. If more alien races get officially added to the game, I’ll do my best to add them here also, since as we know the game is still very much an evolving project. But in the meantime, best of luck to you exploring the far reaches of the map and conquering the universe of Endless Sky!