The Ship Hangar stores the ships you own but aren’t flying in an active fleet, and every upgrade raises how many ships you can keep. It unlocks through the “Unlock Ship Hangar” research rather than a building requirement, and it upgrades all the way to level 80. Two things scale with it: your total ship inventory and a hull health bonus that applies to every ship you own. It’s a quiet piece of infrastructure that’s worth keeping current.
What the Ship Hangar does
The Ship Hangar is where extra ships are stored when they aren’t assigned to your active fleet. Upgrading it increases the number of ships you can own, and it’s also where you manage your ship refits. Two buffs grow with each level.
The first is a hull health bonus applied to all of your ships. The second raises your ship inventory, the total number of ships you can hold across every drydock and reserve. Both climb steadily through the mid-game and then jump sharply in the final levels.
| Buff | Active from | Value at anchor levels |
|---|---|---|
| Hull Health Bonus (all ships) | Level 1 | 3% at L1, 60% at L20, 120% at L40, 150% at L50, 180% at L60, 500% at L70, 1,200% at L80 |
| Ship Inventory Slots | Level 1 | 45 at L1, 64 at L20, 93 at L40, 105 at L50, 130 at L60, 145 at L70, 167 at L80 |
These values reflect the latest game data. The hull health bonus becomes large at the top end, so a fully upgraded Hangar adds real survivability across your roster, well beyond its storage role.
How to unlock the Ship Hangar
The Hangar’s level 1 placement is gated by a single research, “Unlock Ship Hangar,” rather than by another building. Once that research is complete you can place the building and start upgrading. From there, each upgrade requires your Operations and Shipyard at the matching level, so Hangar level 20 needs Operations 20 and Shipyard 20. Level 55 also calls for Armada Control Center at level 50.
Upgrade costs and build times
Costs start in Parsteel, add Tritanium through the teens, and shift to refined crystals, refined gas, and Sigma resources at the high end. Build times stretch from minutes to years of unboosted time. A sample of the milestones:
| Level | Cost | Build time | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 17,000 Parsteel | 32m | Operations 5, Shipyard 11 |
| 10 | 19,500 Parsteel, 300 Tritanium | 4h 5m | Operations 10, Shipyard 11 |
| 20 | 433,500 Parsteel, 8,500 Tritanium | 2d 21h | Operations 20, Shipyard 20 |
| 30 | 39.78M Parsteel, 780,000 Tritanium, 500 3★ Common Refined Crystal | 7d 9h | Operations 30, Shipyard 30 |
| 40 | 8.597B Parsteel, 60.2M Tritanium, 10,000 4★ Common Refined Crystal | 121d 4h | Operations 40, Shipyard 40 |
| 50 | 374.9B Parsteel, 3.675B Tritanium | 2075d 5h | Operations 50, Shipyard 50 |
| 60 | 120.6T Parsteel, 492.5B Tritanium, 30,500 5★ Rare Refined Crystal | 4372d 6h | Operations 60, Shipyard 60 |
| 70 | 80.91M Σ-Parsteel, 1.587M Σ-Tritanium, 58,800 6★ Rare Refined Crystal | 1153d 4h | Operations 70, Shipyard 70 |
| 80 | 39.5B Σ-Parsteel, 193.6M Σ-Tritanium, 718,860 7★ Rare Refined Crystal | 27836d 19h | Operations 80, Shipyard 80 |
Taking the Hangar from level 1 to 80 costs roughly 342.5T Parsteel and 1.381T Tritanium, plus large quantities of refined crystals, refined gas, and Sigma resources at the upper levels. The cumulative unboosted build time is about 152,495 days, so speedups and build-cost reductions do most of the real work at the top.
How the Ship Hangar fits your station
Because the Hangar is gated by research and then tracks your Operations and Shipyard levels, it tends to keep pace with the rest of your base without special planning. The value is in not falling behind. If your inventory fills up, you can’t claim new ships from events or the store until you make room, so keeping the Hangar a few levels ahead of your collecting habit avoids that jam. The hull health bonus rides along on top, raising the durability of everything you fly.
Is the Ship Hangar worth upgrading?
Yes, within reason. Early and mid-game upgrades are cheap for what they give you: more room for ships and a growing hull health bonus across your whole roster. The final levels demand Sigma resources and years of build time, so those are long-haul projects for late-game players. For most commanders, keeping the Hangar current through the mid-game is an easy, low-cost investment.