You will need to choose initial equipment when buying a ship, and can also re-equip (upgrade) a ship after purchasing it. Another common occurrence is to capture a ship, and then send it for repairs and upgrades.

In all cases, the interface for choosing / adding / removing equipment is the same.

Upgrading ships

Equipment for a ship can only be changed at a shipyard (L/XL ships), a wharf (S/M ships), or an equipment dock (supported ship sizes varies depending on the dock’s modules).

To change equipment, select the ship and then right click on the shipyard/wharf and choose “Upgrade and repair”. Once you finish your selections, the ship will fly to the station. (If you are piloting yourself, you must land at the station first then you’ll see an option for upgrades/repairs).

You can reconfigure a ship at any shipyard/wharf that will let you dock, though they may limit what equipment they are willing to sell you based on your reputation.

Configuring ships

Ships in X4 have “slots” that can have weapons, shields and engines installed. The number and type of “slots” for each ship type is fixed and cannot be changed.

Slots have sizes (small, medium, large, x-large). Equipment also has a size, and when equipping your ship you’ll be shown matching choices (if you select an M turret slot, you’ll be shown M turret options).

When choosing options, you’ll find equipment categories down the left side of the screen, and then “slots” across the top of the screen. Example: click on Weapons on the left, and you’ll see S1 S2 S3 across the top for a ship that has three Small weapon slots.

Generally, you can mix and match ships and equipment from different factions (installing Paranid shields on an Argon hull, for instance).

There are exceptions. Boron equipment can only be installed on Boron ships, and Boron ships can only use Boron equipment. Some Terran equipment requires high-power mounts and so can only be used on compatible Terran ships. Terran ships and equipment can otherwise be mixed with those of other factions.

Weapons

All ships have a fixed number and size of weapon “slots”. There’s no reason (other than cost) to not add weapons in all available slots.

See <> and <> for more information on types of main weapons and their use in combat.

All weapons and turrets on a ship are available in battle unless you disable them. A ship with three gun slots, for example, doesn’t have three alternate gun choices, it has three guns that all fire at the same time.

Missiles

Missiles and torpedos are unique in that you ship needs to store the missiles, and they need to be mated with a type-specific launcher to be able to use them.

Missiles can only be added to ships with at least one missile launcher installed (turret or main weapon).

If you do not equip a missile launcher, you will not see any missiles listed at all in the Deployables section of the ship configuration screen.

Each ship type (hull) has a fixed missile storage capacity. Using Mk-2 missile turrets increases storage capicity by a very small amount, but otherwise has no advantage ove the Mk-1 turret.

Dumbfire missiles of all types can only be launched by dumbfire turrets. Tracking missiles of all types can only be launched by tracking turrets. Torpedos of all types can only be launched by torpedo turrets.

See the Missiles and Torpedoes section for discussion these weapons and their launchers.

Deployables

Items such as laser towers, satellites, mines and probes can be loaded onto nearly all ship types. Each ship type (hull) has a fixed storage capacity for these items.

See the Deployables section for information on types and uses.

Note: Missiles and torpedos, for ships with appropriate launchers, will appear as Deployables during ship configuration. If there is no launcher installed as a main gun or turret, you will not see missile choices. If a ship has launchers that you remove during configuration, you will not be able save/confirm until you also remove all missiles.

Drones

Drones are effectively small, autonomous S-size ships and can only be loaded onto ships with an S-size dock.

See the Deployables section for information on types and uses.

Note: drones appear as Deployables during ship configuration.