Cargo capacity is how much ore, crystal and hydrogen a ship can carry. Every ship in SFC2 has a hold, even the warships, and the sizes are printed on the Shipyard page next to each ship.
Cargo space does four jobs. It moves resources between your own planets on transport and deploy runs. It sets the hard ceiling on how much you can plunder from a target you beat in an attack. It decides how much of a debris field your recyclers can pick up on a harvest. And it holds the hydrogen your fleet burns to get where it is going.
What each ship carries
| Ship | Cargo | Carries plunder? |
|---|---|---|
| Hephaestus Class Attack Platform | 1,000,000,000 | No |
| Zeus Class | 1,000,000 | Yes |
| Carmanor Class Cargo | 125,000 | Yes |
| Hercules Class Cargo | 25,000 | Yes |
| Dionysus Class Recycler | 20,000 | Yes |
| Gaia Class Colony Ship | 7,500 | Yes |
| Zagreus Class Recycler | 5,000 | Yes |
| Atlas Class Cargo | 5,000 | Yes |
| Prometheus Class Destroyer | 2,000 | Yes |
| Athena Class Battleship | 1,500 | Yes |
| Poseidon Class Cruiser | 800 | Yes |
| Hades Class Battleship | 750 | Yes |
| Ares Class Bomber | 500 | Yes |
| Apollo Class Fighter | 100 | Yes |
| Artemis Class Fighter | 50 | Yes |
| Hermes Class Probe | 5 | No |
| Shadow Probe | 5 | No |
| Helios Class Solar Satellite | 0 | - |
| Genesis Solar Satellite | 0 | - |
Cargo capacity never changes. No research raises it, no building raises it, and unlike speed and hull the Base and Current columns in the Shipyard always read the same number.
The two satellites cannot fly at all, so their zero is academic. Probes are the odd case: they hold 5 each, which counts on a transport or a fleet save, but a probe never brings plunder home from a raid. The Hephaestus is the same. Its billion is the storage it gets once you deploy it as a base, not loot space on a raid.
Fuel comes out of the hold
The hydrogen your fleet burns rides in the same holds as your freight, so it eats into what you can carry. The Fleets page does the subtraction for you. Pick your ships, pick a destination, and the Capacity line already has the fuel taken off it.
That is 40 Hercules, so 40 x 25,000 = 1,000,000 of raw capacity. The trip needs 4,572 hydrogen, so Capacity reads 995,428. Load 995,428 and the Send button stays live. Try for the round million and it will not.
Fuel is charged once, when the fleet launches, and it comes out of the launching planet's hydrogen. The trip home is free. So a long run in slow ships costs you twice: once in hydrogen off the planet, and again in freight you could not fit.
Which missions can carry cargo
Not every mission gives you the Cargo box. Loading resources is only offered where it makes sense.
| Mission | Cargo box? |
|---|---|
| Transport | Yes |
| Deploy | Yes |
| Colonization | Yes |
| Harvest | Yes |
| Fleet Save | Yes |
| Deploy Platform | Yes |
| Attack | No |
| Espionage | No |
| Group Defend | No |
| Warp Gate | No, unless your alliance owns Gate Cargo Manifest |
| Move Platform, Dock Platform | No |
This is the one that catches people coming from the old game. You cannot load resources onto an attack. There is no Cargo box on the attack screen at all, and the Summary panel drops the Cargo and Capacity lines with it.
Your holds still matter on a raid, they just start empty. They are there to bring the plunder back.
Warp Gate jumps normally move ships only. An alliance can buy the Gate Cargo Manifest perk from the Alliance Store for 250 AP, and after that gate jumps get a Cargo box like any other mission.
Plunder stops at your cargo space
Win an attack and you take 50 percent of what is sitting on the target, or 55 percent if your alliance is at war with theirs. That is the ceiling from the defender's side. The ceiling from your side is the cargo space of the ships that survived the battle, and only the ones that carry plunder. Ships you lost in the fight carry nothing home.
The lower of those two numbers is what you get. Whatever your holds cannot take is left on the planet.
The Calculator run above is 60 Athena and 5 Hercules against a target holding 3,600,000 resources. Half of that is 1,800,000 sitting there for the taking. The fleet carries 60 x 1,500 + 5 x 25,000 = 215,000, so 215,000 is all that comes home. The Cargo line shows both numbers side by side and turns red when your holds are short, and the blue counts under it are the number of extra haulers it would take to close the gap.
Two more things to know here. Fuel is not deducted from plunder space, so the full surviving capacity is available for loot on the way back. And the defender's Resource Den hides resources before the 50 percent is worked out, so a well denned target hands over far less than its stock suggests.
When the plunder is split among several fleets in a group attack, each fleet's share is worked out from its own surviving cargo space. Bring more holds, take a bigger cut.
Harvesting only counts recycler holds
On a harvest mission, only the Zagreus and Dionysus holds pick up debris. Sending a stack of cargo ships along with your recyclers adds nothing to the haul. The field is collected in a balanced way, taking roughly equal ore and crystal until one of them runs out, then filling the rest with what is left.
You still get a Cargo box on a harvest, and it works normally. It is for freight you are sending out with the fleet, not for the debris coming back.
Delivering more than a planet can store
Warehouses cap what your mines can produce into, not what a planet can hold. A transport can deliver far past the Ore Warehouse, Crystal Warehouse and Hydrogen Storage limits and the resources will sit there. The only thing that happens is that the mines for that resource stop adding while you are over the line.
Plunder and harvested debris behave the same way. Nothing is lost for want of storage.
Picking a hauler
Three ships are built to carry. Cost below is ore plus crystal plus hydrogen added together.
| Ship | Cost | Cargo | Cost per 1,000 cargo | Base speed | Fuel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas Class Cargo | 4,000 | 5,000 | 800 | 5,000 | 10 |
| Hercules Class Cargo | 12,000 | 25,000 | 480 | 7,500 | 50 |
| Carmanor Class Cargo | 36,000 | 125,000 | 288 | 4,000 | 120 |
The Carmanor buys space cheapest but it is slow and thirsty. The Hercules is the middle option most people settle on. The Atlas is the worst value per unit of space, but it is the one you start with and it is fast, which is why it stays useful on short raids long after you can afford better.
A rough rule for raiding: your fleet needs enough space for half the target's stock, minus whatever its Resource Den is hiding. Scan first with the Oracle, then size the haulers to what the scan shows. The Calculator will do the arithmetic and tell you how many to add.
Things worth remembering
- Cargo capacity is fixed per ship. No tech improves it.
- Fuel comes out of the hold on the way out, not on the way back.
- Attacks carry no freight out, only plunder home.
- Dead ships carry nothing. Losses cut your plunder space.
- Probes and the Hephaestus never bring plunder home, whatever their listed hold.
- Only recyclers collect debris.
- Warehouses do not block deliveries, only production.
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