SpaceTraders - Quickstart

Shipyards allow you to purchase ships, and will eventually allow you to repair, as well as swap out different modules and mounts. To purchase a ship, you will need to find a waypoint with a shipyard.

Find a shipyard

Look for a waypoint with the SHIPYARD trait. You can use the following endpoint to find all waypoints in your current system. Take note of the symbol for the orbital station waypoint that has a shipyard, which you can use to purchase a mining drone.


curl 'https://api.spacetraders.io/v2/systems/:systemSymbol/waypoints' \
 --header 'Authorization: Bearer INSERT_TOKEN_HERE'

View available ships

To view the ships available for purchase at a shipyard, send the following request. You will notice that there is a mining drone available for purchase, which can help you fulfill your starting contract.


curl 'https://api.spacetraders.io/v2/systems/:systemSymbol/waypoints/:shipyardWaypointSymbol/shipyard' \
 --header 'Authorization: Bearer INSERT_TOKEN_HERE'

Ship Price Visibility

Several parts of the API have some fields that are hidden unless you have a ship present at the location.

When starting as a new agent, a probe ship was provided for you at this orbital station, which allows you to see the details of the ships available for purchase.

Purchase a ship

You can purchase a ship at a shipyard by sending a POST request to the my/ships endpoint. Sending this request will deduct the cost of the ship from your credits and add the ship to your fleet.

You will need to specify the type of ship you want to purchase, along with the waypoint you are purchasing from.


curl --request POST \
 --url 'https://api.spacetraders.io/v2/my/ships' \
 --header 'Authorization: Bearer INSERT_TOKEN_HERE' \
 --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 --data '{
    "shipType": "SHIP_MINING_DRONE",
    "waypointSymbol": ":shipyardWaypointSymbol"
   }'