Some weeks ago we made the perfect Freeciv space ship to end our current game at freeciv.fi.

To do that, I had to research once more how it’s done in Freeciv 2.3.0. There isn’t much documentation about it. It doesn’t work the same as it did in the commercial Civilization 1 and 2.

It seems the fastest complete ship will take 7.7 years to travel to the Alpha Centaur — it takes 8 turns in the game based on our tests. It has three Space Modules, 16 Space Components and 20 Space Structurals.

Most important thing to know is that the order in which you build these parts is significant. It seems the best way is to build first modules and components and then enough structures. That’s because the game tries to place new parts to supplement the ship and might put some parts in the wrong order if it thinks the ship needs more structurals for modules instead of components.

To build these parts in the first place you need to have Factory built in the city and have researched Space Flight (for Space Structurals), Superconductors (for Space Modules) and Plastics (for Space Components).

My raw calculations can be read from Google Docs.

You will get something about 100-400 more points (Please note: I haven’t confirmed the exact amounts!) to your score based on the size of your space ship. Usually the space race will end the game but some games do not have space race enabled — like longturn.org — or it doesn’t end the game (just adds points). The player who wins the space race doesn’t automatically win the game if he has less points than others have. For example it’s possible to make more points by developing Future Tech or conquering land.

The space ship is lost if your capital is conquered. If that’s a possible threat you should start improving your defenses ASAP or move your capital to a better city.