No Man's Sky/Freighter

A freighter is a really, really large ship. Some are bigger than a space station.

Getting freighters

You can get your first for free by warping to nearby systems with high conflict levels. Sooner or later, after warping, you will emerge in the middle of a fight. Destroy all the pirate ships to be given access to board the freighter.

Tip:

Space battles around freighters start on the first warp every 5 hours. Each freighter is dependent on the system. If you don't like what you got, reload a previous save and warp to a new system. Try to focus on high economy level systems, as they have a greater chance to have S-Class freighters.

If you do this, make sure not to leave your ship to avoid the game saving.

To buy it, find the bridge. Either climb the stairs, or teleport there (by standing on one of the glowing blue circles). Then speak with the captain, who will offer to give it to you, or to take a reward of the freighter's inventory contents.

If you do not own one, it will be free. However, never accept the very first one. The first one is not a capital freighter, but every one afterwards will be capital freighters. After getting your first one, you can board any freighter and have chance to buy it. Saving a freighter gives you a discount on this price. Costs range from a million to over fifty million units.

You might ask, is a few extra storage slots worth that much? Well, no. But you are not buying "a few extra storage slots". You are buying a large ship with many features.

You may only own one freighter at a time. Buying a new one gives you the option to transfer the old base to the new freighter. Just make sure at least one item is in the old freighter's inventory for this to work or it wont work.

Uses of a freighter

A few extra storage slots.
A warpdrive that has much longer range than a starship warpdrive has.
A large area to build a base on board.
The ability to get a squadron - a team of up to four AI ships to fight alongside you, against any foe. Pilots can be hired for free at space stations and trading outposts. You cannot hire pilots in space stations from pirate-controlled systems.
The ability to buy frigates for freighter expeditions (which offer much loot).
With an "orbital exocraft materializer" built: the ability to summon exocraft anywhere as long as the freighter is in your current system.
With a "storage container" built: extra storage tabs for each storage container built. Each tab may be renamed.