Written by Andrew Hammel

Gravships are high-tech flying shuttle bases that let you travel RimWorld’s planet or launch into orbit. They unlock space exploration, rare quests, and the ability to fight the mechanoid hive. This guide covers how to get a gravship, build it up, and use it to survive in Odyssey’s hardest areas.

Note: Click here if you’re wanting to learn about cooler/freezer setup on your ship

How to Get Your First Gravship

Gravship Start

Pick the gravship scenario to start with an engine and small thrusters. You’ll get some Gravlite Panels too. The catch? Mechanoids will chase you down every few days, so you’ll have to keep moving.

Normal Start

Start with a normal colony. Later, a quest event will crash a grav engine nearby. You can recover it and slowly build a ship. This path is safer but much slower.

Both paths eventually let you fly, but the materials you need are rare.

Gravship Materials and Building Limits

You can only build on special gravship flooring using Gravlite Panels. You’ll find these:

In ruins during quests
On orbital stations
From dangerous ancient sites
Rarely through research if you unlock Advanced Grav Tech and craft them with plasteel and vacstone

Vacstone is a space rock. You won’t be making much early on, so most of your progress comes from quests and ruins. Gravlite Panels are your building limit. No panels, no new rooms.

To expand your building radius, you’ll need Gravfield Extenders, which cost Grav Cores. These come from late-game quests, especially in orbit.

Traveling in Orbit and Dealing With Vacuum

Once your gravship leaves the planet, you’ll face vacuum and freezing temperatures.

To survive, you have two options:

Seal the ship with Grav Hull walls, vac barriers (instead of doors), and oxygen pumps in every room
Equip everyone with a full vac suit and helmet

Vac suits let you ignore ship insulation completely. Without them, you’ll need to carefully build a pressurized ship or your colonists will die in seconds.

Oxygen pumps and vac barriers use very little power, but you’ll need a lot of them. Also remember: space is always -75°C, so bring heaters or wear temperature-proof suits.

Thrusters and How Flight Works

You need thrusters to fly. Small ones use steel and components. Large ones require space rock, only found in orbit.

You can install up to:

4 small thrusters
6 large thrusters

Thrusters increase your travel range. Fuel cost is based on distance, not how many thrusters you have. More thrusters just give you more options.

Gravships use chemfuel to fly, and there’s always a cooldown before your next launch.

Anchors and Returning to a Base

Leaving a map without a Grav Anchor deletes it forever. If you want to return later, build a Grav Anchor before taking off.

Anchors cost 300+ plasteel, but they’re worth it. They let you use your gravship to travel while keeping a permanent ground base too.

Power Systems

You need strong power systems to survive in space.

Solar generators work in orbit and follow a similar day-night cycle
Batteries store power normally
Chemfuel generators are great because you already need chemfuel to fly
Some mechanoid bases drop power cores you can steal

If your ship loses power, oxygen fails and colonists without vac suits will die fast. Always have backup power systems before launching.

Quests, Grav Cores, and Unique Weapons

Odyssey’s best content is gated behind quests, many only reachable with a gravship.

Planet quests lead to ruins, bunkers, insect hives, and wrecked launch sites
Orbital quests take you to mining asteroids, derelict stations, or ancient defense platforms
Rumors sometimes lead to warlords carrying rare, unique weapons
Gravcore quests give Grav Cores, which unlock ship upgrades and advanced tech like permanent power cells

Expect traps, drones, and elite mechanoids on most of these missions. Drones like hunter, wasp, and sentry bots will ambush you and trigger the moment they detect movement.

Unique weapons from these areas are one-of-a-kind and come with custom stats, names, and traits. Some even have built-in launchers or special effects.

Mechhive Endgame

The final goal in Odyssey is the Mechhive in orbit. It’s a giant floating factory that controls all mechanoids on the planet.

To fight it, you’ll need:

A full gravship
Multiple Grav Cores
A signal jammer to breach the hive’s defenses

The Mechhive is full of:

Cyclops mechs with beam repeaters
Blast doors and gestating machines
Stabilizers that protect the AI core

Destroy the stabilizers and you can reach the Cerebrex Core. You can:

Destroy it to end the mechanoid war
Or harvest it and gain terrifying mech tech

Final Blurb

Gravships are the heart of Odyssey’s expansion. They unlock space travel, quest chains, and the Mechhive endgame. But they take real effort to build and maintain. Gather Gravlite Panels, collect Grav Cores, and be ready for vacuum, mech raids, and freezing temperatures. It’s worth it.