RTR Ship Options

Hiring a Super-hauler: I don't know how much this would cost, but if we want to take a station with enough facilties we could consider a Capital-scale ship with some shiptender mounts, and have them pull a Small Station for us.

Seperate Ship: A shuttle or free merchant outfitted for PC use, seperate from the main supply ship. Should be possible for only 1-2 million.

Cargo Lighter/Fighter Bay: If we don't have a Atmospheric ship, we need at least 1 of these or the whole journey might be pointless.

Drill Drive: We need at least a 2 here, and preferably a 3, because we don't know how much distance there will be between our system and the nearest 'safe' system.
Fuel Bunker/Scoop: I would say we should be able to make at least 3 jumps between refuelling. The Scoop is more a backup, but is still a nice-to-have.

Cargo Space: We need at least some to carry Spare Parts, or we're reliant on The Shipyard.

Extended Life Support/Hydroponics: If we don't have this we need to visit a station every 2 months. Only a major deal once we're at the frontier, but we need to remember it.

Colony Core: Using this means taking a seperate ship along which is mostly disposable: Some things on the ship might be usable when it becomes a hab.
Exodus Bays are inefficient if we don't literally want to bring 1000 people along: If we just want to fill a Colony then 4 sets of Cold Sleep Pods will fill the colony. And we might not even need that much, the former crew of the ship might be enough for a minimally viable station.
We need to define the point of the station: If it's literally just an oversized flag we plant in orbit to lay a claim, it can be relatively cheap (Free Trader might be able to do it for under 2 million). But if it's meant to be a base of operations then the cost skyrockets, and I'm not sure 9 million is enough.

Luxury Cabins: Would Be Nice. Would need a 50-person ship to be viable.

Mobile Extractor/Factory: A really powerful combo that would mean we could eventually make basically anything. But it means we have to have a cruiser and we can't realistically have a colony core. We could build a station using a Mobile Factory, but we'd need to ship people in to man the place.

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Options as I see it:

1: Take a military ship so we can take over whoever is there - Fails if there isn't anyone to take over.
2: Take an Explorer ship to find everything of interest - Relying on others to help secure it.
3: Bring a full colony - All eggs in one basket
4: Bring a 'flag' colony and a small explorer - Only the appearance of being in charge.
5: Bring a factory ship - Need to find people.