Getting Pkunk ships

Getting Pkunk ships

The Pkunk will give you the Clear Spindle and four fully-crewed ships for free when you first encounter them in their home world. For many players, that is all that they will get from them. It is however possible to get more.

When you meet the Pkunk the first time in their homeworld, you get 4 ships, and two timers are started.

• 12 months later, 4 more ships can be acquired.
• 6 months later, the Pkunk will begin a migration towards the Yehat space, where they will arrive in just under 6 months.

Unless you stop the migration, the Pkunk will be permanently gone the very day their ships were supposed to be ready for you.

It is however possible to get a total of four sets of 4 ships, for a total of 16 ships, before the Pkunk finally migrate to the Yehat, by following this set of instructions:

• Once they depart for Yehat Space (6 months after you first talked to them), convince them to turn back right before they arrive (11.9 months after you first talked to them)). They will, and it takes about 5.9 months for them to get back.
• 12 months after you first talked to them, you can ask for ships again in their homeworld, even if their fleet is still on route back.
  • If you come late, you will still get the ships, but all the other ships-ready events will cascadingly be late by that amount, and it will be more difficult to get the full set of 16 ships.
• 3 months after they return, i.e. 20.8 months after you first talked to them, they will depart again. Wait 5.9 months. In the mean time, at 24 months, ask for ships again. Convince them to turn back at the 26.7 months mark since you first talked to them. At 32.7 months mark, they will be back.
• At 35.7 months mark, they will depart yet again, and this time you cannot stop them.
• You can get a final fourth set of 4 ships at the 36 months mark, assuming you always asked for new ships at the earliest opportunity.
• At 41.7 months mark, the Pkunk influence sphere disappears, and you can no longer meet them at Gamma Krueger.
• When convincing the Pkunk to return, you must always do so before they reach the Yehat space (under 6 months after they depart), and not earlier than 4.6 months since they depart, if you want to get the full set of 16 ships. You can calculate the total time in months before the Pkunk are gone, from the first moment you meet them, with this formula: 6 + time1*2 + 3 + time2*2 + 3 + 6 where time1 is the number of months you wait until asking them to turn back the first time, and time2 is the same for the second time.
• Note that if you want to acquire the full set of 16 ships and win the game before the Kohr-Ah exterminate the Druuge (the first race to be wiped out in the death march), you must first ally the Pkunk not later than at 30 January, 2156.
• Your fleet can only hold 12 ships at a time. If your fleet is already full, and you ask for ships at the appointed time, the offer will still be available when your fleet is no longer full.

Once the Pkunk are absorbed into the Yehat, if you still want to receive Pkunk ships, your only option is to instigate the Yehat Rebellion, after which Yehat & Pkunk ships will be available to you from the rebels once in a while.