Star Citizen Polaris Hangar Guide: What Ships Fit in 2026?

The Polaris hangar was designed around an Aegis Sabre, while CIG has also presented the RSI Scorpius as a particularly suitable carried fighter. Players have demonstrated additional ships inside the finished bay, including F8C Lightning and Hornet variants, with newer 2026 reports also covering the M80 and several multi-ship arrangements.

Those examples need some qualification. A ship fitting inside the bay in one test does not guarantee the same layout remains equally practical across later patches, and community demonstrations should not be treated as an official CIG compatibility list.

The hangar also does more in current Star Citizen than simply transport another ship. Ship Hangar Services, introduced in Alpha 4.8, allow a properly supplied Polaris to repair, refuel, and restock craft using resources stored on the mothership's cargo grid.

For the Polaris's weapons, cargo, crew, medical facilities, and broader role, see our full Star Citizen Polaris guide. This guide stays focused on carrier operations.

Official Hangar Baseline: Sabre and Scorpius

CIG provides two useful reference points for understanding the Polaris hangar.

The first is the Aegis Sabre. CIG's Polaris material identifies the Sabre as the design reference for the hangar, which makes it the safest baseline when discussing intended fit rather than experimental loading.

The second is the RSI Scorpius. When presenting the flight-ready Polaris, CIG described the Scorpius as a “perfect fit” for its onboard hangar.

These references serve slightly different purposes. The Sabre establishes what the bay was designed around, while the Scorpius demonstrates that the completed hangar can support a larger medium-fighter configuration that CIG itself considers appropriate.

That makes both better starting points than choosing a carried fighter solely from external dimensions. Wing folding, landing gear, tail height, door clearance, and the ability to maneuver after entering the bay all affect practical carrier use.

Polaris Hangar Compatibility

CIG does not publish a current master list for every ship that can be carried in the Polaris. The following therefore separates official examples from player demonstrations.

ShipFit StatusEvidence TypeCurrent Recommendation
Aegis Sabre	Design baseline	CIG Polaris Q&A	Strong official choice
RSI Scorpius	Demonstrated official fit	CIG flight-ready Polaris material	Strong official choice
Anvil F8C Lightning	Demonstrated by players	Community testing	Practical, but not an official compatibility guarantee
Hornet Mk II / F7A Mk II	Demonstrated by players	Community testing	Practical, with layout-dependent clearance
Mirai M80	Demonstrated by players in 2026	Community testing	Promising compact option
Compact snubs / utility craft	Layout-dependent	Community experimentation	Useful when they suit the mission
Aegis Eclipse	Mixed player reports	Community testing	Test before relying on it as a permanent loadout
Larger or unusually tall craft	Highly configuration-dependent	Player experimentation	Poor default choice for routine operations

The community entries are deliberately not labelled “Alpha 4.10 verified” unless the evidence itself is clearly tied to the current build. May and July 2026 demonstrations show what those players achieved in the versions they were running; they remain useful fit evidence without proving permanent compatibility in every subsequent patch.

Player-Tested Fighter Options

The F8C Lightning is one of the more substantial fighters players have demonstrated inside the Polaris. Reports also show layouts where an F8C shares the bay with another fighter. Its broad footprint makes clearance more important than with the Sabre, so it makes more sense as a primary carried fighter than as one component of an aggressively packed layout.

Hornet Mk II variants, including the F7A Mk II, have also appeared in player-tested configurations. A July 2026 discussion involving a Hornet Mk II and Scorpius showed that the pair could be arranged in the bay, but also described the extra positioning effort involved. For regular combat operations, that inconvenience matters more than proving that both hulls can occupy the same physical volume.

The M80 has newer 2026 fit evidence. A May demonstration showed it inside the Polaris, while later player discussion continued to describe the ship as usable from the carrier. Because those reports are not a CIG compatibility declaration, they are best treated as evidence that the combination is viable in tested builds rather than a permanent specification.

The Eclipse deserves more caution. Player reports vary around wing and door clearance, and individual arrangements may depend on exact positioning. It is therefore a poor candidate for a simple “fits / does not fit” label.

This variation is why a compatibility database based only on screenshots can become misleading. The more demanding question is whether a craft can be used repeatedly without making every launch and recovery a special procedure.

Building a Practical Carrier Loadout

A useful Polaris loadout needs enough clearance for routine operations, not merely enough volume to contain the ship.

A fighter that sits millimeters from the hangar structure may be technically transportable but unpleasant to recover under pressure. The same applies to two-ship configurations where the forward craft cannot leave until the rear craft has been moved.

For a regular combat crew, one fighter with comfortable maneuvering space is usually the cleanest starting point. The Sabre and Scorpius have the strongest official basis, while an F8C or Hornet can make sense for players who have already confirmed their preferred configuration.

Two-fighter layouts become more attractive when both craft can retain independent or nearly independent launch paths. Community experiments show that the Polaris has enough space for several combinations, but adding a second large fighter increases the importance of parking discipline.

Crew size also limits how useful a dense air wing can be. If four people are aboard and two leave in separate fighters, half the available players have left the Polaris. A physically impressive carrier configuration can therefore be poorly matched to the crew operating it.

Smaller utility craft avoid some of that problem. A compact vessel used for reconnaissance, personnel movement, ground support, or short local trips can make the Polaris more useful as a mobile base without consuming the space or manpower of another heavy fighter.

For ownership analysis beyond the hangar itself, our Polaris review looks at whether that mobile-base capability is valuable enough to justify regularly operating the capital ship.

Physical Fit and Operational Fit

For compatibility purposes, physical fit only establishes that a craft can be placed inside the bay under a particular arrangement.

An operationally useful fit also leaves enough margin to close the hangar, board the craft, launch without lengthy repositioning, and recover without requiring perfect alignment every time.

Leaving the hangar door open can expand what players are able to transport experimentally, but it is a weak basis for a routine carrier loadout. The same applies to configurations that require several parked ships to be rearranged before one can depart.

The amount of empty floor around a fighter is therefore not necessarily wasted capacity. In practice, it can buy faster recovery, easier movement, and fewer opportunities for collision.

Ship Hangar Services in Alpha 4.10

The introduction of Ship Hangar Services T0 in Alpha 4.8 made the Polaris hangar significantly more useful for sustained carrier operations.

CIG's implementation allows supported host ships, including the Polaris, to provide repair, refuel, and restock services to craft in the service area.

The resource-storage requirement is specific: the required commodities must be stored on the host ship's cargo grid. Having supplies elsewhere inside the Polaris does not satisfy that requirement.

Fuel and Repair

Hydrogen and quantum fuel used for servicing must be available through the Polaris cargo grid. The pilot of the carried ship can then request the applicable service through Landing Services.

Repairs consume RMC from the cargo grid. Under the Tier 0 rules described by CIG, the host needs enough of the required material to complete the requested repair.

A Polaris intended to support repeated sorties therefore needs an actual service inventory rather than simply an empty cargo hold and a fighter in the bay.

Ammunition and Missiles

Hangar Services can also restock ballistic ammunition, missiles, and countermeasures from compatible supplies on the host cargo grid.

Ammunition has to match the relevant weapon size. Missile restocking is more restrictive when missiles remain on a rack, because replacements must match the type already loaded; an empty rack provides more flexibility within the appropriate size requirement.

This gives crews a reason to standardize carried-fighter loadouts. Supporting one predictable ammunition and missile configuration is simpler than stocking resources for several unrelated combat ships.

Current Tier 0 Limits

The initial implementation is deliberately simple.

CIG has described later plans for more detailed service capacity, queues, permissions, pricing, resource monitoring, and other management systems. Those should remain classified as planned development, not present Alpha 4.10 capability.

Current Tier 0 also does not impose a simple one-craft service limit. Physical space is therefore a major constraint when operating more than one ship in the bay.

That makes sensible parking relevant to servicing as well as flight operations: a densely packed hangar may technically contain several serviceable craft while remaining inconvenient to operate.

Alpha 4.10 Carrier Limitations

Two documented Alpha 4.10 issues currently affect how reliably the Polaris can function as a persistent carrier.

Carried-Ship Persistence After Bed Logout

RSI's Alpha 4.10 Known Issues page documents a problem where ships carried inside certain motherships can disappear after a bed logout from the carrier, and the Polaris is specifically listed among the affected ships.

RSI currently provides no workaround for that issue.

This is especially relevant to players who want to keep a fighter permanently aboard and use the Polaris as a persistent home base. A successful fit does not guarantee that the carried craft will survive the current logout workflow reliably.

Landing Services Recognition Delay

RSI also documents cases where the Landing Services mobiGlas application fails to recognize a landed craft immediately.

The current workaround is to wait several minutes, then close and reopen the app.

Because this is a broader Landing Services issue, failure to access repair or restock options immediately should not automatically be interpreted as proof that a particular fighter is incompatible with the Polaris.

Choosing the Right Polaris Hangar Setup

For most crews, the best loadout follows from the job the carried craft needs to perform.

A Sabre has the clearest design-basis evidence. A Scorpius adds a heavier fighter with equally strong official support as a practical Polaris companion. Players who prefer the F8C or Hornet Mk II have demonstrated workable arrangements, but those should remain classified as community-tested rather than official compatibility specifications.

A compact utility ship can be more valuable than another large fighter when the Polaris is being used as a staging base. It can handle local movement, scouting, personnel recovery, or other short-range work without forcing the capital ship itself to make every trip.

Multi-ship layouts are most worthwhile when the additional craft adds a distinct role without making the bay difficult to operate. If the second ship mainly creates another obstacle that must be moved before launch, its theoretical capacity is doing little for the crew.

This is also why community fit reports should be used as starting points for testing rather than permanent guarantees. Ship geometry, physics behavior, service detection, and bugs can change between patches, so owners planning an unusual loadout should confirm it in the current live build before depending on it.

Final Verdict

The Polaris hangar is most useful when treated as a working carrier bay rather than a capacity challenge.

CIG provides strong official support for the Sabre and Scorpius, while community testing expands the practical possibilities to ships such as the F8C, Hornet Mk II, M80, and various compact utility craft. Those player demonstrations are useful evidence, but they should remain tied to the builds in which they were tested rather than being presented as permanent CIG compatibility guarantees.

Ship Hangar Services add the other half of the carrier equation. A Polaris stocked with the correct fuel, RMC, ammunition, and missiles on its cargo grid can support repeated sorties far more effectively than a hangar used only for transport.

Current Alpha 4.10 persistence and Landing Services bugs still introduce friction, so a reliable Polaris carrier setup should prioritize clearance, easy recovery, and simple servicing over filling every available meter of the bay.

For the rest of the ship's capabilities, see the full Polaris guide. If your question is whether those capabilities justify owning the ship in the first place, the Polaris ownership review covers that decision separately.

If carrier capability is part of your purchase decision, you can also view current Polaris options on LTI Hangar. These are third-party secondary-market listings rather than RSI pledge-store transactions; CIG does not authorize or guarantee grey-market transactions, so pricing and transaction risk should be evaluated separately from official RSI availability.