Ships seen so far
Official Squadron 42 material centres on the Aegis Gladius fighter - shown in hangars, formations and station approaches - and the capital ship UEES Stanton, the player's home base with the UEE Navy's 5th Fleet.
Squadron 42 is a navy game, so the fleet matters - but this is not Star Citizen, and the screenshots are not a ship catalogue. Here is what official material actually shows: the Gladius appears constantly in CIG's own stills, the capital ship UEES Stanton is the campaign's home base, and Vanduul hardware shows up on the hostile side of the war.
The Gladius: the fighter you will know best
The Aegis Gladius is the one ship the official material keeps returning to. On the Squadron 42 site alone it appears in three separate scenes: parked in an open-air hangar with its canopy raised as a pilot walks toward it, flying in formation through a charged storm tunnel, and easing toward the circular mouth of a station. If the campaign has a signature cockpit, the Gladius is the safest bet for it - it is the small, fast, single-seat fighter the marketing has chosen to put in your hands, over and over.
The UEES Stanton: home in the black
The player's story is anchored to a capital ship. Public material places you aboard the UEES Stanton, attached to the 5th Fleet's 87th Battlegroup, and CIG has consistently described the campaign as living and working alongside a crew on a massive Navy ship rather than jumping between disconnected missions. Expect the Stanton to be the place where the story between missions happens - the hangar, the mess, the people.
Vanduul: the war's other side
The Vanduul - the alien power on the far side of the conflict - appear in official imagery and in the campaign's founding setup around Vega II. That is as far as the public material goes for now: the designs are visible, the story role is established, and the detail belongs to the game itself.
What the footage confirms
| Ship | Where it appears | What it tells us |
|---|---|---|
| Gladius (Aegis) | Official site media: hangar walk, storm-tunnel formation, station approach | The campaign's flagship fighter imagery; pilot-centric scenes |
| UEES Stanton | Story material: the capital ship the player serves aboard | The campaign hub; crew and hangar life happen here |
| Vanduul craft | Official imagery and the Vega II backstory | The alien threat; the opposing side of the war |
Why the list is short - and that is fine
Squadron 42 is not selling ships; it is selling a story you get to fly. CIG has kept the fleet used by the campaign close to its chest, letting the trailers show the Gladius doing the work rather than publishing a hangar manifest. For a game built around one soldier's war, that restraint is the point: the ships you fly are assigned to you, upgraded in the hangar, and part of the narrative rather than a storefront.
When the game nears launch, the fleet question will answer itself. Until then, treat any list that goes beyond what the official stills show - stat tables, loadouts, tier lists - with a raised eyebrow. The what we know page tracks the confirmed material, and the release tracker will flag the moment that changes.
