Ship Tools are certain abilities that the player's spaceship can perform. There are various categories of ship tools.
- Ship Abilities — Basic abilities of a ship (all of them are passive, except for the abducting and dropping tools).
- Main Tools — Mostly used to collect information about planets. Similar to Ship Tools, but more active than passive.
- Planet Coloring — Used to change the color of any planet. There are 8 colors available; there are coloring tools for ground, water and atmosphere.
- Planet Sculpting — Used to directly edit a planet's geography.
- Planet Atmospheric — Used for terraforming.
- Colonization — Tools used for colonizing planets and improving existing colonies.
- Weapon — Tools used for destruction and creature killing.
- Socialization Tools — Used for peaceful interactions between the player's empire and other empires or creatures.