Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your SHIP file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert SHIP to another file type
To convert SHIP ship files to another format, you need Starsector or other Game software.
Convert a file to SHIP
To convert other file formats to the "Starsector Config File" file type, you need software like Starsector or a similar tool.
About SHIP files
A .SHIP file is a proprietary configuration document used by the 2D space combat role-playing game Starsector. It functions as a blueprint for in-game spaceships, defining crucial architectural details such as polygon collision bounds, engine coordinates, and weapon mount locations. While these files are parsed directly by the game engine, modders frequently access them using the community-developed Starsector Ship and Weapon Editor or standard code editors like Notepad++. The main disadvantage of the .SHIP format is its strict, proprietary structure. It is totally isolated from mainstream development tools and relies on exact syntax; a single misplaced comma will crash the game engine. Furthermore, because it is an obscure indie game asset, standard data viewers and file browsers cannot preview or interact with it natively. If you need to share or analyze the data outside the game environment, your best conversion targets are TXT or JSON. Converting it to a standard text format ensures universal compatibility across any operating system, though the file must be renamed back to .SHIP before the game engine can read it again. Because this is a highly specialized game configuration format, standard online file converters completely fail to process it. Usually, only the Starsector engine or dedicated modding utilities understand the layout. However, convert.guru can still identify the file format, safely inspect the file, and display the internal text data. If our analysis detects the underlying plain-text structure, viewing or extracting the raw configuration code is instantly possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your SHIP file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert SHIP file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Starsector or similar software from the "Game Spaceship Definition File" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to SHIP, try Starsector or another comparable tool in the "Game Spaceship Definition File" category.
The SHIP Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our SHIP converter.