when a ship synergy maxed, and keep continue using it, or assume it’s a premium ship.
further earned synergy, do they become wasted, or they will start spooling into the free synergy?
The ship still keeps earning ship-specific Synergy, which can then be converted/transferred to Free Synergy at the exorbitant rate of 1 Gold Standard per 150 Synergy.
You still get your 5%/20% free synergy bonus of course, but the bulk is locked onto the ship unless you spend $ to get it off.
Don’t let that be a restriction in what ships you use, though. If you like a ship, you can keep using it for however long you like. If you’re trying to grind, it’s not as good as using the ship you’re trying to grind, though.
No, it does not get “Premium” status, which would give it higher credit earning and more free synergy. That bonus is strictly reserved for Premium ships purchased for real money. It just becomes the best version of that ship, which if you enjoy flying would also allow you to be better in your matches while flying it, which in turn could give you better enjoyment and stats.
One thing I want to stress though is that it still makes sense maxing ships and KEEPING them. Every ship you max the synergy level of and keep in your hangar gives you +1% Synergy bonus to ALL of your ships. For example if you max 30 ships and never sell them (or buy them back when you realize you sold them for some reason), you would get +30% Synergy bonus in ALL of your battles. If you would normally earn 1,000 synergy in a battle, you just gained a free 300 Synergy. Obviously you would want to max your Tier 1 ships as fast as possible, followed by Tier 2. I would recommend just going forward with the maxing all the way up to Tier 5, but of course the grind becomes MUCH higher at higher Tiers for a 1% boost, so that is up to your discretion. If you plan to play the heck out of this game anyway, maxing ships is probably going to be worth it to you.
I’m fairly new to this game (I played a little in CBT and abandoned the game for a year), but I still see people with over triple my game time (we are talking 100+ hours here) that have a lower “Fleet Strength” than me… which IS your bonus for having maxed ships in your hangar.
Fun fact: When you buy Premium Ships (any Tier), they already have maxed Synergy Levels, so you get a +1% bonus to all your battles from those too.