Starforged Legacy Update 0.4.0 [v3077]

Update 0.4.0 Fleet Command adds four Drone Bay weapon types, three new ships with twelve loadouts, new drone Augments and progression, and the Siege Crucible boss. It also expands gameplay maps, increases the duration of Campaign maps, improves equipment information, and brings another round of weapon balance changes and fixes.

Thank you to everyone who has shared feedback, bug reports, screenshots, and build details. Your reports always shape our Early Access priorities!

Content

Drone Weapons

• Added Vulcan Fighters, Pulse Fighters, Talon Bombers, and Arsenal Sentries as four obtainable Drone Bay weapon types.

• Drone Bays support launching, combat, rearming, reconstruction, Ship Upgrades, and compatible Augments.

• Added dedicated drone Augments, weapon refits, and Sentry weapon additions, including options for squadron size, durability, recovery, attack behavior, and supporting fire.

• Added 31 earned drone Augment unlocks, with 20 drone Augments available by default.

• Compatible existing weapon Augments can also appear for drone-mounted guns.

• Added named drone prototypes to Prototype weapon rewards.

• Added Drone Bay capacity information and fitting limits to equipment selection and ship information.

• Added drone-focused Skill Tree progression, including Salvage Swarm for nearby Experience and Credit collection, Expanded Hangar for bay allowance, and Squadron Expansion for additional drones in eligible bays.

• Data Harvest and Salvage Rights also trigger from kills by your drones.

New Augments

Blink Recovery cannot share a bay with Phase Insertion or Terminal Protocol. Terminal Protocol applies to Fighters and Bombers, not Sentries. Fighter and Bomber bays can equip one weapon kit. Sentry bays can equip one primary weapon refit and up to two different added weapons. Phase Beam Refit is incompatible with Integrated Fire Control. Command Surge, Repair Link, and Last Stand Reserves affect equipped Drone Bays, excluding signature drones such as Fighter Command.

New Playable Ships

Rook (Battleship) - A fleet carrier whose squadrons grow larger and hit harder as your ship levels up.

• Fleet Carrier (Signature Augment) - Every 15 ship levels, each Drone Bay gains +1 drone capacity, up to +4. Drones gain 25% Weapon Damage, increasing with ship level to 50% at level 500. +1 maximum Drone Bay slot.

Kestrel (Cruiser) - A missile cruiser whose supporting rocket barrages grow with Bomber and Sentry bays.

• Relay Barrage (Signature Augment) - Each ship missile volley launches a homing rocket dealing 50% of the volley's damage in a 40m radius. Each bay with an active Bomber or Sentry adds one rocket. Scales with ship level. +1 maximum Drone Bay slot.

Stormbolt (Frigate) - An independent frigate that forgoes Drone Bays and trades some Credit income for faster leveling and damage that grows with ship level.

• One-Ship Doctrine (Signature Augment) - Gain 15% more Experience and 15% fewer Credits. Damage scales with ship level: +1% per level. Drone Bays disabled.

Dreadwing Rework

• Reworked Reprisal Wing into Fighter Command, with a Vulcan Fighter wing that grows with ship level.

• Each deployed Fighter grants all owned Fighters 3% increased Damage.

• The signature wing starts with one Fighter and gains another at ship levels 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50, reaching six. Its Health and Damage also scale with ship level.

• Rebuilt all four loadouts around Fighter bays: Scramble uses Pulse Fighters with Plasma Tracers; Air Cover uses Vulcan Fighters with Combat Patchwork; Crush Depth uses Vulcan Fighters with Sortie Capacitor; and Arc Command uses Pulse Fighters with Plasma Arc Emitter. Outer Ring is now named Air Cover, and Dead Reckoning is now named Arc Command.

• Air Cover can now be unlocked by having eight Fighters deployed simultaneously while flying Dreadwing. Its previous unlock route remains available.

• Fighter Command also grants +1 maximum Drone Bay slot.

• Dreadwing now unlocks after a Hard or Brutal victory with Leviathan.

Siege Crucible Boss & Gameplay Updates

• Added the Siege Crucible boss for Hard and Brutal difficulties.

• Expanded gameplay maps by 50% in each dimension, with wider placement of objectives, interactables, and obstacles.

• Varied mining-site sizes and layouts across Campaign and Combat Circuit, with uneven clusters, strings, and bends shaped by sector reward profiles.

• Improved interactable placement across the expanded maps, with a nearby first find, wider regional coverage, and more deliberate spacing.

Balance Changes

(New) Weapon Levels and Rewards

• Weapons and Drone Bays no longer receive further Ship Upgrades once they reach level 150. The final upgrade retains its full value and may take the component above 150.

• Existing upgrades and over-cap investments are preserved. Non-weapon components and Augment capacity rules are unchanged.

• Upgrade cards show current level, resulting level, and the limit, with a FINAL UPGRADE indicator when appropriate.

• Earned upgrade choices that have no eligible upgrades remaining resolve through the existing skip-Credit payout. Empty shops do not award Credits.

• Upgrade rewards reject already-capped benefits and avoid duplicate Ship Upgrade offers for the same component across rarities.

• Epic and Legendary offers must retain at least half of each recognized positive stat benefit after caps.

• Newly generated weapons carry at most two attached Augments; existing saved offers retain their contents.

• Augment offers treat Hull, Shield, Subsystem, and Thruster as equal slots, while equipped weapons and Drone Bays receive more frequent offers.

• Engine Tuning and Engine Core grant stronger speed bonuses and stop appearing after a +100% Movement Speed bonus.

• Narrative Ship Upgrade rewards convert to Credits when no eligible upgrade can benefit your build.

Player Ships

• Frigate base Health increased from 90 to 120, Shields from 35 to 50, and Shield Recharge Cooldown reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.

• Cruiser base Health increased from 110 to 160, Shields from 50 to 80, and Shield Recharge Cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds.

• Nemesis Citadel loadout now starts with Layered Shield in place of Shield Extender.

Missions and Hazards

• Campaign Survive objectives now last 150 seconds, with 20% higher difficulty progression for those maps.

• Restored missing Anomaly Credit rewards.

• Reworked Gravity Well and Gravitational Anomaly pull: they still pull you in when you're not moving, but are easier to fly out of.

• Tier 1 and Tier 2 exploders stop and remain vulnerable during their explosion warning; contact no longer skips the warning fuse.

• Improved Merchant Escort pacing.

Augments and Ship Upgrades

• Critical Surge: Previously, a crit had a 3.5% chance to add 137.5% hit damage. A qualifying crit now grants 100% increased Fire Rate for 2 seconds, with a 6-second cooldown.

• Critical Support: Increased the maximum from 10 to 50 stacks. Each crit adds 12.5 percentage points of Critical Damage; stacks reset on reload or drone rearm.

• First Strike: The first hit against each enemy always crits. First-hit kills grant 25% more first-hit damage, compounding up to 10 stacks. The chain resets when a first hit fails to kill. This replaces the previous Critical Damage bonus and firing penalty.

• Range Amplifier: Replaced uncapped 87.5% bonus damage per 10m with 10% per 10m, capped at +100% damage at 100m.

• Red Hole: Now triggers on a confirmed kill. Its 50m zone lasts 15 seconds, Slows enemies by 50%, doubles their incoming damage, and has a 15-second cooldown.

• Relentless Fire: Replaced 77.5% shorter reloads paired with slower firing. A kill now resets this weapon’s firing cooldown once per attack, without skipping reload or charge-up.

• Critical Capacity: Replaced +20% Critical Chance, +87.5% Critical Damage, and a 30% blast-radius penalty. Now grants 20% Critical Damage per round of maximum Magazine Size and requires at least 5% Critical Chance to appear.

• Barrage Mode: Replaced +5 missiles and 33% less blast radius with triple missiles per attack, up to 13, at 40% less Fire Rate. It only appears when the projected build benefits.

• Temporal Laser: Hits have a 17.5% chance to apply a missing Plasma, Slow, or Stun effect. If all three are present, the hit refreshes Plasma.

• Protective Field: Previously granted up to 27.5% more Field Range at empty Shields. It now grants up to 200% more Field Damage and 100% more range as Shields are depleted.

• Irradiated Plasma: Previously relied on a separate Radiation Cloud source and added Plasma based on 22.5% of damage dealt inside Field range. Now your Radiation Clouds inflict Plasma for 100% of the cloud hit’s damage each second, with one copy per build.

• Focal Anchor: Keeps Compression Field anchored where a pulse begins. Replaced 100% longer pulse duration and a 50% longer interval with 100% more Field Damage and 50% more Field Range.

• Heated Chamber: Piercing hits now spread Plasma to enemies within 30m, burning for 50% of the full hit’s damage over 3 seconds.

• Ion Beam: Replaced a beam triggered by 9 Field kills for 87.5% Field Damage. It now charges through 10 damaging Field pulses, then fires a 1000% shot at the enemy in the Field with the most Health and Shields.

• Supermassive: Increased its Weapon Damage bonus from 30% to 80%. Its doubled Gravity Well radius and 50% increase to base firing interval remain.

• Extended Arc: Still adds 3 Plasma Arc bounces, with its firing-interval penalty removed.

• Damage-scaling Augments: Updated damage bonuses on existing weapon Augments to stack multiplicatively, including Full Charge, Heavy Payload, Worldbreaker Payload, and Combat Catalyst.

• Multi-Launcher and Split Chamber: Rare, Epic, and Legendary Ship Upgrades now grant +1, +2, and +3 projectiles, respectively.

• Neutron Warheads Ship Upgrades: Increased the Epic damage bonus to 20–30% and Legendary to 35–50%, while retaining their Fire Rate penalty and blast-radius benefits.

• Radiation Rounds: Replaced the hit-count trigger with a 25% chance on hit to attach a Radiation Cloud to the target, with a 5-second cooldown. The cloud follows the target for 4 seconds, deals 60% Weapon Damage every half second within 25 m, and lingers where the target dies.

• Fallout Recharge: Replaced three 7.5m clouds on reload and a permanent 20% Field Damage penalty. Every 6 Field ticks now drops one 10m Radiation Cloud on a living enemy inside the Field, without that damage penalty.

• Reactor Breach: Previously based cloud damage on 65% of the pierce hit spread across 5 seconds. Clouds now deal 15% of Weapon Damage each second for 5 seconds in a 20m radius and count as Radiation Clouds.

• Critical Residue: Increased the damage-zone radius from 7.5m to 10m. The card now makes its half-second damage ticks clear.

• Fallout Zone and Nuclear Warheads: Updated their cards to state the cloud damage interval; Nuclear Warheads also now states that its cloud matches the missile blast radius.

• Red Line: Updated its card and buff tooltip to show the Fire Rate bonus and the self-damage applied every 5 seconds.

• Smart Rounds: Replaced its 55% chance to bounce with +1 Ricochet. Ricochets always connect, and each bounce deals 20% more damage than the last.

Weapons

• Ship-mounted Machine Gun: Reduced magazine size from 60 to 30, shortened attack interval from 0.175 to 0.075 seconds, and increased reload time from 5 to 5.5 seconds. Damage per bullet is unchanged. The Machine Gun magazine Ship Upgrade now adds 5 rounds instead of 10.

• Ship-mounted Pulse Laser: Increased base damage from 5 to 6, shortened attack interval from 0.15 to 0.10 seconds, and increased Critical Chance from 5% to 15%.

• Ship-mounted Railgun: Reduced base damage from 35 to 30 and shortened attack interval from 1.5 to 1.2 seconds.

• Phase Beam: Reduced base damage from 70 to 60 and shortened attack interval from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds. Its charge time is unchanged.

UI & Quality of Life

• Redesigned reward and shop weapon cards with larger artwork, key stats, calculated DPS, and full weapon/Augment Details.

• Put DPS first in weapon stat panels and added clearer icons, shorter labels, and explanatory tooltips.

• Ship Overview shows Drone Bays and their mounted weapons, including per-drone stats and DPS; Ship Stats shows equipped bays against the limit.

• Weapon and Drone Bay tooltips show damage, kills, status effects, and active buffs in clearer groups.

• Added Drone Bay indicators for deployed drones, rearming, and reconstruction, and refreshed the weapon reload display.

• Equipped weapons and Drone Bay pods are visible in the hangar and match the selected ship’s paint.

• Added thematic loadout badges and a combined ship/loadout panel in Run Summary.

• Improved ship stat presentation, including Shield Delay, Dodge, and maximum Drone Bays.

• Improved Skill Tree purchase readability, prerequisite icons, locked-skill markers, and completed-skill checkmarks.

• Nearby interactables now appear on the HUD.

• Reward and shop reroll now uses R3 on gamepad.

• Added an Equipment Reward Notifications setting; disabling it clears outstanding equipment-reward notices.

• Added Codex search for Augment names and descriptions when using mouse and keyboard.

• Grouped Codex Loadouts by ship and drone Augments into General, Fighters, Bombers, and Arsenal Sentries, with gamepad-accessible grouping controls.

• Added tier-colored component rank borders to menu and weapon HUD icons.

• Added glowing borders to pickup boxes and a pulsing highlight to mission pickups.

• Improved long Augment applicability labels and Loadout headers so they stay within their cards.

• Clarified Plasma damage and duration descriptions, Fire Rate percentages, and several weapon/Augment tooltips.

• Redesigned Ship Customization with the ship, stats, and signature above loadout cards showing each build’s main weapon, distinguishing equipment, and locked price.

• On controllers, left and right on the D-pad or left stick switch loadouts, while Y opens Inspect for equipment, Augments, and the signature.

• Switching ships uses an animated hangar lift. Starting a run plays a skippable ship-launch sequence.

• Improved readability across menus and combat, including Steam Deck layouts, objective timers, notifications, shop details, narrative choices, and Run Summary.

• Added optional health bars for normal enemies and clearer detailed bars for elite enemies and Cruiser mini-bosses.

• Pickup failures now explain why an item could not be collected.

Performance & Optimizations

• Reduced gameplay hitches caused by telemetry disk writes.

• Updated enemy debris effects and contained death-effect debris more tightly around combat.

• Improved weapon artwork fit, reward/shop spacing, and comparison-card readability.

• Reduced mounted weapon size on Frigates by 25%.

• Updated ship damage visuals and smoke, meteor impacts, Phase Beam charging effects, and Fallout strike telegraph timing.

Fixes

• Fixed accidental mouse movement interrupting gamepad control while preserving deliberate mouse clicks, scrolling, touch, and keyboard input.

• Fixed shop Refresh becoming unresponsive after purchasing a card.

• Dismissed weapon-bar tooltips when rewards or other modal screens open.

• Fixed raw text references appearing in Warp Extraction settings.

• Fixed empty enemy and boss nameplates remaining visible.

• Improved Distress Call and Trader Rescue Health and Repower displays.

• Fixed the defeat screen being blocked by leftover Experience too small to grant.

• Broke up visible grid patterns in environmental hazard placement.

• Fixed Explosive Rounds hit triggers and Gravity Cluster secondary blasts when wells collapse.

• Restored the final damage tick of player-created hazard clouds, including Radiation Clouds.

• Fixed reloads leaving partial ammunition when upgraded magazine capacity is fractional.

• Fixed Power Surge compatibility with NOVA LANCE’s FISSION shield.

• Fixed stale and multi-currency unlock prices in the Codex, and removed empty Loadout dividers and inappropriate rank decorations from previews.

• Fixed lingering or endlessly looping mining, railgun, meteor, and asteroid impact effects.

• Fixed manual-aim cursor flickering, right-stick aiming dropping while moving, and stale aim persisting through menus or input-device changes.

• Fixed turrets and Swarm Missiles targeting hidden or docked enemy Fighters. Active Swarm Missiles reacquire an eligible target or stop homing.

• Positive damage below one now displays as "<1" instead of "0".

• Fixed mining direction markers becoming stuck partially visible and protected mining-target cleanup when asteroids are destroyed or maps change.

• Fixed enemy Fork Shot attacks and restored targeting of fortified turrets.