Update 0.4.0 - Fleet Command
Greetings, Commanders!
Your ship is about to get some very heavily armed company.
Fleet Command is now live, bringing four Drone Bay weapon types, three new ships with four loadouts each, new drone Augments, and the Siege Crucible boss to Starforged Legacy. We have also expanded the battlefields, refreshed existing weapon builds, and made choosing your next upgrade clearer and more concise.
High Command has approved the additional firepower. The paperwork for the collateral damage is still pending.
Find the full list of additions, changes, and fixes here or stay tuned to this transmission for the highlights!
Featured Content
Drone Bays
Drone Bays bring a whole new weapon type and a new way to build your arsenal!
Equip a bay, launch its squadron, and shape your fleet with its own upgrades and Augments. Your drones handle their attacks while you keep the ship moving, pick your fights, and try to leave something for the salvage crews:
Vulcan Fighters: Projectile-armed fighters that swarm targets with bursts of fire.
Pulse Fighters: Laser-armed Fighters for pilots who prefer their supporting fire a little brighter.
Talon Bombers: Missile-armed strike craft that make bombing runs against the enemy swarm.
Arsenal Sentries: Armed escorts with railguns and support for a variety of additional weaponry.
Fighters and Bombers return to your ship to rearm, while Arsenal Sentries reload their weapons in the field. Destroyed drones rebuild automatically. New Augments let you change their weapons, strengthen a smaller elite wing, add supporting guns, or turn a lost drone into one last 'unpleasant surprise' for the rebel fleet.
Build a carrier around your fleet, or add a supporting bay to an existing favorite. There is considerable room between “a little backup” and “I can no longer see the enemy through my own squadron,” especially with 50+ additional Augments in this update, primarily focused on Drone Bays.
New Player Ships
A new Frigate, Cruiser, and Battleship join the hangar, each with a distinct signature and four loadouts:
Stormbolt (Frigate): A self-reliant gunship that forgoes Drone Bays and trades some Credit income for faster Experience gain 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.
Kestrel (Cruiser): A missile-led cruiser whose Relay Barrage adds supporting rockets to ship missile volleys, with additional rockets from bays with active Bombers or Sentries.
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.
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.
The Dreadwing also gets a refit. Its Reprisal Wing signature is now Fighter Command: a Vulcan Fighter wing that grows from one to six Fighters as you level, where each deployed Fighter makes all your Fighters hit harder, plus +1 maximum Drone Bay slot. All four loadouts were rebuilt around Fighter bays, and the Dreadwing now unlocks after a Hard or Brutal Leviathan win.
The Siege Crucible
Pilots flying on Hard and Brutal can now encounter a new boss: the Siege Crucible. Bring your strongest build and leave room for evasive maneuvers!
Larger Sectors and More Time to Fight
Gameplay maps are now 50% wider and 50% longer, with objectives, interactables, and obstacles spread across the expanded battlefield. Campaign maps also give you more time on the battlefield, with Survive objectives now lasting 150 seconds. More room to maneuver, more time to put your build to work, and still plenty of things trying to kill you.
There is more to discover out there, too. Mining sites now form varied clusters and winding stretches of asteroids, while interactables are spread more deliberately across Campaign and Combat Circuit maps. A nearby first find helps get you started before you venture farther out.
Balance Changes and Quality of Life
This update also puts existing weapons in the spotlight. We've reworked a broad selection of Augments, from critical-hit bursts and opening-shot chains to charged Beam attacks and stronger Field builds. Frigates and Cruisers also receive increased durability and shorter shield recharge delays.
Pulse Lasers hit harder and fire faster, while Railguns and Phase Beams trade a little damage per shot for shorter firing intervals. Radiation Cloud builds also get a refresh, including a reworked Fallout Recharge that drops clouds as your Field attacks instead of waiting for a reload.
Your equipment is easier to inspect: reward and shop cards put useful stats and DPS up front, with clearer Details and visible weapon-upgrade progress. The redesigned Ship Customization screen brings your ship, stats, and signature together above loadout cards that highlight what makes each build different.
Equipped weapons appear in the hangar and match your ship’s paint, because a coordinated firing line deserves a coordinated color scheme. Switching ships brings your next vessel up on the hangar lift, and starting a run sends it flying out into space.
The Codex is easier to browse, with Augment name and description search for mouse and keyboard, Loadouts grouped by ship, and drone Augments organized into General, Fighters, Bombers, and Arsenal Sentries. Less menu navigation, more Starmap navigation.
We’ve also improved readability across menus and combat, with larger text and clearer objectives, notifications, and enemy health bars, including improvements for Steam Deck.
One important balance change: Weapons and Drone Bays no longer receive further Ship Upgrades once they reach level 150. The final upgrade keeps its full benefit, even if it carries the weapon past 150, and it preserves existing investments.
Starforged Legacy X Sublight
Alongside today's update, we're also happy to announce a new bundle: Starforged Legacy X Sublight!
Pilots will feel right at home in Sublight’s space bullet-heaven roguelike combat. Equip turrets, combine upgrades, and build around your weapons’ firing arcs:
Join The Community
Thank you to everyone sending us build ideas, bug reports, screenshots, and feedback. Those reports help us decide what to improve, what to explain better, and which suspiciously powerful combinations deserve another test flight.
Try the new ships, take a squadron into battle, and tell us what worked. Share your build and feedback in our Steam discussions—we've created a "Fleet Command" feedback thread here, complete our short feedback survey, or report directly to High Command in Discord.
If you are enjoying Starforged Legacy, a Steam review helps other pilots find the game. Your honest feedback also helps us understand what is working as development continues.
Communication Systems Online
Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.
Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!
Wishing you clear skies, Commander.
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