StarFrame — The Skills Update (Economy v2)

The biggest overhaul StarFrame has had. Research is gone. Your character now grows through skills you level by playing — and industry, loot, and progression have been rebuilt around them.

⭐ Skills replace research

Every profession is now a leveled skill (0–100). You raise a skill by doing the thing — mine to level Mining, fight to level your weapon skills, craft to level Fabrication, explore to level Slicing, and so on.

A skill's level unlocks tiers and scales their power: higher Gunnery fits better autocannons and makes them hit harder; higher Mining yields more ore per cycle; higher piloting unlocks Mark II hulls.

Skills live in two pools — Action and Profession — each with a cap on how many levels you can keep active at once. Choose your build.

A brand-new SKILLS panel (Station Services → Skills) replaces the old research tree: pools, categories, per-tier breakdowns, and live XP.

🔧 Crafting quality

Modules you build now roll a quality grade — Crude → Standard → Refined → Flawless — based on your Fabrication skill. Better crafters make measurably better gear. Quality shows on the fitted module.

📘 Blueprints

Anything above Basic tier now needs a learned blueprint to build — knowing the skill lets you use an item; the blueprint lets you make it.

Blueprints drop as loot, scaled by risk: Tier I turns up in high-security caches and cleared hideouts, while Tier II/III blueprints only appear deeper in dangerous space.

🧠 Datacores — new item

A rare find in exploration caches: a Datacore instantly trains a chosen skill to level 50 as a background job — a shortcut past the grind. They're scarce (rarer than a rig), and drop a bit more often the deeper into low-sec you explore. Premium halves the training time.

✦ Premium perks (reworked)

2× skill XP, higher skill-pool caps, extra parallel job slots, and dormancy protection so your skills stay active. Premium accelerates — it never gates content.

🎯 Loot rebalance

Rigs now drop most often in high-security space (common tiers) and taper off as you go deeper — but the rigs you do find out on the frontier are rarer and better.

🚀 What happens to my character

Your ships, modules, rigs, and credits are untouched.

Everything you researched is preserved — every blueprint and recipe you'd unlocked is automatically yours to build.

Skills start fresh at 0 for everyone — the new progression is a clean slate, so dive back in and start leveling the things you actually do.

Thanks to the playtesters for the input that drove these changes, and welcome to the next iteration of StarFrame. 🌌