StarFrame Update — July 27, 2026

27 Jul 2026Developer post

🎓 Skills — Tier I Now Requires Level 25

Where a component has a BASIC version, its Tier I now needs the matching skill at level 25 — to fit and to build. Basic and Tier I were both usable at level 0, which made the Basic rung pointless. Affects reactors, capacitors, shield extenders, mining lasers, survey scanners, salvagers, hull repairers, remote capacitor boosters, autocannons, seeker missiles, flares, and Kinetic/Explosive ammo.
Basic gear is untouched — still level 0. So is anything whose bottom rung already is Tier I: lasers, artillery, webifiers, targeting computers, energy neutralisers, jammers, ancillary boosters, ion and siege equipment. Those were never meant to move.
⚠ Tier I modules you already have FITTED keep working — nothing is taken off your ship. But if you unfit one, or repackage the ship it is on, you cannot refit it until you reach 25. Note that building a Tier II ship can auto-repackage a lower-tier hull for its materials, which strips that hull's modules the same way.

Manufacturing now tells you why something is locked. It used to show a bare LOCKED with no explanation. It now names the skill and the level you need — and when a parent skill is the thing actually capping you, it names that instead, so you are never sent to train something that cannot unblock you.
Fitting a module you cannot use is greyed out with the reason. Previously the row looked normal and the click did nothing at all — no message, no error.
The skill panel no longer advertises tiers that do not exist. Several families were listing an unlock level for equipment that has never been buildable.

The faction-warfare capture panel no longer covers the target readout. In warzones it sat directly on top of the target bar, hiding both the lock progress and the enemy HP bar in the systems where you fight most.

Restart Steam to pick up the update. Until your client updates it will show gear as craftable that the server now refuses.