Accurate as of v2.0.18 (August 2026).
Three separate systems live behind the “upgrade” button, and they behave differently.
- Stat upgrades are five-tier ladders on holds, shields, fighters and torpedoes. Bound to the ship.
- Drives are warp, StarNav and Tesseract. Bound to the ship.
- Tech modules are one-per-ship permanent installs. Bound to the ship.
All three die with the ship. There is no salvage.
Stat upgrades
Each of the four stats has a five-tier ladder. The total you can add is a fixed fraction of the hull’s base stat:
| Archetype | Holds | Shields | Fighters | Torpedoes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trading / Smuggling / Patrol | +100% | +50% | +100% | +100% |
| War / Raider / Enforcer | +50% | +50% | +200% | +200% |
| Balanced / Corsair / Dreadnought | +80% | +50% | +160% | +160% |
Notice the shape: shields cap at +50% on everything. The archetypes differ on holds and on weapons, never on shields.
How the ladder is priced
Holds distribute the total gain 30 / 20 / 20 / 15 / 15% across five tiers, at cost multipliers ×8 / 16 / 40 / 100 / 300 of the hull’s hold base cost.
Combat stats reach cumulative 25 / 45 / 60 / 70 / 80% of the shape at multipliers ×8 / 16 / 28 / 44 / 64.
Two consequences worth internalizing:
- Early tiers are absurdly cheap relative to late ones. Tier 1 holds on a hull with a 50 cr hold base costs 400 cr for 30% of the total gain. Tier 5 costs 15,000 for 15%.
- Buying tier 1 and 2 on everything beats maxing anything. The first two hold tiers give you half the total gain for 24 of the 464 total multiplier units. Spread wide before you go deep.
What to buy first
Holds, if you’re trading. It is the only upgrade that compounds — every extra hold multiplies the return on every run you make for the rest of the season.
Shields, if you’re fighting. Shields defend at weight 3.0, the highest defensive weight in the game, and they are the layer that regenerates for free every four hours.
Torpedoes are the strongest attack stat (weight 5.0) but they are consumed in every fight — 20% base plus up to 50% more — and they cost 150 cr each to replace. Fighters attack at 2.0, defend at 1.0, and cost 75.
Drives
Warp Drive
| Install | 15,000 cr |
| Requires | Tier-2+ hull, plus an early ladder gate |
| Upgrade | 15,000 cr × the new level |
| Max level | 5 |
Cost of a jump is max(1, ceil(hops ÷ level)). At level 5, a 20-hop journey
costs 4 turns.
Warp only reaches sectors you have already visited. See Navigation for interruption rules.
StarNav 2002
| Install | 100,000 cr |
| Upgrade | 100,000 cr × the new level (L2 = 200k, L5 = 500k) |
| Gates | Each level has its own ladder gate, from mid-early at L1 to deep at L5 |
| Max level | 5 |
The gate levels are pinned per season — the shop quotes your season’s exact numbers.
The passive scanner. It costs nothing to use and it never stops working. See Scanners & Intel for what each level actually resolves.
The single most important threshold: StarNav 4 sees through ship cloaks.
Tesseract Drive
| Install | 10,000,000 cr |
| Requires | Tier-5 hull, plus the deepest level gate in the game |
| Jump cost | Flat 25 turns, any distance, any visited sector |
The last unlock in the game. The Tesseract’s gate sits at the very top of the season ladder — whether the ladder actually reaches it depends on the season’s tuning, and some running seasons cap out below it. Check the in-game unlock list for your season before you save the ten million.
Tech modules
One of each per ship, permanent, wallet-only. Bought at ports running the
upgrade or research service — Tech Ports, Research Ports, the Pirate
Haven and the Merchant Exchange.
Every module’s effect is computed live from the flag, not snapshotted into your stats when you buy it. Changing hulls never leaves a stale bonus behind.
| Module | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo Compressors | 8,000 | +20% holds, of the hull’s base holds |
| Shield Booster | 10,000 | +15% max shields, of base shields |
| Attack Systems | 12,000 | +10% attack power |
| Armor Plating | 12,000 | +10% defense power |
| Combat AI | 15,000 | +20% fighter effectiveness, in combat and sieges |
| Advanced Sensors | 15,000 | Cuts a stealth attacker’s first strike from +12pp to +6pp |
| Warp Optimizer | 18,000 | Warp jumps cost 1 fewer turn (never the Tesseract) |
| Stealth Plating | 15,000 | −30pp on customs scans, +15pp escape chance, +12pp first strike when attacking |
| Patrol Transponder | 20,000 | Federation only — patrols never materialize |
| False Manifest | 20,000 | Pirate only — one failed customs scan per day quietly rerolls |
Every module also carries a level gate — the utility modules early in the ladder, the stealth and faction modules deeper, in roughly the order of the table. The shop shows your season’s numbers.
The last two are faction-exclusive and require ±500 alignment on the matching side.
The ones that punch above their cost
Stealth Plating is the best 15,000 cr in the game if you fly anywhere interesting. It is simultaneously the second-biggest customs counter, a +15pp escape chance, and a first-strike bonus when you attack.
Combat AI at +20% fighter effectiveness applies in ship combat and in port and planet sieges. If you siege anything, buy it.
Cargo Compressors at +20% of base holds stacks additively with the trading line’s signature ability. A Star Galleon (320 base holds, +10% signature) with compressors runs 320 + 32 + 64 = 416 effective holds before a single upgrade tier.
Ion storms degrade every tech bonus by 20% while you’re fighting in one. Attack Systems, Armor Plating and Combat AI all get shaved. Nebulas hit fighters directly for −15%; radiation zones cut shield defense by 10%.