🚀 New Feature
🎖️ Pilot Requirements for Ships
Every ship has always shown the captain level it needs, but until now nothing actually checked it when you climbed aboard. A hull bought from another captain could be flown at any level. From this update, the hangar checks before you board.
Captain Level
To board a ship, your captain level must meet the level shown for that ship in the Item Database. If you fall short, the hangar will tell you exactly what you need and where you stand. If you are already flying a ship, nothing changes for you. The check only happens when you next board.
Pilot Skills
Some ships now also ask for a pilot skill. The Deepforge, for example, needs Captain level 55 and Command 28 before you can take the helm. You will find any skill a ship needs listed beside its captain level in the Item Database, so you know before you build or buy.
🏗️ The Deepforge Blueprint
The Deepforge Blueprint is now available from Argus Starships. Anyone can build one, though it is designed with corporation fleets in mind, and a lone Deepforge without friends around it will feel very exposed out in the field.
What It Takes
Building a Deepforge needs Captain level 55 and Manufacturing 30, and each blueprint builds just one ship. The recipe is the biggest in the game, fifteen materials worth around 250 million credits, so expect a corporation effort to gather it all. Flying one needs Captain level 55 and Command 28.
Start saving, start gathering, and let us see which corporation launches the first one.
⚔️ New Kit for Corvettes and Destroyers
Corvettes arrived with guns of their own and very little else, so most captains flying a Cutlass, Rapier or Falchion have been making do with frigate shields and reactors, and an Auxiliary slot that nothing could fill. Destroyer captains had a similar gap in their module bays. Fifteen new blueprints are now on sale to put that right.
Corvette Shields and Reactors
Three new shields sit between the best frigate shields and the cruiser range: the Parry Screen, the Riposte Barrier and the Guardblade Aegis, needing Shields 18, 21 and 24. Three new reactors give corvettes the power to run a full rack of corvette guns: the Forgeheart Core, the Tempering Reactor and the Quenchfire Core, producing 5,000, 5,600 and 6,200 energy at Engineering 19, 21 and 23. A fully kitted corvette will still have to make choices, as the energy runs out just before the wish list does.
Auxiliary Repairers for Corvettes
The corvette Auxiliary slot finally has something to hold. The Light Shield Projector and Light Armour Repairer need Engineering 14, and the Field Shield Projector and Field Armour Repairer need Engineering 18. They work just like the cruiser repairers, mending an ally’s shields or armour, with a slightly shorter reach of 250. Corvette captains can now fly as proper wingmen, and they make a natural step up to the cruiser repairers later.
Sovereign Destroyer Modules
Destroyers get their own module set above the Apex range. The Sovereign Armor Plating and Sovereign Hull Reinforcement each add 450, the Sovereign Shield Regenerator adds 20 regen, the Sovereign Cargo Bay Extension adds 90 cargo and the Sovereign Thruster Enhancement adds 50 speed. Each needs Engineering 30 and fits destroyer hulls and anything heavier.
All of the new corvette kit also fits cruisers and destroyers, so check the Item Database for the full numbers and recipes.
⛏️ New Top Tier Mining Kit
Our most experienced miners have long since outgrown the best shields, reactors and holds a mining hull could carry, with plenty of Engineering skill and nothing left to spend it on. Three new blueprints raise the ceiling.
The Mantlerock Bulwark is now the heaviest shielding a mining hull can carry, at 540 capacity with Shields 28. The Bonanza Core is the largest powerplant a mining hull can mount, producing 7,000 energy with Engineering 30. The Paydirt Hold carries 765 cargo for a low 3,200 energy draw with Engineering 34.
A Stripminer with a pair of Bonanza Cores can now run a full working fit around a Deep Core Laser, with cutters, shield and hold all powered at once. All three fit Extractor class hulls only, and the blueprints need captain level 50.
🗡️ Corvette Modules and Missiles
Corvettes have been borrowing frigate modules and frigate missile racks since they launched. Both now have a corvette tier of their own, finishing the set that began with the new corvette shields, reactors and repairers.
Duelist Modules
Six new modules sit between the frigate Elite set and the cruiser Apex set, each needing Engineering 12. The Duelist Armor Plating and Duelist Hull Reinforcement each add 300, the Duelist Shield Regenerator adds 14 regen, the Duelist Cargo Bay Extension adds 65 cargo, the Duelist Thruster Enhancement adds 35 speed, and the Duelist Passenger Cabin adds 9 passengers for Falchion captains running people between the stars.
Corvette Missiles
Two new corvette racks are on sale at Vulcan Ordnance Works. The Scabbard Launcher is the standard rack, and the Longblade Rack trades a little rate of fire for longer reach and a bigger magazine. They fire corvette class rounds, and three new assembler plans are on sale there too: the Lunge Missile at 75 damage with the widest blast, the Thrust Missile at 92, and the Fleche Missile at 110 with the tightest blast. As with every missile in the game, a corvette rack matches the corvette guns shot for shot, and the blast is what you are paying the ammunition for.
Rapier captains, those three missile hardpoints finally have something worth putting in them.
🔧 Bug Fix
🎖️ Command Experience for Bigger Ships
Your first login each day awards Command Experience based on the ship you are flying. Until now, many of the larger hulls were quietly paying the same 10 Experience as a starter Marauder, which was never the intention.
That is now fixed. Corvettes earn 20 Command Experience a day, Cruisers 30, Destroyers 40 and the Deepforge 50. Frigates, Extractors and Shuttles are unchanged.
The new rates apply from your next daily login.
✨ Improvement
🔧 Shipyard Checks and a Roomier Cargo Hold
Shipyards Now Check Manufacturing
Every ship blueprint has always listed a Manufacturing level, but until now neither shipyard actually checked it when a build was started. Both the personal shipyard and the corporation shipyard now do. To start building a ship you need the captain level and the Manufacturing level the blueprint shows, and in a corporation shipyard it is the captain starting the build who needs them. Builds already underway are not affected, and you can still buy a blueprint before you are ready to use it.
A Wider Cargo Hold
Ships with an Ore Hold show six tabs in the Cargo Hold, and every label was squeezing onto two lines. The panel is now wider, so all six fit comfortably on one line, and the cargo bay in combat matches it.
A Cleaner Refining Chart
The group titles on the Refining Chart are now a little smaller and easier to read in white, and the ore names sit at the same size as the rest of the table.