Greetings, Commanders!

Today's transmission is brief, as High Command is currently routing all resources to shipping hotfixes, stability improvements, and balance tweaks based on your invaluable feedback from launch week. That said, we wanted to share a few updates and highlight the community that's made our first week so incredible!

Since launching into Early Access, we've welcomed over 3,600 new pilots to our ranks, shattered our previous concurrent player records with 240 active commanders braving the void simultaneously, and—most validating of all for our small crew—achieved a Very Positive rating on Steam!

Once again, from our veteran pilots who helped root out faulty wiring in our open beta, to the new recruits preparing for their first expedition, thank you. We have so much more in store for this Early Access, and we are glad to have you on board for the journey. We're excited to share a visual roadmap with you all soon—potentially during this week's Steam Bullet Fest, so keep your eyes peeled and comms open!

With a wave of new pilots expected to take flight in the coming days, here is a quick reminder to make liberal use of our Steam discussions, in-game feedback survey[docs.google.com], and official Discord server[discord.gg] for all bug reports and suggestions, no matter the scale. We read every single one.

In case you missed it, we've already deployed our first two patches dedicated to addressing community feedback! You can find additional information on those patches here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3353390/view/713403343824748545

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3353390/view/713403343824749552

A note for pilots in training: As of June 7th, the changes to our shader compilation process, along with the relevant fixes and balance changes from updates 0.1.1 and 0.1.2, have also been applied to the demo version of Starforged Legacy!

Starforged Legacy will be participating in Steam's Bullet Fest, featuring a 10% discount until June 15th!

Technically speaking, this is still just our launch discount extended throughout Bullet Fest, but you shouldn't concern yourself with technicalities. You should concern yourself with the rebel reinforcements warping to your locale after intercepting this transmission, however.

To help you survive this ambush, seek additional training in our phenomenal bullet-heaven bundles (including our new bundle with Pesticide Not Required), and demo available to prospective recruits during Steam Bullet Fest!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/78046/Pesticide_Not_Required_X_Starforged_Legacy/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4029420/Starforged_Legacy_Demo/

The outpouring of support for Starforged Legacy during launch week has been incredible, and we've been lurking (or perhaps, not so covertly, chatting) in as many of these streams and discussion posts as we can.

We've highlighted some exemplary commanders below—these instructional videos aren't mandatory for new recruits, but heavily recommended if you value your pressurized cabin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svB0RU5Jp18Once again, a tremendous thank you to @MrJuicebags for providing us with gameplay to feature on our developer broadcast during launch—show his (and all of these creators') videos on Starforged Legacy some support!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpWcxXSlFUo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFZcUzKgN6A&t=63s

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3737812840*Note: The apocalyptic strength of the above 'Miku Beam' actually claimed the #2 global high score for quite some time. Full extent of damages still inconclusive.

If there are any notable videos or streams we've missed, or content creators who you think might enjoy a key to Starforged Legacy, please let us know!

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter)[x.com], Bluesky[bsky.app], YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok[www.tiktok.com], or by visiting our website: https://SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord[discord.gg] to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Today's hotfix focuses on improving performance, reducing visual clutter during combat, and smoothing out several balance and reliability issues reported by players. We've also shipped adjustments to the first boss encounter so its difficulty better matches its relatively early placement in runs.

Thank you to everyone who shared bugs, performance notes, screenshots, and build feedback. These contributions are what enable us to move quickly and address the most pressing issues!

• Menus now have their own frame-rate limits, helping reduce unnecessary GPU usage outside of gameplay.

• Gameplay now utilizes a smarter default frame-rate limit based on your monitor refresh rate. Existing players will have this setting refreshed once, and can still change it afterward.

• Added a new shader cache to reduce shader-related hitches and improve gameplay smoothness.

• Improved performance during busy fights by reducing the cost of distant or less important enemies.

• Improved build compression settings to reduce CPU strain and improve loading behavior.

• Removed unused high-resolution skybox assets to reduce build size and asset overhead.

• Optimized skybox textures to reduce memory usage while keeping space backgrounds sharp.

• Pickups now render more efficiently, which should help performance when many are on screen.

• Enemy Reinforcement missions now spawn waves over a brief window instead of all at once, reducing the stutter that could occur when the fight starts.

• Reduced heavy visual effects in the main menu to improve performance and lower unnecessary system load.

• Plasma damage effects no longer stack up into huge visual clouds, improving FPS and making combat easier to read.

• Plasma DoT effects are now cheaper to render, helping performance in Plasma-heavy builds.

• Plasma and Radiation effects are easier to tell apart, making it clearer what belongs to you and what belongs to enemies.

Augments

• Reactive Recharge now has a 10-second cooldown and will only trigger when the player is missing shields. This should make the augment behave more predictably and prevent wasted triggers.

• Plasma Contagion now needs a nearby enemy to keep spreading. This prevents enemies from repeatedly reapplying Plasma to themselves and creating unintended damage loops.

First Boss Encounter

• The first boss and certain elite enemies now aim more fairly. They no longer fire at your predicted location, giving players a better chance to dodge through skillful movement.

• The first boss and its minions have 25% less health, making the first major boss fight less punishing and better paced for early runs.

Interactables

• Paid interactable spawns are now capped at 4 per sector, and their endless-mode scaling has been tightened. This should prevent later sectors from filling up with too many paid interactables at once.

• Augment Beacons are now rarer, and their credit cost scales more strongly with map progress. This should make them feel more like a meaningful opportunity instead of something that floods endless runs.

• Fixed an issue where certain max health effects, especially Hungry Field combined with max health upgrades, could cause your current health to drop unexpectedly when moving between sectors. Your current health should now be preserved correctly when your maximum health changes.

• Fixed field weapons scaling far beyond their intended fire rate after stacking attack speed upgrades. This should prevent extreme performance drops caused by runaway field-weapon builds.

• Fixed an issue where selecting a Star Map hex could sometimes send the player to a different hex than the one they chose.

• Fixed the Worldbreaker Payload augment unlock condition being impossible to complete. The requirement has been lowered from 100 kills to 50 kills.

• Fixed Skill Tree tooltips that sometimes remained on screen after closing the Skill Tree.

• Fixed the Junkyard elite enemy’s low-health radiation cloud so it now correctly deals damage.

• Fortified Turrets should now spawn with their intended weapons.

• Orbiter Auto Slugger enemies should now spawn with their intended weapons.

• Armor Breach effects should now trigger and display more reliably.

• Fixed an issue that could cause ranged enemies to spawn with incorrect weapons.

• Fixed an input focus issue that could cause controls or menus to behave incorrectly after changing settings.