How to Upgrade Your Fleet

How to get fleet upgrades

Fleet upgrades are purchased with cash earned from drone cycles. Open the fleet or upgrade menu in-game (wording may vary by beta version) and select mining power, cargo, or speed improvements that apply across your active drones.

Income funds upgrades; upgrades raise income. Interrupt that loop by mis-spending on the wrong stat and progression flatlines until you correct course.

How to choose upgrade order

Time one representative cycle on your main farm ore. If laser-on-rock time is longest, buy mining power. If holds fill before mining finishes, buy cargo. If transit and deposit waiting dominate with full holds, buy speed.

Repeat after every purchase. Upgrades shift bottlenecks — mining fixes often expose cargo caps, cargo fixes expose transit limits.

• Measure longest cycle phase
• Buy one tier in that stat
• Re-measure before next purchase

How drone slots interact with upgrades

New drone slots multiply fleet output only when existing drones complete efficient cycles. Buying slots before mining and cargo baselines spreads the same weakness across more units.

After adding a drone, expect to revisit mining and cargo sooner than speed. More lasers compete; more hauls need size.

How to upgrade around evolution

Evolution increases ore value and hardness. After evolving, plan a mining catch-up purchase first unless cargo clearly limits you on the new tier. Speed tune-ups follow once payloads and mining are stable.

Bank before evolving so you are not stuck admiring new ore you cannot mine efficiently.

Treat each evolution like a mini reset: your ore got better, your fleet must relearn the pipeline. Players who evolve during lunch and wonder why dinner income collapsed skipped this catch-up step.

How to protect upgrade value

Protect upgrades by avoiding single-stat streaks without measurement. Protect currency by keeping an emergency buffer for reactive purchases after patches or evolution.

Protect sanity by not comparing your fleet to screenshot accounts that may be months ahead. Compare against your own cycle times session over session.

How to beat upgrade-related walls

If income stalls after five mining upgrades in a row, stop and time a cycle — cargo or speed is probably limiting you now. If a new drone slot barely moves hourly cash, roll back to mining and cargo before buying another slot.

If you cannot afford the next tier, farm one ore step down temporarily rather than buying the wrong stat because it is cheaper. Cheaper wrong upgrades still waste currency you need for the correct bottleneck fix.

Log upgrade purchases in a notes app with before-and-after cycle impressions. Patterns emerge quickly and prevent repeating the same mis-spend twice.

When evolution doubles ore value but your fleet stays static, treat the post-evolution crash as a checklist: mining, cargo, speed — not a reason to quit or roll drones until something sticks.