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Codex & Legacy

Look up a discovery, check a ship system, or plan the upgrades for your next voyage.

Using the Codex

Open Codex from the title screen or the Legacy hub. The ship-system guide is available from the start. The discovery collection records surface features, moon types, and ring types across your voyages.

Complete a landing to record discoveries. Scanning a world or spending a probe does not unlock its Codex effects by itself. A finalized landing records the world’s features, its moon types and rings, plus the surface features of a moon you settle.

Values are the in-game Codex’s base reference modifiers, not percentages or guaranteed final-score points. World conditions, ship capability, feature interactions, moon size, and ring density can change the outcome. Metal-rich moon values are approximate additive equivalents of scaling effects. An interaction can help or hurt.

Surface features 53 entries · reveals effects

Lava Tubes

  • +1.0 Construction
  • +0.5 Atmosphere
  • -0.5 Population

Ice Tunnels

  • +1.0 Construction
  • +0.5 Atmosphere
  • +0.5 Water
Moon types 5 entries · reveals effects

Barren

No base additive modifier listed.

Unstable

  • -2.0 Technology
  • -1.0 Construction

Ice

  • +2.0 Water
  • +0.5 Construction
  • +0.3 Technology
Ring types 6 entries · reveals effects

Ice

  • +1.5 Culture
  • +0.5 Water

Rocky

  • +1.0 Resources
  • +0.5 Construction

Metallic

  • +1.5 Resources
  • +1.0 Technology

Ship systems

Protect the systems that keep the voyage alive, while preserving the capability your colony will need after landing.

Hull

Hull at 0% ends the voyage immediately. Hull condition is heavily weighted in the final ship-condition score; impacts, hazards, and rough landings damage it.

Navigation

Navigation at 0% ends the voyage immediately. Its condition is heavily weighted in the final ship-condition score and is exposed to transit wear and navigation events.

Cryopods

Cryopods at 0% end the voyage. Below 40%, sleepers are lost on each transit; the lower the condition, the greater the attrition.

Scanners

Damaged scanners produce wider errors. A survey probe verifies all six readings and can reveal hidden surface features; scanner upgrades reduce uncertainty but do not make every result infallible.

Fuel

Pressing on consumes 5–10 Fuel and landing consumes 20–30. Reaching 0 ends the voyage; remaining Fuel also contributes to colony viability and landing precision.

Energy

Planet scans consume Energy. Each transit provides a small reactor trickle, but awake groups consume upkeep; if upkeep cannot be paid, awake colonists die.

Probes

A survey probe is consumed when deployed. It verifies all six scanner readings and can reveal hidden surface features. Compare a world’s conditions before committing to a landing.

Colonists & sleepers

Awake colonists consume Energy during transit; sleepers do not, but depend on Cryopods. If all awake colonists die, up to 25 sleepers wake automatically. Losing the entire population ends the voyage.

Tech

Tech improves colony viability and the final technology level. High Tech can unlock larger benefits from ruins and other advanced discoveries; spending it represents consuming scarce capability, not forgetting knowledge.

Constructors

Constructors improve colony viability, construction level, and ship-condition score. Damage leaves the settlement slower and less capable of building shelter and infrastructure.

Shields

Shields influence the final ship-condition score and are frequently spent or damaged by defensive choices. At 0% the voyage continues, but the hull has less protection from later hazards.

Landing

Landing condition directly improves landing precision. Below 30%, a landing becomes substantially more dangerous and can cause extra hull damage and colonist losses.

Water

Awake colonists consume one unit per 400 people each jump. Sleepers consume none; an exhausted reserve causes life-support losses.

Society & Culture

Society: Raised by fair decisions, rescues, shared victories, and trusted leadership. Lowered by casualties, injustice, conflict, and repeated setbacks.

Culture: Raised by preserving archives, education, art, traditions, and cultural exchange. Lowered by corruption, censorship, neglect, destruction, or deliberate sacrifice.

Legacy Points & upgrades

Legacy Points (LP) are earned through play and spent in the Legacy → Upgrades screen. They carry over between voyages, as do the ranks you have purchased.

Earning and spending LP

  • A completed voyage awards its score divided by 8,000, rounded up: 8,000 earns 1 LP; 8,001 earns 2 LP. A zero score earns no score-based LP.
  • Each newly unlocked achievement awards another 5 LP, once.
  • Each upgrade has three ranks. Buy them in order; the listed cost is charged for each rank. Rank effects replace the previous rank rather than adding all three bonuses together.

Purchased ranks apply when you start your next voyage, including a Daily Voyage. Resuming an existing voyage preserves the upgrades it started with. Skeleton Crew is the exception in free, ad-supported play: a completed optional rewarded ad activates Rank III for one new voyage instead of spending LP. Premium players can buy permanent ranks with LP; Premium does not grant the ranks automatically.

LP cost per rank and total effect at each rank
UpgradeLP / rankRank IRank IIRank III
Extra Probes40+1 probe+2 probes+3 probes
Solar Collector55+1 Energy+2 Energy+3 Energy
Reinforced Hull50+3% Hull+6% Hull+10% Hull
Cryo Shield60+3% Cryopods+6% Cryopods+10% Cryopods
Skeleton Crew65180 awake / 820 sleepers160 awake / 840 sleepers140 awake / 860 sleepers
Advanced Scanner75+3% scanners+6% scanners+10% scanners
Cultural Archive80+3% Culture+6% Culture+10% Culture
Tech Boost90+3% Tech+6% Tech+10% Tech
Warp Navigation100+3% Navigation+6% Navigation+10% Navigation
Xenology Observatory110+3% detection+6% detection+10% detection
Bussard Collector702 Water total3 Water total4 Water total
Star Charts120+3% Nav + scanners+6% Nav + scanners+10% Nav + scanners

How the bonuses work

  • Condition bonuses: +3%, +6%, and +10% add percentage points to the starting condition, allowing upgraded systems to begin above 100%. They are not damage resistance. Upgraded Hull, Cryopods, Navigation, and scanners also retain their extra repair headroom.
  • Star Charts: improves Navigation and all six scanners. It stacks with Warp Navigation and Advanced Scanner: fully ranked together, they start at 120%. Cultural Archive and Tech Boost can start their systems at 110%; Culture and Tech retain their ordinary 150% ceilings.
  • Extra Probes: adds to the normal ten starting probes, for 11, 12, or 13.
  • Solar Collector: improves a successful orbital solar recharge. An incompatible star’s zero recharge remains zero, and recovery only replenishes Energy toward 50.
  • Xenology Observatory: adds percentage points to civilization-detection chance; overall detection is capped at 98%, so it does not guarantee first contact.
  • Bussard Collector: improves water recovery when a new world with an ice ring is scanned. The base recovery is 1 Water; ranks raise the total to 2, 3, or 4, subject to the 999-Water reserve limit.

Skeleton Crew: shifts more of the starting 1,000 colonists into cryostasis and lowers the awake crew target used when automatically replacing casualties. The normal complement is 200 awake and 800 sleepers. This is not a cap on people awakened by later events.

Fully ranking every permanent, Premium-accessible upgrade costs 2,745 LP. In free play, the other eleven permanent upgrades total 2,550 LP; Skeleton Crew uses the per-voyage rewarded option. You do not need to complete one upgrade before buying another.