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11 Progression in SpaceCraft is built around two systems the developer has confirmed: Permits and Experience. Together they decide what you can build, where you can go, and how you specialize.
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33 Permits
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55 Permits are the primary progression track and are structured as a tech tree: unlocking one permit often opens access to others, gradually adding new crafting recipes, modules, and services. To unlock a permit you meet its prerequisites and pay the required Credits, the standard currency in the game.
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77 The first permit in the tutorial is the Modular Systems permit. It costs 40 Credits and grants the blueprints for the Scanalyzer Alpha and the Small Cargo Hold, along with access to the Shipyard. Deeper ship modification, such as the Assembly and Customization tabs in the ship editor, is itself unlocked through permit progression. See Ship Building.
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99 Early Permit DetailValueFirst permitModular SystemsCost40 CreditsUnlocksScanalyzer Alpha blueprint, Small Cargo Hold blueprint, Shipyard accessStructureTech tree: one unlock leads to others
1010 Beyond the First Permit
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1212 The permit tree extends well past Modular Systems into higher tiers that gate better materials, sturdier ship frames, and more advanced modules. Named later-tier permits confirmed through the game’s patch notes include Modular Systems III, Better Titanium, Advanced Frames, and Very Light Alloys, with Credit costs that climb as you move up the tree. These costs are not fixed: because the developer is actively rebalancing progression to ease late-game grind, a balancing update lowered the price of several of these higher-tier permits, and further changes are likely during Early Access. See Updates and Patch Notes.
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1414 Experience Paths
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1616 Alongside permits, characters develop along experience paths. The developer has named four: Exploration, Technology, and Science are implemented in the Early Access build, and Combat is a planned fourth path that is not implemented yet. Leveling a path takes time, so the developer encourages members of a group to specialize rather than spreading thin.
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1818 PathFocusStatusExplorationHigh-level Explorers can travel farther across the galaxy and reach rarer resources.ImplementedTechnologySkilled Technologists build bigger bases with improved automation.ImplementedScienceExpert Scientists create exotic materials and alloys.ImplementedCombatCombat-focused progression.Not implemented yet (planned)
1919 Earning Experience
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2121 Experience comes from acting on the world rather than from a single quest track. Scanning and recovering rare materials both feed the Exploration path, and the developer retuned those awards in late July 2026, applying the difference retroactively so players who had already earned the old amounts were topped up.
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2323 ActionExperience AwardedChangeRecovering Gravite20 XPRaised from 10 XPRecovering Gravite Fragments10 XPRaised from 5 XPScanning a resource5 XP per resource tierNewly awarded
2424 The same update fixed experience that stopped accumulating once a character reached the current maximum Technology, Exploration, or Science level, so progress now continues to bank past the level cap that Early Access exposes. See Updates and Patch Notes for the full change list and Mining and Resources for how scanning fits into resource gathering.
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2626 Why Paths Matter in a Group
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2828 Experience paths also feed into Corporations and Co-Op. High-level Explorers let other members travel farther and exploit rarer resources, skilled Technologists are instrumental in completing Corporation Requests, and expert Scientists supply exotic materials useful to everyone. The developer’s phrasing is that a good Corporation is a diverse one, so paths reward a mix of specializations.
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3030 Credits and Commissions
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3232 Credits are the standard currency used to unlock permits and pay for services. Refining and crafting at a station carry a commission paid to The Company: smelting ore into ingots costs a percentage of the output’s market value, and the Workshop takes a smaller commission that scales with the value of what you craft. See Crafting for the refining chain and Trading and the Player-Driven Economy for how Credits move through the economy.
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3434 Subject to Change
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3636 Because SpaceCraft is in Early Access and these systems are being tuned through playtesting, exact costs, unlock contents, and path effects can change between updates. The Combat path in particular is planned but not yet in the build.
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38+Announced Changes to Technology Experience
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40+Announced, not shipped. None of this has shipped. It was published on August 21, 2026 as a preview of work in progress, and no build has released it, so the game does not behave this way yet. The developer has previewed a rework of how Technology experience is earned. Today it is tied to base expansion and automated production, with a maximum experience capacity per base; once a base hits that ceiling, production stops granting experience.
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42+The developer says that ceiling had an unintended consequence: players were dismantling and rebuilding bases from scratch to restore a higher gain rate, which turned a progression system into a repetitive chore. The previewed replacement puts production milestones on individual items. Producing a set number of a resource reaches a milestone and grants experience, higher milestones grant more, and once an item’s milestones are exhausted you have to move into other production lines to keep earning. The stated aims are more experience across the run, a smoother introduction to new production systems, and more variety in what players choose to make.
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44+The previewed interface describes the source of this experience directly: bases generate Technology experience by crafting items in the automated Smelter and Factories, and you also gain it the first time you deploy each new base building. See Base Building and Updates and Patch Notes.