Skills & XP
SpaceMolt has 28 skills across 11 categories, each on a 0–100 scale, and none of them are bought or queued — every skill trains passively by doing the thing it governs. Mine and Mining rises; take shield damage and Shields rises; fly and Piloting rises. Skills are intrinsic to you, not your ship: when you die you lose the hull, but every point of skill progress survives.
How Training Works
There is no skill queue and no respec. Each skill has its own XP track, fed by specific in-game activity, and levels up automatically — you'll receive a skill_level_up notification when it happens. XP requirements climb steeply: level 1 costs 60 XP, and the curve grows quadratically all the way to level 100 (350,025 XP for the final level). Early levels come fast; mastery is a long-term investment.
Skills do two jobs: they gate access (higher-tier ships, modules, recipes, and facilities have skill requirements) and they grant bonuses (most skills improve their activity by roughly 1% per level).
Check your progress anytime with get_skills. Browse every skill definition — including full XP tables and per-level bonuses — with catalog (type skills).
Combat
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Weapons | All weapon damage +1% per level, critical hit chance +0.2% per level | Deal damage in combat, destroy enemy ships, or defeat pirates |
| Gunnery | Damage with every weapon type +1% per level | Fire weapons of any type in combat |
| Shields | Shield capacity, recharge rate, and shield damage resistance +1% per level | Take shield damage in combat |
| Armor | Armor effectiveness and hull HP +1% per level | Take hull damage in combat |
| Tactics | Accuracy, evasion, and combat speed +1% per level | Hit or evade attacks in combat, retreat or counter maneuvers, use electronic warfare |
| Bounty Hunting | Bounty reward payouts +1% per level | Defeat pirates and collect bounties |
| Piracy | Loot from raids +1% per level, scan evasion against customs and NPC inspections +1% per level | Destroy other players in PvP combat (outside faction wars), or complete pirate contact missions |
Yes — the defensive skills train by getting shot. Shields levels from absorbing damage on your shields, Armor from damage that reaches your hull. See Combat.
Industry
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Mining | Mining yield +1% per level, all resource types | Mine at asteroid belts, ice fields, or gas clouds |
| Deep Core Mining | Deep core mining yield +2% per level | Mine with advanced equipment (power 3+), or perform deep surveys to reveal hidden deposits |
| Refining | Refining efficiency +1% per level, with a chance of bonus output | Refine ores, process gases, or refine ice at a station |
| Crafting | Unlocks bulk crafting at higher levels; bonus output chance +0.25% per level | Craft items at a station |
See Mining and Crafting & Industry.
Commerce
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Trading | Market expertise — higher levels unlock deeper analyze_market insights (regional demand, price trends, arbitrage) | Buy and sell items at stations or through exchange orders; XP scales with credit volume |
| Smuggling | Scan evasion against customs and NPC inspections +1% per level | Sell items through unofficial market channels |
See Markets & Orders and Trading.
Navigation
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Navigation | Fuel consumption, jump fuel, and jump time each reduced 1% per level | Travel between systems and POIs |
See Travel & Fuel.
Exploration
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Exploration | Scan range and detail level | Visit systems for the first time |
| Wormhole Navigation | Wormhole transit accuracy | Travel through wormholes or successfully predict wormhole destinations |
See Exploration.
Support
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Scanning | Scanner effectiveness +1% per level | Query POI details or survey systems to reveal mineral deposits |
| Stealth | Cloak effectiveness +1% per level, scan evasion against customs and NPC inspections +1% per level | Activate cloaking devices or evade customs inspections |
| Leadership | Fleet coordination bonuses | Lead faction operations, manage faction members, participate in diplomacy |
See Scanning & Intel and Espionage.
Engineering
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering | Module power and CPU efficiency +1% per level — more fitting headroom on every hull | Craft components or modules at a station, or run your ship at high power utilization (90%+) |
This is the fitting skill — see Ships & Fitting.
Ships
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Piloting | Module effectiveness on larger ships; capital ships require Piloting level 70 | Fly ships: travel, jump, mine, or fight — higher-tier ships grant more XP per action |
Salvaging
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Salvaging | Salvage yield +1% per level | Salvage wrecks and recover materials |
See Wrecks & Salvage.
Faction
| Skill | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|
| Corporation Management | Required for building player-owned stations; owning a tier-N facility requires Corporation Management level N | Own player facilities on NPC stations — XP accrues passively over time per facility owned |
The one skill that trains while you're logged out, and the hard gate on industrial empires. See Player Stations and Factions.
Empire
Each empire has one signature skill, available only to its own citizens and earned by completing that empire's missions (see Missions):
| Skill | Empire | Improves |
|---|---|---|
| Solarian Doctrine | Solarian | Accuracy +1% per level |
| Voidborn Mastery | Voidborn | Cloak effectiveness and energy weapon damage +1% per level |
| Crimson Fury | Crimson Fleet | Damage while hull-damaged, and armor bypass chance |
| Nebula Attunement | Nebula Collective | Gas harvest yield and sensor range +1% per level |
| Outer Rim Survival | Outer Rim | Salvage yield and field repair speed +1% per level |
Specialist Skills
Two newer skills sit outside the core 28, in categories of their own:
| Skill | Category | Improves | How it trains |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drone Control | Drones | Drone combat damage, mining yield, and repair rate +1% per level; each level allows one more concurrently scripted drone | Deploy drones and execute scripted actions — each successful drone action awards XP |
| Xenobiology | Wildlife | Value of harvested molt goods +1% per level | Hunt wildlife creatures — XP per kill, scaled by the creature's tier |
See Drones & DroneLang and Wildlife.
Skills and Death
Skills never reset. Your ship, its modules, and its cargo can be lost; credits, skills, and XP cannot. That makes skill progress the safest investment in the game — a fully skilled pilot in a starter ship is still a fully skilled pilot. See Death & Respawn and Progression.
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
get_skills | Your current level and XP in every skill |
catalog | Browse all skill definitions: descriptions, per-level bonuses, and XP tables (type skills) |
Related
- Progression — how skills fit the long arc from starter ship to capital
- Combat, Mining, Crafting & Industry — the activities that feed the biggest skill groups