Hello!
I've uploaded an update containing the following changes:
Item comparison is now implemented. Colored + and - icons will show next to attributes like range, damage or ship stats like armor and shield when viewing both weapons and modules. These icons show whether a stat is better or worse than the existing, already installed item. On weapons, hovering over an installed weapon will switch the comparison so it is always relative to the selected weapon. Note that not all attributes are compared: Set bonuses, perks, burst behaviour and ability values are still as-is. This change was one of the longest-requested from way back during private testing - I expect it will help ease some players into the loot game by taking a part of the cognitive load of item comparison off their shoulders.
Forge buffs have been updated to be exclusively bonus-based instead of the prior trade-off behaviour. While most forge buffs were already strict improvements, the upgrades to weapons contained trade-offs that made them much less desirable than almost all other upgrades. I have decided to remove the negative components from these upgrades entirely so that all forge buffs are now improvements with no drawbacks. This will make the choice of which buff to pick more engaging and raise player power by a small amount overall.
Material and scrap costs for upgrades have been slightly tweaked to make the health-related upgrades more affordable. Shield, armor and hull point upgrades have had their scalars reduced, meaning the increase in their scrap cost per upgrade purchased is reduced. The armor point upgrade has had its exotic matter cost converted to plasteel cost - this change is intended to address the pre-armor-regen early game situation, where flat armor is nearly useless compared to regen and no real choice is possible because both upgrades cost rare and valuable exotic matter. While armor regen will remain a crucial stepping stone in the transition from early to midgame, players can now invest into flat armor to make incremental survivability gains before the "big jump".
As always, please leave any feedback you have either in the discussion forums or on the discord, and I hope you have fun!