Stars Reach Update 8.5.0 Makes Homesteading Easier and Reworks Recipes

Stars Reach is getting its Ground Control update with version 8.5.0, and the headline change is pretty direct: players will be able to get into homesteading much faster. The maintenance window hasn’t been pinned down in the notes, with the team saying it’ll be announced through Discord and in-game broadcasts.

After the update, all players will receive a Homesteader the next time they enter a Space Zone, including existing characters. Fabricators are also being made free through the Homestead Console and Tool Shop, and they’ll no longer have durability or decay. Since they’re free now, players won’t be able to sell them on the marketplace.

• Recipes are moving into Collections when learned, with tabs for each crafting profession.
• Looted recipes will still appear as inventory items and can be traded, banked, sold, or learned with a right-click.
• A “learn all” option will let players sweep eligible recipes from inventory at once.
• Recipes tied to inactive skills will be deactivated, but learned recipes won’t be removed from Collections.
• The game will migrate existing skill-based recipes into player Collections when they log in.

The patch also brings several practical UI upgrades. The Space Map will now show the current space zones, including portal and wormhole labels with destinations. Banks are getting filtering, sorting, better tooltips, safer “Take All” behavior, and the ability to move items around inside the bank without withdrawing them first. The marketplace will show total Klaatus and more accurate listing counts.

There are a few important fixes, too. The team says it has addressed character-saving and persistence issues that could make items vanish, cleaned up duplicate banks and public vendors in space sectors, fixed another server memory leak, and improved zone map loading.

Movement is getting attention as well, especially climbing and grappling. The update aims to stop players from clipping into terrain during climbs, mantles, dismounts, and grapples, which should reduce those awkward tunnel deaths from bumping into geometry.

Other smaller changes include controller improvements, a sprint key mapping, friend chat access near the chat box, friend locations on profile screens, space flight animation additions, and tuning for Haven missions, loot caches, creatures, and cold-world harvesting.

Further reading: Official Stars Reach Ground Control update