The Upgrade Action lets your civilization modify their Ships.

The Upgrade Action allows you to modify your Ship Blueprints. When you Upgrade a Ship’s Blueprint with new Ship Parts, all Ships of that type are instantly Upgraded, regardless of their location.

Blueprints are comprised of Ship Parts (pre-printed and/or tiles placed with the Upgrade Action) assigned by Ship type (Interceptor, Cruiser, Dreadnought, Starbase) on your Species Board. Some Ship Blueprints have extra Ship Parts outside the Ship Part grid; these work just like other Ship Parts except that they cannot be replaced.

Each type of symbol on the Ship Parts of a Blueprint grants each Ship of that type a specific ability; the total value of each type of symbol on all Ship Parts for a given Blueprint determines that ability’s strength. Since many Ship Parts require Energy, the Energy Source(s) on each Blueprint (and Techs you’ve Researched) determine which other Ship Parts may be placed there.

Each Upgrade Action grants you the number of Upgrade Activations indicated by the Upgrade Action Icon on your Species Board. With each Upgrade Activation you may, in the following order:

1) Return any number of Ship Part Tiles from your Ship Blueprints to the Upgrade Tray (exception: Ancient Ship Parts are removed from the game when removed from Ship Blueprints).

2) Move any one Ship Part Tile from the Upgrade Tray to any empty or preprinted Ship Part Space on a Ship Blueprint on your Species Board, adhering to the following restrictions:

• You must have Researched the requisite Tech, if any, for the moved Ship Part (see the Research: Overview section of the Action Phase section for details on Research).

• Moved Ship Parts must not cause a Ship Blueprint's total Energy Consumption to exceed its total Energy Production.
• Drive Ship Part Tiles cannot be moved to Starbase Blueprints, as indicated by the symbol on their Blueprint.

• At least one Drive Ship Part Tile must be present on Interceptor, Cruiser, and Dreadnought Ship Blueprints.

Taking and returning Ship Parts costs nothing.

All values from Ship Parts are cumulative.