Keepsake Games has pushed the biggest update in Jump Space's early access run onto the Steam experimental branch, and it's available to test right now.
The co-op space FPS Space Mavericks pulled in half a million players during last year's Steam Next Fest (when it was still called Jump Ship), launched into early access in September, and has been building steam ever since. This summer update is the most substantial one yet, touching almost every core system in the game.
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What the Hammerhead changes about ship combat
The headline addition is the Hammerhead, a new player spacecraft that sits at the heavier end of the spectrum compared to the existing Catamaran. It trades speed for staying power, offering four gunner stations and four special weapon slots. The Catamaran was nimble and approachable; the Hammerhead is built for players who want to dig in and hold a position.
Two new special weapons arrive alongside it: the Vulcan minigun and the Thunderhead cannon. Enemy ships have also been rebalanced to match, and they now pull off evasive maneuvers during interstellar combat rather than flying in predictable patterns. A new targeting guide has been added to help players identify where to aim for critical hits, which should make the learning curve on harder difficulties a lot less punishing.
Ship health has been redesigned across the board. Keepsake is specifically asking testers to push the system hard across different difficulty settings to flag whether the new balance feels too forgiving or too brutal.
The loot rework that changes how you think about guns
The bigger quality-of-life shift might actually be what's happening on the ground. Weapons now drop with varying rarities and random modules attached, and you can spend upgrade points to toggle which modules are active. Full stats for every player and ship weapon are now visible, so comparing two similar guns is no longer a guessing game.
The most player-requested feature was a way to preserve your best finds. Jump Space is not a Tarkov-style extraction shooter, but losing a great gun still stings. The fix is a personal blueprints list: store a weapon you want to keep, and you can reprint it as many times as you like from the Assembler. You can also generate loan copies for squadmates, though those copies cannot be permanently saved or turned into their own blueprints unless the recipient scans them separately.
Hot-joining and the session stability fixes
Two new on-foot weapons round out the combat additions: a minigun and an SMG variant. The hangar also gets a new wall for managing ship components, which sounds minor but anyone who has juggled a messy loadout mid-session will appreciate the clarity.
Perhaps the most practical addition for regular squads is hot-joining. Players can now join missions already in progress, and anyone who disconnects mid-round can rejoin instantly rather than waiting for the session to end. Keepsake is actively asking testers to stress test both features with full groups before the update goes live.
The target window for the full release is the end of June, assuming the experimental branch testing goes smoothly. You can access the beta by right-clicking Jump Space in your Steam Library, opening properties, and navigating to Game Versions and Betas.
If you want a head start before the update lands on the main branch, the Space Mavericks guides cover the fundamentals to get your squad up to speed fast.
