Hardpoints & Pearls has a cockpit screen now — the Pearls tab, one press of H away from anywhere in the water. Every part you own shows its sockets, locked or not, right on the drone. Unlock one for a flat batch of Parts, fit a loose Pearl into it, and the stat bonus applies on the spot. Refinement climbs the same fair-line ladder we described months ago: +1 through +5 always land, +6 and up carry real published odds, and a miss never destroys or downgrades a Pearl you already have.
Fusion is the one piece that changed since we first wrote about this system, and we're saying so plainly rather than quietly. It is not the deterministic three-for-one trade described back then — that draft got overruled on purpose. Fusion today is a real 50/50: stake three Pearls of the same family and tier plus a steep crystal fee, and win or lose, all of it is spent the moment you press the apparatus. Miss, and the three Pearls do not come back. That's deliberate — a loss is meant to send you back into the water looking for more, not hand you a free retry.
A miss isn't left to spiral, though: two consecutive misses on the same recipe guarantee the third attempt wins, and the counter is shown right on the apparatus, not hidden behind the curtain. Luck Potions can load into a single attempt for +10% each, up to three of them (50% up to 80%, never guaranteed) — though there's no shop or drop yet that actually hands you one, so take that as a promise for now, not something you can act on tonight. The crystal fee itself is marked a placeholder in the code — steep on purpose, but expect the exact numbers to move once a wider economy pass lands.
The full odds, the fee table and the Pearl catalog are all in the guide now, written against exactly what ships — see Hardpoints & Pearls.