Pre-1.0 · Closed Playtest

STARS
REBORN// 4X · RTS · P2P

A real-time pausable 4X of fleet command, economic attrition, and fog-of-war. Procedural galaxies. Seven ship types. Matches end in 15–30 minutes — not thirty hours.

Join Playtest · Discord Read Briefing
Ship Types
6+ STARBASE
Match Length
15–30MIN
Galaxy Size
3TIERS
Netcode
P2PAUTH HOST
TACNET · Live Telemetry
Turn Model REAL-TIME · PAUSABLE
Combat Triangle FIGHTER ▸ CRUISER ▸ FRIGATE
Fog of War SCAN-GATED · LAYERED
Economy WORKFORCE + MINING
Engine GODOT 4.6.2
Platforms WIN · LINUX · MAC
§ 01 · Overview

What you're looking at.

DOC · SR-OVW-01
REV 03 / APR 21 2026

Stars Reborn is a real-time pausable 4X space strategy game built in Godot. Spiritual heir to the classic turn-based Stars! — stripped of the spreadsheet, dense with decisions.

Scout a procedural galaxy. Settle planets. Draft a fleet composition that counters what your opponent is building. Feint. Starve them of workforce. Collapse a front. Every match is a self-contained campaign that resolves in a single sitting.

No session lobbies, no monthly live-service grind. P2P netcode with an authoritative host — you host a match by IP and your opponent joins. That's it. Matches are designed to be replayed, not subscribed to.

Ship Types
7 TYPES
Six build-capable classes plus the starbase. One combat triangle.
Match Duration
15–30 MIN
Procedural pacing. Victory or defeat in a single sitting.
AI Opponents
3 DIFFICULTIES
Settler, Rusher, Expansionist. Distinct play styles, not stat inflation.
Multiplayer
2-PLAYER P2P
Host by IP (port 7777 UDP) or auto-discover on LAN. No servers required.
§ 02 · In-Engine

Live frames. No render passes.

SRC · GAMEPLAY FEED
BUILD · 0.51.0
FRAME.001 001 / 005
—
—
—
▸ FRAMES AUTO · 5.0s
§ 03 · Fleet Manifest

Seven types. One triangle.

DOC · SR-FLT-07
CLASSIFICATION · PUBLIC
▸ Combat Triangle
 Fighter ▸ beats ▸  Cruiser ▸ beats ▸  Frigate ▸ beats ▸  Fighter
SR-01 · CLASS SCT RECON
Scout Scout glyph
SCOUT
Long-range Reconnaissance
HP20 Speed180 Scan600 / 450 Evasion35% Cost50 m
SR-02 · CLASS FTR ▲ CRUISER
Fighter Fighter glyph
FIGHTER
Interceptor · Dead-zone Closer
HP90 Speed140 Attack20 Range70 px Cost100 m
SR-03 · CLASS FRG ▲ FIGHTER
Frigate Frigate glyph
FRIGATE
Armored Brawler · Heavy Sensors
HP200 Speed70 Attack35 Range100 px Cost250 m
SR-04 · CLASS CRS ▲ FRIGATE
Cruiser Cruiser glyph
MISSILE CRUISER
Long-Range Missile
HP140 Speed55 Attack40 Range60–360 px Cost350 m
SR-05 · CLASS BMB SIEGE
Bomber Bomber glyph
BOMBER
Orbital Siege
HP60 Speed90 Attack— Rangeorbits Cost150 m
SR-06 · CLASS CLN EXPAND
Colonizer Colonizer glyph
COLONIZER
Colony Deployment
HP40 Speed80 Attack— Range— Cost200 m + 50 pop
SR-07 · CLASS STB STATIC
Starbase Starbase glyph
STARBASE
Orbital Platform · Home Star
HP500 SpeedSTATIC Attack80 Range130 px Costbuilt on-site
DOC · SR-DOC · DOCTRINE
▸ FLEET ROLES
FIGHTER — closes cruiser dead zone
FRIGATE — brawler, heavy sensors
CRUISER — long-range missile
BOMBER — bombs enemy stars
────────────────
SCOUT — 600 scan, 35% evasion
COLONIZER — claims neutral stars
STARBASE — home defender
▸ Refer to §03 · Combat
§ 04 · Systems Briefing

How it actually works.

DOC · SR-SYS-01
4 SECTIONS · DENSE

Economy · Workforce & Mining

Planets run on a single resource: minerals. Output is the product of three levers — population, infrastructure (mines and factories), and a mining/production slider that splits workforce between the two.

  • Pop cap — size × 10 × (habitability / 100). Hab gates both growth speed and the ceiling.
  • Workforce — population / 2, split by the per-star slider.
  • Staffing — each mine/factory wants 10 workers. Below that, efficiency drops proportionally.
  • Extraction — mines × (concentration / 100) × efficiency. Concentration depletes as you mine.
  • Production — factories × efficiency minerals converted into queued builds per tick.

At hab=50, a fully grown planet can exactly staff every building. Above 50 you run a workforce surplus; below 50 your infrastructure is permanently understaffed.

Home StarStarting Value
Habitability85
Population100 / 850
Mines10
Factories5
Concentration100
Surface Minerals100
Starbaseat match start
▸ One resource. No research tree, no tech unlocks. The deck is what you build.

Fog of War · Scan-Gated Vision

Vision is layered. Each of your ships and stars projects a movement-scan radius (wider, tracks position) and a narrower visibility radius (identifies hull, shows HP bar). What you see depends on which rings the enemy stands in.

  • Outside movement scan — enemy is invisible to you.
  • Movement scan only — enemy shows as an anonymous owner-color blob. Position known, type hidden.
  • Inside visibility — full hull + HP bar. For stars, scouts and scanners reveal full planet stats.
  • First contact — a sonar-pulse blip on the frame an enemy is first detected.

Combat is detection-gated: a ship can only target enemies someone on its team has inside movement scan. A cruiser at 360 px range with 80 px self-scan cannot fire without a scout or frigate spotting for it.

SourceMovementVisibility
Scout600450
Scanner I700350
Scanner II1500750
Frigate350262
Starbase200150
Fighter8070
Cruiser8060
Bomber8060
Colonizer8060
▸ Visibility = max(attack_range, move_scan × 0.75). No boost when attack ≥ move_scan.

Combat · Rock · Paper · Scissors

Combat resolves in real time. Proximity clustering engages enemies within 400 px. Ships attack on a 0.5-second cooldown with a 20% miss chance (seeded RNG); scout evasion checks before damage resolves.

  • Fighter ▸ Cruiser — fast enough to close inside the cruiser's 60 px dead zone. Once inside, the cruiser cannot fire.
  • Frigate ▸ Fighter — higher HP + DPS wins the brawl once the gap closes.
  • Cruiser ▸ Frigate — kills at 360 px before the frigate's 100 px guns are in range.
  • Detection-gated — you can only shoot what your team has in movement scan.
  • Bombers — orbit enemy stars at 80 px and deal 5 pop per 1-second bomb cycle. No air-to-air.
  • Formation line drag — right-click-drag with 2+ ships selected to spread them evenly along the line you draw. Sort order matches the line direction so paths don't cross. Useful for fanning a fleet into a firing line before contact; plain right-click still issues move / colonize / bomb / star commands.

Counters are stat-driven, not automatic wins. Bring the right composition for what you scouted — or pay for it.

ClassHPATKRange (px)Role
Fighter902070Dead-zone closer
Frigate20035100Brawler
Cruiser1404060–360Long range
Bomber60—orbitsOrbital siege
Starbase50080130Home defender
▸ Cruiser range · 60–360 px
DEAD · 0–60
OPTIMAL · 60–360
OUTSIDE
▸ Counters are emergent — no explicit multipliers. The triangle works through dead-zone geometry and stat matchups, not hardcoded damage modifiers. 0.5 s cooldown · 20% miss · scout evasion 35%.

Galaxy · Procedural & Seedable

Every match generates its galaxy from a seed. Share the seed to replay the same map; reroll for a fresh draw. Star placement is deterministic from seed × map size, so both players see an identical galaxy at match start.

  • Small · 16 stars — 6000×6600 playfield. 1v1 duel. ~15 min.
  • Medium · 24 stars — 9000×9900. 1v1 extended. ~20 min.
  • Large · 36 stars — 12000×13200. 1v1 marathon. ~25–30 min.
  • Win conditions — elimination (zero stars AND zero colonizers), domination (≥60% of stars), or timeout at 30 min (most stars wins).

The galaxy picker in the main menu sets size. The seed field reseeds on every menu entry; edit it to reproduce a specific match, or hit the 🎲 button to re-roll.

TierStarsPlayfieldPlayersDuration
Small166000×66002~15 min
Medium249000×99002~20 min
Large3612000×132002~30 min
▸ Seeded RNG. Same seed + size ⇒ same galaxy on both ends.
§ 04.5 · Interactive Model
Economy simulator.
PLANET PARAMETERS
LIVE · INTERACTIVE
Planet Size100
Habitability85%
Current Population100
Population growth chart.
Max Population
—
Max growth / year
—
1 year =
0.5SEC
Years to 50% cap
—
Years to 90% cap
—
▸ max_pop = size × 10 × (hab/100) · growth/tick = pop × 0.00428 × (hab/100) × (1 − pop/max_pop) · 10 ticks = 1 year = 0.5 real seconds
§ 05 · Roadmap

What's Coming

DOC · SR-RMP-01
FORWARD PLAN · PUBLIC

Stars Reborn is actively developed. Here's where we're headed.

▸ MANIFEST · COMPLETE 11 / 11 · LIVE IN v0.51.0
Economy Combat Triangle Fog of War Multiplayer AI Opponents Tutorial Rally Points Patrol Mode Main Menu Scanners Build Queue
PHASE 01 · NEXT ECONOMY
Deeper Economy
The single resource becomes three: Iron for ships and basic infrastructure, Silicon for electronics, scanners and precision weapons, Germanium for advanced technology like bombers, mass drivers and battleships. Every planet becomes a strategic decision — control the Germanium-rich worlds and you control the late game. Add mining ships to extract from stars you can't colonize.
PHASE 02 · NEAR FLEET
More Ship Types
The roster grows from 7 to 12+. Destroyers, Battleships, Mine Layers, Sweepers, Freighters, Colony Transports. Each with a clear role — no filler units. Fleet composition matters.
PHASE 03 · MID RESEARCH
Five Research Fields
Weapons, Construction, Propulsion, Electronics, Energy. Three tiers each. Split your production between building and researching. Fall behind in weapons? Out-research your opponent in propulsion.
PHASE 04 · HORIZON LATE GAME
Mass Driver + Stargates
Stargates for instant fleet reinforcement. Mass Drivers for cross-galaxy mineral logistics — or as orbital bombardment weapons against enemy planets. The late game gets teeth.
▸ View the detailed alpha roadmap → Phase breakdown · Research tiers · Alpha criteria
§ 06 · Change Log

Recent deployments.

LAST 5 VERSIONS
FULL LOG · /CHANGELOG.md
0.51.0 AUG 29 · 2026 FEATURE
▸ Worlds Have Real Size
  • Every planet now has its own size. Worlds used to share one size with the star they orbit, so every planet in a system had identical build capacity and drew at the same radius — there was no reason to prefer one over another. Now two worlds in the same system can differ by nearly three times. Mine and factory caps are per-planet, so check each world before you commit to it.
  • A bigger world is a bigger deposit. Total mineral yield now scales with size and concentration, not concentration alone. Previously every planet held the same amount of ore no matter how large it looked — which meant big worlds, with more mine slots, actually ran dry sooner than small ones. A large rich world is now worth what it looks like.
  • Habitability decides how much of it you can work. A huge hostile world has mine slots its population can never staff. That makes the rich uninhabitable giant a genuine prize rather than a curiosity: you can only strip it with miners, and hauling the minerals home means freighter runs worth escorting — and worth intercepting.
  • Systems look like systems. Planet radius is drawn from its real size, so a glance at a system tells you which world is the prize and which is a pebble.
0.50.0 AUG 29 · 2026 FIX
▸ The Enemy Stops Broadcasting
  • Worker staffing tells you what to do. The planet panel would say "understaffed" without saying which side was short or by how much — so the one question that matters, mines or factories next?, was unanswerable. An info icon by the idle-worker count now opens the full breakdown: workers in mines, workers in factories, how many have nowhere to work, and a plain-language read on whether you need more buildings or more population. Those lead to opposite decisions, and "understaffed" was pointing at the wrong one.
  • You could hear the enemy through the fog. Construction and warp sounds played for every planet and ship in the galaxy whether or not you had ever scouted them — from the opening seconds you could hear your opponent's build cadence and fleet movements without spotting a thing. Sound now obeys the same rules as sight: if you can't see it, you can't hear it.
0.49.0 JUN 14 · 2026 BALANCE
▸ The Difficulty Ladder Sorts Itself Out
  • Harder opponents are actually harder now. The ladder was inverted — the beginner-friendly Settler was beating Hard and Brutal outright. If you had been treating Settler as a warm-up, it was quietly the toughest fight on the list.
  • Enemy colonies build shipyards. The root cause: AI colonies never built a starbase, and a planet without one cannot build ships. The entire enemy fleet trickled out of a single home world while minerals piled up unspent across every colony it owned. Established colonies now build starbases, so expect real fleets arriving from more than one direction — and defended colonies when you counterattack.
  • A settled opponent starts massing. Once it holds enough systems and the front is quiet, the AI stops thinning itself with new colonies and builds a standing fleet instead. Leaving a large AI alone to develop is no longer free.
  • Matches resolve. Around nine in ten now end in a decisive win rather than running out the clock.
0.46.0 MAY 15 · 2026 BALANCE
▸ Frigates and Cruisers Return
  • The AI fields the full roster again. It had been building only part of the ship list — frigates and cruisers were missing entirely, which took two legs of the counter triangle off the board. Fighters beat cruisers, cruisers beat frigates, frigates beat fighters; with two of the three absent, one answer covered everything.
  • Combined-arms attacks. Tougher opponents now mass fighters, frigates and cruisers and send them at the same target together. A single ship type in response will get punished.
  • Doctrine varies by difficulty. Settler and Rusher still favour fighter swarms; Hard and Brutal commit the heavier warships.
0.44.0 MAY 11 · 2026 FEATURE
▸ The Enemy Runs Supply Lines
  • Opponents mine the neutrals. Rusher, Expansionist, Hard and Brutal deploy miners to rich uninhabitable worlds, open trade routes back to their production hub, and run freighters along them. That volcanic world near your border is now contested ground rather than scenery.
  • Supply lines are a target. Those freighter runs carry an opponent's mineral income across open space. Cutting them is a real strategic option — and a reason to keep something fast in reserve.
  • Settler opts out on purpose. The beginner preset still wins by out-growing you rather than out-logisticking you, so its economy stays simple and readable while you learn the game.