This website tracks the starwards project https://blog.starwards.space/ Four years of Starwards development, condensed - The last blog post was in June 2022. It’s been almost four years. A lot happened - both in the project and in our lives - and we owe you an update. We’re not going to be dramatic about the silence. Life got complicated (a war started in October 2023,... Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2026-04-12-were-back/ https://blog.starwards.space/2026-04-12-were-back/ Getting hit now damages your radar - Implementing damage effects on the radar. When the radar is damaged, it’s range starts to fluctuate between its regular range and a limited range (3,000-1,500 in the video): The more damage is done to the radar, the more time is spent in limited radar range. Of course, if another ship... Sun, 19 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2022-06-19-radar-damage/ https://blog.starwards.space/2022-06-19-radar-damage/ adding some RTS flavor to the GM screen - I open the GM screen, choose a ship, right click somewhere on the radar near that ship, and then the ship begins turning and moving towards the point I clocked. The ship gracefully slows down as it reaches its destination and I am in developer heaven: success on first try!... Sun, 12 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2022-06-12-simple-ai-commands-wip/ https://blog.starwards.space/2022-06-12-simple-ai-commands-wip/ Come and have a look - (we apologize for not updating this blog) Today we’ve open-sourced the project and made it public with the hope of recruiting help from the community. It still shows signs of being a closed project (not enough automated tests, missing documentation, missing communication of principles and vision, etc.). However, we are... Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2022-06-09-open-source/ https://blog.starwards.space/2022-06-09-open-source/ It's time to think about bigger spaceships - While we are still working on our second milestone, we decided to keep our parallel work on the art design for the game and start working on our first model of a corvette class ship. This is an important step - as much as we love our space fighter design,... Sat, 29 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-29-corvette-art/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-29-corvette-art/ We've updated our main screen - Remember our first post in this blog, where we showed an image of our main screen? As we update our graphic design, we’ve decided it was time to update the main screen as well. Now it looks like this: And when a game is running, it looks like this: We’re... Fri, 21 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-21-main-screen/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-21-main-screen/ Our first space fighter model is complete - In our last stop on our journey for our ideal space fighter, we have completed the final concept art for the space fighter and were ready to move into 3D modeling. Translating the concept art into a 3D model took us some time, as we needed to change some geometries... Sat, 15 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-15-dragonfly/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-15-dragonfly/ First peak to the malfunction tweak UI - First look at our preliminary UI for creating malfunctions! As soon as the GM is selecting a ship, the menu from the left is popping up, and the GM can decide for which component he wants to create a malfunction. At the moment, we can disable each one of the... Sat, 08 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-08-tweak_peak/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-08-tweak_peak/ Re-modeling the maneuvering system so it can take damage - context As part of the 2nd milestone (damage system), we’re going to add malfunctions to different ship systems. The thing is, I didn’t model the systems all that well and gave most of the ship an abstract, calculation-centric model. The ship has parameters and formulas that define how it moves,... Sat, 01 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-01-thrusters-damage/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-05-01-thrusters-damage/ Continuing our journey towards the ideal fighter ship - Two weeks ago, we told you about our first steps with designing our ideal space fighter, which ended with a collection of concept art but without a final design. We understood that we would need to properly define our needs for the artists in order to get a design that... Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-24-fighter-art2/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-24-fighter-art2/ We can drag and drop - One of the requirements for a good bridge simulator is a strong GM module, which will allow a wide variety of actions to manage the game. The first features we implemented into the GM screen are the ability to zoom in/out, select items, and move them. Sat, 17 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-17-gm-drag-and-drop/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-17-gm-drag-and-drop/ Beginning of our journey towards the ideal fighter ship - As our work on the 2nd milestone is in progress, we have also decided to advance the games art concepts. We already have a 3d view with basic logic, but the current model we are using is not representative of the fighter model from the dogfight milestone. We decided that... Sat, 10 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-10-fighter-art-1/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-10-fighter-art-1/ Conclusions from a design meeting about ship damage - The TPK issue LARP organizers usually need to control TPK (Total Party Kill) situations. In spaceship LARPs, this means controlling when the game rules can’t automatically destroy ships. Destroying the players’ spaceship, for example, is usually left as a game master’s decision, as it might mean the untimely end of... Sat, 03 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-03-damage-system/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-04-03-damage-system/ Damage, harm, and destruction - Time to move forward After months of work, we looked back on everything we have done and were mostly pleased. Yes, we still have many ideas and features we want to introduce to our dog-fight, but it was essential for us to remember that this was only our first milestone,... Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-27-2nd-milestone/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-27-2nd-milestone/ Showing the entire dogfight experience in a narrated video - Today we’ve recorded a presentation of the dogfight experience. We’ve covered many topics, including: basic maneuvering, afterburner, flight control modes, space physics, locking on target, following a target, air-burst sight adjustments, deflection sight, and some nifty maneuvers. We’ve also established who is the better pilot. Watch it on youtube: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0400 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-20-dogfight-showcase/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-20-dogfight-showcase/ First look on the chaingun weapon system - First look on the chaingun weapon system, the main weapon system we choose for our first fighter. In the video below, you can see the fighter shooting a hail of deadly 30MM airburst shells. The orange target icon is an indicator to where the shells will detonate. The distance can... Sat, 13 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0500 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-13-chaingun-peek/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-13-chaingun-peek/ our conecpet for building screens in Starwards - Because we see Starwards as a platform to run LARPs in different sizes and various amounts of players, we wanted to allow a dynamic process for creating the different screens and stations for the game. We are looking to break down all the systems to their basic component level and... Sat, 06 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0500 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-06-modular-peek/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-06-modular-peek/ Our first weapon system - Introducing the Chain gun We are happy to introduce our first close range weapon system, which will be used by our first fighter models in the game – The Chain gun! What is a Chain gun? A chain gun is a type of machine gun or autocannon that uses an... Sat, 06 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0500 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-06-chaingun/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-03-06-chaingun/ Our first tactical radar reveal - The tactical radar is the short-range radar of the vessel. As our first milestone is a dogfight between two fighters, it made sense to start with this screen. The radar blips are taken from Empty Epsilon for the development process, but we are planning to create our own icons on... Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0500 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-02-27-tactical-radar-peek/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-02-27-tactical-radar-peek/ How range will affect weapon systems - “Guns. Lots of Guns” One of the first discussions we had after deciding on our first milestone (playable dogfight) was regarding the weapon systems we will have in our game. After all, having a dogfight without the ability to destroy the opponent ship will end as a pretty dull dogfight.... Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0500 https://blog.starwards.space/2021-02-27-engagement-circles/ https://blog.starwards.space/2021-02-27-engagement-circles/