Complete catalog

Every Feature

A full tour of what's in Starwatch Commander today — and what's clearly labeled as coming soon. Live features are marked LIVE; planned ones are marked SOON.

🚀 Game modes

Solo vs Computer LIVE

Play against 1–11 AI commanders. Earns Commander XP, no ELO.

Pass & Play LIVE

Multiple people share one device, taking turns cycle by cycle.

Sandbox LIVE

Experiment freely. No XP, no ELO — pure testing and exploration.

Online Private SOON

Invite friends with a code. Earns XP; no ELO by default.

Quick Match / Ranked SOON

Auto-join an online game. Earns XP and affects your ELO.

🌌 World sizes & pacing

SizePlanetsMax commandersSuggested AIFeel
Tiny1221Fast, chaotic quick match
Small2031Short game
Medium3552Standard game
Large6083Long game
Huge100+125Epic campaign

One ruleset, two paces: Turn-Based (press End Cycle, no timer — great for offline and tablets) and Timed Cycles (auto-resolves on a countdown — great for online and fast play).

🖥️ One-page Command Center LIVE

  • Top bar: Gold, Ships, Tech Level, Planets owned/total, Travel Range, Next Growth, Cycle number, and End Cycle / countdown.
  • Full-screen galaxy map with mouse-wheel zoom, click-drag pan, and click-to-select.
  • Galactic News ticker — reports as a live, color-coded, clickable feed instead of a reports tab.
  • Selected Planet panel on the right — quality, multipliers, buildable land, ships, building grid, and focus slider.
  • Owned-planet bar along the bottom with your commander portrait and every world you hold.
  • First Steps / Alerts / Legend overlay on the left for onboarding guidance.

Deliberately no Research, Fleets, or Reports nav tabs. Everything important is visible on one screen.

🪐 Planet identity system LIVE

A central catalog maps real astronomical names to fixed identities and an 18-step S+++ → F quality rating. Mars is always an excellent balanced world; Europa is always tech-friendly; Sedna is always a frozen dead-end. Larger maps use tier-preserving generated names, so a legendary name never lands on a poor planet. High-value worlds flag their strengths with small icons (🪙↑ gold, 🚀↑ ships, 🧪↑ tech, 🏗↑ land, ⭐ overall).

Browse the full planet catalog →

🛠️ Buildings & production LIVE

Factories

200 gold. Produce gold or ships per the planet's focus slider, scaled by its multipliers.

Tech Labs

250 gold. Generate research toward the next Tech Level, independent of the focus slider.

Manufacturing Focus

Per-planet slider from 100% gold to 100% ships. Ship progress accumulates fractionally.

✈️ Fleets & combat LIVE

  • Stationed garrisons shown as ship icons and counts on each planet.
  • Traveling fleets drawn on route lines with ship count and cycles remaining.
  • Click-to-send and drag-to-send, with a route preview and range check.
  • Reachability highlighting — reachable worlds glow, out-of-range worlds dim.
  • Combat modal with attacker/defender ships, both Tech Levels, and live odds.
  • Probabilistic ship-vs-ship rounds; Tech advantage tilts the odds (clamped 10–90%).
  • Homeworld defense bonus (+3 effective Tech) keeps endgames decisive.
  • Captured buildings remain; homeworld capture eliminates a commander.

🤖 Active AI LIVE

Three tuned difficulty personalities — Easy, Normal, Hard (plus an Adaptive stub) — that build, research, expand from cycle one, and commit genuine attacks. Hard punishes mistakes without invisible cheats. See the AI & scaling breakdown →

🎖️ Progression, ranks & social

Commander progression LIVE

  • Commander Level from XP — permanent, never decreases.
  • Commander Points each level for cosmetic unlocks (no pay-to-win).
  • Post-game results screen with XP breakdown and unlocks.

Rank / ELO & leaderboards SOON

  • ELO with Rookie → Legend tiers and I/II/III divisions.
  • Ranked-only ELO changes with demotion protection.
  • Leaderboard tabs: Ranked, Level, Wins, Win Rate, Captures, and more.

Friends list, chat/lobby, online matchmaking, and leaderboard data are UI stubs today — clearly labeled in-app — and will light up with the online update.

💾 Saves, settings & accessibility LIVE

Saved games

Autosave after every cycle; continue, rename, delete. In-game menu with Save & Exit prompt.

Settings that work

Sound & music (synthesized, no audio files), UI scale, five interface themes, reduced motion.

Accessibility

High-contrast panels, colorblind-friendly mode, and reduced-motion toggles wired throughout.

How it's built →