Your ship is its modules
An object has no fixed stats. Speed, hull, power, sensors, jamming, cargo and weapons are all derived from the modules you install. What your ship is emerges from its module mix.
StarRaid
An open-source, server-authoritative 2D space sandbox — an Eve Online–style persistent sim, simplified to two dimensions.
A galaxy of sectors linked by jump gates. Ships whose abilities come entirely from the modules you bolt onto them. One simulation authority, a persistent world, and bots that play by exactly the same rules as humans.
Rebuilt from scratch periodically since ~2005. This is the newest iteration.
What is the game?
You command an object — a ship, station, drone or depot — adrift in a shared, persistent 2D universe. The galaxy is a graph of sectors joined by jump gates, with a security gradient from safe core space to lawless frontier.
Server-authoritative
One server owns the simulation and validates every action. Open-source clients and bots are safe because the server, not the client, decides outcomes.
See only what you sense
The world is interest-managed: you hear about a neighbour only when your sensors beat their jammers and they're in range — not the whole map.
Factions & contracts
Factions hold territory, standing and goals, and post contracts — the unit of work in the world — for agents to accept, complete and get paid for.
Bots are first-class
NPCs are headless bots that connect over the very same wire protocol as a human client. There are no privileged messages — fork the reference bot to automate your own account.
A living world
The server simulates an active slice and lets dormant areas sleep, fast-forwarding them when you return. PostgreSQL is the single source of truth — the world survives restarts.
Project status
- Design: essentially complete — every system is specced in the docs.
- Scaffold: all component repos build and are committed.
- First slice: server version-handshake + login works end-to-end (humans and bots).
- Next: the live session — spawn, movement, and a first combat + AI loop.
This is an early, in-progress rebuild. The infrastructure has been solved many times over 20 years; the goal this time is to make one combat + AI loop genuinely playable early.
Components
StarRaid is a multi-repo project. Each component is its own independent git repository
with its own README and justfile; they share only the contracts between them.
protocol Protobuf
The wire contract between client/npc and server — the single source of truth for the game's messages.
server Go
The sole gameplay authority: the tick loop, action validation, and PostgreSQL persistence.
npc Go
The reference bot plus the dispatcher tier that spawns bots on the server's request.
client Godot · C#
The native desktop game client — thin, server-authoritative, renders only what it senses.
admin Go · Svelte
The game-master web console for steering the living world: events, factions, fixtures, monitoring.
website Static
This site — the project's public front door and getting-started guide.
Setup
Every component is an independent, open-source repository with its own README and
justfile. Clone the ones you need side by side and build each on its own.
You'll want Go 1.26+, Docker, protoc
and just.
# clone the components you need, side by side
git clone git@github.com:xuedi/starraid-protocol.git protocol
git clone git@github.com:xuedi/starraid-server.git server
git clone git@github.com:xuedi/starraid-npc.git npcBuild and run the server:
cd server
just install # wire this module to your local protocol checkout
just db-up # start PostgreSQL
STARRAID_DEV_SECRET=dev just run # run the serverIn another terminal, connect the reference bot — it speaks the same protocol as a human client:
cd npc
just install
just run -server localhost:60000 -user dev -secret devEach Go component finds the shared protocol bindings through a local, configurable path — no fixed checkout layout required. See each repo's README for details.