Welcome to Gold Stardust, an open project to make a space game. Source code will be released to the public domain on this website. Right now there is no code, as the project has just begun. You will be able to run your own server.
DragonWing Games will run a commercial server and contribute developer time to improving Gold Stardust. If you like the game and want to support its development, consider playing on the DWG server! DWG might use a combination of direct sales, a subscription model, microtransactions, or donations.
The game will be set in space in a randomly-generated galaxy. You will control a ship to explore, fight, gather resources, build, and trade. The world will grow as you explore, and persist as long as the operator keeps that game server up. Multiplayer PvP and coop will be the focus, although there may be NPCs to fight with or do quests for. The server operator will have the opportunity to write and manage galactic-scale storylines to engross players in the universe.
Automation will be very integral to the game experience. You'll learn early to adjust your ship's computer to customize and automate its behavior. The ship's computer will support both beginner and advanced programmers. Programmers will be able to trade their ship programs with other players, for in-game money if desired. You will also have the chance to obtain drones, fighters, and additional ships. Your ship can work for you when you log off, with the right program installed.
The galaxy will have a somewhat realistic simulation in that stars, planets, moons and asteroids will revolve over time and have gravity. Your ship's computer can help track these celestial objects, predict their future locations and plot courses to, and orbits around them.
The crafting system will be intricate, with many different kinds of resources and many objects to create. Players can come up with their own types of objects they would like to create and propose them to the server operator. It would be up to the operator to balance the new items and introduce them in a fair way to their galaxy, or to reject them as unworkable.
The fighting system will be realistic, more similar to a space simulator than a turn-based role playing game. You'll have direct control over the movement of your ship and the firing of its weapons. Reasonable server side cooldowns, such as weapon recharge times, will serve to even out advantages due to network connection speeds, without sacrificing responsiveness to turning and accelerating.
Trading will be extremely vital, with direct server-mediated trades (a trade window), a marketplace to place buy and sell orders, a stock market, and a contract system. You'll be able to request goods to a certain location, at a certain time, setup recurring contracts, and contracts to lease property and return it at a later time. You can setup your own vending machine in game to sell your goods when you're offline (if the in-game marketplace isn't suitable). You can set your ship to buy and sell resources for you while you're gone.
One important goal for the player is to locate planets. Planets may provide colonization opportunities or valuable resources.