Star

Stars are the center of any Star System. They are titanic spheres of churning, scorching plasma, and in their cores they fuse atoms together to hold back implosion. In Starmade stars range in a variety of colors and sizes, are orbited by a diversity of planets, asteroid fields, shops, and space stations, and in very rare cases a system can be generated with a binary star system, with two suns instead of one.

A rare sight of a binary system, with a white star and a yellow star.

Appearance

A star appears to be a bright point of light, emitting a lens flare and lighting to any rendered planets, even if they aren't in the same system. If bloom is enabled in the game settings, the star will appear with large, often blinding rays that create cinematically beautiful scenes.

Types of Stars

Currently there are only two kinds of stars in Starmade, dwarf stars and giant stars. They exist in an array of colors, ranging through red, yellow, white, and blue. The only difference that impacts the player is the size of the star's "kill zone," which changes with the star's size and color.

Behavior

The star itself is a light-source and the player can simply fly through it. However, should a player fly within a star's range the star will exert extreme heat on the player and its ship, and if the player does not act quickly the player and their ship will be vaporized.

Trivia

• Unlike planets, stars cannot be destroyed or interacted with in any way by the player, other than the star burning the player if they stray too close.
• Some asteroids orbit close enough to their stars that players can take heat damage, but the player will be safe if they hide on the night side of the asteroid. They shouldn't stay too long, however, as the asteroid will eventually leave the player behind, and the player may be killed.
• Stars exist in two main classes as of now: dwarfs and giants. There are no major differences between the two other than their sprites in the galaxy map.
• In the rare instance of a binary star system, one star will be given a name based on the star name generator, while the other star will actually be named "Void." The reason behind this is that when the player hovers the mouse over the Void star they are hovering over a "void system," which contains no stars, planets, etc. It is unclear whether or not the name is a bug or intentional.
• In Starmade, binary systems are extremely uncommon and hard to find. In the real universe, however, binary star systems actually make up more than 80% of all stars.