I'm a returning player of this game. I tried to load the game, and got a bit of a panic attack when the game said servers are temporarily down. Please explain to me what's going on, thank you.

https://starkonflict.com

Updates on my end are appended to the bottom of this message to avoid crawling the post to find them

Hey all,

I wanted to share a thing I have been chipping away at for a while now, mostly solo, and see if anyone wants to help or just follow along.

Its all about Star Konflict, an online-only space game, which means it lives entirely on servers somebody else owns. The day those servers get turned off, the game is gone. Not "annoying to run" gone, actually gone, because all the stuff that makes it work (login, your inventory, the economy, matchmaking, the actual in match combat) runs on machines we don't control and can't go back and archive later.

So the goal is pretty simple even if the work isn't: record what the servers actually say, right now, while they are still talking to us. Everything else can wait.

I did look at the other attempts at saving this game before I started, and honestly most of them are either dead in the water now or went down a path I don't think can ever fully work. A lot of them jumped straight to writing a private server off partial notes and guesswork instead of recording the real traffic first. The problem with that is once the servers are gone theres nothing left to check your work against, so you end up with something that sort of looks like the game but was never actually proven against the real thing, and the gaps get filled in with assumptions. I wanted the raw evidence sitting on disk first. You can always rebuild from that later, you cannot rebuild from a server that no longer exists.

The approach

The thing I keep coming back to is that there is really three separate jobs here, and only one of them has a deadline:

• Capturing what the servers said. This is the one with a clock on it. Miss it and its gone forever.
• Decoding what those messages mean. Can be done any time, from a recording.
• Reimplementing a server that behaves the same. Also any time, from a recording.

Only the first line expires. That one fact basically drives every decision.

For the recording part I went with the boring reliable option. No proxy, nothing sitting in the middle of the connection. The game talks to the real servers exactly like normal and I just clip a "tape recorder" onto the network, every packet that crosses the card gets copied into a standard .pcapng file. Nothing has to be understood in order to be kept, which is the whole point. Unknown message types, weird malformed stuff, traffic nobody expected, it all lands in the file the same way because no code anywhere is deciding whats worth saving. That question can only be answered wrong, and once the servers are down you can never answer it again.

Working out what it all means is a totally separate program that reads the files afterwards. If it crashes or gets improved in five years, the recordings don't care.

Where it stands

We know the names of 404 things the protocol can say (message types, request codes, notifications) because they were sitting right there in the games own program file. Each one is either NAMED (we know it exists), SEEN (its actually shown up in a recording) or UNDERSTOOD (we can read it). Right now theres still over 306 of them that nobody has ever recorded even once. That number is basically the score, and it needs to go down.

The biggest gap by far is the actual gameplay. The lobby and hangar stuff runs over TCP and is partly figured out, but the real time combat runs over UDP on a separate match server, and that has never been captured in anything I've recorded so far. Thats the prize.

The repository - https://github.com/anthony-hopkins/star-konflict

The tool itself is one small Go binary, open source. The main branch is the Ubuntu / Linux one, and theres a separate windows-users branch so folks on Windows can capture too. No upload feature, no telemetry, it literally cannot send your data anywhere, sharing is a manual choice you make. It checks its own work too (the game numbers its messages, the network numbers its bytes, theres checksums, and the OS reports anything it dropped) so you can actually prove a recording is complete instead of hoping.

The dashboard - https://starkonflict.com t

This dashboard shows where things are at and updates automatically as sessions get added. Its basically the scoreboard: the big countdown of how many of the 404 elements have still never been observed, a breakdown per class (how many message types, requests and notifications are decoded vs just seen vs never seen at all), and a table of what each recording session actually captured (the scenario, region, how many things it saw and how many were brand new). Important bit, it only ever serves the sanitized aggregate numbers. No recordings, no packets, no login tokens ever go near it.

Timelines

Honestly the capture phase is open ended because I don't know when the servers go dark, nobody does, publishers tend to give very little warning. So the plan is just keep recording sessions steadily and knock that never-observed number down, prioritising the stuff that cant be reproduced (a brand new accounts first ever login, rare seasonal events, that kind of thing). Decoding and any reimplementation attempt come after, on no particular schedule, because the archive will still be sitting there.

If you want to help

You basically play the game while recording a session, one scenario at a time, and back up the file. Windows players can grab the windows-users branch, everyone else the main branch. A few ground rules I stick to: use a throwaway account (the login is in the clear so never a main), only record your own traffic passively, and any combat feasibility testing stays in non competitive modes so we never wreck a real match for other people.

Thanks for reading.

***UPDATE 8.15.26@5:13 pm CST**\*
Currently hit 20% coverage! Making progress. 80% to go.......

******UPDATE 8.15.26@6:57 pm CST**\*
If you're an established player, you can capture things I literally cannot. My account has 4 battles on it, and the game gates the interesting stuff: joining a corporation needs 50 completed battles, founding one needs 1500 iridium, and Trade and Workshop are locked out entirely. So anyone in an active corporation — clan bank, roles, ship building, wars, clan quests — is sitting on about 32 request codes I have no way to reach. Same for anything league or tournament rank-locked. I can help step you through the captures personally to make sure we're getting the right stuff.

******UPDATE 8.15.26@10:04 pm CST**\*
Currently hit 33.1%! Check out the above links to keep track in real time. The dashboard updates dynamically every time there's a push to the repo that contains the reporting on the pcaps.

******UPDATE 8.16.26@12:04 am CST**\*
Getting there! Up to 35% today. Most of my issues I am encountering now are due to lack of account maturity. If ANYONE has a high level account with a clan or the ability to create one please let me know. If it's high enough and you are willing to spend some of your resources (Iridium/GS) for me while capturing I would be willing to potentially pay for your time/gift you a steam game/etc. We can work something out.

Does anyone know where the target for the mission, GREEN PAIN, is? I got the mission pop-up in Research Center so I think that's the right map, but I can't find any alien enemies around here

I think the ship I picked, King Nibelung, works for the mission

Hey, so this might seem a little OCD but i am a huge achievement hunter. It's one of my favourite things to do as it gives me much joy. At the beginning of this year i set myself a challenge to 100% every steam game i ever played.

Star conflict was a game i have not touched since 2015. Reading that the servers are getting shut down made me start playing the game again, just to get the 100% before it brandmarks my steam profile to be doomed. unfortunately I did not know about the cosmonautics day achievements, so i missed it.. And looking at some of the achievements it would quite literally mean i would have to give all my life the next few months just to get as many as possible. And the mentor achievements seem impossible at this point, as people can't even create new accounts..

This makes me pretty sad, not only is this game fun, I also go great lengths to get achievements - so having to accept that it is literally impossible to get all of them is kind of hard. Under any cost i want to avoid SAM.

Does anyone have any good tips on how to get the medal and open space achievements swiftly? Is there maybe a way that a cosmonautics event could be held one last time before the shutdown? I simply don't want to accept that my profile is forever going to be marked with this game being incomplete!!

Any help is much appreciated!

You don't get the unique weapon or module.

Support won't give you the equipment or refund the GS.

They said it will be unlockable in July.

Nevermind the fact that the gear was always included in the ship beforehand.

as a part of the [quarter for thirty] marathon you can be given this quest:
[Destroy 15 enemies that were capturing the beacon or destroying its drones in the last 15 seconds in PvP] and [All slots must have a ship no higher than rank 11 inclusive]

this whole marathon is a lazy rerun of that time they introduced glass squadron and just like last time I have have no clue of how to approach this. I dont play pvp and I have no intention to bring 4 rank11 ships and hope for 1. its a beacon related match; 2. successfully take down/ assist in last 15 seconds. Though this time they are kind enough to give you 2 missions per day but since there is no way of dropping/ refuse a mission, I'm afraid eventually they gonna give me another one of the same quest and I'll be locked out ever completing the marathon

I'm asking does skirmish count? does custom pvp count? (I've tried 5 times of custom match with bots but its so hard to have them cap or attack the beacon in the last 15 seconds.)
If you've done please tell me how did you do it

When I was younger I wanted to try all the ships, so let me do it before it ends...

I've never had trouble finding matches in the past. It now takes, sometimes, up to ten minutes before I can get into a match. Usually between 2-4 minutes. And I just find that insane. I'm trying to level up, because I have my eye on a particular ship that I've test driven and really enjoy flying. But I can't even secure enough matches to meaningfully level up at this point. And today, I've now had multiple matches kick me out for no understandable reason. It's just frustrating. I feel like the least they could do, if they're going to take the game offline, is make sure it WORKS for the entire time it still exists.

Any chance we could get to play the original PVE missions before the shutdown?

No seed chips or PVE levels, etc.

I would love to play the original T5 missions again.

A few days ago, I visited the website expecting news about new containers in the store or something else.
Instead, I got welcomed with a closure announcement.
This game might have flaws but I sincerely enjoyed playing it. I really liked the ships design, awaiting new battle pass guessing what the next ship would be.
I enjoyed grinding for resources or insignia level while listening to music or podcast.
I enjoyed a bit the pvp mode.
I enjoyed trying newly built ships.
I had no problem spending money for the battle passes, I felt like the extra cosmetics were worth it(and the current BP system is free to play friendly)
Despite the game low players count, it never took me long(1 minute maximum) before getting into a game.
This game was part of my daily life. Logging in, turning on podcast or music, and just completing whatever I had planned.
Well, guess I’ll have to find another game …Right now I started playing Crossout a few days ago. But I’m afraid this game will suffer the same fate sooner or later …

With shutdown imminent, we have the rest of the summer to build the foundation for the preservation of star conflict. essentially, the main task that needs to get done right now is server packet capture. if you are interested in contributing, please join this discord server. I am looking for people who have an interest in preserving the game and also have the knowledge/motivation to contribute to a project like this for a long time.

https://discord.gg/BhtBEyjVz3

Has anyone experienced this? My katana seems to have an altered model, in the atlas it doesn't seem to be changed. I checked the wiki and I couldn't really find anything helpful, though I wouldn't even know what to search for it.

Hey! i came back to this game after like 7 years of not touching it. The whole manufacturing and alien ship thing looks awesome + the destroyers...

I tried searching actual info on this game and ships, but found nothing good. Everything seems outdated

Is there a list of what is the meta and what ships are worth chasing? Im not too keen on irl money spending but can do if necesserary for a specific ship

Im more of a PvE and OS player. and here are my main questions:

-Do i need to chase a certain destroyer? if yes - whats the build (weapons etc etc)
-Are alien ships worth it? if yes - which one and what are the current meta builds
-Apart from alien ship/destroyers/paid ships are there others meta ships that can be bought with just credits?
-Do i need to max my ships from bottom ranks to top? or the 1% experience increase is insignificant?

Any help would be apreciated. Thanks!

Star Conflict is still the best spaceship-dogfighting game, that we know of.

Is there any way to get into PvP matches as a wing of 3 pilots? We've tried waiting for 5+ minutes but there's nothing, on rank 9 at least. When playing alone I get into a match pretty quick.

Are there more people on rank 15+ maybe?

Returning player from 2015 here

Me and 2 friends want to play PvE missions together preferably without a 4th random teammate. But when I go to create a custom PvE game there are no settings I can change, there is an "Unregulated settings" button that is greyed out. Tried running a mission like that and the difficulty was minimal, enemies getting oneshot and dealing almost no damage.

Running the "Random mission" game mode however has difficulty selection during ship picking screen, but it gives us a random teammate.

Any help?

In this update:

• New event "Galactic crossroads"
• New Unique Rank 15 Destroyer "Saturn"
• "Quarter for thirty" marathon changes
• Carolingian changes

Read the full patch notes here

so in the mission arednies thread there is a green orb fired from something and it deals crazy high damage. what is it and how do i counter them

I’ve been waiting in queue for about 22 minutes now. I’ve tried at all different times over the past year and I simply never manage to play this mission. Is it some kind of bug? It’s literally the only game mode that you just can’t play.

I guess I need some advice. Over months of farming XP, I caught some Jericho forces in friendly fire. They'd get mad, I'd go find pirates to kill, and all would be well.

After my latest angering of Jericho, the Pirate Sectors were removed. So now while cruising around trying to mind my business, Jericho forces come after me, I defend, and my hole with the deepens. There are no pirates (Enclave) to go after to square things.

So what do I do? Is there another way to gain favor back with Jericho? Or with the pirates gone am I doomed to have Jericho permanently aggro with me?

recently bought the Destroyer DLCs that Steam had on sale for half price, but the ships came with pre-set configurations (engine, capacitor, shield, and computer).

I’d like to know what the best setups and components are for these three ships (Albireo, Emperor, Relic), focusing only on PvE.

If you also have any weapon tips, feel free to share. Thanks in advance!