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Starheim is a free to play indie spaceship piloting MMO set in a universe based on Norse mythology. Materials from destroying AI ships, other players, and mining asteroids can be used to upgrade your ship, with dozens of models on your journey from small fighter to dreadnought.
The Basics
Starheim is all about ship to ship combat, allowing players to blow up NPC ships en mass, fight big boss ships that have fleets of drones, or fight other players.
Materials gathered from destroyed enemy ships can be used to build better ships, and improve your ship's weapons and support module loadout.
The upgrade system uses familar systems commonly seen in MMORPGs to boost the stats of things, Quality (Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary), Pluses (+1-9) and Viking Runes that can be slotted into things for stat boosts.
Weapons and shields are all element based, adding an elemental weaknesses system similar to a certain pocket monster game.
Shoot Fire shields with a Water weapon to deal 50% more damage. Successfully exploiting an enemy ship's elemental weakness boosts drop rates on the ship when it is destroyed.
More Details
The main idea behind the game is to simplify the spaceship piloting mechanic seen in other big space titles like Eve or Elite Dangerous by locking ships and bullets so everything is on a flat plane.
Not having to deal with anything moving up and down makes it possible to control a very fast moving ship, dodge bullets, and warp around like not usually seen space games.
This is the main goal of the game, to be a more approachable space game that can be enjoyed by a more casual audience that just have fun blowing things up and collecting loot, while still having an extensive ship progression system that gives more advanced players the ability to play around with different builds and min-max the game to make their ship super overpowered.
Encouraging Player Interaction
While fun combat is always important, the primary goal with the game was to create a sandbox where players can interact with eachother, trade for stuff they need, form parties and factions, etc.
A lot of inspiration was taken from oldschool MMOs where you could just get on and mess around with random people in an open PvP enviroment, and the mechanics are as open as possible to allow players the freedom to play however they like.
Everything has full physics, making it possible to push another player into the sun if you wanted to. (and they stayed still long enough)
Ships move rediculously fast, so you can turn your ship into a kamikase craft.
You can pick up asteroids with your tractor beam and launch them at people really fast if you want.
Death isn't super punishing unless you haven't put stuff in the bank, so it's all in good fun.
PKers (Player Killers) get 10 PKPoints when they kill another player, and getting 30+ PKPoints makes a player redname, where they can drop their equipped modules if they die, upping the stakes.
There are safe zones around upgrade centers and shops.
Boss fights are designed to be taken on by a party of at least 2 players, and party members share EXP, encouraging team play, althrough they are still soloable.
There is a basic Faction system currently in the game that allows peoples to create or join a faction with other players.
Later the faction system will be used for a faction vs faction PvP event called "Ragnarok", pitting the followers of dark gods like Loki against the gods of order like Thor. This event will involve blowing up the enemy faction's planet while defending your own, with purchasable auto-turrets and plasma shields to hinder the enemy's progress.
Skill-Based Combat
A major decision was made early in development to not feature any kind of "Heat seeking missile" type weapons, meaning you have to actually point your ship at a target to hit them. I've never really cared for the "Locking on and firing a missile and waiting to see if it hits" type of space combat, even if it is more realistic.
While there is a scattershot weapon that does low damage with each hit, the main means to fight other players is with the beam cannon, a weapon that shoots narrow AoE blasts in a line in front of your ship, and can be charged for huge damage.
This means PvP could come down to 1-3 hitting the other player, you just have to be good at aiming the beam cannon.
Lots of Ships
Players will be able to build ships of several different classes including:
Fighters (Speed Focus)
Destroyers (Damage Focus)
Frigates (Survivability Focus)
Dreadnought (Good damage and survivability but slower and a bigger target)
Artillery Cruisers (Heavy Weapon Focus)
Modules to add additional offensive or defensive capabilities can also be built or looted and equipped to ships to increase their stats.
In-game Economy
One of the major goals with the game is to have an in-game economy that allows players to buy and sell items from eachother. I feel like something was lost with the impersonal auction house system most modern online games use, and would like to have a market system more like older MMOs that give a player a market stall they can set up to sell and buy stuff in a way that you can see who you're buying something from and it's more personal.
This hasn't been added yet, but it is high on the to-do list, and is a feature that requires a decent number of active players to function.
Multi-platform Support
The goal is to support as many platforms as possible. All platforms connect to the same server, so no matter what platform you're on you have access to your save data and play online with people on other device types.
PC - Epic Games Store, Steam (WIP).
Controllers are partially supported, you can use a controller to fly the ship, but a mouse is still needed to navigate the UI.
Android - Google Play
iOS (WIP)
Steamdeck / OneXPlayer (There is a Steamdeck controller setting that makes it playable on Steamdeck, although full support to be able to navigate the UI and drag items from one screen to another entirely with a controller may never exist. It does work well if you use the touch screen for UI though.)
Starheim is an indie fast paced free to play spaceship piloting looter shooter MMO set in a universe based on Norse mythology.
Vikings in Space? Why not?The Basics
Starheim is all about ship to ship combat, allowing players to blow up NPC ships en mass, fight big boss ships that have fleets of drones, or fight other players.
Materials gathered from destroyed enemy ships can be used to build better ships, and improve your ship's weapons and support module loadout.
The upgrade system uses familar systems commonly seen in MMORPGs to boost the stats of things, Quality (Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary), Pluses (+1-9) and Viking Runes that can be slotted into things for stat boosts.
Weapons and shields are all element based, adding an elemental weaknesses system similar to a certain pocket monster game.
Shoot Fire shields with a Water weapon to deal 50% more damage. Successfully exploiting an enemy ship's elemental weakness boosts drop rates on the ship when it is destroyed.
More Details
The main idea behind the game is to simplify the spaceship piloting mechanic seen in other big space titles like Eve or Elite Dangerous by locking ships and bullets so everything is on a flat plane.
Not having to deal with anything moving up and down makes it possible to control a very fast moving ship, dodge bullets, and warp around like not usually seen space games.
This is the main goal of the game, to be a more approachable space game that can be enjoyed by a more casual audience that just have fun blowing things up and collecting loot, while still having an extensive ship progression system that gives more advanced players the ability to play around with different builds and min-max the game to make their ship super overpowered.
Encouraging Player Interaction
While fun combat is always important, the primary goal with the game was to create a sandbox where players can interact with eachother, trade for stuff they need, form parties and factions, etc.
A lot of inspiration was taken from oldschool MMOs where you could just get on and mess around with random people in an open PvP enviroment, and the mechanics are as open as possible to allow players the freedom to play however they like.
Everything has full physics, making it possible to push another player into the sun if you wanted to. (and they stayed still long enough)
Ships move rediculously fast, so you can turn your ship into a kamikase craft.
You can pick up asteroids with your tractor beam and launch them at people really fast if you want.
Death isn't super punishing unless you haven't put stuff in the bank, so it's all in good fun.
PKers (Player Killers) get 10 PKPoints when they kill another player, and getting 30+ PKPoints makes a player redname, where they can drop their equipped modules if they die, upping the stakes.
There are safe zones around upgrade centers and shops.
Boss fights are designed to be taken on by a party of at least 2 players, and party members share EXP, encouraging team play, althrough they are still soloable.
There is a basic Faction system currently in the game that allows peoples to create or join a faction with other players.
Later the faction system will be used for a faction vs faction PvP event called "Ragnarok", pitting the followers of dark gods like Loki against the gods of order like Thor. This event will involve blowing up the enemy faction's planet while defending your own, with purchasable auto-turrets and plasma shields to hinder the enemy's progress.
Skill-Based Combat
A major decision was made early in development to not feature any kind of "Heat seeking missile" type weapons, meaning you have to actually point your ship at a target to hit them. I've never really cared for the "Locking on and firing a missile and waiting to see if it hits" type of space combat, even if it is more realistic.
While there is a scattershot weapon that does low damage with each hit, the main means to fight other players is with the beam cannon, a weapon that shoots narrow AoE blasts in a line in front of your ship, and can be charged for huge damage.
This means PvP could come down to 1-3 hitting the other player, you just have to be good at aiming the beam cannon.
Lots of Ships
Players will be able to build ships of several different classes including:
Fighters (Speed Focus)
Destroyers (Damage Focus)
Frigates (Survivability Focus)
Dreadnought (Good damage and survivability but slower and a bigger target)
Artillery Cruisers (Heavy Weapon Focus)
Modules to add additional offensive or defensive capabilities can also be built or looted and equipped to ships to increase their stats.
In-game Economy
One of the major goals with the game is to have an in-game economy that allows players to buy and sell items from eachother. I feel like something was lost with the impersonal auction house system most modern online games use, and would like to have a market system more like older MMOs that give a player a market stall they can set up to sell and buy stuff in a way that you can see who you're buying something from and it's more personal.
This hasn't been added yet, but it is high on the to-do list, and is a feature that requires a decent number of active players to function.
Multi-platform Support
The goal is to support as many platforms as possible. All platforms connect to the same server, so no matter what platform you're on you have access to your save data and play online with people on other device types.
PC - Epic Games Store, Steam (WIP).
Controllers are partially supported, you can use a controller to fly the ship, but a mouse is still needed to navigate the UI.
Android - Google Play
iOS (WIP)
Steamdeck / OneXPlayer (There is a Steamdeck controller setting that makes it playable on Steamdeck, although full support to be able to navigate the UI and drag items from one screen to another entirely with a controller may never exist. It does work well if you use the touch screen for UI though.)
