Starshatter: The Gathering Storm Goes Open Source!

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm Screenshot
Now You Can Play Starshatter for Free!

Edit: Starshatter Mods seems to be down, so if y’all find this story and still wanna download the game, you can over on SpaceSimCentral. Thanks for visiting!

I know I’m behind on posting news, but I’ve no idea how I missed this, and thanks to the folks on Quarter to Three for pointing it out to me. Apparently the excellent and unique military space sim, Starshatter: The Gathering Storm, has gone open source thanks to its original developer releasing the source code. This unique space sim — which has a flight-simesque dynamic campaign and allows command of both fighters and capital ships — has been up until now very hard and expensive to obtain. According to the story on StarshatterMods:

14 DEC, 2011 – STARSHATTER:THE GATHERING STORM – Open Source Version 5.0.5. This download Includes the cumulative Starshatter-TGS game up to version 5.0.5 (No CD Required). It is available for download from our “Lagacy Official File” section.

If you’d like to try this excellent sim, head over to StarshatterMods, register an account, then head to the Downloads to download the entire game. Enjoy!

Author: Brian Rubin

24 thoughts on “Starshatter: The Gathering Storm Goes Open Source!

  1. Nope, i tried it for the first time today and I just didn't get the hang of those controls. Eventually I closed it but I'll probably give it another go in a few days.

    1. Yeah, it's one of the more hard-core space sims, more akin to a detailed flight combat sim than a traditional space sim. It's worth sinking your teeth into, as it's one of the only space sims of its type with such a level of flexibility — thanks to being able to fly different craft, from fighters to bombers to carriers — and replayability, thanks to its amazing dynamic campaign, which is very rare in space sims. Good luck!

  2. I agree. Starshatter is a rather hard-core space simulation and not for the casual player. It will take some time and skill to become a competent Starhstatter commander. This is as it should be for such a simulation. Oh, no cheat codes are available either. One will have to earn ones command rank.

    1. Well said, William. Good to see you here, by the way. Love your site, and thanks for helping keep SS alive all these years after it was seemingly and unabashedly abandoned so long ago. :) Now that it's Open Source, I'm hoping it can see the same life that Freespace 2 still does. :)

    1. You're quite welcome, and enjoy! Just note, it's fairly on the hart-core side, so don't get disheartened if you die a lot at first. :)

  3. Has anyone here heard from Wdboyd at all? Starshattermods has been down for over a week now, and I am unable to contack Wdboyd. If anyone has any info and can pass it along, I’d greatly appreciate it.

    1. Welcome to the site Brad! Sadly I don’t know the Wdboyd at all, sadly, but maybe someone here does?

    2. Hi Brad
      Haven’t been able to contact Wdboyd either.
      Do you have CaptainX contact info?

      1. HI Toshiro,

        No I do not have contact info for captainX. Do you happend to know how to get ahold of him. I’m starting to get a little worried about William. I hope nothing happened to him.

  4. Yeah, can’t see it up here either. If necessary, I can put up some zero-effort Mediafire hosting for the base game and required mods. Just say the word.

  5. Just a quick update. I was able to contact the owner of SSmods.com (wdboyd). In the process of updating the site, important database information was lost with no backup. So it would be impossible to restore the site as it was before. With that in mind wdboyd decided that the site had run its course anyway and has moved on to other pursuits. So in short, SSmods is not coming back. A small group of modders including myself are trying to establish some sort of replacement. If you are interested in being a part of this or even if you just want to recieve updated info about the new site. please email me at

    braddw25@comcast.net

    and we will be sure to include you in any discussions.

  6. Just to chime in that I discovered this gem of a game recently (mentioned in one of the latest podcasts) and while I heard a word or two about it before, I neglected to check it out. But upon finding out now that it is Open-Source, I immediately grabbed it and tried… Man what a treat! I am in heaven again and between Tie Fighter through DosBox and this I do not need anything else :)

    Currently running through the Tutorial missions and reading the manual even before that, I immediately wondered (given the fact that the mission editor is available) – how cool would it be to recreate Tie Fighter missions in the game, eh? :-)

    Yes I know that there are not that many ship types in SS probably and also not sure if anything like a “ship scan” exists (for objective purposes), but still…

    1. Hah, a SW total conversion would be freaking amazing. Who knows, now that it’s open source it might just be a matter of time. Glad you found and are enjoying it. It really is a little gem of the genre.

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