Patch Notes

• A game is no longer recorded if all human players leave.
  • The game gets cleaned up 90s after all human players leave.
  • This fixes the issue where a game against a bot was never cleaned up at all, because the bot never left.
• Challenging a bot is fewer taps.
  • The game no longer asks you which config (board size, ships) if there's only one option.
  • Who goes first is always random against a bot; the picker is gone.

Star Gambit has moved to ~1 per month for major updates, though hotfixes may come more often.

• Deploying a ship no longer ends your turn.
  • But you still cannot move or fire with a ship the same turn you deploy it.
  • The end turn button now pulses when you have no actions left to take.
• Cosmetic Rework
  • Gameplay remains unaffected by cosmetics.
  • Added new cosmetic types:
    • Weapon
      • Added a new 'Plasma Cannon' weapon animation and made it the default.
      • Added the electric 'Arc Projector' weapon.
      • The laser animation is now available in the shop.
  • You can now equip two set of cosmetics: Home, and Away.
    • The player who goes first is away. The player who goes second is Home (and has their locale shown)
  • Added settings to control whether enemy cosmetics are shown
    • Can be controlled per cosmetic type (e.g, show enemy fleets but not health markers).
• Leaderboard system overhauled
  • Added the Overall leaderboard (counts ALL rated games)
  • Added the Leaderboard Builder
    • Allows players to create and share more specific leaderboards
    • Player-created leaderboards have names:
      • Initially, a number.
      • Players can give leaderboards names, shown only to them and admins.
      • Admins can give popular leaderboards canonical names, likely something players are already calling it.
      • Share leaderboard links over 3rd party channels to share custom leaderboard names.
  • Lots of back-end engineering to make that possible and performant. Write-up and open-source release coming soon.
• Settings:
  • You can now control the UI scale.
  • Added 'Auto End Turn', allowing you to make your turn automatically end when you:
    • Have no options left
    • Deploy a ship
    • or both.
  • Pulsing
    • You can now control the strength and frequency of the pulsing that indicates what you can interact with in-game.
    • Increased the default strength and frequency.
• Bots
  • Added 6 new bots:
  • Cadet:
    • Difficulty: 1 star
    • Extremely easy
  • Ensign:
    • Difficulty: 11 stars
    • Very easy
  • Lieutenant:
    • Difficulty: 34 stars
    • Moderate
  • Commander:
    • Difficulty: 83 stars
    • Hard
  • Captain:
    • Difficulty: 153 stars
    • Very Hard
  • Admiral
    • Difficulty: 432 stars
    • As of 8/29/2026, has never been beaten by a human being.
• Bugfixes
  • Fixed a bug where causing the fighter movement animation to skip when dragged by an online opponent.
  • Fixed a bug causing the bulletin to drop to the bottom of the screen on desktop.
  • Fixed a bug causing the UI to be too small on large screens.
• Security
  • Changing your password while logged in now requires your current password (forgot password flow unchanged)
  • Closed a minor security vulnerabililty relating to atproto sign-in.
• Various server-side performance improvements.
• Various admin-facing UX additions and improvements.

From the ashes of a dead supergiant, Star Gambit is reborn!

• The whole game client (website) has been rewritten in Svelte.
  • It's smooth, it's performant, and it doesn't crash.
  • Initial load times are far faster.
  • Password managers (should) work.
• No more separate website and game. This very page, among others, has become one with the game.
  • Accessible at:
    • https://stargamb.it
    • https://play.stargamb.it
    • https://playstargambit.com

After nearly a month of translation, the Svelte version of Star Gambit matched the original and has now surpassed it. Below are the additions.

Gameplay

• Drag to move. Drag a ship along its path instead of tapping.
• Drag to undo. You can also tap the new on-board undo button.
• Easier taps. Hexes you can interact with (ships, moves, and targets) should require a lot less accuracy to tap. The bigger regions are shown by default, but this can be turned off with Settings > Game > Game UX > Minimal
• Deployment reworked. You can now tap your reservers and drag a potential ship between its starting options.
• QR code invites in the game lobby.

Replays and analysis

• Replays are now an analysis board.
  • A move log allowing you to navigate history.
  • Branch history at any point and play out your own lines. Variations are shown in the log
  • Drawing tools allow drawing arrows or highlighting hexes. The next tournament's analysis is about to be way better!

Compendium

• Enemy Ship. You can now play full turns in the compendium against an enemy ship of the same type.
• Threat overlay. Shows which hexes your ship or your enemy's ship can attack. Optional.
• Better icons.

Settings

• Every setting has a tappable (i) explaining what it does.
• Sound now starts off, with a mute/unmute button on the main menu.
• Graphics quality and a frame rate cap, both per-device. If the game notices your device is struggling, it will suggest that you lower your settings, at most once per device.

• Added a stronger COM: ⎇011-00000101 (Difficulty 2).
  • Hosted on my computer (online).
  • Available locally, bundled with the game (Rust → WASM).
• Updated the tutorial.
  • Added a new first mission (against asteroids).
  • Added a 4th mission (against ⎇011-00000101).
• COM games now default to the longest time control option.
• Improved COM management UX.
  • Added a connection status indicator to COM.
  • Added a current games count.
• Added COM display names.
  • Cost: ⬣15000.
• Improved the COM dialog on mobile browsers.
• Bulletin UX upgrade (scrollable, better style).

Server

• Upgraded the server version screen.
  • Added support for old versions (0.8.4+).
  • Improved styles.
• Improved Server Maintenance and Server Down screen styles.
• Server upgrade: Docker → Podman.

Bugfixes

• Sound no longer plays while the application is in the background.
• Fixed a bug that caused the COM to always go second in COM games.

• Added COMputer players to Star Gambit!
  • Select VS COM on the Play page to see the available COMs.
  • The Star Gambit API is open! Anyone with the skills can develop and connect a COM with the Star Gambit SDK.
• Star Gambit SDK
  • You can now develop Star Gambit COMs in Rust with the Star Gambit SDK.
  • The example below is a complete working bot that can be played online.
  • Just replace the code that picks random moves with code that picks good moves! Easy!

  • //! Usage: cargo run --example random_com -- --token <api_token>
    use rand::seq::SliceRandom;
    use sg_sdk::{operate_com, Com, Game};
    
    struct RandomCom;
    
    impl Com for RandomCom {
        fn act(&mut self, game: &Game) -> Vec<String> {
            // Play one random legal action; the runner calls us again until the
            // turn ends. (A com could instead return a whole turn's worth at once.)
            game.legal_actions()
                .choose(&mut rand::thread_rng())
                .cloned()
                .into_iter()
                .collect()
        }
    }
    
    fn main() {
        if let Err(e) = operate_com("random_com", || RandomCom) {
            eprintln!("fatal: {e}");
        }
    }
    

• Improved ship placement UX.
  • Updated placement visuals.
  • The entire portal can be tapped.
• Bulletin on the Play page is now collapsible.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an exploit making it possible to deploy more ships than are in your reserve.
• Fixed an exploit making it possible to move enemy ships as your own.

• Fixed an error preventing anonymous users from navigating to the log in page.

• Added loading screen with hexagon spinner.
• Clarified error UX.
• Reorganized the titles in the shop.
• Added the patch note notification hexagon.

Game Lobby

• Improved the game lobby UX.
• Added titles
• Locale animations
• Who goes first animation

Bugfixes

• Fixed login layout on small screens.
• Fixed a bug where an undo could cause the active player's clock to revert to what it was at the beginning of their turn.
• Fixed a bug that caused the leaderboard to fail to load.
• Moved the 'N seconds to make move' dialog to not cover enemy portal.
• Fixed a bug preventing anonymous players from rematching with logged in players.

• The tutorial is now the Campaign! Just two introductory missions for now.
• New players are now prompted to try the tutorial.
• Added titles to the leaderboard.
• Improved sound defaults.
• Selecting an in-play piece now dismisses the placement menu.
• Improved mobile cosmetics page layouts.
• Firing into empty space was previously considered a valid move, even though Star Gambit doesn't give you a way to input that. It's no longer a valid move.

Play page

• Improved layout (and title).
• Added the full bulletin.
• Removed 'play' from the Star Gambit Sunday element.

Bulletin

• Included patch notes.
• Time zones are now shown (times are still shown locally).
• The Star Gambit Sunday element no longer counts down during the session.
• Added the tournament news to the bulletin and website.

Backend

• Stress testing.
• Monitoring.