Earthforce flagship · heavy launch carrier
The Starship
Every commander in Cosmic Starship begins on the same ship: a gunmetal heavy launch carrier that throws its own booster at the enemy and then flies it home again.
Cosmic Starship is a free starship game that runs in your browser. You pilot one capital ship directly, aim its guns with the mouse or a gamepad and fire its abilities, while your squads of fighters and the warships you hire fight around you. The first ship you fly is the Starship, the flagship of Earthforce, humanity’s star navy.
It is a carrier at heart: it is not the fastest spaceship in the fleet, but it hits hard at range, recharges its abilities faster than any other Earthforce hull and turns a Starlink satellite mesh into a targeting system. This page covers what it does, how to fly it and which ships and crews to bring with it.
Starship at a glance
| Stat | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Hull | 4,300 | The sturdiest of the three ships every commander starts with. |
| Shields | 800 | Light shields: the hull does the tanking. |
| Speed | 34 | Slow and steady. Use boosts to reposition, not to chase. |
| Main gun | Missiles, 30 damage a second, range 340 | Homing shots that hit much harder against targets already low on hull. |
| Passive · Rapid reuse | Abilities recharge 15% faster | More Raptor volleys, more Starlink meshes, more Full Stack Strikes. |
| Earthforce trait · Mission control | +15% energy regeneration | Energy pays for abilities, so the two bonuses feed each other. |
Its abilities
- Starlink MeshSix Starlink satellites ring your capital for 12 seconds. They mark enemies for +30% damage, reveal cloaked ships and phantoms, restore your sensors when they are jammed and laser down incoming fire. 30 energy, 12 s cooldown.
- Raptor volley (signature)Six orbital strikes land around the cursor a second later. Enemies your Starlink Mesh has marked draw the strikes onto themselves, so a mesh first and a volley second rarely misses. 40 energy, 14 s cooldown.
- Full Stack Strike (ultimate)A Super Heavy booster screams down your aim line and detonates at the cursor, then flies home for reuse. Aim it through a line of enemies into a capital ship. 22 s cooldown.
- Fleet repairRestores 22% hull to every allied ship, resets your capital’s systems and clears stuns and burns from your squads. 40 energy, 22 s cooldown. Save it for the moment a boss lands a heavy strike.
How to fly the Starship
- Open with the mesh. Cast Starlink Mesh as the enemy closes: marked ships take 30% more damage from everything, your squads included.
- Volley the marks. Raptor volley strikes seek the marked ships, so fire it into the thick of a marked group.
- Keep the range. Your missiles reach 340 metres and finish off damaged ships, so stay behind your squads and let them hold the line.
- Booster for the big one. Hold Full Stack Strike for a capital ship or a boss phase, and line it up so the booster crosses smaller ships on the way.
- Dodge the heavy strikes. A boss’s red heavy strike is telegraphed: boost through it at the last moment for a perfect dodge and a refund of energy.
Fleet synergies for the Starship
Mixing civilizations in your fleet unlocks auras (see the squad command guide). The Starship takes part in two of them:
- Drone Lattice: the Starship (or the Constellation) with any Tessellate ship or crew. The carrier prints two drones every 20 seconds, and every drone within 420 metres of it deals 25% more damage, fires 20% faster and mends 2% of its hull per second.
- First Friends: an Earthforce flagship with any Myrr ship or crew. Squads near the Myrr tide-ships take 6% less damage and slowly mend.
The rest of the Earthforce fleet
Once you have learned the Starship, Earthforce has four more spaceships to buy at the shipyard: the Falcon Heavy gunship, whose side boosters detach as strike drones; the Pathfinder survey ship, which folds a jump point open under the enemy; the Bastion gunline dreadnought; and the Constellation ring carrier. Thirteen other civilizations add 44 more: see all 48 warships.
Starlink in the campaign
The story begins in Earth orbit. In First Light Iron Mandate scouts cut into the Starlink shell, in Starlink Down the Mandate is blinding Earth and you reboot the dark satellites, in Shell Blitz Iron Mandate drones keep jumping into the Starlink shell, and in orbit a Kessler cascade can send shattered satellites tearing through the battlefield: get out of the marked debris lanes. Read more on the campaign page.
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The Starship, Falcon Heavy, Super Heavy, Raptor and Starlink in Cosmic Starship are a fan tribute to real-world spaceflight. Starship, Falcon Heavy and Starlink are trademarks of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Cosmic Starship is an independent game and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by SpaceX.