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Game Reference
A structured, factual reference for the world, ships, characters, campaign, weapons and lore of Starlancer (Digital Anvil / Microsoft, 2000). This is the content companion to the rest of this wiki's technical / engine reference: where the Campaign Mission Flow page explains how the missions are wired in the executable, the Sol War Campaign page explains what actually happens in them.
The factual game data here — ship statistics, mission objectives, the character roster, faction lore, weapon tables, ranks and medals — is sourced from the community-run Starlancer Wiki on Fandom and its contributors, under CC BY-SA 3.0. This compilation reorganizes that information into original tables and prose and cross-checks it against this project's static reverse-engineering where the two overlap. Full credit and thanks to the Starlancer Wiki editors. These Game Reference pages are offered under the same CC BY-SA 3.0 terms (the project's engine reference, code and technical docs remain its own original analysis — see Reverse-Engineering Notes).
- Fighters — all 26 player/enemy fighter craft, with the full stat block.
- Capital Ships — Alliance (ANS) and Coalition (CS) carriers, cruisers, command ships and installations.
- Characters — the 53-name roster (pilots, COs, aces, traitors) with faction, squadron, callsign and fate.
- Sol War Campaign — the 24-mission campaign + the two trial missions, fused with the exe-side mission map.
- Factions, Squadrons & Locations — the two powers, their elite units, all 27 squadrons, and the war's locations.
- Weapons & Progression — primary weapons, missiles, torpedoes, ion cannons, ECM, "specials", ranks and medals.
Engine-side counterparts: Campaign Mission Flow (mission RE) ·
Game Objects, Ships & Combat (the on-disk stat .BIN layout) ·
Missions, AI & Scripting (the .DTE format).
Starlancer is a space-combat flight simulator created by Chris Roberts, developed by Warthog and published by Digital Anvil / Microsoft. It is the prequel to Freelancer.
| Genre | Space-combat simulator (single-player campaign + multiplayer) |
| Developer / Publisher | Digital Anvil (dev: Warthog) / Microsoft |
| Windows release | March 31, 2000 (North America) |
| Dreamcast release | November 27, 2000 (NA) · March 30, 2001 (EU) |
| Lifetime sales | ~400,000 copies (a sequel was never greenlit) |
The single-player campaign puts the player in the 45th Volunteer squadron (soon the 45th Tigers), flying from the carrier ANS Reliant and later the ANS Yamato through the 24 missions of the Sol War.
The campaign chronicles The Sol War (2160–2162), fought across the Solar System between the Western Alliance and the Eastern Coalition.
It opens with the Deimos Betrayal: under cover of the imminent Balma Treaty signing on Europa, the Coalition launches a surprise first strike across Sol (June 2160). The Franco-Italian fleets are annihilated at Deimos (Mars orbit), Earth and Mars fall, and the surviving ~45% of the Allied navy retreats to its last stronghold at Triton (Neptune). From there the player's squadron fights a guerrilla war out of the ANS Reliant.
The mid-war turning point is Captain Foster's Last Stand (Mission 15): with the Reliant crippled, Foster rams it into the Coalition flagship CS Volga. The survivors transfer to the ANS Yamato and go on the offensive — capturing Admiral Kulov, destroying the Dark Reign ion-cannon superweapon, and liberating Titan. The endgame off Jupiter culminates in the destruction of the Black Guard's base carrier CS Pukov and the command station CS Borodin, and the decisive defeat of the Coalition in outer Sol. The full account is on the Sol War Campaign page.
Western Alliance — A supranational union of Western nations (USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain). The most technologically advanced power in history; it colonized much of Sol, terraformed Mars and Europa, and built the system's industrial base. War-weary after a century of colonial conflict, it agreed to the Balma Treaty and stood its fleets down — and was attacked.
Eastern Coalition — A newly-formed union of non-Western nations: the Eastern Republic (former USSR), the Tigris Confederation (Middle Eastern states) and the East Asian Federation. Left behind technologically and confined largely to Venus and Mercury, it used the treaty as a ruse for a perfidious first strike. Governed by the Political Council and Secret Police, led by Admiral Vladimir Kulov. Notorious for total-war conduct. Full detail, elite units and all squadrons are on the Factions, Squadrons & Locations page.
| Body | Significance in the war |
|---|---|
| Mercury | Coalition-held; marginal strategic value. |
| Venus | Long-time Coalition stronghold; core fleets + the prototype warp gate. No moons. |
| Earth | Heart of human civilization; oldest capital-ship shipyards; hotly contested. |
| Luna (Moon) | Site of the Lunar Conflicts; where the Alliance ultimately loses the war (~2261). |
| Mars | Alliance-terraformed; conquered early — harsh rationing and civilian massacres. |
| Deimos (Mars moon) | Site of the opening-day Deimos Massacre of the Franco-Italian fleets. |
| Jupiter (Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto) | Industrial powerhouse; setting of the final battles. |
| Europa | Terraformed; capital Base Kennedy, the intended treaty-signing site. |
| Ganymede | Hit hard at the war's start (a refugee convoy massacred by CS Morzov). |
| Saturn | Heavily militarized; Coalition proving ground (CS Czar, Dark Reign). |
| Titan (Saturn moon) | Largest outer-Sol colony; focus of the war's middle stage; liberated late 2161. |
| Uranus | Home to Fort Rushmore. |
| Neptune | The Alliance's last remaining territory at the war's start; the rallying point. |
| Triton (Neptune moon) | Seat of Alliance High Command; fortified into a near-impregnable line. |
| Pluto | Alliance proving ground; in the scrapped ending, the last holdout, burned by the Nomad-induced nova. |
Starlancer is the prequel to Freelancer (2003). In the canonical link, after the Sol War grinds on for another century the Coalition wins at Luna (~2261), and the Alliance escapes Sol in five sleeper ships bound for Sirius — Liberty (USA), Bretonia (UK), Kusari (Japan), Rheinland (Germany) and Hispania (Spain) — which become the Houses of Freelancer (the damaged Hispania's survivors splinter into the Corsairs and Outcasts).
A scrapped alternate ending — later released on the Freelancer bonus disk — had a Nomad capital ship decloak at Pluto and fire a spinal weapon into the Sun, triggering a micro-nova that exterminates everything (Coalition included) out to the Kuiper Belt, with a single Alliance ship fleeing toward New York.
The source wiki carries occasional internal inconsistencies, preserved here and flagged where they
matter: the in-universe timeline is inconsistent (the "Lunar Conflict" is variously dated 2024 / 2075
/ 2125 / 2150); squadron infoboxes carry both a "live" and a leftover "beta" description that disagree
on kill ratios and names; and a few in-game spellings differ from the wiki's — notably Ramases
(game) vs Rameses (wiki) and Boridin (game) vs Borodin (wiki). The game/.DTE spelling is
authoritative for RE cross-referencing. Where this project measured a value directly from the game
files, that takes precedence and is flagged.