Iron Star

Play online

Two players, one each side of the map, connected through the Iron Star relay: nobody opens a port or touches their router. Both need this exact build: a game that's a different version is greyed out in the list, and turned away at the lobby.

Host

Multiplayer, then Host online.
Your game opens on the relay and gets a four-letter code, big in the lobby.
Tell the other player it's up.
It's listed under your name in their Games online. Or send them the code: Copy puts it on your clipboard.
In the lobby, pick your faction and swap corners if you like. Start once they're ready.

Join

Multiplayer, then Join a game.
Under Games online, pick the host's.
Or type their code under Game code, and Join.
In the lobby, pick your faction and press Ready.

The lobby of a game hosted online: the four-letter game code at the top with a Copy button, the host in the south-west as the Humans, a guest in the north-east as the Bets marked ready, and Start lit — Hosting online. The code at the top is what the other player types, unless they pick your game from their list.

On one local network you can also play without the relay: Host on your network, and the game shows up under Games on your network for the other player. The first time, Windows asks whether to let Iron Star through its firewall: allow it.

What to test

Connect across the internet, both ways round. Each of you hosts once.
Play a whole match, to the end or for at least 20 minutes, with every faction over a few games.
Watch for "Out of step with … since tick …". That's a desync: the two games no longer agree, and it's the bug we most need to hear about. Note the tick.
Leave in the middle. Quit, leave from the game menu, or pull the network cable, and see what the other player sees.
How do orders feel? Every order takes a tenth of a second to cross the network on purpose. Tell us if it feels slower than that.
Does the match keep up? Players far apart can make the whole match run in slow motion. If it does, tell us roughly where you both are.

Report a problem

What happened, and roughly when in the match.
Who hosted, the build (0.2.5), and how you connected: online, with the game's code if you have it, or on a local network.
The exact message on screen, with the tick if it's a desync.
Both players' log files, from straight after the match.

The log is at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\DefaultCompany\Iron Star\Player.log: paste that into Explorer's address bar. The one from the run before is Player-prev.log.

Send it to whoever sent you this page.

The game: three factions, nothing alike

One kilometre of ground, two sides, and any two of three factions on it: mirror matches too. Each one builds, pays and fights in its own way.

Place

Humans

Bases anywhere, hidden until they're found. Quality over count: riflemen who can learn to kill tanks, supply trucks that build wherever they can drive, heavy tanks bought with fuel.

Supply depots make supply or fuel
Bunkers to hold ground
The rifleman's anti-armour rocket

Flow

Cerebrates

Machine minds. Every plant must stand on their power lines, and you can always see the lines. A hub takes no orders: it streams an army in a mix you tune.

Terminators, tiny tanks, the Giant
Rail yards set once, for good
Cut a line and what's past it goes dark

Grow

Bets

Few, huge, strong. Their ships land and stream creatures the size of tanks, paid for in time, and turn the ground around them into biome that senses anything standing on it.

Space cows with armoured heads
Tunnelers that dig their way in
Ground that only ever grows

This build

0.2.5October 22, 2026The map at StarCraft's size: fights come in a minute or two, not a quarter of an hour.

The map is 256 m across, down from 2 km. A rifleman walks from one base to the other in about a minute and a half; it took twelve. Everything around the units came down with it: buildings, weapon ranges and sight are about a fifth of what they were. The units keep their size, speed, health and damage.
No more walls or rocks: open ground, with the city in the middle (72 m across now) and two new sites either side of it, a science facility to the north-west and an old mine to the south-east. Each is one building in its own coloured patch of ground. They do nothing yet; what they give is the next thing to decide.
The canopy, the alien plane and the dropship are smaller (17 m, 14 m and 8.5 m), and fliers fly lower.
Soldiers ordered into a bunker always make it in now; at the new size some stopped short of the door and gave up.
The test bot attacks in waves that arrive together, not one unit at a time.
Past games from the 2 km map are no longer listed: they would not play back on the new one. Online, both players need 0.2.5.
A first pass, and some of it is known to be off: the Bets' starting cows can overrun a human base in the first few minutes, and a space cow now beats a heavy tank even charging across the whole range of its gun.
The page has moved to https://durdenengineering.com, over HTTPS: browsers no longer warn about the download being insecure.
Everyone has their own login now: sign up on this page with the invite code that came with the link. The shared login no longer works.
A new launcher (1.3): download it again from this page; the old one no longer works. It talks to the server over HTTPS, so your login no longer crosses the network in the clear, and it checks that every build it installs is signed with Iron Star's own key, refusing one that is not.

Screens

Captured from this build at 1600 × 900. Most models are still placeholders: grey boxes where a building has none yet.

Human heavy tanks in the central pass of the map, a No pen label over one where a shot bounced off its front armour — Armour is physical: every shell meets the plate it strikes, at the angle it strikes it. "No pen" is a front that held.

Six riflemen jogging across open ground, selected, each with a small blue marker over him, the command card showing the rocket button — Riflemen on the move. Every unit carries a marker you can read at any zoom; the rocket waits on a research at the barracks.

A Cerebrate base from above: a data centre, rail yards with container stacks and gantry cranes, and a hub going up, joined by power lines — A Cerebrate base: the data centre, its rail yards and a hub. Everything they build must stand on the power lines, and you can always see the lines.

A human base: the barracks selected and researching anti-armour rockets, the motor pool, the HQ and supply trucks — A human base. The barracks researches the rifleman's anti-armour rocket: free, a minute, and then every rifleman has one.

Two space cows, armoured creatures the size of tanks, selected on the violet biome — The Bets' space cows: an armoured head that turns rifle rounds, thin hide everywhere else.

A supply depot compound selected, its command card offering supply or fuel — Depots make supply or fuel, whichever you set them to. Tanks need fuel; infantry don't.

Install

Download the launcher with the button at the top, and run it.
It isn't signed yet, so Windows may say it protected your PC: choose More info, then Run anyway.
Sign up for your own login, with the invite code sent with this link, and sign in to the launcher with it.
The launcher keeps it, encrypted on your PC, so it asks only once. It's yours alone: don't share it.
It downloads the game (66 MB) and starts it.
From then on, start Iron Star from its shortcut on your desktop or in the Start menu. The launcher checks for a new build every time, so everyone plays the same one: a game of a different build can't join yours.

System	Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Graphics	A DirectX 11 or 12 card from the last several years
Disk	About 200 MB once extracted
Network play	Online: out to the relay on TCP port 27779, nothing to open. On a local network: TCP 27777 to the host, and UDP 27778 for the list of games

The launcher checks every build it downloads against Iron Star's signature before it runs anything, and refuses one that doesn't match.

Controls

Multiplayer is what this build is for: see Play online above.

Skirmish is practice on your own: pick the faction on each side of the map, the side you play, and your opponent, the test bot or nobody. The test bot plays crudely; the real computer opponent is still to come.

Campaign shows the story's arcs; its missions aren't built yet.

In a match, F1 shows help and F10 the game menu.

Left click, drag	Select; shift adds
Right click	Move, attack, garrison, repair, rally: whatever fits what's under the pointer
Letters	The buttons on the command card, bottom right
Arrows, screen edges	Pan the camera; the wheel zooms, middle-drag grabs the ground
Space	Centre on the selection
Ctrl+1–9, 1–9	Set and recall control groups
Pause, + and −	Pause; game speed

Known limits

Online play is two players, with no relay, matchmaking or reconnecting yet. Until this test it has only been played between two games on one machine.
A prototype: one test map, Tier 1 units only, and placeholder models and menus.
Nothing is balanced yet. The test bot plays crudely, and the Bets win most early fights.
The campaign has no missions yet, and nothing is saved between matches.