Skyfire › Guides › Comparisons
From planets.nu
For VGA Planets players: what Skyfire is, and what it is not
Skyfire is made by planets.nu, the home of VGA Planets. It takes the ships, races and weapons of the Echo Cluster and puts them into a real-time battle you can finish in five minutes. It is not a replacement for the turn-based game, and it is not trying to be.
What it is
A real-time card battler. Each ship is a card. You bring seven of them, launch them with energy that builds during the match, and try to bring down the enemy homeworld before they bring down yours. A battle lasts three to five minutes. It runs in a browser and on Android and iOS.
If you have never played this kind of game, the rules are here. If you have played VGA Planets for twenty years, the rest of this page is for you.
What carried over
The ship list
Over 120 hulls, by name, with their real fittings. The Missouri has her tubes and beams. The Gorbie has her bays. The Merlin is still an alchemy ship: here she turns the wreckage of a battle into energy. Freighters come in the sizes you know, and a Super Transport is still the biggest thing that hauls.
The races, and what makes each one itself
| Race | In VGA Planets | In Skyfire |
|---|---|---|
| Solar Federation | Crew bonus, super refit | Shields regenerate; disciplined all-rounders |
| Lizard Alliance | 150% damage, ground assault | Hulls fight on past 100% damage; landing parties assault the homeworld |
| Empire of the Birds | Cloaking fleet | Ambush cloak: surface, volley, vanish |
| Hordes of Fury | Glory devices, pillage | Double beam weapons; glory devices detonate on death |
| Privateer Bands | Rob, tow capture | Gravitonic raiders surround a ship and take her |
| The Cyborg | Assimilation, chunnel | Self-repair; the Firecloud chunnels a stacked fleet across the map |
| Crystal Confederation | Web mines | Web minefields hold a ship fast and drain it |
| Evil Empire | Free starbase fighters | The starbase is supplied with free fighters |
| Robotic Imperium | 4× minelaying | Carriers, and much larger minefields |
| Rebel Confederation | Hyperjump, cheap fighters | Elite pilots; the Falcon jumps in anywhere |
| Missing Colonies of Man | Fighter minesweep | Fighters sweep minefields; the Cobol rallies ships around her |
| Horwasp Plague | Pods and the hive | Sealed pods launched to anywhere on the board |
The components
Upgrading a ship fits real equipment. A tech level moves a hull up the beam table and the torpedo table, from the early marks toward the heavy ones, and fits a better engine. Disruptors are still the weapon that kills crew rather than hull, and a ship with no crew left is taken intact.
The details that make it Planets
The Loki still strips cloaks: while she flies, no enemy ship can cloak anywhere. Minefields have to be swept, and beams do the sweeping. Ion storms drag ships across the sector. Planet Immunity is honoured. Lady Royale still pays her way, making energy while she flies.
What did not carry over
Almost everything that makes VGA Planets a 4X game, deliberately.
- No map of planets. There is one homeworld and one starbase per side, and a single battlefield.
- No colonising, taxing or building. There is one resource in a battle, energy. Freighters hauling fuel from the asteroid field are the whole economy.
- No turns and no waiting for the host. Everything is real-time.
- No diplomacy. There is no chat at all. A 2v2 partner is the nearest thing to an ally.
- No ship design. A hull's fittings are set by its tech level, not chosen part by part.
If the 4X game is what you want, it is alive and well at planets.nu, with new games starting all the time. Skyfire is what you play in between turns.
Why a battler?
VGA Planets asks for weeks of patience before your fleets ever meet. Most people who would love its ships never get that far. Skyfire starts at the moment the fleets meet. It is the quickest way we have found to let somebody see a Bird Man cloaker do what Bird Man cloakers do.
For veterans: where your knowledge helps
You already know that the answer to cloakers is a Loki, that Lizards are harder to kill than their tonnage suggests, that you do not fly through a Crystal web, and that a Privateer near your freighters is a problem. All of that is true here, and it is an edge over anybody who is meeting these races for the first time.
Questions people ask
Is Skyfire an official VGA Planets game?
Yes. It is made by planets.nu, which runs the modern VGA Planets, and uses that game's ships, races and universe.
Do I need a planets.nu account to play Skyfire?
No. Skyfire has its own accounts. You can sign in with Google, Apple or an email address, or start playing without an account at all.
Is Skyfire turn-based like VGA Planets?
No. Skyfire is real-time and a battle takes three to five minutes. For the turn-based 4X game, play at planets.nu.
Are all eleven original races in Skyfire?
Yes, along with the Horwasp from planets.nu, making twelve in all.