How to play Star Cluster Conquest

The rules fit in a few lines, and most of the skill comes from using them well. This guide covers everything you need for your first matches: what you are trying to do, how to control it, and the mistakes almost everyone makes early on.

Updated 2026-10-28

The goal

Take all of your opponents' stars. A star changes hands when attacking ships reduce its defenders to zero. You win when you eliminate every rival. If you run out of stars and have no fleets in flight, you lose the match.

Reading the map

Each player has a color. Stars are circles, and size matters: bigger stars produce ships faster. Each star shows how many ships it has in the center. Neutral stars belong to no one until someone takes them. They only defend: they do not produce or attack, but they regenerate 0.3 ships per second up to their starting value, so a timid attack on one can be undone.

Controls

• Send a fleet. Drag from one of your stars to another star. The ships leave as a swarm and cross the map. The default send is 50%.
• Choose how many. Hold one of your stars still for about 0.35 s: four boxes (25, 50, 75 and 100%) open in a row above it. Slide to a box and release. The percentage applies to all following sends until you change it, and an indicator in the corner shows the current one.
• Attack with several stars. Swipe across several of your stars and release on the target: they all send at the same time.
• Move the camera. On large maps, use two fingers to pan and zoom.
• Check the route. While you drag, the game shows the fleet's path, including any hazard on it.

What happens when a fleet arrives

• At one of your stars, the ships join the ones already there, even above the limit.
• At a neutral or enemy star, each attacking ship takes out one defender. If attackers are left after the defenders reach zero, the star changes hands with the ships that remain.
• Ordinary stars have no defense bonus. What changes the math is special stars, abilities such as Wall and Solar Lance, and the Shield boost.
• Fleets fly at 120 units per second. Crossing the campaign map from end to end takes about 7 s.
• Attackers that cross a black hole are destroyed, and a cosmic storm wears ships down along the way. More in stars and terrain.

How stars produce ships

Each star adds ships on its own, at a steady rate that depends on its size, and has a limit on how many ships it holds.

At the limit the star stops producing. It can go above the limit by receiving reinforcements, but only starts producing again when it falls below it. There is no decay. In other words, ships sitting at the limit are wasted production, and the simplest habit to improve is to keep sending ships before your stars fill up.

Five mistakes almost everyone makes

1. Sending 100% from every star. It feels aggressive, and it leaves your home undefended. Send part of the fleet and keep the rest.
2. Trickling ships at a neutral star. Neutral stars regenerate, so several small fleets can lose to one big one. Send enough to finish the job in one go.
3. Letting stars fill up. Full stars stop producing. Spend before the limit.
4. Ignoring the route preview. A black hole on the way can erase a fleet you needed.
5. Attacking from far-away stars one at a time. Ships take time to travel. Fleets from different distances arrive at different moments, which lets the defender beat them in pieces. Select several stars and think about when each fleet will land.

Abilities and boosts

Each faction has three abilities with a cooldown, which upgrade to level 5 with Credits. Before a match you can also take up to 2 boosts, which work with any faction: Shield, Quick Reinforcement, EMP and Deep Space Mine. A boost you take but do not use is not spent. See abilities and boosts and factions.

Where to start

Play the campaign. The first five levels are a guided tutorial that introduces the controls one at a time. After that, try game modes against one easy opponent, and read the strategy guide when you want to win more consistently.