Vega Strike is a free and open-source, first-person space trading and combat simulator that puts you at the helm of a small cargo ship in a vast, living universe. Inspired by the classic Elite and Wing Commander: Privateer, it lets you trade, fight, explore and take on missions across dozens of star systems — all without a single copy-protection check or price tag. Development continues today under the GPL-3.0 licence, with the engine and its game data distributed separately so the community can keep building on it.

Key Features

• Open, persistent universe — Jump between star systems through jump points, each with its own planets, stations and factions, using an in-game navigation computer to plot multi-system courses.
• Trade, fight or explore — Buy and sell cargo, hunt bounties, run patrols or just wander; trade, combat and exploration are all profitable routes to better ships.
• Dynamic faction reputation — Every faction remembers what you do: destroy their ships and you make enemies, destroy their rivals’ ships and you earn favour, which changes prices, missions and who shoots first.
• Deep ship and upgrade system — Fly everything from a light cargo shuttle to fighters and capital ships, and fit reactors, shields, hull upgrades, lasers, missiles, repair droids, cloaking devices and ECM countermeasures against a limited upgrade capacity.
• Varied mission types — Take on cargo runs, bounty hunts, patrols, clean sweeps, defence and rescue missions from the station mission computer, alongside a branching story campaign you can keep playing after it ends.
• SPEC drive fast travel — An in-system drive multiplies your speed to cross solar systems quickly, ramping up with distance from a planet’s gravity and dropping off as you approach a station.
• Moddable, scriptable engine — A C/C++ engine over OpenGL with game logic and data written in Python and XML, plus a separate assets repository, so total conversions and mods are actively encouraged.
• Cross-platform and DRM-free — Native builds for Linux, Windows and macOS, with the engine also building on FreeBSD; no licences, launchers or online checks.

Why Use Vega Strike?

If you want the freedom of a classic space sim — a big galaxy, an economy that rewards smart trading, and combat that depends on how you build your ship — Vega Strike delivers it as genuine free software. There is nothing to buy, no account to create and no telemetry. It runs natively on Linux, Windows and macOS, and because the engine is open source with Python and XML scripting, it is a welcoming home for modders and people who like to tinker. It is ideal for players who grew up on Elite and Privateer and want an open-source take they can extend and keep forever.

Use Cases

• Hunt down a specialist space-trading and combat sim for Linux that needs no Wine, no launcher and no purchase.
• Recreate the Elite / Privateer experience with a modern, actively maintained open-source engine you can install from a single package.
• Learn from or mod a real 3D game engine written in C++ and scripted in Python and XML, and ship your own total conversion.
• Keep the same game on a Windows, macOS or Linux machine and play a persistent single-player campaign across all of them.

Alternatives

• Endless Sky — another free, open-source space trading and combat game, with a 2D top-down view and a strong mission-driven narrative.
• Pioneer — an open-source homage to Frontier: Elite II built around seamless planetary landing and realistic Newtonian flight, available at pioneerspacesim.net.

Platform

Linux · Windows · macOS · FreeBSD

Licence

GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0) — free and open source.

Website

vega-strike.org