The closest games to Starbase are Vermillion Online (a free, block-built PvP space MMO playtest with full loot and player markets), Space Engineers (block-building sandbox on servers), Empyrion and Avorion (block-built ships with survival or exploration), From the Depths (the deepest modular engineering) and Dual Universe, which now lives only on community servers. Only Vermillion and Starbase combine block-built ships with one shared online world and PvP loss.
Starbase showed what a block-built space MMO could be: design a ship part by part, fly it, mine with it, fight in it, all in one shared universe. With its development quiet since late 2024, a lot of players are looking for what's next. Here are the games worth your time.
Facts as of October 2026Starbase is a game by Frozenbyte
What to look for
Starbase mixed three things that rarely come together: detailed ship construction, a persistent online universe, and PvP with something at stake. Most building games give you the first and skip the rest. Most space MMOs give you the last two with fixed ships. Each pick below says which of the three it covers.
A note on Starbase itself: it's still on Steam in Early Access and you can still play it. Development paused in 2022, resumed in April 2024, and has been quiet since: the last Steam update was a test-universe build in October 2024.
The list
Vermillion Online
Block-built PvP space MMO · free playtest · Mac and Windows
Our own game, listed first because it covers all three: build a ship block by block, fly it in a shared universe, and lose it for real. Ships are built in 1 m blocks (68 armour shapes in 5 materials, about 140 functional parts) at a station's Ship Designer, with Box fill, Mirror, Paint and Undo, live flight stats and a free test flight. The insides matter, From the Depths style: engines, thrusters, cannons, radar and mining lasers are assemblies of parts, so bigger means more performance, more mass and more heat.
The world is a full-loot PvP economy: mining lasers dig craters in asteroids, ore runs in veins, the best ore sits in Low security and Lawless space, every station has a player order book, and a destroyed ship spills its cargo for anyone. You can walk your ship with magnet boots and go EVA with a jetpack. Simpler construction than Starbase (no bolts or programming), and it's an early playtest with a small player count and possible wipes. Vermillion vs Starbase in detail.
Space Engineers
Block-building space sandbox · Keen Software House · single-player and servers
The biggest name in the genre. Survival mining and crafting, planets with gravity, rotors and pistons, programmable blocks and a vast Workshop. Multiplayer runs on servers, from small co-op worlds to community PvP servers with their own rules. It's not one shared MMO world, but a good server gets close. Keen's sequel, Space Engineers 2, has been in Early Access since January 2025 on a new engine; it's single-player for now, with co-op planned for early 2027. See Vermillion vs Space Engineers and vs Space Engineers 2.
Empyrion: Galactic Survival
Space survival and building · Eleon Game Studios · single-player and servers
Block-built capital vessels, small ships and hover vehicles, plus planets to land on, bases to build and survival to manage. More of a survival adventure with a story than a PvP economy, though PvP servers exist. Good if you want building plus planets. Vermillion vs Empyrion.
Avorion
Block-building space sandbox · Boxelware · single-player, co-op and servers
Freely scaled blocks make ship building quick and expressive, and the galaxy, factions, trading and fleet commands give you plenty to do with your ships. Lighter on simulation than Starbase, much faster to get into. Vermillion vs Avorion.
From the Depths
Vehicle design and combat · Brilliant Skies · single-player and multiplayer
Not set in space for most of its campaign, but if the part of Starbase you loved was engineering, this is the deepest there is. Cannons, engines and missiles are assembled from many parts, and damage lands block by block. Vermillion vs From the Depths, or games like From the Depths.
Dual Universe (community servers)
Voxel-building space MMO · official servers closed
Dual Universe was the other big attempt at a single-shard building MMO in space. Novaquark took it off Steam in July 2025 and shut the official servers on 27 August 2025. It lives on through myDU, a self-hosted version for private and community servers. Worth knowing about if you liked its voxel building and don't mind smaller, player-run worlds. Vermillion vs Dual Universe.
Quick comparison
Games like Starbase, as of October 2026
Game
Ship building
Shared online world
PvP with loss
Status
Vermillion Online
1 m blocks, multi-part systems
Yes, one server
Yes, full loot by security tier
Free playtest
Starbase
Part by part, bolts, YOLOL
Yes
Yes, outside safe zones
Early Access, no updates since late 2024
Space Engineers
Blocks, rotors, scripts
Per server
Depends on server
Released
Space Engineers 2
Blocks, new engine
Not yet (co-op planned)
Not yet
Early Access
Empyrion
Blocks
Per server
Depends on server
Released
Avorion
Scalable blocks
Per server
Depends on server
Released
Dual Universe
Voxels
Community servers only
Depends on server
Official servers closed
Where Vermillion fits for a Starbase player
You'll recognise the shape of it: mine asteroids, build better ships, push out into space where other players can reach you. You'll find construction simpler. There are no bolts, no wiring and no in-game programming, and you can't build stations. What you get instead is a game built tightly around the PvP economy loop:
Security tiers. Secure (no damage), High security (police destroy an attacker after 20 seconds), Low security (no police, station guns), Lawless (no rules).
Ore tied to risk. Titanite only in Low security, Iridium only in Lawless. Jackpot fields are announced to the whole server.
Radar you pay for. You only see what your sensors detect. A radar ping reveals ore and pirates, and every pilot in range hears it as a bearing.
Real loss. Half the cargo destroyed, the rest in the wreck for anyone, the hulk salvageable. A free Rookie Ship so you can always get back out.
Pirates to hunt. Patrols, solo hideouts with three waves and a boss, group strongholds, raids on mining fields, with bounties up to 250,000 cr.
The Steel Fighter up close, seen from EVA. Playtest footage.
It's a small project and early. One EU server, one zone, a handful of pilots per session so far, and we patch after every playtest round based on what players report. If you were there for Starbase's early days, you know what that's like.
Vermillion Online's playtest is free on Mac and Windows. Design a ship, test-fly it for free, and take it into space where other players can take it from you.
