Welcome to Nova
Nova is a game of galactic conquest for two or more commanders. You begin with a single home star and a fleet of ships, and the galaxy around you is dotted with unclaimed stars. Your goal is simple to state and hard to achieve: command more stars than any rival when the mission timer runs out.
You play by dispatching fleets across the void, capturing neutral stars, building up your worlds, and — when the time is right — turning your guns on the other commanders. The galaxy never pauses. Even while you plan your next move, your factories are building ships, your rivals are expanding, and fleets already in flight are closing on their targets.
Screenshot: a full star map mid-game, with owned stars in player colors, neutral stars in grey, a selected star ringed by its range circle, and a fleet in transit.
What kind of game is this?
Nova is a real-time strategy game with a light 4X flavour — you eXplore the galaxy, eXpand by taking stars, eXploit them for ships and income, and eXterminate your rivals.
A few things make it distinctive:
- It runs continuously. There are no turns to wait for. Production happens on a clock, fleets travel in real time, and the game ends at a fixed deadline.
- Everything is an order you launch and then watch unfold. When you send a fleet, it departs, travels, and arrives — and a battle (if there is one) resolves on arrival. You cannot micro-manage a fleet in flight; you commit to the plan when you launch it.
- Information is limited. You see the whole galaxy's layout, but you only know the details of stars you own or have scouted. The rest is fog of war.
- It is fair by design. Several of the galaxy layouts are built to give every commander an identical starting position, so victory comes down to decisions, not the dice.
- You can talk to your rivals. Built-in Diplomacy messaging lets commanders coordinate, bluff, and negotiate — a Global channel and a private thread with each other commander.
How you play
Nova has three ways in:
- The web app — the full experience in a browser, with mouse and keyboard. A great way to learn the game.
- The mobile app — Nova for phones and tablets (iOS and Android), with a touch-first control scheme. Everything you can do in a normal game — and now setting one up and designing maps too — you can do on mobile.
- The map editor (web and mobile) — a tool for designing and saving custom galaxies that you can later use to start a game.
The same game lives behind all of them, so a theatre you start on the web can be joined from a phone, and vice versa.
A note on words
Nova uses a few terms throughout. You will meet them again in context, but here is the short version:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Theatre | A single game. Each theatre has its own galaxy and commanders. |
| Commander | A player. Each commander has a color and rules a set of stars. |
| Star | A world you can own, build up, and fight over. |
| Fleet | A group of ships travelling from one star to another. |
| Credits (c) | Your treasury — the currency you spend on ships, upgrades, and ops. |
| Parsecs (pc) | The unit of distance on the map; your range is measured in them. |
How to read this manual
If you are brand new, read the next two chapters — Getting Started and Reading the Star Map — and you will be playing within minutes. The chapters after that explain each system in depth: fleets, combat, your economy, special weapons, and standing orders. The later chapters are detailed walkthroughs of the web app, the mobile app, and the map editor, followed by strategy and a glossary you can keep open as a reference.
Throughout, you will see boxes like this:
Tip: Text in a quote like this is advice or a shortcut worth remembering.