In Starship Battles, each player commands a starship and seeks to destroy his opponents. The game ends after one player has completely destroyed all of his opponents’ ship compartments.
Ships are customized at the start of the game, then face off against each other. The compartments each ship has are up to the players, who must strike a balance between offense, defense, repairability, and command.
Players start the game by drawing ship compartment cards from the deck. Each ship compartment can take a certain amount of damage before it is destroyed. When a ship compartment is destroyed, it is discarded. Part of the strategy of Starship Battles lies in how one chooses to manage battle damage.
As the turns progress, players attack one another using their weapons, defend themselves using their shields, change their attacks or defends using command points, and repair damage using engineering capability.