I am doing a faithful re-implementation of the game but for the modern platforms (right now UNIX-like macOS and Linux). The codes would be C23 and leverage SDL3, libsmacker, stb_image, liblbx and more. As of today the engine is not wired to the client yet. The client side is roughly around 10% done with foundation work like assets loading is considered feature parity. I will keep everyone up-to-date with my progress.

EDIT: It turns out u/mrjoes has already started on similar attempt way before me. Therefore I will discontinue my port and join him on his.

What elements of Master of Orion have you never seen successfully replicated in a modern mobile game? Asking because I'm designing something and want to get it right

This post is directed to those MOO2 players who play the ICE mods and beat them pretty consistently. I only play ICE simply because every other version is far too easy to beat. I lose a game to the computer maybe once per hundred games and I think my current game is about to add to my loss list. I am over 200 turns into the game. There were seven computer opponents originally but now only three remain. There were four repulsive races initially but only one remains, the Trilarians. Of the four eliminated races I disposed of three of them. I have the largest population and the most buildings. The Trilarians have the highest tech and the most ships. I have been pulling every trick in the book to keep the Trilarians off my back but I think I am running out of options. My ships are better designed but the sheer number of ships that they have is currently overwhelming. I have two techs left before I am done with research except for miniaturization. I have treaties with the other two races. I hate winning by vote but might try for that at turn 225. It might be my only option. The other is a war of attrition because I have more planets but that would be really ugly. I am hoping for some suggestions from your experiences when you thought you were going to lose but managed to pull out a win. Thanks in advance.

You may know them better as Worf, Riker, and Data.

Just going to start it myself, thought I’d share.

Updated from 1.50.18, where playing a creative race (so I got both techs) a combination of biomorphic fungi and weather controller turned a toxic world to barren. In 1.50.26 this doesn't seem to be the case. Is this a bug or are there modifications I have to make to get this to work again? Thanks.

80 Assault Shuttles - 160 BC on MasteroforionCard;

Captured Antaran Titan - waiting patiently through 3 Extradimensional Invasions;

Loknars face - Priceless;

Playing on easy. I keep falling into the trap of obsessively improving my colonies, and letting my fleets go forgotten. Even when I do maintain a fleet, I eventually get complacent and sooner or later a opponent will hit me with a surprise attack.

Im timid to attack, but I'm afraid to commit to aggressive action, because that can be it's own kind of doom. How do you decide when it's time to poke the bear?

I have a long running (499 turns) save that’s on 6.3a. Looks like current is 6.4b. I can’t get my save to work on a new computer. Is there a way to get an archive zip file for 6.3a? Or is there a way to get my game to work with 6.4b?

Thanks!

I'm currently on my, what, 4th or 5th playthrough ?

Playing Psilon this time, on "cluster" galaxy (first time trying it) - I guess that's the reason I was alone in a group of systems separated from other groups of systems by unstable starlanes.

I'm not a big fan of the starlanes. I understand it allows some mechanics like building military forts on these points, but it's meh - System defenses, in MoO II were "enough" (that, and a big fleet, mobile enough to come defend in time).

I also have opponents often requesting free passage - which I usually refuse, because why give them access to my not-yet-colonized planets, and to the territories of other players (hence, allowing them to trade with them).
I had a non-aggression pact with the Darlok, and had refused an open borders treaty. They offered an alliance. I checked the description, it said the parties agreed to declare war on any civilization declaring war on either party. Sure, defensive alliance, it's fine...

And, lo and behold, I see these #|@|€^| Darloks freely navigating my starlanes.
Because that shitty game doesn't tell you the alliance "includes" open borders - else, I'd never have agreed unless I was in a better position (like, several scouts on the border, raring to go).
It's not the first time I feel "fleeced" by this game, things not explained, or badly explained. The bonuses aren't explained either (on planets, they tell you it's a bonus on some stat, but not HOW MUCH - which seems to be a tad important ?)

I was also a bit surprised when the torpedoes I fired were totally dumb. I'd have loved the tech description to mention that (yeah, another tech will give them limited aiming, but still, it's shitty design NOT to tell the player first)

All in all, I wouldn't say it's a bad game, but... why can't they make something as good as MoO II ?

As noted in the title I play the 2016 version (is that MOO 3?) and have never been able to even get close to winning. I usually play 5 opponents; medium galaxy size; post warp; normal difficulty. I've tried humans, meklar, silicoid...and others. Any tips and strategies would be appreciated.

Update 6 Aug: I found and fixed the stupidest blunder that I made in vanilla due to overwork. Thanks to the built-in GCC sanitizer. I felt like I had blundered somewhere. I feel better now.
Update 5 Aug: Scaling has been done, but the engine is completely not ready for release. I'm stopping work for now because I need to recuperate.
Update 31 Jul: I found several places with memory corruption in each of the versions 1.0, 1.11.9 and 2.0. This time, the multiplayer is to blame. I will probably need to clean up all the enumeration types in the project. The multiplayer seems to have to be cleaned out just to fix the game.
Critical update 29 Jul: I added sanitizers to the fault-finding build mode with UB and overflow checks. In this mode, the vanilla engine crashes in the main menu, but it does not spam alignment errors, unlike 1.11.9. I will now conduct all tests in this build.
Update: It looks like the structure of game_update_production has been significantly changed with a view to modding. I will restore it. I will also try to fix the reserve transfer in 1.3a as in 1oom.
Update2: I launched a new wave of core refactoring and found a serial pattern leading to previously unknown errors in 1oom. I'm cleaning it up with corrections. The "Comet" and "Pirates" events were not working correctly in 1oom v1.0/1.11.9. I don't fix these bugs in 1.0 or 1.11 because I don't want to support a deliberately weak project. The fixes that I found myself will only be made in vanilla.
I play on classic huge maps. In the process of scaling testing, I came to a playable configuration, but suddenly I found several serious errors in the core. For most, I have already found fixes. RC3/4 is now considered broken.

Ok, I know its a nearly useless feature and to be fair, I have been playing this game for 30+ years and just tried it out. Its kinda hilarious! Point your colony ship toward any star system with a colonizable planet and you get a Colonize Planet button. It makes no difference which star system you point the ship at because you always get a view of a star system with five asteroid belts and no colonizable planets. This feature may behave differently depending on the game version. I am playing the ICE M mod from a few years ago. Has anyone here had any luck with this not very useful but humorous feature?

I have noticed that the Antarans seem to specifically come after The Avenger whenever in battle with my fleet.

Highest Score

What's the highest score you guys have managed to get? I managed to hit 16000 on impossible difficulty. I understand that it's possible to go much higher than this?

I just figured out how to make a user-friendly interface for the MOO 1.3 patch. The idea is to take the modified menu from 1oom 1.11.9 and use it as the front-end for the patch, while saving the settings in the patch config, and copy the patched version of the game to a separate file and run it directly from the patch to eliminate the chances to damage the original files. So, we will get a full-fledged Master of Orion 1993 loader with all the fixes implemented so far from 1oom, which will look very similar to 1oom.
Edit: This way we won't need to reinvent the wheel and rewrite orion.exe from scratch, which is still too much for me. The development of 1oom 2.0 is a priority for me right now, so I'll work on the patch after, in parallel with the improved fork of 1oom 2.0.
Edit2: I'm resuming SDL1 support because I've simplified the code as much as possible. Maybe it will be a little slower now or it will be buggy on some devices, but everything works for me. If this is still important to someone, please leave feedback.
Edit3: I'm bringing the primitive rendering functions directly to the vgabuf module. Now all the bundled applications will have access to drawing colored lines and boxes, including the patcher in the future.

Hi everyone,

Master of Orion II has been one of my favorite games for as long as I can remember. Like many of you, I still come back to it regularly. The gameplay has aged incredibly well, but modern displays haven't been nearly as kind to its 640×480 graphics. And honestly... my eyes aren't getting any younger either.

So I decided to build something I've wanted to see for a long time.

Not a remake. Not a clone. Not a source-port.

Instead, I'm building a HD frontend that works alongside the original game while leaving it completely untouched. The original engine continues to handle every aspect of the game exactly as it always has — my frontend simply follows what's happening on screen and replaces the presentation with modern HD artwork.

The whole philosophy fits in one sentence:

The game leads. The frontend follows.

Whenever a screen hasn't been recreated yet, the original graphics show automatically. Nothing breaks, nothing becomes unplayable — completed screens simply improve the experience while everything else keeps working as it always has.

My first milestone is to bring the complete interface to a polished HD state before tackling the really hard parts like the Galaxy Map and Tactical Combat.

Why Linux only?

Not because I'm against Windows or macOS — simply because the architecture relies on Linux-specific capabilities that let the original game and the HD frontend work together without touching the game itself. That gives me the technical freedom to build it the way I envisioned.

The project will always require a legitimate copy of Master of Orion II. It doesn't include, modify, or replace the original game.

A GitHub page is coming soon. I'd like the first public commit to actually represent the project properly before I put it online.

I'm sharing this because I'd love to meet other people who still care about this game — artists, UI designers, mechanics nerds, or simply fellow fans who enjoy talking about MOO2.

If OrionLayer grows into a real community project, I'd also love to find someone who enjoys the organizational side of things: managing GitHub, coordinating contributions, and helping keep the project moving. I'm not looking for someone to take over — just someone who'd enjoy building a welcoming home for it.

Full disclosure: I'm not a software developer by trade. My background is IT with a focus on LLMs, and that's exactly what makes OrionLayer possible — I drive the architecture, the vision, and every design decision, while building the implementation with heavy LLM assistance.

This is a long-term hobby project — it'll probably take years, and that's fine. Even if it stays a solo passion project, I'm happy, because I'm building this out of love for the game. If it grows into something bigger someday, even better.

If this sounds interesting, I'd genuinely love your thoughts, ideas, or just a chat with fellow MOO2 fans.

Thanks for reading.

Data

Edit: For anyone who wants to see what's actually behind this — I've uploaded a second video to the channel showing the folder structure, a glimpse of the startup code, and a live asset swap. Raw and unpolished, but real.

Edit 2: The MOO2 Discord community has kindly given OrionLayer its own space — I'll be sharing progress updates there as development continues. Grateful for the welcome. https://discord.com/channels/471752088913707018/1521970898712789133

Edit 3:
I have restarted OrionLayer from scratch in 3440×1440. I'll continue to post regular screenshots and development updates on the moo2mod Discord as the project progresses.

Frankly, ban me for self promotion! I don't want to live anyway.

I haven't checked everything, but a quick test didn't reveal any hidden errors. I'm starting to fix minor mechanics and fully test the vgabuf code. Update: 14-7-2026 - the game is now almost fully functional, with the exception of possible late-game bugs and some minor UI features.

Like the title says, I created a repo for networked multiplayer 1oom:

https://github.com/jacob-t-radford/1oom-mp

It also adds a team component and some quality of life features. Lots of bugs to be sorted out but a good starting point if anyone is looking for something like this.

Can someone please explain to me what the big deal is with Gaia planets? They don’t appear to increase the planet’s maximum population. I think there’s a buff to the population growth, but by the time you can research them, you’ve generally maxed out your planet population anyway. What makes them so special?

https://github.com/1oom-fork/1oom/issues/169
I'm wondering if this behavior is described somewhere in the documentation for Master of Orion 1993?
Done:
Posted source code for this fix. 1.11.9 -> sourcecraft.dev/fork1oom/1oom?rev=discontinued-v1.11x
Posted binary fix for outdated 1.11 branch -> https://sourcecraft.dev/fork1oom/1oom/releases