About the project

What is Foundation Three?

A multiplayer space dogfighting game for PC. Two teams fight over a flagship, in close, visible engagements in the spirit of X-Wing, TIE Fighter and Star Wars: Squadrons. Foundation Three is also the name of the academy in the game, where every House sends its best pilots.

What are you trying to achieve?

An end-to-end alpha you can actually play, then a game that lasts. That means tense team dogfights that work with whatever you fly on (keyboard and mouse, gamepad or HOTAS), dedicated servers anyone can run, and a game shaped by data files so servers and modders can change almost everything.

Why build your own engine?

So networking, dedicated servers and modding are designed in from the first day rather than bolted on, and so we control exactly how flight, hit detection and the server's authority behave.

What can be modded?

Ships, weapons, maps, rules and server settings are plain JSON files, checked by the server before a fight starts. The engine core stays closed so servers stay trustworthy and fights stay fair.

Where is the game now?

In development. The alpha is free for the first 100 pilots: download it and sign in to play. Join our Discord for patch notes and to fly with others. Fleet Battle and full 5v5 battles come later. Follow the devlog for what changes.

Why do I need to sign in?

The alpha is limited to a small group while we test it. Signing in gives your PC a key, which lets us give out the free places and keep a shared copy of the game from playing.

What do you keep when I sign in?

Google holds your email address for the sign-in. We keep only a hashed record of your key, never your email. It is not linked to your rating or matches. The privacy policy has the detail, and you can ask us to delete it.

Is magic part of the game?

No. Magic is lore only. The Houses train Particular Mages in the story, but nothing you fly or fight with is magic.

How we use AI

Do you use AI to make the game?

Yes, and we are open about it. AI tools help us write some of our code and build parts of our 3D tools. People decide what the game is, and a person approves everything before it is made public.

We are pro AI and pro artist, and we believe the two can live side by side if we are transparent about how we use them. Our ambition is to earn enough from the project to replace generated assets with human artistry.

What controls do you have?

Every asset and dependency is logged with its source and licence before it ships. Generated reference images are used to guide our own modelling and are never shipped as game art. Generated music is only used after a recorded decision, with its prompt and settings logged. An art critic scores parts and nothing goes into a ship until it passes. The server, not the client, decides what is real in a match.

What are the safety rules?

We do not prompt for other people's ships, brands or franchises, and we do not ask AI to copy a specific work. We use references for mood, shape and lighting and model from our own designs. We keep the prompts and check the provider's terms.

Will AI replace people?

No. The design, taste and final say are human. AI lets a small team build faster and keep every decision reviewable. Replacing generated assets with human artistry is the goal.

Licensing and ownership

Is the game open source?

No. Foundation Three is a closed-core commercial game with a moddable data layer. The source code, data and assets are the copyright holder's.

How do you handle licences for what goes in the game?

Every dependency and asset has to be safe to ship commercially. For code we only allow permissive licences such as MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, ISC and zlib, and we block GPL, AGPL and anything non-commercial or no-derivatives, with an automatic check. Fonts are under the SIL Open Font License. Sound effects are our own. Music is generated and logged track by track. We keep attribution for every third-party piece and regenerate it for each release.

Do you copy Star Wars or other franchises?

No. We take inspiration from the games we love, but our names, ships, logos and sounds are our own. We do not use franchise names or copy specific designs.

Who owns mods?

Mods are data and assets, not engine code. We will settle and publish the mod licence terms, including who owns mod content, before launch.