How to Play Oberth.io

Oberth.io is a free multiplayer space game about steering momentum. You fly a small ship in a gravity arena, sling around planets to gain speed, harvest energy, and destroy other pilots by ramming them at high velocity. Matches last five minutes. The whole game runs in your browser — no download, no account.

Controls

Your ship has no brakes and no hover. Everything you do changes your velocity, so flying well means planning where your momentum is going, not where you are.

Gravity & momentum

Planets pull you in as you approach. Close passes bend your path harder; the pull is capped so you can always steer out. Gravity never stops while you are inside a planet's influence ring — use it to turn without spending energy, or to fall toward the sun's dangerous corona if you dare.

The slingshot (Oberth maneuver)

The game's namesake. Skim past a planet with enough speed and exit its gravity well at the right angle: you leave faster than you arrived. A clean slingshot awards points and a short damage buff — the game is telling you this is how it's meant to be played.

The basic recipe:

1. Approach a planet from behind its orbit direction.
2. Coast through the pass — thrusting mid-turn wastes energy.
3. Boost on exit, at your closest, fastest point. That timing is the Oberth effect: burns deliver more speed when you're already moving fast.

Boost & energy

Energy is your health, fuel, and size in one resource:

• Collect glowing orbs to gain energy — you grow in size and mass.
• Boost spends energy for a strong burst of thrust.
• Collisions, the storm, and the sun's corona drain energy. At zero, you die and drop everything as fragments for whoever killed you.

Combat & ramming

There are no weapons — you are the weapon. Impact damage scales with relative speed and mass, so the deadliest pilots are the fastest ones. Bigger ships hit harder but accelerate worse; a light pilot can out-turn a giant, slingshot through, and destroy them in one high-speed pass. Killing a pilot heals you for a quarter of the damage you dealt.

The Gravity Storm

In the final third of the match the arena's edge becomes a Gravity Storm that slowly collapses inward. Caught inside it, you burn. The storm exists to punish hiding and to herd survivors into a chaotic, high-speed endgame around the sun.

Scoring

• Kill — +100
• Energy orb — +5
• Survival — +1 per second
• Slingshot — speed gained ÷ 10

The leaderboard rewards aggression, harvesting, and staying alive — camping scores almost nothing.

Tips to win

• Chain slingshots. Two consecutive good passes make you nearly uncatchable — and nearly un-survivable in a collision.
• Fight downhill. Attack pilots slower than you; dodge giants until you have a speed edge.
• Harvest between fights. Energy you bank is health you can spend later.
• Watch the storm timer. Start moving inward before the warning, not after.
• Steal kills. Dead pilots scatter fragments — the fastest ship to the wreck wins the loot.

FAQ

Play Oberth.io now — it's free