Silicon Pirates
Beta 2 is liveBeta 3 is in developmentBuild it. Break it. Defend it.

In development. Not released yet.

Silicon Pirates Beta 3

Beta 3 rebuilds the homelab simulator in 3D. The flat rack screen becomes a room you run: racks on the floor, cables along the walls, a desk you sit at and a workbench where machines come apart.

Everything on this page comes from the version being built. Until Beta 3 opens, the game you can play is Beta 2.

Play Beta 2 free See the screenshots
Beta 3 promo, 50 seconds. Watch it full size.

What changes from Beta 2

A room, not a rack screen

Your lab is a 3D room. The rack stands in it, cables run along the floor, the paper lands on the doormat and the desk terminal is a monitor you sit down at. Finish enough work orders and the back room opens next door.

Machines you can open

Every device is a chassis full of parts: processors, memory, drives, power supplies, fans and hash boards. Power it off, open it on the workbench and swap them. Parts wear and fail, and the used market sells them worn.

Power that can burn

Each room has two wall circuits with breakers, plus PDUs, power strips, a floor UPS and rack batteries. Overload something for long enough and the breaker trips. Keep pushing and it catches fire.

A grow room

Grow beds hold plants you raise from seed or clipping: strains, eight vegetables and the crosses you breed from them. Water comes from a metered tap through hoses you run. An automation server drives lights, sprinklers and fans through control cables.

One shared world

Every lab runs on the server, not in your browser. Walk into a neighbour's room and look around, sign their guestbook, send a gift that arrives as a crate on their mat, or talk on the feed. Visitors cannot touch anything.

Help in plain words

A welcome paper walks you through the first hour. Every panel has small question marks that explain what you are looking at, and the manuals sit on a bookshelf inside the game.

Beta 3 screenshots

Select a screenshot to enlarge it.

Silicon Pirates Beta 3: the back room with grow racks under lights, a grow table, an aquarium and a wall screen
The back room. Grow racks, a grow table and an aquarium, all on their own circuits.
The main room: three grow racks under lights, a 42U rack, cable runs along the floor and a power strip on the wall
The main room. Racks, grow beds and cable runs.
Rack focus on a 42U rack: UPS, automation server, router, switch, crypto rig, firewall, NAS, terminal server and two PDUs
Rack focus. Every device, port and cable.
Device view of a 4U mining frame: processor, memory, hash boards, two power supplies and fans, each with wear
Inside a machine. Parts you can swap, each with its own wear.
The contracts panel showing standing and how a client sees your rack: earners online, spare power, battery, protected data
Contracts. Clients judge the rack you built.
A furnished lab with the contracts panel open: a RAID retainer to accept and three hash sprints being held
Quick jobs. Hold a target for a few minutes and get paid.
The vendor panel listing PDUs, servers, an automation server, a terminal server, a router, a switch and a firewall with prices
The vendor. Crates ship to your door.
A vertical grow rack inspector listing plants in flower with water, food, light, health and days to harvest
Plants in flower. Each one counts down to harvest.
A vertical grow rack inspector listing six plant sites with water, food, light, temperature, health and genes
Six sites a rack. Every plant has its own readings.
A grow table inspector: one Blue Dream plant ready to harvest and the feeder dosing
Harvest. Ready plants go to your stash.
A grow rack fed from a rack PDU with a needs box, veg and flower light modes, a fan and the water reservoir
What the bed needs. Light, water, food and air.
The automation server panel: four channels running programs for sprinklers and feeders
Automation. Channels, cables and programs.
An aquarium with seven fish, a shipwreck, a treasure chest and a skull, with the fish list beside it
The aquarium. Seven fish, each with a name and an appetite.
An aquarium close up with a guppy, a neon tetra and a goldfish
Up close. Tap the tank and the camera goes to the glass.
An aquarium close up with three fish swimming after a feed
Feeding time. Too little starves them. Too much is worse.
The Rack Attack arcade cabinet with a lit marquee and a game of Packet Ping on its screen
The arcade cabinet. A quarter a game.
The markets panel on the crypto tab: six coins with prices and charts
Markets. One exchange for every player.
The finance panel showing a crypto wallet with an address and a balance
The crypto wallet. Coins stay yours until you sell.
The finance panel listing auto services with their unlock prices
Auto services. Let the lab pay its own bills.
The vendor grow tab: three kinds of grow bed, then strain and vegetable seeds
The grow shelf. Beds, seeds and nutrients.
The lab with the lamps off, empty beds and a purple neon strip glowing on the rack
Lights out. The room between cycles.
The back room in the dark with empty grow racks and a lit aquarium
After harvest. Empty beds and one lit tank.

What is built so far

  • Power. Wall outlets on two circuits, PDUs and UPS units that chain, rated power strips and a house battery on the floor. An unpaid bill cuts the grid and only batteries keep things lit.
  • Network. A router is your uplink and nothing earns offline. Switches with DHCP, name servers with your own domain, and patch panels and trunks that bridge racks and rooms.
  • Money. Lab Credits pay for everything. Machines earn while they run, hosting fills seats, and work orders pay best.
  • Markets. Crypto, street, town and exotic, each with moving prices and its own news. The six coins trade on one market for the whole game, so a big sale moves the price for everyone.
  • Crypto wallet. Rigs mine the coin you choose. A flush moves the coins into a wallet with an address of your own, and nothing sells until you say so.
  • Heat and wear. Traffic heats network gear, hash boards cook and lit grow beds warm the room. Parts wear with use and fail at the end.
  • Security. Being online draws heat. Firewall, router and switch settings add up to a security posture that decides how hackable you are.
  • Storage. NAS units with RAID levels, shares that rigs and servers write into, and backup mirrors that survive a dead array.
  • The terminal. A shell on the desk computer with files, scripts and cron. Anything the inspector can do, the terminal can do.
  • The net. Companies to scan, break into or report. Eight kinds of lock, each a small game on the terminal, with a trace running while you work.
  • Contracts. Clients read your rack every second: uptime, spare power, battery minutes, backups, a firewall. Miss the target and your standing drops.
  • Customisation. Room themes, lights, framed posters, a paint easel for your own art, neon signs and cable colours. Cosmetics never change a number.
  • The aquarium. Twelve species that swim, beg and hunt. Feed them by hand or cable an auto-feeder to the automation server.
  • The arcade cabinet. A quarter buys a game of Packet Ping, first to seven. One high-score board covers every player.
  • Missions. Daily and weekly missions, streaks and milestones pay Shards. Shards become Chips, and Chips buy repairs, upgrades and looks.
  • Neighbours. Visits, guestbooks, gifts and chat with the operators next door.

What is still to come

The roadmap lists what is live in Beta 2 and what is being built for Beta 3.

Questions about Beta 3

When does Silicon Pirates Beta 3 come out?

There is no release date yet. Beta 3 is in development. Until it opens, Beta 2 is the version to play, at sp.silicon-pirates.com.

Can I play Beta 3 now?

No. Beta 3 is not open to the public yet. You can play Beta 2 today for free.

Will my Beta 2 lab move to Beta 3?

No. Beta 3 is a separate game built from the ground up, so every lab starts fresh. Beta 2 keeps running.

Will Beta 3 be free?

Yes. Beta 3 will be free to play in a browser, like Beta 2.