Star

In Master of Orion there are six types of stars which each have a chance to contain different types of planets. A star can have up to five orbiting planets, including gas giants and asteroid belts. With "Balanced Start" active, a major civilization's starting system will always contain exactly two planets, regardless of star type: the homeworld (arid, desert, ocean, swamp, or volcanic depending on racial traits, or terran by default), and while the other will be either a gas giant or an asteroid field. Independent civilizations on the other hand always have starting systems with colonizable planets, allowing major races to settle there and incorporate them as a protectorate of their empire.

Interstellar travel is possible in three ways:
 * Blue warp lanes: connecting two stable warp points, they are accessible since the start of the game (unless a "pre-warp" start was selected).
 * Red warp lanes: connecting to unstable warp points, they are accessible only after researching electromagnetic refraction to obtain the multistate insulator.
 * Jump gates: accessible after researching gravitic fields and building them in a colonized system with a space factory. Your ships can travel freely between any two jump gates under your control.

Star systems
The type of star determines both how many planets it can have and how mineral rich they are. The planet biomes, however, depend on star type and galaxy age.

Although technically each star type has its own statistics for number of planets and chances of them appearing in any orbit; in practice all types except brown stars use the same statistics.

Names
Star systems serving as the starting homeworld of a civilization always have a specific name. Other star systems are named from lists of star names for each star type. This means that, for example, Sol will always be the homeworld of the Human Republic, but it will not always be a yellow star. Inversely, Aldebaran will always be a yellow star, but it will only shelter a civilization if it has been colonized during the game. Uninhabited systems may be generated with a space monster, or serve as a base for space pirates.