Rail Ace – Starship Shooter Kit

A complete on-rails and all-range space shooter template for URP: lock-on combat, loops, barrel rolls, wingmen, a boss, a dogfight mission and a built-in placeholder ship generator.

• Unity 6000.6 or newer, Universal Render Pipeline.
• Input System package recommended; the legacy Input Manager also works.
• Windows, macOS and Linux standalone. Keyboard/mouse and gamepad.
• 98 C# scripts (JackpotAssets.RailAce namespaces, Runtime and Editor assemblies).
• 3 demo scenes: rail mission with boss, dogfight mission, practice range.
• 2 custom URP shaders (toon + outline, ship clip).
• Models: player fighter, plus 7 generated placeholder models (4 enemy fighters, turret, cruiser, flagship) with their recipes.
• Ship Generator editor window and runtime API (ShipGenerator.Spawn).
• Audio: sound effects and four music tracks (WAV).
• Documentation: PDF and Markdown guide, code comments and tooltips.

Build your own arcade space shooter in an afternoon. Rail Ace is a complete, commented, ready-to-play template for classic rail shooters and free-flight dogfights.

Two missions and a practice range

• Mission 1, Operation Sector Z: asteroid belt, enemy fleet, 13 waves, wingmen with radio chatter and a flagship boss with shield turrets and a reactor core.
• Mission 2, Operation Dogfight: a rail approach that opens into an all-range arena with four waves of dogfighting fighters.
• Practice range: a looping tutorial course with six stations.

Flight and combat

• Lock-on charge shot, laser upgrades, homing missiles and smart bombs.
• Barrel rolls that deflect shots, loop-de-loop, U-turns, boost and brake.
• Wing damage: each wing smokes, burns and breaks off on its own.

All-range mode and dogfight AI

• Free 3D flight with radar, edge arrows and automatic turn-back.
• AI fighters that pursue, make gun runs, break off and evade.

Difficulty

• Easy, Normal, Hard and Ace, each clearly different: enemy health, fire rate, accuracy, shot speed, damage and AI agility. Hard and Ace add volleys and dodge tracking.

Built-in Ship Generator (no AI)

• Make placeholder fighters, capital ships and turrets in seconds with a live preview.
• Ships are built and painted in code and saved as ordinary prefabs with URP materials and PBR textures.
• One click makes a matching enemy fleet and drops it into the game; your current setup is backed up first.
• Placeholders are tagged, so you always see which slots still need real art. Replacing one is a drag and drop.

Bosses made clear

• On-screen markers show what to shoot. Turrets turn to track you and are only placed where you can hit them.
• Make your own boss by deriving from BossBase.

Beginner friendly

• Welcome & Quick Start window with a project check and play buttons.
• Drag your own ships into art slots and rebuild with one click: auto-scaled, centred, converted to URP, colliders and AI added.
• Plain-English comments in every script, tooltips on every field, and a 12-page PDF guide.

Polished feel

• Cel shading with outlines, bloom, contrails and engine jets.
• Synthesized sound effects and original music.
• HUD, title menu, pause, game over, mission-complete outro, full control remapping and gamepad support.

Clean code

• Namespaced, assembly definitions, pooled projectiles and effects, works with Domain Reload disabled, no third-party dependencies.

The player fighter model was made with the help of AI (see the AI disclosure below). Everything else, including all enemy and capital ship models, was made without generative AI.