In November 2004 the SDS released Ultra Starfire. Updated over the next 5 years, the goal of Ultra Starfire was to produce a set of rules that were streamlined, with reduced paperwork, and that the gameplay and technologies were fully balanced for player-versus-player games. Designed without a background history, the Ultra Starfire rules were designed for the player who wants to play competitive games with the strategic rules.

Ultra Starfire was the first ruleset with all of the rulebooks and documents were fully integrated into a cross-linked set of electronic documents, released in PDF format. Because it was an electronic document, the occasional errata, updates, and other corrections were made available as downloads to the players who purchased Ultra Starfire.

In 2004 the Starfire Design Studio worked out a deal with CorbyNova to make the CorbyNova website the official computer support for Ultra Starfire. Corbynova created an online browser-based assistant program to help players with their games and run campaign turns. http://game.starfireonline.com/index.html. Unfortunately, Starfire Online is no longer available.