Kalypso Media treated me to a double dose of presentations last week to get an in-depth look at Port Royale 4 and Spacebase Startopia. You can check out coverage on the former by clicking here. Spacebase Startopia is an economy, management, and strategy simulation that puts players at the helm as the station’s commander. The main goal of the game is to keep your guests happy and alive. Realmforge Studios Game and Level Designer, Florian Delank was at the helm of my preview and showed me the ropes on how to be an effective station commander.

Spacebase Startopia has a number of gameplay modes including campaign missions, multiplayer, and a freemode. For my Demo, Florian was showcasing a mid-game campaign level. As the name of the game implies, Spacebase Startopia is set on a space station and as commander, it is your job to oversee all aspects of daily life and build upon your station to improve the lives of your guests and residents. Every minute new aliens will arrive at your station through an airlock on your outermost deck. Players are able to easily see what kinds of aliens are arriving and what specifically brings them to your station. Aliens also bring energy to spend on your station which in turn is used by players to build further improvements and buildings.

Florian outlined to me that one of the most important early game buildings to have is the Bunk which provides basic amenities for all incoming aliens including, food, beverages, showers, and lodging. Each alien visitor has a series of needs that must be fulfilled to keep them happy and with a single click of an alien, you can tell if these needs are being met for any on the station. If any need hits 0% the alien will begin to build up anger and if it is allowed to continue building the alien will leave your station for good. This will negatively impact you as that is now one less alien you can earn energy from. 

You can get more insight into what is bugging or pleasing an alien just by clicking on them and looking above the needs meters. The last three interactions any aliens have done will be proceeded by a green smiley face or a red frowny face. Spacebase Startopia makes it very easy to tell what aliens have an issue with your station as huge fire indicators will be floating above their heads! Figuring out how to appease these needs and get positive interactions is very important. Each positive interaction builds prestige points which are then used to unlock new buildings for your station.

But, I am getting a little ahead of myself here, learning the basics of station management is a far more important thing to learn when first starting out. There are a number of key buildings and functions as a commander that will need to be learned. When first starting a station, a number of piles of garbage will be littered across the deck and this unsightly mess will displease visitors. Shoot these visitors will even leave their own mess that will need to be picked up. Thankfully as commander, you have a super vacuum of sorts that will suck up all this waste and deposit it into your personal inventory. 

From here you can build a Recycler that you can send this waste to and it will then be converted into energy. Other important buildings at the start include a Communications Center, which can filter incoming communications and alert the player to incoming traders or if an attack is about to happen. Medical Centers can also be used to take care of sick or hurt aliens. 

In Spacebase Startopia, each station is made up of three decks, Sub, Fun, and Bio. Each deck then has a number of sectors that can be gradually opened as space is used up. Opening these bulkheads requires the use of energy and additional setup. The three starting sectors are all connected to the main energy core that powers the entire station. For each additional sector you wish to build in, an Energy Distributor must be constructed. Elevators are exempt from this power requirement as they will always be tied to the main reactor. It is also going to be ideal to place a number of air purifiers around the new section to keep the air from going stale or being overly polluted by production facilities, like the recycler. A number of overlays are available to give visual representation to the power and air grids.

Up to this point, I have only outlined things seen in the Sub deck as this is where the main production of your station will take place. But, all work and no play makes aliens quite grumpy so they will need to hang out in the Fun Deck from time to time. Florian outlined to me a number of different buildings that can be found on this deck including a cat cafe where visitors can buy a coffee and hang out with cats! For the gambling aliens, a lootbox gambling system can be made where they can spend their energy to attempt to get rare hats. The subtle jab at this real-world practice had me chuckling for a good minute at least as I thought back to how some of my friends spent hours trying to get a number of different Team Fortress 2 hats back in the day.

It was on the Fun Deck that Florian took the opportunity to introduce me to the research menu. The alien visitors wanted to be able to play games so to accommodate that request we needed an arcade. Opening the research menu from the tab at the top of the screen, the arcade was able to be researched using the gained prestige points I mentioned earlier. During missions, not all research will be available but in freemode the players will have access to everything. Some research items will also have a list of pre-requisites that must be accomplished before being available. 

Now that the arcade is available it just needs to be constructed within the station. Many buildings will have a set size but for the arcade, it is variable so it can be made in any number of sizes with simple drag and drop placement. Once the basic room is placed, games and items can be added inside for visitors to enjoy at the cost of energy. Each item will have different benefits to visitors so it is good to diversify. As you progress through your playthrough, you will get messages from the station’s mainframe, VAL, congratulating or mocking you on your progress thus far. VAL will also chime in from time to time to offer insightful advice. Though, sometimes she tries to give you a bad bit so be careful not to trust everything it says!

Every once in awhile VAL will offer a time-based decision called a legacy event. These events can offer up unique gameplay modifiers that will have certain perks and disadvantages. When opening bulkheads, you can have the process cost significantly less at the possibility of enemies being hidden behind the doors or only a little less with more trash and vermin being the penalty. Other legacy events can also affect combat options with one option making your mechs stronger at the cost of exploding and the other making them more defensive at the expense of movement. In multiplayer matches, these legacy events happen for players at the same time and player choices will make for far dynamic matches and it is exciting to think about!

Now the Bio Deck, is a place where aliens can go and get back to nature. Everyone needs to get away from the bright lights and sounds of the Fun Deck or from the noise and pollution of the Sub Deck some time. As the name implies this deck is all about nature. Each area can be terraformed to appeal to a different alien species and this is also the deck where you will find a number of raw materials you can use for your station. Medical supplies, food, contraband, and fibers which can be refined into plastics.

Throughout missions, a current task will be displayed at the upper right hand side of the screen. For this demo, we needed to construct a research lab and do some advanced research. In the research menu, the lab had a few pre-requisites, including building an arcade, that was already achieved. Once the lab was built it needed to be staffed. There is a handy unit menu available where you can filter through the different species to hire for specific buildings. Remember the recycling and communications centers? Well, it turns out that Telgor are great with trash while the Bug are great at communicating! For the research center, you unshockingly need to go with Scientists.

Hiring aliens for these jobs is interesting. It costs energy to do and once hired, those aliens will no longer generate energy for you as they get access to all the station’s facilities for free. Instead, hired aliens will gain XP to make them better at their jobs thus making those buildings work more efficiently. In the case of the research lab, higher-level workers make researching building upgrades take less time! Just as in the real world though, aliens that get good at their jobs want to be recognized for their efforts. This can be done by promoting aliens which in turn raises their stats. Aliens that don’t get promoted or are passed over for promotion constantly will eventually leave their positions due to anger.

The last building Florian outlined for me was the Security Station which is the heart and soul for your station’s security and military power. Security stations are manned by the Leviathans who will construct drones and mechs. Drones are the most basic combat unit in Spacebase Startopia and serve a dual function of combat and population policing. As your station grows so to will criminal activity. Drones will scan the population tracking down troublemakers and send them to prison where they can be rehabilitated into productive members of society. If your station comes under attack Drones are a weak first line of defense. By default, each Security Station will have access to 4 drones. If you upgrade your Security Stations through the Research Center a new drone slot will become available with each level.

For serious military action, you will need to have mechs at the ready by using your plastic. There are 3 main types of combat mechs with rocket, sniper, and shotgun being available. Combat works on a rock, paper, scissors model with rocket mechs being good against sniper mechs who are in turn good against shotgun mechs which are good against the rocket mechs. A fourth siege mech is also available that specializes in destroying buildings. All combat is done in real-time with a traditional RTS control setup. Mechs are too big to fit in normal lifts so to adequately protect your stations you will need to get specific Mech Lifts. If combat isn’t your thing or you aren’t interested in doing it, freemode does allow it to be turned off entirely.

I really liked what I saw from this small Spacebase Startopia demo and thank you again to Florian for showing it to me! The game has a fun art aesthetic and looks smooth in action. The humor in aliens interacting with the environments and VAL’s interactions with you are going to be great to fully experience upon launch. While being a deep simulation, the game looks easy to get a handle on and I have to admit I am excited to see more of the RTS combat in action! Spacebase Startopia is coming in Q3 2020 to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned to GT for more info as it arrives.