orbit.industries
Build and manage orbital stations rotating around distant planets! Train your skills in a Mission mode or dive deep in a Free Play. Do you have the skills and wits to become a space pioneer, Engineer?
There are many space simulation games out there, most focus on deep space exploration or planetary colonization, still building and managing an orbital station is a new and unique challenge!
orbit.industries blends inspiration from classic science fiction literature, movies, and popular space-opera TV series with actual knowledge and progress achieved in the field of space exploration, space engineering, and orbital stations development.
orbit.Industries offers two graphically separate views while working on your station:
The outside space view shows your station in an orbit. Here, you will build and install new 3D modules - each with different functionality - and polish them with decorations. You will control and supervise all the ships arriving and departing the station. The full 3D environment allows expanding stations in all dimensions, taking advantage of the endless space.
The so-called Abstract System Layer (ASL) enables setting up and monitoring the different production cycles, to organize resources and services as efficiently as possible. These systems are placed and connected in a separate, abstract view that is presented in a circuit board form.
Those two different gameplay visual perspectives secure a high degree of creative freedom and optical variation in the outside view, enabling players to fully take advantage of the 3D in space. At the same time, outsourcing organizational processes with possibly hundreds of production lines inside the station into a separate ASL view ensures maximum clarity.
orbit.industries offers a unique economic system. Your task is to make your station as profitable and efficient as possible. Setting up stable production lines is hindered by the occurrence of errors and malfunctions, like fire outbreaks or hacking attacks. These errors are based on specific error probabilities that each module and each system entails.
Additionally, there are different mechanisms in place to prevent simply overloading production circuits to increase the difficulty of reaching high or even maximum efficiency. You are however able to have a positive influence by building modules and systems like a sick bay or a repair drone. These have a positive impact on the error probabilities of nearby modules and systems in a certain radius and they do make for an even larger variety of projects.
orbit.industries offers 3 different campaigns to play in a single-player mode, each set in a different location, so in every campaign, the station will orbit a different planet. Players need to build a device to terraform a planet to make it habitable and resource-rich.
Each of the 3 campaigns has its background narrative. Players must build one campaign-specific complex module, consisting of several smaller modules. Each of these modules has to be unlocked by researching the technologies through projects first and each of them requires the player to build various other basic modules first.
Additionally, players can choose between Endless or Creative modes, where they can build freely, set their focus, and keep busy for hours:
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Endless mode is a type of gameplay with no set objective – progress normally through the game, build new modules and systems, earn money through projects and unlock new technologies to make the space station even bigger and more efficient.
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Creative mode: while similar to Endless mode, allows you to approach the game with a more free-roam attitude and to build your station with absolute freedom. All technologies are already unlocked since the beginning and there are no constraints on money or time!
orbit.industries key features:
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Full 3D Orbital Station shown in two different visual perspectives
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Setup and management of production pipelines and cycles
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Research and Development of new production-related technologies
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Procurement and reward systems to keep players constantly engaged
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Contracts players can accept for one of two reasons:
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Earn money for the space station in form of a reward
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Research and unlock new technologies, in the form of a new module required for building
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54 extension modules you may build and expand your station
Read More: Best 4X 3D Games.
Station Commander
The game is good, worth the money. I hope this will continue to be developed with regular patch updates. Some notes:
1. Pirate ships are too strong in early game. Make them less oppressive or add a difficulty setting so fighting pirates can feel more engaging.
2. Repairing ships is a serious chore. I mean like for each ship in a fleet (9 total) there are multiple clicks per ship which gets tedious very fast. Just add a simple way to repair all the ships in a fleet with one click.
3. The scaling on the storage modules is too high, forcing me to use almost all of my free slots to add storage space. I’d really like to use those slots for other modules….
– Real player with 7.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
Very bare bones resource collection / trading game. Best part of the game is gaming the planet economies and trading (sitting outside a planet desperate for food, waiting for prices to go up, selling at the peak, etc.)
Military units are really only for defending your trade/mining ships from pirates, or hunting pirates/other NPCs to take their cargo.
Your station itself, from what I can see, cannot come under attack in anyway so it’s not a high-octane challenge, but more of a fun little game to play with mini-stock markets in every planet (best part of the game is the economies shifting with line charts)
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Treasure Fleet
There is a lot to like about Treasure Fleet, as it builds upon the legacy of Sid Meier’s Colonization. I personally like how the game puts more emphasis on naval ships and actually makes building a fleet of them much more practical then it ever was in Colonization. The idea of the supply mechanic does well to make exploring much more of a risk/reward thing where there can be consequences - especially when things go awry and your horses are stolen under you!
However, at the same time there is also quite a bit of game mechanics that just don’t feel like they work all that well, feel cheap, or are a direct downgrade with Sid Meier’s game. There is also a lot of quality of life features you might expect from other 4X titles to be here as well but are yet absent.
– Real player with 154.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
It a nice game but still not ready there to many feature and ui that suppost to be there but are not hopefully this get fixed, 1 exampel that that anger me alot is that soldier can lose there musket when they get attacked or attack, the problem is if you not carefull attack nativ/other colonys loose 50% attack dmg that include defens too, this feature suppost to be explained but it isnt and it ui suppost to be big enought so you can see it clearly but you dont you must look/see super good so the soldier doesnt lose musket. Other thing the nativ are pain in a** since all bunch a**hol* and do as they like give you stuff/attack/steal/demand and diplomacy dont work is just you take money from them until they get angry, you give them money and gona be nativ from same tribe gona attack you anyway, so it almost sad that auto you have kill them all. Game is annoying at the end need be fixed before it can be fun.
– Real player with 110.3 hrs in game
Zenith Frontier
Zenith Frontier is an interstellar strategy simulation game. Explore and colonise hostile exoplanets and help humanity survive the struggles of 2040 and beyond.
Zenith Frontier features several novel mechanics in the context of traditional 4X and grand strategy gameplay elements. Experience visionary strategic gameplay set in an evolving procedural galaxy populated by billions ot autonomous citizens and private companies. Build a faction with a rich background and strong identity, then oversee their interstellar efforts to advance their position within the precarious New Space Age.
New Gameplay Features:
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A Shared Origin: Factions start in the same overpopulated, suffering home system and compete to expand outwards in the year 2040. This is made possible by the recent discovery of –REDACTED– which allows high-tech spacecraft to slip into subspace.
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Volatile Subspace: Exploration of this newly accessible subspace is incredibly dangerous. This chaotic region is thick with dark matter and swirling dark energy fields, but the ability to travel interstellar distances in considerably shorter timeframes may be worth the risk. Known safe routes will become critical to sustaining your remote holdings, but beware - subspace is neither static or stable and these routes may change!
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Information is Essential: Unshielded signals will be destroyed in subspace and must be carried through by comm drones. News that arrives at your capital from a distant colony will be out-of-date - the situation will have evolved and you will have to consider this when planning your response. Additionally, perhaps the illegal hijacking of another’s comm drones will glean some strategic information - and prevent it from arriving at its intended destination!
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Special Relativity: Spacecraft travelling at incredible speeds and colonies established within deep gravity wells will experience first-hand the effects of special relativity and time dilation. Time will progress more quickly for the crew of your –REDACTED– spacecraft making a long journey at high speeds than the colony they are destined for.
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Geospatial Resource Pricing: A supply and demand model for price determination within a dynamic economic system that includes taxes, import/export fees and transportation costs mean that resource prices will vary throughout the galaxy. Plan your economic developments accordingly - or invest in this interstellar network infrastructure to take a slice of your rival’s operations.
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Top Level Direction: Shape your faction from the top down by issuing orders, directives, and edicts to your military staff, governors, and private sector. These are executed autonomously, which can lead to surprising outcomes. This indirect control poses interesting strategic challenges.
Traditional Gameplay Features:
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Diplomacy and Politics
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Research and Technology
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Military Conflict
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Management and Governance
Zenith Frontier’s Design Pillars:
Zenith Frontier is being designed and developed in line with these pillars.
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Emergence - A rich, living world that generates unique emergent scenarios.
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Strategic Depth - A semantic network of interconnect systems.
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Gameplay Over Graphics - A high quality interactive system that priotises gameplay.
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Self-Directed - The player is primarily working towards self-selected goals in open gameplay.
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Top Level Decisions - The player provides direction from the top-down to autonomous agents.
Age of Wonders: Planetfall
This game is easily one of the best newer strategy games (i.e. 4X style game) currently available for single player in my opinion, period. I’ve had a lot of time to try several of these sorts of games that are considered the top games in the category lately. Civ, Total War games, Stellaris, Endless Legend, the list goes on, but I always come back to this one.
NOTE: Many of the reviews for this game were from when the game was released, since then they did a massive update that re-balanced the game and overhauled several mechanics. A lot of the comments in negative reviews were from a year+ ago using the old mechanics. This game is being actively improved / patched as of Oct 2020 from what I’ve seen and they’re still releasing an expansion.
– Real player with 1901.7 hrs in game
As the game is now, I do not recommend it.
I played the entire series extensively, over 4.000 hours over all titles of the series, for me personally, they changed things that were good about the game, and kept things that were bad about it.
City Siege
The first thing that is really noticeable and changes the dynamic of sieges entirely, they removed gates from city walls, those were replaced by militias and defensive towers, however these militias don’t have mods, and you can’t aim the towers, so any other troop that attacks the city will be stronger.
– Real player with 1383.1 hrs in game
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim
If you’re interested in Ozymandias, please wishlist, follow us and download the demo! :)
At the dawn of history, Bronze Age kings built the first empires. Strategize their rise to power in a uniquely streamlined 4X.
DISTILLED DESIGN
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Focus on strategy over tactics, we’ve stripped the busywork out of 4X gameplay.
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Combat abstracted via innovative Power system so you need only move armies and fleets.
HISTORICAL MAPS
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8 handmade maps charting Bronze Ages around the world, empires in real-world locations.
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Empires are tagged from ‘Easy’ to ‘Very Hard’ to reflect their unique challenges.
COMPETITIVE AI
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Data-driven AI system, flexible enough to succeed in any environment.
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Streamlined ruleset is inherently AI-friendly so no ‘AI cheating’ required.
MULTIPLAYER
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Players take their turns simultaneously so there’s no waiting around.
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Choose to play ‘live’ (short turn timers) or ‘asynchronous’ (long game timers).
Rise of Hegemony
Rise of Hegemony is a strategy game inspired by great games such as Civilization and Victoria. Triumph over your neighbours by successfully managing your country economically, diplomatically and militarily. The path to global hegemony is up to you.
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Subdue your enemies by pure military force.
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Forge alliances and diplomatic pacts to be part of an unstoppable coalition.
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Educate your people to eclipse your rivals technologically.
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Become an economic powerhouse and make other nations dependant on your resources.
In-depth economy
Rise of Hegemony features an in-depth economical system where every province contains a discrete number of people that all need resources to survive and thrive. Lacking access to sufficient amounts of critical goods such as food will cause your population to starve. Without access to weaponry your soldiers will be woefully unprepared to face enemies in battle. Trading with other countries is important, being dependant on them is perilous.
Build up your country
Starting as a fledgling country the way you want to conduct yourself on the world stage is up to you. Acting peacefully and benevolent has its benefits, but sometimes a more warlike approach is a quicker way to achieve your goals…
Randomly generated worlds
Even with the same strategy every game can take a vastly different course when the world looks different and countries will develop distinctively depending on their starting conditions.
Moddability
Rise of Hegemony leaves a lot of room for mods to expand on the game. Do you prefer to focus on a certain time period? Perhaps a fantasy setting is more to your liking? The possibilities for alternative scenarios are plenty!
Exiled to the Void
Not much to the game. Not very engaging.
– Real player with 2.8 hrs in game
Not much to get excited about - hopefully, subsequent upgrades/updates will result in improvements. So far, just stuck on one of Jupiter’s moons with not much to do…..hope I don’t run out of resources by the next update!! As it currently stands, I can not recommend this game to anyone until it becomes more playable.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization
8/10
Maybe the best version of Civ IV.
In 1994 I got and played the hell out the DOS original. It had all the classic gameplay of a Sid Meier title. You got to replay an exciting and interesting period of history and it was fun. But the graphics and the interface were bad, even by 1994 standards. You put pixled figures up against a brown picture map of a town. The graphics of units were barely the level of the original Civ.
Unlike many Sid games of the era, which Steam just launches in DosBox, this was fully ported over into the Civ IV platform. Graphics are way better, with animated units and combat, terrain and resources are clearer. And yet the core of the game remains the same. Locate a colony, expand it, exploit the resources, and battle your rivals. And of course you have to prepare for Independence from your mother country. The interesting victory challenge of the game can throw some players. Many are just thrilled to be producing and selling loads of Rum and Silver and forget, while these and other usual things (population, cities, etc.) can boost your final score, the end game is enough muskets, cannons, and ships to win independence. You are playing to be Washington or Bolivar, not to establish Canada!
– Real player with 361.9 hrs in game
Civilization IV: Colonization is one of the most (if not the most) unique 4x turn-based strategy games I’ve ever played! Instead of playing as the ruler of your nation, you’re playing as a viceroy for your nation. While the King rules over his country in Europe, he entrusts you with colonizing and managing the new world (either the Americas or a random map) competing with 3 other European powers (though there are mods out there that add more). When you settle, the Natives will either be your trading partners (selling goods to the King will result in getting permanent taxes) or your enemies depending on which ones you run into and how you treat them.
– Real player with 309.3 hrs in game
Ymir
I whole-heartedly recommend this game with a few caveats.
-The game is early access and is being worked on my a single developer.
-This game will not be completed quickly. The game will not always be updated quickly (although he has been doing quite well so far. An update every couple weeks usually).
-There will be bugs (although generally not game breaking, they can be a challenge and if you do not want to deal with it, I would wait).
-While there are official servers. They are usually quite full. So, the other servers are entirely player run. They can be hit or miss. So, until there are more official servers / there are better server hosting tools / more dedicated server hosts are better equipped to handle the job, you may very well sink 2-3 weeks into a game and one day it is gone. This can be avoided by doing your research on servers before joining. Some server and their hosts are amazing such as Age of Porcos run by Shem and PigsLands run by Jey.
– Real player with 5283.9 hrs in game
New changes and recent major update have slowed the already awful pace of the game and made the overall progression and experience worse, to name off a few problems. I am giving this a negative just based on the early neolithic stage of the game alone, it is that fucking bad.
-You are now locked into where you spawn, you use to be able to move your starting tribe around a bit and maybe find a better spot at the risk of losing some or all of your tribe; you could even force settle onto another primitive tribe if they had a better spawn and after you reached a certain size you would have to fight them for the land. This ruins Arid players who spawn in the desert and rely on river networks to farm crops during agriculture and ranching phase of the game. Already players are just straight up abandoning and respawning if they get a godawful spawn.
– Real player with 3036.9 hrs in game