Starship Corporation has been Greenlit on Steam, and is still in development, offering players the chance to test the Alpha before the games’ Early Access release on Steam. At the heart of this title, players will construct a ship from scratch, choosing a layout, then literally dragging and dropping the room arrangement, placing all the ship components themselves. This gives the player an unprecedented amount of control on the operations and organization of the crew. Speaking of the crew, the player also chooses who to staff to maintain the ship. The crew isn’t simply chosen and left to operate the ship, the player must also manage resources such as water, food, and power as well in order to keep the crew in top shape. Slipping up in resource management will severely hinder combat effectiveness. In this department, Starship Corporation excels in bestowing a vast amount of power to the player. Strategy goes beyond the battlefield, as the captain is responsible for maintaining resources, commanding in battle, and regulating trade.
Another example of how detailed the gameplay is highlighted during combat. While the ship itself is engaged in a dogfight, the player has an x-ray view of the ship, and the active interface shows how the ship is affected by battle, inside and out. While the ship is taking damage, reports will stream in real time, alerting the player on incoming projectiles, current damage sustained, and what has been expended in the process. The player may now employ the engineers on the crew to assess the situation and fix the damage while the fight is still going on. This extra dimension in a real time strategy game creates a depth that will keep the players on their toes, and offers little reprieve for relaxation. On that note, it’s probably worth mentioning that a fair amount of crisis management will be required of the player. Ship mutiny, power failures, and pirate attacks are completely possible. In the event that any of these situations arise, the player will attempt to avoid panicking while administering the crew to address the issue. There’s nothing more terrifying than having your ship’s power system black out in the middle of an intense dogfight. Any explosion heard outside can be the one to obliterate you and your crew.
Starship Corporation is shaping up to be a real time strategy that faithfuls to the genre have dreamed of for a long time. With the attention to every last detail being given to the project, it’s already evident that the game trusts players with a lot of responsibility. With over two years of development and an early access coming soon, this robust title caters to hopeful starship captains all over the world, and this is only the beginning. Starship Corporation can be followed on Twitter, found on IndieDB, and bookmarked on the main website!
