The player competes with alien factions to explore and settle nearby star systems, develop colonies, build fleets to defend against rivals, negot iate with them and conquer them, when necessary. The game is won by unifying the galaxy, either through diplomacy or by force.

Stars in Shadow features everything you’d expect from a 4X game. Begin with a single, humble, planet. Expand your influence and colonize new worlds. Research new technologies and upgrade your cities and ships. Discover and interact with strange alien empires, eventually becoming the greatest of them all. SiS doesn’t end with just the basics though!

The biggest item fans of 4X games will notice is the emphasis placed on combat. In each combat you have the option of taking control of your fleet and fighting it out on a tactical grid in true turn based strategy style. In addition to this deep tactical option, Stars in Shadow has streamlined planet building. No more will you have to repeat the exact same build chain on every planet, but rather the tactical planet colonization decision is more about which races you believe should be inhabiting it. SiS has gone away from the “Superior Race” mentality, and much of the game becomes about assimilating strange alien cultures into your own.

Stars in Shadow is now introducing two new factions in today’s major 'Stargate' update.

Both the new Phidi Combine faction as well as the Ashdar Imperials faction are now playable by all owners of Stars in Shadow. The Phidi Combine faction unlocks the special Mercenary Exchange, which allows the Phidi faction to hire mercenaries from any of the major races. The Ashdar Imperials faction comes with their own ancient Stargate, which acts as a one-way portal to any star system; but beware, send them too far and they cannot return. 

Sven Olsen, lead developer of Ashdar Games says, “We'd like to thank all our Early Access participants for their support and helpful feedback and suggestions. The game has come a long way in the last few months, and the Early Access community has been an important part of that progress.”

Stars in Shadow can be purchased in Steam’s Early Access program at $24.99.

New Playable Faction: Phidi Combine

The Phidi are an aquatic race of enthusiastic traders. Their watery homeworld of Tendao is poor in industrial metals, but rich in Opil crystals, a unique resource that everyone simply must have. Opil enhances the Currency and Influence yields of Phidi markets, amplifying their additional income from Phidi population and trade routes.

Mercenary Exchange

Though an economic powerhouse, the Phidi have few military hulls, as they have never been comfortable with the idea of armed conflict. However, they are not above hiring aliens to do their fighting for them, and so the Phidi can use their business savvy within any foreign Trade Charter they have signed to contact the local underground and hire mercenary forces. The Phidi faction must have sufficient reputation and influence to recruit mercenary companies, and must pay each turn to maintain the ships they hire -- but this is no problem for expert riders on the Great Tide of Free Enterprise.

New Playable Faction: Ashdar Imperials

The Imperials are a group of Ashdar that are still living on their ancient homeworld of Ashdar Prime. It is a graveyard of a planet, arid and mostly lifeless, but below the surface is a warren of ancient city infrastructure, providing living and working space and concealing ancient artifacts that boost the scientific output of laboratories. Ashdar Prime is inhabited by both of the Ashdar sub-species: the wealthy Haduir artistocracy, and the harder-working Teros.

Stargates
One of the most prominent features of Ashdar Prime is the gigantic ancient stargate that hangs in orbit. For centuries it lay dormant, but now it has reawakened along with the warp lanes, and the Ashdar have used the arcane knowledge hidden within the crypts of the homeworld to unlock its secrets.

An ancient stargate acts as a one-way portal to any star system within a fleet's effective range -- it could send vessels farther, but they would be unable to return. In addition to accelerating the pace of exploration, the stargate allows the Ashdar to keep most of their fleets at the capital, and rush them instantly to any trouble spot.

Patch Notes for 7 December 2016 (ver. 18533)

Changes and Additions

• Phidi Combine and Ashdar Imperials are now playable factions.
• The Phidi Mercenary Exchange allows the Phidi faction to hire mercenaries from any of the major races with whom they have established a Trade Charter.
• Excess wrench production from prior projects will now carry over to the planet's next project, and a planet can complete more than one project per turn if it has sufficient production capacity.
• The number of available domestic trade routes has been reduced.
• Colony ships and Colony bases now both remove a colonist from the world producing them when they complete.
• Phidi and Orthin will no longer be able to colonize Steppes worlds without hostile-environment technology.
• Gremak are now able to colonize Arid, Desert, and Steppes worlds without hostile-environment technology.
• Gremak now have slightly higher pop caps on Arid worlds, Phidi and Orthin slightly lower.
• The yields from using enslaved population for Forced Labor or Experiments now scale with technologies that upgrade Factories and Labs, respectively.
• The 'Marauder Raiders' ground unit is now unlocked by the 'Marauder Raiders' tech rather than 'Marauder Weapons.'

Bug Fixes

• Entering a save game name with a leading or trailing space should no longer cause an error.
• Repackaged the sound effect assets to reduce the game's system memory footprint.
• Fixed sound effect configurations of several mid-late game beam weapons.

 

Key Features

• Unique hand-drawn comic book art style.
• Turn based 4X space strategy featuring turn based fleet combat. The tactical system allows starships to do battle using a wide range of different weapons and abilities.
• 7 Playable factions comprising six alien races. Choice of faction will determine tech and research opportunities initially available. Forming alliances, conquering neighboring species, or discovering ancient artifacts may open up additional avenues of research.
• A vast range of different planet types, each with their own lore. The most prized worlds are those that hold artifacts from civilizations that vanished long ago.
• Manage a growing empire. Balance the competing priorities of research, growth, and ship building and decide the fate of those alien species that come under your control.A multi-species empire allows taking advantage of the aptitudes of each race, but will prove challenging.
• Galactic politics: Of the playable alien species, three are "young races", reaching out into the galaxy for the first time. The remaining three are "old races", survivors of a terrible war fought in the distant past, they still hold to their ancient grudges.
• Choose your race wisely as it impacts which worlds will suit you, what trades or alliances may be offered, and whether or not your neighbors are inclined to trust you.
• A successful attack against an enemy planet gives you the option of bombarding and/or invading that planet by means of ground combat.
• Three difficulty settings.
• Map sizes up to 85 star systems. Each star can have up to 10 planets.
• Advanced settings such as Random events and NPC factions, including pirates and marauders.