Zero Sum Games’ StarDrive seems like an extremely promising 4x strategy game at first glance. It has many things going for it: you can zoom out the camera to an almost omnipresent degree, design your own classes of starships, and take direct control of an individual ship and fly around with the keyboard. Unfortunately, many issues squander the game’s potential and make it feel unfinished.

I can see forever…

StarDrive is a turn-based 4x space game, but each turn is just a fixed number of seconds of real time at normal speed. In certain aspects, StarDrive resembles the Galactic Civilization series: you colonize planets, build structures on each colony’s tile grid, design spacecraft, meet with and spy on other races, search for artifacts, and so on. Each planet produces a certain amount of resources based on its starting stats and how you manage it. Production, food, and population can be stockpiled or transferred between planets via freighters. So it’s possible to create agricultural planets that feed industrial planets, which in turn can ship “production” to help other colonies complete building projects.

StarDrive offers several automation options to help fulfill your galactic empire aspirations. For example, you can click on the colonize button on unclaimed planets to send the nearest available colony ship to that world (it will order a nearby planet to build one if you don’t have any such ships). Additionally, governors can be assigned to each planet and given orders to focus on things like research or industry. Also, the empire’s shipyards can be ordered to commission freighters as needed. These options can be helpful, but you should personally build subspace projectors, the platforms that create space highways. These are costly to maintain, and the AI’s grandiose infrastructure projects can bankrupt you.

Like many other games of its ilk, StarDrive allows you to design your own ships. Based on the technologies researched by your civilization, you can choose a hull type and place various modules on it. Each ship has a grid divided into engine slots as well as internal and exterior slots and a slot located between the interior and exterior of the ship. Every design is going to need engines, some sort of bridge, and a power source and power conduits. In addition, you can add various weapons, armor, and shield types as well as extras like fighter bays, ordnance storage, ordnance fabricators, sensors, and space for colonists. Weapons have a firing arc, so they need to be carefully positioned. Designing “invincible” battleships is enjoyable, but the design interface is unforgiving: one wrong click can replace large swaths of carefully designed power conduits and armor with a missile turret that you intended to place one grid away.

We must destroy everything. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

While designing spaceships is a major selling point of StarDrive, diplomacy is more interesting. For starters, the other civilizations have a lot of character. The emissary of the plant-like Pollops plays music from a sonoboard that also shoots out synthesized sunlight, the Samurai Bears of the Kulrathi shogunate greet you with a haiku, and the Lovecraft-inspired Ralyeh Devoted patiently explain the need to destroy everything in the universe for the benefit of their elder god. Additionally, diplomacy is deeper here than in many strategy games. Instead of giving your relationships a simple numerical value, each faction has different levels of trust, anger, and fear toward your civilization. If other factions trust you, then they’re more likely to agree to proposals like alliances or forming a federation, which annexes their empire through diplomacy.

On the other hand, doing things like colonizing a system other factions have staked a claim to, sponsoring rebellions on their planets, or offering them insulting trade deals can lose their trust and make them angry. Finally, fear represents their respect for your power. If other civilizations are angry and unafraid, then you can expect war. Opportunistic allies, tempted by easy conquests, may betray you. Sadly, it’s too easy to accidentally declare war on your allies by clicking on that option in dialogue. Such a drastic action clearly needs a confirmation box.