Starship Corporation is a real-time strategy game that combines thoughtful ship design with strategic crisis intervention.
Starship Corporation’s gameplay is fascinatingly unique and delightfully complex. The player designs a starship for either themselves or as a contractor with very specific goals in mind. Whether the player is designing a combat frigate or a hospital ship, they must carefully decide how they wish to design the ship so that it can serve its determined purpose effectively. Naturally, each type of ship will require a different set of components, and so the player must intelligently utilize up to 50 different types of rooms, each of which with a specific purpose. While designing your ship, you must also consider how you will defend and protect important areas of your ship from hostile forces or external forces. For instance, placing your most vital rooms and systems (such as air or power generation) in the center of the ship makes it more difficult for invading forces to take those essential systems offline, and also protects them from damage that might incidentally occur on the periphery of the ship in the event of a meteorite impact. The performance of your ship design in missions and simulations determines the ship’s rating which has an effect on its value when either sold or traded.
Starship Corporation is a perfect example of a game that challenges our perception of what real-time strategy is all about. While many strategy games focus on micromanagement for you to be successful, its the macro-level focus that is required in order to ensure that the ship’s design meets its goals and effectively performs its intended function. Its a game where you can infinitely design a starship for any purpose, but infinitely fail if you do not make conscious decisions regarding layout and the safety of your systems and crew.