StellarHub

Review

Every one of us looks up at the sky now and then. Sometimes to admire the stunning blue, and sometimes to be totally absorbed by the beauty of sparkling stars at night. Surely you must have wondered at some point, is there anything out there? Will the human race be able to live in space? Well, it’s time to find out – you’ve just been appointed captain of the StellaHub!

StellarHub is base building/strategy/management game where you have to build and manage an orbital station as well as survive the harsh environment in space.

Before you attempt to play this game, I strongly recommend that you complete the two tutorials available. They’ll help you to understand the basics of the game as well as part of the management system. It will take you around thirty minutes to cover both of them.

From here, you’ll be able to choose between several stars systems/scenarios or simply generate a random system to make the life on your new home even more exciting. You could start with a small, medium or large map.  Don’t be fooled by the words small (in relation to asteroids or pirates activities) or easy. StellarHub isn’t easy and you have to deal with constant events within the station, pirate attacks, asteroids impacts and even events that occur on earth which have repercussions for your station’s well-being. For example, there may be a food shortage, which will substantially increase the cost per unit of bringing some to your station.  If you have a farm, you could sell it back to earth for an awesome profit.  

The gameplay is laid out as a grid, and it the middle of it you will have your main hub. Some of the tiles might have mining resources, sun and gas cloud-thingies from where you can produce oxygen. Other tiles could have asteroid fragments with an interrogation mark. With those, you’ll be able to send probes to discover if there are any additional resources, or just clear it so you can build a new station module on it. Tiles with locks on them mean that you are not able to build new structures there. However, if you build another main hub close to it, it will unlock those tiles and consequently you’ll be able to build new structures on them.

What I really enjoy in StellarHub is the management systems. First the staff; you can assign any of the staff to do a job on the station. The trick is to select the right person with the right professional traits suitable for the job. So, when you build a med bay, you would probably assign a person who has experience in first aid or surgery and not someone who enjoys cleaning or is an avid miner. That would probably give your patients new cavities they haven’t had before with a negative diagnosis called . . .  death! There is a good research tree where you can unlock new structures for your station. You’ll be able to hire people and purchase items from earth as soon as you build a supply spaceport, and sell items when you manage to build a trade spaceport.

Essentially, you need to have the right balance in resources, keep your staff happy and protect your station from pirates and asteroid crashes. Really simple, but can be hard to do!

Graphically StellarHub looks good and the controls work well.