![stardrive 2 opteris stardrive 2 opteris](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rmy5EBazGGY/maxresdefault.jpg)
Each ship is made up of dozens of small squares that you can drag and drop the different ship parts onto, to fill it up for any purpose you might have. There are a few default designs available for many technologies, though you can create as many custom ship templates as you desire, for every hull you have the technology for. In the spirit of past 4X games, StarDrive has a Shipyard you can enter that allows for very detailed and in-depth ship design. Subspace projectors can be built between colonies to speed travel between, and also give vision of any invading fleets once you gain the technology to do so. Planets need to be scanned directly for detailed information, but solar systems are revealed simply by passing through them. On a macro scale, exploring is as simple as selecting a ship or fleet and clicking on a destination. Even something as simple as letting you just click the planet to land without going in would make it so much better. While the AI is good at invading, it’s a pain to do so yourself, as you’ve got to find your troops on the planets in your empire, launch them into orbit, select the target planet, wait for them to begin orbiting and then go to the planet’s ground grid and from there set your troops to land and begin their assault. Also, time out in the galaxy keeps moving too, so focusing on ground combat is an easy way to lose track of your fleets and lose an entire squadron. Right now it isn’t really feasible to manually control it once your troops land because, while troops do have a timer between moves, the AI reacts so much faster when the timer runs out that you are at a complete disadvantage. Ground defense is a fairly simple grid-based real-time/turn-based hybrid affair, and it could definitely use some tweaking. Nothing can ever beat successfully defending a planet from a superior fleet by flying in guns blazing and then running away, drawing your opponent into chasing you right into the deadly maw of a battlestation bristling with more firepower than anyone should ever have. When you find yourself at war, I definitely urge you to increase ground defenses as much as you can. This is important, because the AI is very good at bypassing defending fleets and invading your planets. Buildings can improve yields in any of those areas, give bonuses to credits or ship building or even increase your planetary defense. Each planet has a slider you can set yourself or let the AI manage, that sets how the population divides its focus between food, production and science.
![stardrive 2 opteris stardrive 2 opteris](https://images.cgames.de/images/gamestar/290/stardrive-2_2631722.jpg)
These all affect how helpful a planet will be at producing buildings, ships and troops, feeding and funding your empire and improving your technology. What planets you decide to colonize will depend on their max population, arability and mineral richness. The sheer amount of depth and gameplay systems in this game is remarkable. This is great for planning out system defense during wars, trying to time invasion tactics, or even just to get a handle on exactly what is going on in every pocket of your (hopefully) vast empire. Once it is unpaused, the game will begin following all commands that were entered before. In a welcome nod to the fact that many fans of this genre prefer to take their time and think over their moves and strategies, StarDrive allows a player to pause at any time and issue as many orders or queue as many construction orders as you could want. StarDrive attempts to combine this customarily turn-based style of gameplay with a real-time engine, much like Sins of a Solar Empire did, though on a galactic scale. In case you are unfamiliar with the term, 4X refers to a strategy genre in which you attempt to explore (the galaxy), expand (your empire), exploit (your resources) and exterminate (your competition).
![stardrive 2 opteris stardrive 2 opteris](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/stardrive/images/e/ec/Ancient_torpedo_cruiser.png)
StarDrive has what it takes, but it can be tough to get into it. That said, it takes something interesting to keep me coming back. It almost doesn’t matter what the content is I’ll dig in for at least a couple of days, as long as it’s playable. 4X games are something of a weakness for me.