Void Sovereign

Void Sovereign is a small 4X for the desktop, in the spirit of Master of Orion. You start with one world, a couple of ships and up to three AI rivals. It’s still in development, so expect rough edges and numbers that change.

I wanted a 4X where you only run a handful of planets and each one matters. Most of the game happens inside your colonies and your ship designs, not in managing a huge empire.

An additional layer; The military-industrial complex. You can't just design a laser cannon and waltz off into the depths of space. The Orion Complex want their coveted government procurement contract.

All technology must be:

A: Tendered (which results in a trade-off between a generated bonus and negative) or
B: Built to specification - The vanilla output

Additionally, all ship items can be modified with the game's resource model which confer additional specific material bonuses to the weapons and modules - too many to list, but shown in the UI.

How it works

Colonies are small hex grids. You place buildings one at a time, and your population can only staff so many of them. If you run short of workers, everything slows down, so you have to pick what matters.

You can’t just grab every planet. There’s a cap on how much you can hold, and outposts have to mature before you can upgrade them to colonies.

Half the fun is the tedious, frustrating job of surveying new systems. Because you're not omnipotent.

Your colonies are linked by a supply network. If an enemy fleet sits on one of your links, the cut-off colonies lose income a bit more each turn. Fleets that wander too far from supply wear down. You can build forward bases to push your reach further out.

You pick one of eight ideologies at the start. Mandates cost Political Capital, and your ideology decides the price. Policies that fit your style cost half, and ones that clash cost 50% more.

Ships are a hull with parts in slots similar to Stellaris. They’re built at shipyards, and those can be blockaded or captured. Each hull size costs double the last, so a Dreadnought is a big decision.

Researching a part doesn’t let you use it straight away. You put it out to tender, and three firms each offer a version with one strength and one flaw. You pick one. There are also 15 materials you dig up from planets, which improve your designs if you have the stock.

Battles run automatically in real time. Your designs and stances do the steering. Counters are soft, and missiles can be shot down.

I also tried to make the game explain itself. Tooltips are still WIP and may not completely explain every choice or mechanism (Yet!).

The basics

You against 1 to 5 AI rivals, each with its own personality.
Small, medium or large galaxy, generated from a seed
You win by owning the only planets left
Mouse and keyboard. Right-click to move fleets, B for the ship designer, O for procurement, T for research, F1 for help
The music was made by me and DJ Gemini.

If you try it, I’d like to hear where the pacing feels off, especially how fast the AI attacks and how tight the supply rules feel.

Still to be built

Building tiers (Pillars and Utility)
Better combat
Combat sound
Floating combat text for combat
Better diplomacy