Thank you for your interest in Stars in Shadow. While explaining the entire game is beyond the scope of this guide, we will cover some basic game features and mechanics to help you get started.

Stars in Shadow is a 4X strategy game developed by Ashdar Games and published by Iceberg Interactive. In this game, you will take control of one of seven unique factions in your quest to dominate the galaxy.

Stars in Shadow is still in Early-Access, and a full tutorial is not yet available. We trust that this guide will help you understand and enjoy the game until this feature is available. Also note that the game is filled with tooltips and ingame explanations. If you are not sure about something, clicking it, or hovering your mouse over it is always a good idea. For any further question or feedback, please find your way to our Steam forums.

You can also watch 7 minute getting started video here:

All factions have very different characteristics and playing styles, be sure to look at the different bonuses and abilities per race before you make your decision. The Ashdar Colonials are a nice choice for beginners, especially if you can make use of their production bonus to produce powerful carriers. For those looking for something different, the Gremak are a great choice. They thrive on ocean planets and can quickly set up an efficient slave economy.

The Ashdar Colonials are nice and balanced and a solid choice for your first game.

Next, there is the possibility to customize your game. Here you can set the difficulty, map size and select the AI opponents. Note that some of the advanced customization options are yet to be implemented. For new players it is advised to start on an easier difficulty and perhaps with a bit fewer opponents. This will give you a bit more time to experiment and familiarize yourself with the game mechanics.

A nice first game setup.

At the start of a new game, you will be welcomed by one of your advisors. He will explain your starting position and warns you for the danger of outer space. On the map you can see your home system and your starting fleet. In every game, (except when playing Humans), you will start with a Colony Ship, a Transport Ship and a Scout Cruiser. Scouts are the best ships when exploring. They can travel long distances and they are able to retreat from combat before a battle starts, thereby minimizing the risk to the ship.

Moving your ship is very easy to do. First select your fleet on the map. Then, from the bottom menu, select the scout ship by left clicking it. All you then do is right clicking an unexplored star system and the ship will go on its way. When a fleet is selected, pressing the right mouse also button brings up a circle. This circle shows the maximum travel distance for the selected fleet. This distance is based on colonized planets in the area, your technology level in the relevant field, and the ship design.


Yellow G-type stars have a high chance of containing habitable planets.

It is always a good strategy to start exploring the systems close to you and see if they have good planets to start a first colony. Especially for your first colony, you will want to make sure your colony can support port its own food production, otherwise, trade will be necessary (more on that in section 4 of this guide). The best way to make sure the planet can support food, is to check the fertility rating in the planet overview screen.

A planet with low fertility is not ideal for a first colony, as it means your people might not survive on their own.

Once you have found a planet that is good for your species, send your colony ship there and hit the colonize button located underneath the planet in the system.

Before we cover the basics of colony management, let’s go over the basic resources. In Stars in Shadow. The most important are Money, Production, Food, Metal, Research, Transports and Influence. All of these are represented at the top part of the game interface.



Money: Gained by taxing your people and trading. Money is used to support your ships and buildings (upkeep). Money can also be used to bribe certain raiders into not attacking you.

Production: Shows the amount of production used by all planets. Production is used for making buildings, units, ships etc. Note that production is tracked per planet, so excess production on one planet will not transfer to another. Production can be increased by building factories.

Food: Shows net production of food in your empire. Food is used to feed your citizens and having excess food will allow your population to grow. Note that food is tracked per planet. Excess food on one planet will only transfer if transport ships are available (see section 4). Food production can be increased by building farms.

Metal: Shows current stockpile and net production of your metal. Metal is used for building and refitting ships and your ship production speed will suffer greatly when you run out of metal. Metal production can be increased by building mines.

Research: Shows the current amount of research points for the selected project, the amount needed to unlock the selected technology (see section 5) and the added amount for next turn. Research income can be increased by building labs.

Transports: Shows the amount of transports available and the amount of transports your empire can effectively support. Transports can be used to transfer food or population between colonies, and to make money through trade.

Influence: Shows the current amount of influence and the projected income. Influence is used for making diplomatic deals with other empires. Influence is gained by exchanging embassies with other races.

In Stars in Shadow, colonies form the backbone of your empire and a successful colony is full of colonists. Even when no buildings available in a colony, all colonists will produce some basic resources. Some races have colonists that provide a large science bonus, other produce extra production or food. This means that even without buildings present, your colony will contribute to your empires wealth. It also means that growing your colony in size, is a great way to strengthen your economy.

Note that the game allows you to have multiple species share the same planet. This can be a good way to get the most out of your colonies. This can include species from other factions, but also more primitive species, that are native to specific planets. It is even possible to migrate (part of) these native species to other worlds!

On this planet, we have three different species, each with their own characteristics and bonuses.

Depending on the size of the planet, each colony will have a number of building slots available. These building slots can be used to produce factories, farms, labs, markets or mines. Each of these buildings increase the production of a specific resource (see section 3) . A breakdown of the building slots on the planet can be seen in the top right of the colony management panel.

This planet contains one farm and has five more building slots available.

In order to maintain and grow your colony, food is extremely important. However, not all planets have climates that support enough food production to keep your colonists alive. To prevent your people from starving, you can use transports to take food from planets with excess production, to planets that need it. This process is done almost completely automatically. All you have to do is to make sure you have enough transport ships in your transport pool (see section 3).

You can fill up your transport pool by building transports at one of your colonies. Next, select the transport and hit the “Start Trading” button indicated by the yellow shuttle. Your transport ship will now start moving food. If there is no need for food transports, it will start trading and generate money.

Hover your mouse over the transport ship to bring up the trading icon.

In order to keep up with your opponents, researching the right technologies is extremely important. Research impacts all aspects of the game. This includes economy, colonization and of course combat and combining the right technologies with your racial modifiers can give a decisive advantage. A new technology is unlocked when the requirement for the amount of research points is met (see section 4).

Navigating the menu could not be easier. The top part shows available projects and the bottom part shows finished ones. Selecting a technology gives you more information and it will also tell you to which technology it will lead. The icons in front of the techs indicate to what category they belong.

Note that there is no ‘perfect’ order in which to unlock new techs. This all depends on your racial modifiers, your starting location and on what your enemies are doing. If you are playing the Ashar Colonials for example, it could be a good idea to prioritize laser research, as this will upgrade the fighters on the Escort Carriers the Ashdars have quick access to.

Pro tip: it's possible to view all techs in a given field by clicking on the name of the field inside the text info screen.

You can click on any future tech in the right hand panel to get more information or queue research.

Ship design and technology go hand in hand. Initially the amount of ship types you hava available to you will be limited. In time though, as you unlock more hull classes and weapons there are a lot of options from customizations. Finding the right ships for your race and playing style may take some trial and error, but few things are as rewarding as seeing your ships victorious in combat because of your superior designs.

The ship design menu can be accessed by hitting the ship design button in the top bar of the screen. From here, you will be able to alter an existing design, or create a completely new one. If you decide to create a completely new design, you will need to select the hull type you wish to design a ship for.

Once you selected the ship or hull you want to design. You will be able to add and replace modules. The panel to the right shows all available modules for this particular ship. The panel to the left shows all design slots. You can add modules to your ship using drag and drop.

Note that each slot has a specific role, so it is not possible to place a turret where the generator should go for example.


You can see there are still some slots available to fill with modules.

This guide should get you ready to start playing and start having fun. Of course there is much more to the game than covered here, such as combat, diplomacy and morale. In addition the features that are explained here often go deeper we could cover and some factors might change during the course of Early-Access.