A tight and tactical turn-based 4X strategy game where every move counts. Explore the galaxy, colonize new worlds, research powerful technologies, and command deadly fleets to lead your empire to victory.
Astro Protocol is a cosmic simulation program overseen by six rival galactic factions. On this platform, the fate of the galaxy gets determined by every battle, anomaly, and advancement.
Explore a unique hex-based galaxy map
Each map offers a new procedurally generated layout — and a new challenge. Explore bright stars, dangerous asteroid fields, resource-rich gas giants, habitable planets, and mysterious anomalies.
Discover anomalies and unlock powerful rewards
Anomalies are events where everything can happen. Each anomaly is AI-free and features hand-crafted art by the talented artist Sami Rouhiainen. Choose from powerful, game-changing rewards that shape each run in a different way.
Colonize and terraform planets to expand your empire
Some planets are ready for colonization, while others must be terraformed to support new forms of life. Establishing colonies expands your supply network, lowering energy upkeep costs and enabling deeper exploration. The more colonies you control, the more resources you’ll generate to fuel your growth across the stars.
Build space stations and ships to control the stars
Build space stations to harvest nearby resources from gas giants, stars, and asteroid fields. Use those resources to build ships with unique roles — from agile scouts to long-range carriers and heavily armored battleships. Shape your fleet to fit your strategy and gain control over your rivals.
Research new technologies to gain the upper hand
Mix and match technologies from three unique tech branches, each offering powerful upgrades that shape your strategy. With randomized technology options and limited research capabilities, no two runs are the same — making every decision matter.
Crush enemy fleets
Every ship has two attack stats: the number of strikes per round and the damage dealt by each strike. Whether your enemy is heavily shielded or armored will determine the tactics you’ll need to use. Shields regenerate each turn, but armor is permanent — choose your attacks carefully to exploit enemy weaknesses.
Race for victory points against rival factions
Gain victory points by controlling planets and stations and by discovering anomalies.
The first player to reach the required victory points wins!
Weve been hard at work on the full version of Astro Protocol, adding new factions, units, anomalies and technologies. These additions are not available in the demo but update 0.18 brings a big wave of improvements for the demo as well.
Extermination Now Takes One Turn
Exterminating a planet used to be an instant action and didn\'t have any cost or drawback while colonizing cost you a ship and energy. This incentivised attacking planets and made any hole in defence very costly.
This update changes extermination so that the ship must bombard the planet until the start of your next turn and cannot counter-attack during this period. If the ship is destroyed, the extermination attempt fails.
This change makes extermination more tactical and increases counter-play opportunities for opponents.
New Game Settings
This update adds new settings to control over how each match plays:
Added setting to start a game without minor factions.
[/*]Added game length setting.
[/*]Added possibility to randomize game settings and faction.
[/*]
Map Generation Improvements
More variance in player starting positions.
[/*]Medium-level anomalies can appear anywhere instead of only in the center of the map.
[/*]Less stars, gas giants, and asteroids for more scarcity and room for strategic plays.
[/*]Added randomized minor faction spawn distance from the center.
[/*]
Improved AI & More Defensive Minor Factions
AI now makes better decisions in tech research, ship construction, and anomaly rewards.
[/*]Minor factions now behave more defensively, making them harder to wipe out early.
[/*]AI uses more efficient movement and production logic.
[/*]Early-game AI shipbuilding has been improved for stronger openings.
[/*]
Performance & UX Improvements
A large part of this update focuses on speed and quality-of-life improvements:
Performance
Faster turn-ending calculations.
[/*]Better research placement performance.
[/*]Optimized map rendering performance especially for large maps.
[/*]
UI / UX
New tooltip style
[/*]Smaller selected-ship panel and ship tooltips
[/*]Input icons added
[/*]Game settings now save automatically
[/*]Improved end game menu
[/*]Close menus when placing ships, stations and techs
[/*]Improved anomaly tooltips
[/*]
Fixes
Fixed minor faction relation visualization
[/*]Fixed tutorial texts
[/*]Fixed navigation crash
[/*]
Important Note: Your Settings Have Been Reset
Due to internal technical changes, your video, audio, and gameplay settings have been reset.\nPlease reconfigure them after updating the game.
December Playtest - Sign Up Now
Were preparing a new playtest in December. If you would like to experience the content available in the full version before the game is released, sign up here: https://nullvectorstudios.com/playtest
Thank you all for playing, supporting development, and giving feedback.\nSee you in the weekly challenge and among the stars!
Minimum Setup
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04 or compatible 64-bit distro
- Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHzMemory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Vulkan-compatible GPU (Intel UHD 600+. AMD Vega. or better)
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Recommended Setup
- OS: Ubuntu 20.04 or compatible 64-bit distro
- Processor: Quad-core 2.5 GHz or betterMemory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Dedicated Vulkan GPU (e.g. GTX 750 Ti or better)
- Storage: 500 MB available space
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