Space Station Designer

Space Station Designer is a construction and management game where you are in charge of building and expanding a group of orbital outposts in Earth and Lunar Orbit.

Perform a wide range of activities such as recruiting and managing astronauts, building and installing modules, providing commercial services, manufacturing commercial goods, acquiring and commercializing industrial R&D technologies, leasing modules, and a lot more in order to make your outposts the best they can be!

Or, if you prefer a more chilled experience, fire up the ‘Free Builder’ mode and come up with your own creative designs. Your imagination is the limit!

Space Station Designer is the second large game from the creators of Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager and it’s under heavy development. There’s no planned release date, as this is a labor of love and we are working on it during our spare time as an independent studio. If you want to support our efforts and stay up to date with its development, please add it to your Steam wishlist and follow us on Twitter. We’ll be providing updates on a regular basis.



The year is 1998. As an extremely accomplished and well-respected billionaire that made their fortune in the logistics and technology sectors, you’re well aware of the potential benefits that a permanent presence in space can provide. After meeting with many world leaders for several months and pitching your ambitious ideas, government officials from the United States of America (USA), the Russian Federation, the European Union (EU), and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) all want to partner up with you in order to setup a government-industry venture in order to establish a group of orbital outposts in Earth and Lunar orbits.



Unfortunately, these four superpowers are not interested in working together! Will you partner with the US and receive a commercial goods transactions bonus and an extra influx of initial funds? Or maybe go with the European Union and receive a permanent bonus on propulsion and research points generation? The Russian Federation prepares their astronauts for maintenance duties a lot better than the rest of the regions, maybe that’s the best option? Or probably partnering up with the People’s Republic of China looks more appealing, as they provide a significant manufacturing boost?

After selecting your partner, choose between three initial configurations of the Core Module, launch it into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and begin your journey! A typical month as a Director of this government-industry venture will find you ordering modules, arranging resupply spacecraft, training astronauts, acquiring technologies from a vast tech tree, and manufacturing commercial goods that can later be sold in a dynamic market, where prices fluctuate in real-time.

Once you’ve established a solid presence in LEO, expand your footprint by opening further outposts in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), High Earth Orbit (HEO) and the Moon. Your career as a Director will span 50 years. Develop a strategy and see how far you push this venture during this timeframe!



As of May 2024, Space Station Designer features three game modes: ‘Campaign’, ‘Sandbox’, and ‘Free Builder’. The ‘Free Builder’ mode gives you a blank canvas with an extensive palette of modules that you can assemble as you see fit, whereas the Campaign/Sandbox modes provides the following options:

• Choose between four unique regions to establish your company. Each one of them provides different bonuses and perks.
  
• Setup your LEO station by choosing from three different Core Modules.
  
• Purchase modules across a wide range of categories (electricity, cooling, structural, research, manufacturing, etc) and install them.
  
• Manage the members of your astronaut corps, whose individual morale ratings are affected by the assignments they get and other external events.
  
• Discover and unlock technologies from a complex tech tree which comprises over 60 technologies.
  
• Order space station modules from different types of contractors featuring unique strong points.
  
• Request and prepare resupply missions in order to bring consumables, raw materials and astronauts to the station.
  
• Experience random events that affect different aspects of your company.
  
• Play a minigame when launching resupply spacecraft.
  
• Assign astronauts to maintenance duties in order to keep the station fully functional. Sometimes modules will break, though! So make sure you have enough crew members available to jump in for unexpected repairs.
  
• Setup complex production lines in order to produce commercial goods, which can be sold back on Earth in a constantly evolving market.

If you’re new to the game, we recommend starting with the ‘Campaign’ mode, which provides a series of objectives that will progressively introduce you to the game’s systems. Once you feel more comfortable, you can transition to the ‘Sandbox’ mode, which gives you a lot more flexibility.

The game also provides modding support, and we have made available a series of mods that illustrate how to either replace existing or add new astronauts, space station modules and resupply spacecraft. You’ll definitely want to check our mods out if you’d like to have access to realistic versions of Skylab, the Apollo CSM, and the Space Shuttle.

In addition to this, there’s also a series of mechanics that have already been implemented, but that won’t be available in the upcoming update. These are:

• The ability to provide commercial services and lease your modules to private companies in order to bring much needed funds.
  
• The option to develop Industrial R&D technologies, which can be leased or sold to private entities.
  
• The choice to expand into higher orbits such as Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and High Earth Orbit (HEO). You will also be able to establish an orbital outpost in Lunar orbit!
  
• The capacity to build and manage Earth facilities, which provide extra bonuses and the possibility of running Continuous Improvement Programs (CIPs).

Planned features for the campaign mode include:

• An optional mini-game where you will manually pilot resupply spacecraft and guide them to the target docking port.
  
• Deeper interactions with your astronauts.
  
• Even More random events and emergent situations.

Lastly, we’re designing a massive list of Steam Achievements and coming up with loads of ideas for Steam Trading Cards!



There’s no planned final release date for Space Station Designer yet. If you like the premise of the game, we encourage you to join the Steam playtest and let us know your feedback by opening a thread in the forums. We read each and every single thread opened there, and we’ve already started implementing some of your suggestions. Some examples include:

• The interactive tutorial system added in version 0.3.6 (published in mid-August 2021)
  
• The rich random events system that we developed for version 0.5.0 (published in August 2023).
  
• The revamped ‘Campaign’ mode, which includes a series of mandatory objectives (published in December 2023).
  
• The modules proximity rules added as part of version 0.5.20 (published in February 2024).
  
• The new propulsion and thrusters relocation mechanics added as part of version 0.5.25 (published in April 2024).
  
  We're currently hard at work refining the existing mechanics, and implementing a 'Contracts' system for the 'Campaign' and 'Sandbox' modes.
  
  Looking forward to your feedback, see you in the forums!