STARBOUND SETTLERS
HOW TO PLAY • TIPS • BUILDING IDEAS
Build a thriving space colony. Connect sealed habitats, provide oxygen, care for families, train workers, and defend your growing settlement.
🚀 Your First Colony — 10 Steps
- Explore the map. Drag to rotate the camera and zoom to find open building space.
- Check resources. Watch Titanium, Power, Plasma, food, water, and oxygen.
- Build power. Place power generation to support mining and colony services.
- Mine materials. Add mining drills and specialized mines for construction resources.
- Create breathable air. Build an Oxygen Generator before expanding residential areas.
- Place a sealed habitat. Start with a Sealed Habitat Biome or another habitat dome.
- Connect air tubes. Extend Pressurized Transit Tubes or airlocks so the generator and habitat share a valid route.
- Build essential services. Add connected homes, food production, and water facilities.
- Protect the settlement. Place laser towers and other defenses before the next enemy wave.
- Save regularly. Continue upgrading buildings, research, schools, robots, and territory.
🫧 Oxygen, Domes & Air Tubes
- Build an Oxygen Generator and connect it through Pressurized Transit Tubes or sealed airlocks.
- Join that route to a Sealed Habitat Biome.
- Keep homes, schools, farms, and other occupied buildings within the safe connected network.
- Use the Air / Biomes or Tube Routes inspector to check isolated structures.
- Red or unsafe markers signal a network problem; verify generator output and links.
- As the population grows, monitor air demand and add generator capacity.
Common oxygen problem
If a home is unusable, check the entire path back to the Oxygen Generator, not only the closest tube. A missing intermediate link can isolate multiple buildings.
🏠 Keep Colonists Happy & Healthy
- Housing: Build and upgrade connected homes and shelters.
- Food: Maintain farms, food processing, and reserve supplies.
- Water: Add extraction and recycling facilities as demand rises.
- Health: Provide clinics, hospitals, and emergency support.
- Happiness: Add parks, recreation, markets, and community buildings.
- Energy: Give residents places to rest and manageable work assignments.
- Families: Stable, healthy adults may form relationships and have children when conditions allow.
Immigration rocket tip
To encourage arrivals, keep free housing capacity, adequate supplies, safe habitat connections, and good colony conditions. Rockets may postpone arrival if the settlement is unsafe.
⛏️ Mining & Resource Management
Balance new construction against production. Different resources support different building types and technologies.
| Resource | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Titanium | Many buildings and upgrades |
| Power | Operating infrastructure and abilities |
| Plasma | Advanced equipment and defenses |
| Iron, Copper, Silicon | Specialized industry and colony expansion |
| Water & Food | Resident survival and population growth |
Production strategy
Expand generators, mines, farms, and oxygen together. Avoid building a large district before you can supply and defend it.
🎓 Schools, Skills & Jobs
- Build a connected school with available classroom capacity.
- Assign teachers where the education system requires them.
- Enroll students in available lessons such as Mining, Engineering, Farming, Science, or Medicine.
- Match adult colonists to jobs that fit their skills and colony needs.
- Upgrade educational buildings to increase capacity.
- Check each colonist’s profile for name, age, family, job, thoughts, happiness, and energy.
Long-term idea
Train a new generation of engineers before expanding factories and highly technical colony facilities.
🛡️ Defense & Player Combat
- Use short-range rapid-fire lasers against small enemy groups.
- Use rail lasers and other long-range towers against tough threats.
- Use slowing and area-damage defenses to protect busy approaches.
- Keep civilian buildings, oxygen equipment, and tube links behind strong defenses.
- Click a hostile robot to fire your Commander Laser and help your towers.
- Upgrade your personal weapon and key towers as enemy waves grow harder.
- Use tactical abilities such as EMP and shields when available.
Defense layout idea
Place slowing defenses in front, rapid-fire towers in the middle, and heavy long-range lasers behind them. Protect oxygen routes as carefully as the Core.
🏗️ Build, Move & Upgrade
- Choose buildings from the categorized construction menu.
- Click clear ground to place a selected structure.
- Click an existing building to inspect its details and available upgrades.
- Use Move Building to relocate structures without rebuilding them; confirm the new placement.
- Expandable domes, homes, and selected service buildings can grow to higher levels and occupy more space.
- Leave room between structures so future size upgrades are possible.
- After moving oxygen infrastructure, recheck all connected routes.
Planning tip
Leave open corridors around domes and large residential buildings for future expansion. Put industrial areas farther from dense housing.
🌌 Territory, Research & Long-Term Growth
- Unlock larger construction territory when resources allow.
- Research technology to improve production, power, defenses, and robotics.
- Develop the colony through civilization eras.
- Complete commander objectives and colony contracts for rewards.
- Work toward multi-stage megaprojects and long-distance expeditions.
- Grow slowly enough to keep oxygen, housing, and services available.
Late-game idea
Create specialist districts: an education hub, industrial complex, agricultural dome, protected residential neighborhood, and spaceport area.
💡 Creative Colony Layout Ideas
🌿 Garden Neighborhood
Forest dome with family homes, parks, a school, clinic, and community garden. Connect everything through a bright blue tube ring.
⚙️ Industrial District
Cluster mines, foundries, warehouses, robot factories, and power stations away from family spaces.
🧪 Research Campus
Combine a laboratory, academy, library, and nearby protected housing for specialized workers.
🚀 Spaceport District
Reserve land for passenger rockets, trading facilities, cargo storage, and safe connections to the main settlement.
❓ Troubleshooting
Why are colonist buildings marked unsafe?
Check for an active Oxygen Generator, missing tube segments, disconnected domes, and sufficient oxygen supply.
Why can’t I place or expand a building?
The location may be blocked, beyond unlocked territory, too close to another structure, or too expensive. Try moving nearby buildings.
Why aren’t new colonists arriving?
Check free housing, food, water, oxygen, happiness, safe connections, and current threats.
Why isn’t the school operating?
Check its tube/oxygen connection, teachers, student enrollment, and capacity.
Why is the scene running slowly?
Try lowering graphics quality, limiting expensive effects, and minimizing extra panels.
How do I get the battlefield back?
Minimize or move panels, collapse the main resource bar, hide HUD elements, or use Reset Windows.
