Updates
Every new commander now starts with a working world
Your first season now begins with stock, developed buildings, installed sensors and a small fleet, granted once per account, so the first hour is spent deciding rather than waiting.
Updated
What changed
New commanders used to arrive with an almost empty planet and spend their first hour waiting for the first upgrades to finish. Since 3 November, your first season in a galaxy starts with a starting package on your world, granted once per account:
- Store: 1,500 alloy, 1,000 crystal and 50 deuterium, with a little production already waiting in the Works.
- Buildings: Command Core 3, Alloy Refinery 2, Crystal Extractor 2, and Store, Shipyard and Hangar at level 1.
- Instruments: Telescope 3, Radar 2 and Aegis 1, with an Uplink already in orbit.
- Ships: three Darts, one Warden, one Courier and one Prospector.
The package arrives whether or not you finish or skip the training, and replaying the training or joining later seasons does not grant it again.
Each piece has a job. The Uplink is what allows Telescope and Radar on a world, so you no longer spend an orbit slot and an install before your first observation. Telescope 3 gives two silent watch slots, enough to follow two neighbours’ fleets. Radar 2 warns you of incoming fleets with their arrival time. Aegis 1 holds 150 shield points and refills 35% of them every hour. One Dart with the Courier is exactly what an unknown signal asks for, and the Prospector can start mining the first passing asteroid.
Why we changed it
Astera is a game about information and decisions: choosing a target, reading a report, deciding what to risk. None of that can happen while a new commander waits for a level 1 refinery. With working sensors and a first fleet, you can place a watch, answer an unknown signal or send a first probe within minutes of arriving, which is where the game actually starts.
What it means for you
Use your protection window to learn with real tools rather than to build them. Collect the Works, raise your producers while their payback is short, put your two Telescope watches on neighbours and answer your first unknown signal with a Dart and the Courier. The how to play guide walks through that first day, and the economy guide shows which upgrades pay back fastest.