Auto-Astra

Auto-Astra is a voxel-based automation game set in a space sandbox. You design and build ships block by block and then use scripting to control them.

Design your ships block by block: a miner, a hauler, a huge transport ship or anything you like. The blocks you add don’t only define the look of your ship, they also affect its speed, how fast it turns and how durable it is in combat.

Up to eight weapons and/or modules can be fitted to any ship you own, enough room for weapons, mining lasers or modules that improve your ship’s stats.

Once your ship is built, write your own scripts or use community ones to automate it: run automated trade routes, strip entire asteroid belts or take part in huge battles. All of this is possible with the integrated Lua engine and its API.

The Voxel Editor

The integrated voxel editor lets you design blueprints that you use at the shipyard to build or modify ships. If you have the blocks on board, you can even modify your ship while you are out in space. Just make sure you are in a safe spot, because your ship will be shut down during the upgrade.

The blocks you add directly define the attributes of your ship: thrust, maximum speed, shields, how much energy it generates and stores and, of course, its hull points.

The shipyard can build ships in different sizes, from frigates and battleships up to huge capital ships with millions of hull points. Each ship has eight module slots, but every ship class has its own module size.

Blueprints can be exported as a single encoded text string that you can copy and share with your friends, or upload to the Auto-Astra website to share your designs with the world.

Automation

The heart of the automation in Auto-Astra is Lua scripts that control your fleets. You can write these scripts yourself or, if you’re not up for that, use the scripts that ship with the game and get even more from the Steam Workshop.

The Lua scripts have an API to access all information about their surroundings, as well as global data like existing items, production chains and so on. Callbacks inform the scripts when the cargo hold is full, an asteroid is depleted or, in the worst case, the ship is under attack. The code in these callbacks defines how your fleet reacts.

To make automation more interesting and allow really complex setups, scripts can broadcast messages to each other, whether to exchange information or to ask for help during an attack.

As a player controlling one of your fleets manually, you can also broadcast these messages to your fleets. Imagine you are under attack and call in a bunch of battleships that repair your hull and completely destroy the enemy.

If you don’t want to code, don’t worry: all scripts can be configured with parameters, so you can build all of your automation without writing a single line of code.

Lua IDE

For script development, there’s an in-game Lua IDE. Use it to modify existing scripts or create completely new ones, and define the parameters, callbacks and all the code you need. API documentation is available so you don’t get lost.

Write code, compile, fix those errors and run your scripts on your fleets!

Multiplayer

What’s better than playing a great game alone? Playing it with your friends. Auto-Astra supports multiplayer over LAN, via direct IP connection, or through Steam, where you can invite friends to your game.

Co-op or everyone building their own empire: you decide.