The first Star Trek colony builder. Lay out power, life support and compute across three alien worlds.
Star Trek: Outposts Unknown is a real-time-with-pause outpost builder from Magic Fuel Games, published by Playstack under licence from Paramount. You captain the U.S.S. Resonant into the X'Lehari System to help a fragile alien civilisation, running research, harvest, refine and transport chains across Daegus, Kourou and Neral while the Tetryon Rift throws storms at you. This wiki covers resources, buildings, crew divisions, the shift schedule and every planet hazard.
The franchise's first colony sim, set in the 23rd century alongside the era of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Full harvest to refine to combine to transport chains, from basic metal and polyalloy through to dutronic chips and memory banks.
Command, Science, Engineering, Medical, Navigation and Security - each named officer has stats, traits and specialities.
Harvesting biology yields seeds that must be replanted. You cannot strip-mine a planet and walk away.
Star Trek: Outposts Unknown is a narrative-driven colony builder with a real-time-with-pause simulation layer. It was developed by Magic Fuel Games, a studio staffed with former Maxis veterans who worked on SimCity, The Sims and Spore, and published by Playstack under licence from Paramount. It released on Steam on October 20, 2026 at $32.99, with a 10% introductory discount ending October 27, 2026.
The story is set in the 23rd century, the same era as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but it is an original narrative rather than a show tie-in. You command the U.S.S. Resonant, an orbital hub, into the X'Lehari System to aid a fragile alien civilisation on the brink of catastrophe. The antagonist is the Tetryon Rift, a cosmic anomaly that periodically blankets the system in radiation storms.
The tone is deliberately cosy. Where Surviving Mars is cold and RimWorld is brutal, Outposts Unknown leans into Federation optimism and the Prime Directive - restore what you disturb. Press comparisons tend to land on Factorio and Oxygen Not Included for the systems layer.
There is no combat in this game. No enemy faction, no boss, no combat unit. Everything opposing you is environmental: rift storms, radiation, hostile flora, thermal extremes and chemically volatile atmospheres. Your failure state is a dead crew and a dead outpost, not a defeat screen.
You must physically build power, life support and water, and compute networks, plus the pipes and conduits that carry materials - and conduits consume build space, so routing is a real decision rather than a menu.
Every building draws upkeep in water, power and compute. Construction uses a rotate-able isometric grid (arrow keys rotate), and each new structure is gated by the research tree - you unlock buildings and units, not just recipes.
Named officers have a species, portrait, division, specialities, skills and traits, plus per-officer stats for health, stamina, hunger, entertainment, morale and fatigue. Day and night shift scheduling was added after the demo: the night crew rests aboard the ship, and anyone caught outside at night sleeps under a forcefield. Some points of interest only appear at night. Direct orders can interrupt the work queue in an emergency - engineers to maintenance, medics to the injured, security to a threat. You can also Beam Out a single crew member to rotate the roster.
Transporter teams, ground vehicles and aircraft go out on away missions, and security can be dispatched to deal with threats. Crew can be permanently lost on these runs, which is the sharpest edge in an otherwise cosy game.