Spaceward ho online mac os x#

Miniaturization is much less effective when applied to Colony Ships, compared to other types of ships. Higher-tech ships cost more money and metal, with the exception of ships with high 'miniaturization' which take far more money but less metal. Each ship has a ranking in each of five technologies: range (determining how far a ship can fly before refueling), speed (determining how quickly ships reach their destinations and who shoots first in a battle), weapons, shields, and 'miniaturization'. There are several different kinds of ships, including the basic Fighter, a Scout with longer range but weaker weapons, a Colony Ship used to found new colonies, Satellites which are cheap but cannot move from the world at which they are built, and in recent versions a few others as well, such as the Tanker and Dreadnought. Money and metal are available instantly, wherever needed. Ships are built with money (representing renewable resources) and metal (representing non-renewable resources). Travel between planets is via hyperspace (ships cannot encounter each other except at planets), and the time it takes depends on the distance between the origin and the destination on the map, as well as on the speed of the ship in question. A planet's stats are unknown until explored (to get current info on a planet, a player must have ships in orbit with no enemies present). Metal can, with money expenditure, be mined for use with shipbuilding. Colonies with low population take a certain amount of money per turn to support, while colonies with high population earn money for their owner. Temperature and gravity are both used to determine how fast colonies can grow and how large they can become (based on the preferred temperature and gravity for the colonizer, which is different for each player) the difference is that a player may spend money to change the temperature ('terraforming') while gravity cannot be changed. The core of the game is the two-dimensional map of 'planets.' Each 'planet' has three characteristics: temperature, gravity, and metal.

All unnecessary complexity has been stripped from the game, resulting in a fast-paced game that still manages to be very engaging. Its small but dedicated fanbase considers the simplicity to be elegance, and its designers boast that it has gotten faster and more intuitive to play with each new version. Depending on the initial settings, games take from about ten minutes to an hour. It has a very simple gameplay compared with most other games in the genre (such as Master of Orion).

Spaceward ho online mac os x#

Previous versions of the game allowed also LAN-based networked play, but this feature has been disabled in the Mac OS X version.

Spaceward Ho! can be played against an unusually competent computer AI, or against other human players over the internet (via ). The gameplay of Spaceward Ho! focuses on efficiently extracting the resources of conquered worlds while correctly anticipating and countering opponents' actions.