# A deep, relaxed space-industry sim. Mine, refine and trade on a living market while you build your station, and expand across the galaxy.
**Dig in. Build up. Reach for the stars.**
Sunward is a deep, cozy space-industry sim. Mine asteroids, refine raw ore into valuable goods, trade on a living market, and grow a single station core into a sprawling, freighter-linked empire that spans the solar system and beyond! Build at your own pace and reach for the stars.
**Mine, refine, and trade**
Extractor drills bite into asteroids and cargo shuttles haul the ore home. Smelt metal plate, blow glass, draw wire, then climb the production tree to alloys, circuits, and high value Components in a flexible Fabricator. Sell to Earth on a dynamic market where every sale nudges the price down and scarcity drives it back up.
**Build a modular station**
Snap buildings together to build efficient networks. Every module needs workers and power. Reactors burn fuel, life support pressurizes habitats, and survey scanners chart the space around you. Zoom in close and watch your colonists work inside.
**Grow a colony**
Workers are your population. Colonists ride in from Earth, fill habitats, and draw wages and consumer goods. Keep them paid and supplied and morale stays high, lifting both colony growth and factory output. Neglect them and you face a recoverable slump, never a sudden loss.
**Expand across the solar system**
Zoom all the way out to the system map: the real planets ringing the Sun, each its own buildable world with its own asteroid field. Colonize, settle, and trade between regions, with empire freighters running goods, fuel, and colonists along the orbits. Colonies you have left keep producing while you are away.
**Research and megastructures**
Spend research points on a tech tree that unlocks new drills, recipes, and buildings. Recover artifacts to reveal hidden technologies, then raise the great works: a planet anchored Space Elevator, a Warp Gate that opens new star systems on a galaxy map, and finally the Ascension Spire, your victory, with free play continuing after.
**Survive the void**
Solar flares and micro-asteroid showers can strike, and your risk depends on where you settle. Inner orbits bake, outer orbits get pelted. Build detectors, ride out the storm, and follow the always on Solar System News Network as telegraphed scenarios swing the markets and give you time to plan.
**Key features**
- A satisfying production loop: mine, refine, manufacture, and sell up a multi tier economy.
- Modular base building with airlock networks, power, oxygen, and see-inside interiors.
- A living colony: workforce, morale, wages, and immigration policy.
- A whole solar system of colonizable worlds linked by freighters and contracts.
- A tech tree and alien Xeno research gating buildings, recipes, and megastructures.
- An endgame goal ladder: Space Elevator, Warp Gate, galaxy expansion, Ascension Spire.
- Dynamic markets and telegraphed news scenarios that reward planning.
- No hard failure, only recoverable setbacks. Play relaxed or optimize hard.
- A pixel-art look rendered with procedural shaders.
***Dig in. Build up. Reach for the stars.***
