Old Light is a free 4X space strategy game that runs entirely in a browser tab, with no download, no launcher, and signup asking for a name and nothing else. You open a tab, claim a star, and grow an empire inside a galaxy shared with everyone else playing.
It exists within the browser MMO lane of OGame, Travian, Ikariam and Hades' Star: one galaxy with timers set to real minutes to days, players competing against each other in a multiplayer game. Most of the games in this lane have been shut down or have become pay-to-win in nature. Old Light attempts to create the MMO genre once more without such a drift from its initial design.
Asynchronous play in real hours
There are no turns, no twitch play. Resources pile up against the wall clock, structures complete on real timers and fleets take real hours to cross the map.
The time it takes to decide which character to play is over quickly; closing the game allows the game to continue without any effect from the player; the server will run the game whether or not the player is viewing it; all of the game's components will complete their tasks even if the player is not logged in; and when the player does log back into the game, they can see what happened while they were away.
The gameplay is made playable during the working hours and spending one's time matters as much as building anything in the game.
Economy and map information
Each system you own mines palladium and iridium, which are stored per system and can be spent on constructing structures and ships within those systems. Credits earned throughout the game are stored in a shared pool that is used to pay for the upkeep of fleets throughout your full empire.
- Command Center. One of the seven structures that shape a system.
- Reactor. One of the seven structures that shape a system.
- Two extractors. They shape a system alongside the other core structures.
- Resource Depot. One of the seven structures that shape a system.
- Shipyard. One of the seven structures that shape a system.
- Trade Hub. One of the seven structures that shape a system.
The map of the galaxy is fully visible, with the location of all stars in the galaxy and each of the major empires' boundaries and possessions shown in their entirety.
The thing that remains hidden is composition. One can observe that an enemy holds a certain system and observe their scores from public records but one cannot see the composition of that system until they launch probes into it.
Borders, sectors and combat
Territory works via a projection of the system you control. Each system you control is surrounded by a hexagon of hexes with the same colours as your banner and the system that was controlled first wins any overlap between the coloured hexes of two systems.
The galaxy is also split into named sectors. Each sector has one bonus to it. Holding 60% of territory within that sector gives you that bonus, which is worth between +5% and +20%.
The four ship classes: probes scout, marauders attack, sentinels defend and vanguards colonise and capture. Combat is handled by the server according to a documented and fixed model, so the player commits a fleet composition and target for the server to compute.
The attack strength of an attacker's unit is determined by their offense stat and the defense strength of a defender's unit is determined by their defense stat. Also, if an empire's treasury has run dry, they are unable to wage wars; even a campaign that cannot be funded will stall.
Flying a vanguard into behind an escorted combat unit and slowly bringing their hostility to zero. This tactic allows the defending units to see the approaching vanguard before engaging them.
If you're being attacked, you have a chance of defending yourself.
Protection, NPCs and social play
New empires receive a five-day shield. As long as this is true for an empire, no other empire can attack them, probe their systems or place a vanguard in any of their star systems.
This bonus renews whenever you are eliminated from the game and respawn. This bonus is dropped upon your first hostile shot fired at another human player's aircraft or if the time "5 days" has passed. So, playing against empires of the "NPC" variety costs you nothing.
After it expires, morale takes over: a much larger empire attacking a much smaller one fights at reduced strength, which keeps climbing from behind workable and keeps small empires from being free farm. Empires that go inactive erode by at most one star per day.
While it is possible to eliminate something, it is never instant.
Each galaxy has its own NPC empire that is spawned around each human player's empire. These empires are the same entity as the human empire that spawned it within the game's coding.
The zombies have learned to pace themselves against the humans near them, to expand their population and attack on their own and to even take away neglected stars from you.
You can send direct messages to any other human player in your galaxy. There is now no formal system of alliances between the players yet, so all communication between players is done through direct message exchanges.
Scale and free-to-play rules
Each galaxy is designed to accommodate the number of players in the game, which is now a thousand human players plus NPCs. Each galaxy is independent from the others and can have its own player base without impacting other galaxies in the game. There are no resets for players to the game. A new galaxy can open at any time but the players in that galaxy will continue to play and experience the game as if it were an existing galaxy in the game.
Nothing purchasable makes an empire stronger and that holds as the game grows. The server is the only source of truth for every game-relevant fact, so no client can forge state or buy an edge in combat or economy.
The score of a system shows the quality of the structures that were built upon it, not those of the fleet that is parked within it; so, the leaderboard for such systems is reflective of the long-run investments that were made to construct those systems.
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