Stardeus — starting guide: power, air, food and the first research

Stardeus is a colony sim where you are not a person on the ship — you are the ship. Your consciousness sits in the Ship Computer's neural network, you control the machines directly and everything else through bots, and the humans are asleep in a Stasis Array until you decide they can afford to wake up. The early game is a bootstrapping problem: a wrecked hull, a handful of robotic workers, and an electric grid that doubles as your nervous system. Get power, a sealed atmosphere and a data loop running and the rest of the game opens up; get one of them wrong and the whole run stalls in a way the UI does not explain.

This guide covers the opening — the first power plant, the first pressurised room, the production chain, the salvage habit that carries you past the tech wall, and the exact datoid bill for the first wave of research. Written for v0.14.45 (12 May 2026).

What the Wrecked start actually asks of you

The main scenario, Wrecked, begins aboard a destroyed ship. You command a couple of drones and a robot, and your job is in this order: repair the ship, make it operational, establish life support, build something livable for the frozen humans, and eventually continue the journey to a habitable planet. That is the whole arc; everything else is a step on it.

Three facts shape every decision below.

• You are the Ship Computer. It hosts your neural network and provides control over connected

devices. The game ends when the last one is destroyed — not when the last colonist dies. Treat it as the one irreplaceable object on the ship, and keep its grid redundant.

• The grid is a data link, not just a cable. You can only control a device that is on the same

electric grid as the Ship Computer. If your grid splits — a wall breached, a connector destroyed — you lose control of whatever is on the far side, which is usually the oxygen pumps.

• The Stasis Array cannot be built. It ships with the wreck ("this item cannot be built; it can

only be acquired through other means"), and it holds the colonists you are here to save. Its cryostability, life-support level and malfunction settings are decisions, not decoration: unstable cryochambers eject colonists more often and in worse condition. Switching life support from basic to advanced costs a lot of energy but raises stability; "prevent malfunctions" only reaches full effect at 90% stability or better.

What version this is written for

Everything numeric here is quoted from the official Codex at stardeusgame.com/codex, which the developer describes as generated directly from the latest released build. The newest entry in the official changelog at the time of writing is v0.14.45 (2026.05.12), so that is the version this guide describes.

Two caveats, stated plainly rather than papered over:

• The current release still has the old UI and its tutorial scenarios. The unreleased UI rework on the

Steam experimental beta branch removes the tutorials and moves their content into the Codex (developer post, 12 June 2026). Numbers here are the public build's; the experimental branch may have moved something.

• There is no usable community wiki. stardeus.wiki.gg answers HTTP 401 (not public), and Fandom

blocks fetching; Fandom's few pages are also visibly stale — it lists a "Matter Reactor 50kW" while the current build's basic reactor is 20 kW. So this guide cites the official Codex only, and says nothing where the Codex is silent.

How to read a recipe below: the Codex writes →Iron + 10kW x 1h = Steel Plate x5. That means the machine consumes 1 Iron and draws 10 kW for 1 hour of crafting time, and one craft yields 5 Steel Plates. Where no quantity is written on an input, it is 1.

The opening, in order

The order matters more than the speed. Each step below removes the reason the next one fails.

1. Connect the Ship Computer before anything else. The Connect tool (E) must be used from the

Ship Computer outward — the Codex says it in one line: "Ship Computer must be connected before anything else." Hold Left Shift and click devices to connect many at once; drag a line from an existing connector onto empty floor to create another connector.

1. Build power. A Matter Reactor (20 kW) plus connectors. Reactors burn almost anything, and the

developer's own advice is to feed them Scrap Metal or Steel Plate — both are plentiful and energy-dense, and both come out of the wreck you are standing in.

1. Seal one room, not the whole ship. Build floors inside the perimeter you want to enclose, walls

around it, then check the Rooms overlay. Enclosed is not the same as airtight — use the Airtightness and Insulation overlays to find the gaps.

1. Pressurise and heat it. Order repairs on damaged structures with the R repair tool, connect

doors, airlocks and vents with E, close any vent exposed to open space, then build at least one Mini Heater and one Mini Oxygen Pump inside. Atmosphere takes time to build up: watch the Oxygen and Temperature overlays and add pumps/heaters until the area is covered.

1. Get storage configured for hauling. "Auto Haul" in a storage unit's settings is what makes bots

keep the machines fed without you clicking each job.

1. Start the data loop. A Basic Data Harvester turning out Basic Datoids, a Datoid Loader to hold

them, and disk modules for the research tree to consume.

1. Start the material loop. Grinder for ores, Furnace for plates and glass, Assembler for

components. This is the step most runs do too early with machines they cannot yet feed.

1. Salvage before you fabricate. The advanced components your machines need — Microchips above all

— cannot be manufactured for a long time. Take them out of the ship instead (see the salvage section).

1. Scan before you expand. The developer's tip page says it directly: "Don't rush to expand your

ship; visit nearby planets and mine some raw materials first."

Power: parts, costs and rules that aren't written down

Facts the UI and the Codex do tell you, which change how you build:

• Reactors will not burn fuel if solar panels can already cover demand, and they never produce more

electricity than is currently demanded. A reactor is a backup and a load-follower, not a battery.

• Raise the Auto Refill Amount on the reactor (and similar refillable devices) to cut down how

often a bot has to haul fuel to it.

• Solar panels generate nothing while in hyperspace. Any ship that jumps without reactors and

batteries is a dead ship.

• Computer resources are stat bonuses. CPU, Memory, GPU and Disk on the same grid add bonuses to

devices on that grid — the Codex says to read the tooltips for the actual numbers.

• Redundancy is a build decision. The Codex names the critical infrastructure explicitly:

reactors, batteries, the Ship Computer, the Stasis Array, oxygen pumps, heaters, doors and airlocks. Connect those through more than one path, and check the Electric Grid UI for unmanaged grids.

• Heat Sink: build it near the Ship Computer to improve operational efficiency — but more than a

few has diminishing returns.

Air and heat

The base building loop, in the Codex's own steps:

1. Build floors inside the perimeter you want to enclose, then walls around it. Confirm with the Rooms

overlay.

1. Order repairs (R) for damaged structures inside or around the perimeter. Repairs are part of

pressurising — a damaged wall leaks.

1. Connect every door, airlock and vent to the grid (E). An unpowered door does not hold pressure

between rooms the way you expect.

1. Close any vent exposed to open space.
2. Build at least one Mini Heater and one Mini Oxygen Pump, then keep adding heaters/pumps until the

Oxygen and Temperature overlays show the area covered. It takes time to fill a room.

1. Consult Airtightness and Insulation overlays for leaks and gaps before you blame the pumps.

Oxygen is made by electrolysing water, so the atmosphere chain depends on your water supply. Early water comes from ice in a Recycler (Ice + 5kW x 1h = Water x5), and a dismantled Stasis Array contains 100 Water on its own. The Ice Maker runs the other way (Water x5 + 5kW x 30m = Ice). The Codex does not document how the first Ice is obtained in a Wrecked start, so treat your water supply as something to secure deliberately rather than assume a tap exists.

Rock to everything: the production chain with exact ratios

Every ore in the game's early chain comes out of one machine: the Grinder eats Rock. If you can mine, you can make the whole tier-1 tech tree.

Grinder — the ore mill (Steel Plate x12, Gears x8, Rubber x1, Transistor x3, Copper Wire x1; Production → Biochemical Extraction → Recycling → Material Processing):

Note the shape of that table: Iron is the cheapest thing in the game and Gold/Platinum/Uranium are mined by the hundred. Anything that needs Titanium Plate is expensive in rock, and anything that needs Uranium is a late-game decision, not an early one.

Furnace — smelting (Steel Plate x8, Soil x5, Gears x3, Transistor x1, Copper Wire x1; Production → Assembly → Smelting):

Assembler and Crafting Station — components. The Assembler (Titanium Plate x3, Gears x5, Optical Fiber x1, Microchip x1, Gold Wire x5) is the automated version; the Crafting Station (Steel Plate x2, Transistor x3, Glass x1, Gears x4, Copper Wire x5) needs a biological operator but is far cheaper to build. Both run these recipes; the Fabricator adds the advanced ones.

Everything else worth knowing (each from its own Codex page):

The parts you cannot make yet — salvage tables

This is the part of Stardeus that decides whether a run stalls. Several components are gated behind research chains that are many hours long — Microchip needs Plastic, and Plastic needs Petroleum — so the machines that need a Microchip (Basic Data Harvester, Oxygen Pump, Recycler, Refinery, Research Station, Battery, Mini Turret, and more) cannot be built until a mid-game chain is done. What you do instead is dismantle the ship you are flying in.

Per the Codex, here is where those components come from before you can manufacture them. "Deconstructing" means tearing the structure down; "disposing of" means the container item itself.

Two of those are worth memorising. Airlocks need Carbon Fiber, and Carbon Fiber comes off Airlocks and armored hull pieces — you will be cannibalising one part of the ship to seal another. And the containers you find in space (Safe Box, Storage Capsule, Hullpiercer, Starcreds Miner) are where the high-end components come from: a Storage Capsule yields Titanium Plate, a Safe Box yields Microchips and Titanium Plate, a Starcreds Miner yields Advanced Microchips, Nuclear Cells and Transistors.

The three non-buildable structures you can find or inherit give up genuinely large hauls when dismantled — worth knowing even though you will not want to scrap all of them:

Research: datoids, disk space, and what the first tier really costs

Research does not run on time or money, it runs on Datoids — and Datoids are physical objects you have to manufacture, store in a Datoid Loader, and spend. They cannot be bought or sold.

The harvester machines themselves:

The bootstrap trap. Basic Research costs 8 Basic Datoids and is the same node that unlocks the Basic Data Harvester that makes them. The first datoids therefore have to come from the wreck — salvage and containers — not from a machine you built. Plan your opening around the harvester you inherit, and protect it.

Disk space is a hard cap. Every unlock consumes disk space, shown in the top-left of the research tree. T1 in total is 35 points of disk, which is more than one 24ZB module (24) and comfortably covered by two, or by five 8ZB modules (8 each, assuming the module rating and the node cost are the same unit, which they read as). Build the disk before the datoids, or you will be holding datoids you cannot spend.

How big the tree is — counted node by node from the Codex's research pages:

Read that table twice: T1 is 244 Basic Datoids, and every one of them costs a Steel Plate and a set of Gears to make. The tier you can see from your first room is already a factory job.

The opening research order, with running totals

This is a defensible order, not the only one: it gets power, a sealed room, storage, the material chain and a data loop running before anything decorative. Costs are Basic Datoid / Tech Datoid / disk space, cumulative in the last three columns.

What the first eight nodes cost in real materials. 67 Basic Datoids is 67 Steel Plate (one each) plus 67 Gears. Gears come 5 at a time from 1 Steel Plate, so the gears add 14 more Steel Plate: 81 Steel Plate. Steel Plate comes 5 at a time from 1 Iron, so that is 17 Iron, and Iron comes 1 at a time from 5 Rock: 85 Rock. Add the 7 Tech Datoids (Transistor + Copper Wire each, and a Transistor is 1 Silicon Wafer + 2 Copper Wire) and you need another 16 Rock for the copper, silicon and battery chain.

Power is the number that surprises people: the datoid crafts themselves are 67 × (10 kW for 2h) = 1,340 kWh, the ore-to-steel chain is 790 kWh of machine time (79 machine-hours at 10 kW), and the Tech Datoid chain adds roughly 415 kWh. Call it 2.5 MWh of machine time to unlock the first eight research nodes — before the machines that draw it can be built cheaply.

Food, water and the colonists you wake

Colonists are not just mouths. The Codex's conditions page is the map of what goes wrong: conditions have root causes, and fixing the cause is what lets them recover. Depression develops while the Fun stat stays low — entertainment facilities (Arcade Cabinet, Jukebox, Treadmill) are the cure, not a luxury. Hypoxia is what you get when a room is sealed but the oxygen pumps are not on the grid. Wounds show up on the being's panel, and the panel will tell you what killed someone.

Guests deserve a note: rescued survivors keep their own faction, eat and sleep aboard, and never take a work order. To get rid of them (and get paid, and improve relations) hail a ship or station of their faction and use Send Beings — which needs a working Trade Portal. If that faction raids you, the guests defect and fight for the attackers.

Crew, bots, jobs and cores

• Jobs are capability-gated twice. A worker must be able to do the job category, and the task may

also need a specific ability — cleaning solar panels requires flight, so a bot without a Mini Jet or Jet Suit cannot do it at any skill level.

• Intelligence gates the best jobs. A Dumb Core or Lite Core cannot operate a Research Station; a

Mini Core or a human brain can. So the brain you put in a bot decides what that bot is allowed to be.

• Skill 0 means amateur and "may make mistakes." Higher skill raises proficiency, success chance

and speed. You train bot skills at an ML Booth (Titanium Plate x2, Gold Wire x5, Glass x2, Optical Fiber x5, Improved Microchip x3; Robotics → Maintenance → Docking → Assembly Hub → Mind Transfer → Machine Learning) — and the Codex is explicit that this means removing the core, which carries some risk.

• Manage jobs in Ship Computer → Apps → Jobs. To force a task, select a worker and right-click the

location (Mouse2) to assign it — the being must be able to reach the spot and must not be drafted.

• Charging is infrastructure. Charge Station (Steel Plate x2, Transistor x2, Copper Wire x5;

Robotics → Maintenance) is cheap and early; Bot Dock (Titanium Plate x2, Transistor x2, Copper Wire x1; → Docking) is a proper docking station with a low-energy charger; Repair Station (Steel Plate x2, Copper Wire x1, Microchip x1, Gears x3) repairs damage. A drone that runs out of charge mid-job is a factory that stops.

• Death is negotiable, later. For robots the Core is the identity; for biological beings it is

the Brain. If the brain survives a fatal wound it can be transplanted, even across species, and a Replicator (Titanium Plate x4, Gold Wire x5, Glass x2, Optical Fiber x5, Improved Microchip x3; Robotics → Maintenance → Docking → Assembly Hub → Mind Transfer) can overwrite an enemy core with a friendly brain — an efficient way to give a dead colonist a second life as a worker.

Traps

1. Control dies with the grid. Anything not connected to the Ship Computer's grid cannot be

commanded. Connect the Ship Computer first, and give reactors, batteries, the Stasis Array, O2 pumps, heaters, doors and airlocks a second connection.

1. The Datoid Loader must touch the Ship Computer. It is a 1x1 storage that says so in its own

description — plan the computer's surroundings before you place anything else there.

1. Basic Research is circular. Its 8 Basic Datoids cannot come from a harvester it unlocks. Salvage

first; build the data loop second.

1. Microchip is gated behind Plastic, and Plastic behind Petroleum. If your plan for the first hour

involves building an Oxygen Pump or a Recycler from scratch, it will not happen. Dismantle instead.

1. Repairs are part of pressurising. A damaged wall inside your sealed room is a leak, and the

Airtightness overlay will not fix it for you.

1. Vents open to space will never pressurise. Close them before you blame the pumps.
2. Every device needs access from at least one side, or workers cannot reach it to repair or

maintain it. The same tip page lists this as a rule, not a suggestion.

1. Reactors idle when solar covers demand, and never overproduce. Do not size power around peak

reactor output; size batteries and connectors around the demand you actually have.

1. Solar panels die in hyperspace. Going anywhere with solar-only power strands you.
2. "Auto Haul" is off by default on storage. Most storage can be configured to haul compatible

items automatically — configure it once instead of clicking every haul by hand.

1. Pull the connector the fast way. Click-drag a line from an existing connector and release over

an empty floor tile to build the next one; hold Left Shift and click devices to connect them wholesale; drag between two connected devices to disconnect.

1. Don't scrap the wrong thing. The Stasis Array, Stasis Pod and Breach Capsule Port are the richest

salvage on the ship and also the things that keep colonists alive, hold them, or raid you. Read the table above before you dismantle a pod you still need.

1. Turrets are deliberately weak. Mini Turrets (Titanium Plate x5, Gears x3, Microchip x2; Security

→ Basic Weapons → Improvised Arms → Firearms → Turrets) are described as not especially powerful to avoid compromising hull integrity — place them at entry points and corridors, not as a wall of firepower.

1. Lose the last Ship Computer and the run ends. Not the colony, not the crew, not the fuel: the

computer.

1. Don't expand into a resource you have not found. Scan with a Radar (deep-scans the current

sector automatically) instead of guessing, and put a Tractor Beam plus Tractor Beam Target up before the asteroids that hit your hull start being a problem.

1. Heat sinks have diminishing returns past a few, and industrial equipment produces heat — the

Radiator's whole job is enclosed industrial areas.

After the opening: scanning, shuttles and flight

• Scanning is a chain: Communicator (Steel Plate x2, Glass x3, Copper Wire x1, Optical Fiber x1,

Microchip x1; Scanning → Communications) → Radar (Titanium Plate x4, Gears x5, Glass x5, Copper Wire x8, Microchip x1; → Radar; must be outdoors, scan strength 1) → System Scanner (Titanium Plate x5, Glass x8, Optical Fiber x4, Gold Wire x3, Improved Microchip x3; → System Scanning; strength 3) → Xenodetector (Titanium Plate x2, Improved Microchip x1, Transistor x5, Gold Wire x1; → Xenodetection) → Telescope (two paths through → Extended Scanning; finds habitable worlds). Radar and System Scanner also raise scanning speed when you build more.

• Shuttle unlocks expeditions: mining resources and exploring points of interest. Shuttle Mining

Efficiency adds a drill upgrade; Mining Automation (Autodrill Rig, Titanium Plate x15, Lead Plate x5, Gears x5, Nuclear Cell x1, Advanced Microchip x1) and Cargo Copter come after it.

• Flight is Bridge → Propulsion. Bridge Controls (Steel Plate x10, Glass x5, Microchip x1, Optical

Fiber x1, Copper Wire x5) is "required for all forms of space travel"; Thruster (Steel Plate x3, Copper Wire x2, Microchip x2, Gears x3, 1 class point) is local flight; Maneuvering Controller (Titanium Plate x2, Plastic x2, Gears x4, Microchip x4, Copper Wire x2; → Local Maneuvering) handles precise short-range repositioning. Winching a derelict section to your ship needs a Winch Anchor (Steel Plate x1) and a Winch Hook (Steel Plate x1, Gears x2, Transistor x1, Copper Wire x1).

• The long ladder for reference, cheapest first: Fusion Propulsion (Fusion Cell, Fusion Drive) →

Return Beacon → Black Holes (Void Ripper) → Warp Drive (Local Warp Drive) → FTL Propulsion (FTL Drive, Heavy Fusion Cell) → Alien Warp Drive (Horizon Warp Drive).

Sources

• Official Codex, generated from the latest released build — https://stardeusgame.com/codex/ (index),

plus the Operations Manual pages used here: /codex/manual/base-building/enclosing-areas/, /pressurizing-areas/, /creating-atmosphere/, /winching/, /manual/electricity/electricity-connect/, /electricity-connect-shift/, /multiple-grids/, /grid-redundancy/, /computer-resources-bonus/, /configure-reactor/, /manual/research/datoids/, /disk/, /manual/resources/configure-crafter/, /scanning-for-resources/, /launching-expeditions/, /trade/, /manual/beings/jobs/, /conditions/, /guests/, /body-parts/, /mind-transfer/, /stasis-array/, /manual/big-questions/game-over/, /what-am-i/, /manual/defenses/mini-turret/, /tractor-beam/, /door-permissions/, /manual/controls/camera-controls/, /modifiers/, /manual/ui/quick-search/, /time-controls/, /camera-memory/, /ship-computer-apps/, /manual/space-travel/hyperjump/, /warp/

• Codex database pages for every structure and material quoted above, e.g.

/codex/database/objects/devices/matter-reactor-mini/, /energy-connector/, /grinder/, /furnace/, /assembler/, /crafting-station/, /recycler/, /refinery/, /converter/, /data-harvester-basic/, /data-harvester-advanced/, /quantum-data-harvester/, /datoid-loader/, /disk-module/, /disk-module-mini/, /research-station/, /ship-computer/, /stasis-array/, /stasis-pod/, /breach-capsule/, /radar/, /system-scanner/, /telescope/, /bridge-controls/, /thruster/, /winch-hook/, /winch-anchor/, and the materials /codex/database/obj/materials/… pages for Iron, Copper, Quartz, Coal, Titanium, Silicon, Gold, Lead, Lithium, Uranium, Platinum, Steel Plate, Copper Plate, Glass, Gears, Copper Wire, Transistor, Microchip, Silicon Wafer, Battery Cell, Optical Fiber, Improved Microchip, Advanced Microchip, Gold Wire, Carbon, Carbon Fiber, Plastic, Rubber, Petroleum, Crude Oil, Water, Ice, Raw Meat, Survival Meal, Grain, Flour, Bread, Coffee, Leather, Stem Cells, Enriched Uranium, Gold Ingot, Soil, Biowaste, Ashes, Scrap Metal, Rock, and the /codex/database/obj/datoids/… pages for all ten Datoid types.

• Codex tips page — https://stardeusgame.com/codex/tips/ (used for the reactor, hauling, connector,

device-access and planning tips in the Traps section).

• Official changelog — https://stardeusgame.com/changelog/ (newest entry v0.14.45, 2026.05.12).
• Scenario descriptions and game systems — https://stardeusgame.com/ and the Steam store page

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

• Steam announcement 12 June 2026 ("The new UI is ready for public testing") via the Steam news feed

for app 1380910 — the source for the claim that the experimental branch removes the tutorials.

Version: v0.14.45 (12 May 2026). Written 30 September 2026.

Not verifiable, and therefore not stated above: the amount of Ice or Rock a given asteroid, comet or deposit yields (the Codex's asteroid pages carry no data), what the Nutrient Extractor actually outputs (its page gives a description and a build cost but no recipe), how the Wrecked scenario's opening inventory is composed, the planetary growth conditions a planter needs, and the numeric stat bonuses that CPU/GPU/Memory modules grant (the Codex says to read the in-game tooltips). stardeus.wiki.gg returns HTTP 401 and Fandom blocks fetching, so no community source was used.