Terra Ex is a 4x (“explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate”), True-Time space game that combines science fiction and real research data to create a universe of treacherous planets, dangerous alien life forms and endless exploration.

Our story begins eons from now, when Earth collides with Mars. Humanity must face an uncertain future: we must forge new civilizations in the far corners of space. Your ships are small at first, but opportunity is endless. Will you become a merchant society or focus on espionage? Do you seek to dominate the universe or live peacefully among other races?

Once you branch out into the galaxy, you’ll have the opportunity to work with or fight against other players. You can build up your weapons or search for planets rich in minerals.

How Will Terra Ex Work?

Terra Ex will be a free to play browser-based game, which means you can play it on anything with an internet browser. Players can play on their own or with friends to create sprawling empires. Building takes time and research. You will be able to speed up your progress using in-game currency to purchase faster builds, special weapons and upgrades.

Gameplay will take place using 3 Strategic view modes: Galactic View, System View and the War Room.

Galactic View

The Galactic view is a top down map of the explored Universe. From here you can see your occupied systems, known enemy systems, and those that are part of your alliance. All ship movement takes place in this view.

System View

Construction, research and upgrades will take place in the system view. Build ships, upgrade your station, manage your resources and position your defenses from this view.

War Room

All your battle decisions take place here. See an overview of the battlefield, give attack orders, movement commands and issue fall back commands at the beginning of each combat round to adjust for changing scenarios. After each battle, a Battle report will be generated. Scour those reports and casualty lists for clues on how to improve your tactics for the next battle. These reports will offer simple information like number of ships lost and loot collected, and can be expanded to detail effectiveness of weapons and upgrades, statistics for each round, and storyline logs, describing the decisions your ship captains made that lead to their victory or untimely death. These Battle Reports can be invaluable when planning your next attack.

True Time Strategy

True Time is a hybrid between a Real-Time Strategy game and Turn-Based Strategy game. Base building, research, upgrades and movement all take place in real time. When combat begins, time is segmented into rounds, allowing the player to make critical decisions, fall back or change their strategy as the battle evolves.

Ship Types

What Makes Terra Ex Different?

Terra Ex is unlike any other space game in that it combines both exciting gameplay and scientific facts. To make this game accurate, we teamed up with the people who know this stuff best: NASA/JPL.

Yes, NASA/JPL.

Specifically, the scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (That’s the place where the Mars Rovers were built.) The scientists and engineers responsible for landing things on other planets are helping ensure the technologies in the game either do exist now or could exist someday.

Let’s say you’re zipping through space in your brand new, highly weaponized battleship, and you ask yourself, “how would a real ship’s warp-drive work?”

Well, you could Ask O.D.I.N. the galactic knowledge network.

Ask O.D.I.N. is a button you’ll find next to many of the in-game technologies. If you’re curious about the technologies, press the button and a small text box will give you information on the real world version of this technology is today, and where it may be in the future. Our stretch goals will include a video clip of an actual scientist working on that technology who will explain where that technology is today and where we hope it will be in the future.

Explore the Universe While the Universe is Explored

This educational aspect of the game isn’t limited to technologies. All of the star systems you build bases in really exist. The game will provide information about each of those systems, and you can use apps like StarWalk to pinpoint where your base would be in the real night sky.

NASA is hard at work each day, discovering new planets and galaxies and whatever else is out there to find. On your home screen, a link will take you to a proprietary application made by NASA JPL that will allow you to tour planets and star systems that are being discovered in real time in 3D. Any new system, planet or star discovered will be added to the game for you to explore.

What Else Makes Terra Ex Awesome?

Space is really big. Traveling through it takes time. That means, when an attack is launched against you, you’ll have time to prepare. This doesn’t mean you’ll have to wait thousands of years for the next vessel to arrive; we’ve compressed time into hours.

Imagine you’ve just built an exploratory base in uncharted space. You set up a long-range sensor array. You get a warning that an enemy armada is heading straight for your station and will arrive in four hours. You now have the advanced warning to build new ships, move existing ships into position, and prepare your defenses for that attack.

Does that mean it’s going to take hours for me to attack every enemy base?

Not at all. That would get very boring, very fast. Computer-controlled alien bases will be within instant reach and, depending on how far away player-controlled bases are, your ships could take minutes or hours to get there. Terra Ex allows you to instantly travel through the systems you own so you may position your forces strategically throughout the map. If you wish to fast travel to an enemy system, you have the option of building Way-Stations. A Way-Station will allow you to fast travel through any system you have not yet colonized, but you must keep them well defended, as your enemies will surely be on the lookout for them. You can fast travel through any space you or your allies control.

But there’s a catch: if you’re going to attack something far away, plan your force for what their base is going to be like, not for what it is. They’ll have the time it takes you to travel to prepare their defenses, just as you did for your last attack.

If I’m new to the game, won’t the more experienced players pummel me within minutes?

That wouldn’t be fun, so we’re not letting that happen. Every player starts out in a safe starting system. No players can attack these starting systems, no matter how much they’d like to. Every once in a while, you’ll need to defend yourself against invading alien armadas, but you’ll never get wiped out by an overwhelming force.

Your starting area has limited resources, so eventually you’ll need to expand from your safe zone by traveling through a wormhole into uncharted space. Anything past that safe zone can be attacked by other players. (You didn’t think you’d get out of it that easily, did you?)

 

 

 

More art and media coming soon!

 

 

Our team decided to give a generous 40% of the game’s income back to the community to support science education (STEM).

Billions are spent each year on education, yet students in America are testing in the bottom 25-percentile in math and science. This is reflected in the fact that in 2010 there were roughly 240,000 high-tech jobs available, and less then 100,000 applicants qualified for those jobs. Many American companies are hiring S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, and math) candidates from other countries.

We will be giving these monies to the Odin Foundation, NASA, and other institutions to forward the progress of science related education.

 

 

So Who Are We Anyway?

We’re a team of artists, elite programmers, and designers who brought you:

• World of Warcraft
• Command and Conquer
• Mercenaries 2
• And many others...

We also have an award-winning composer who’s making it his mission to keep the music fun and befitting of different in-game situations.

CONTACT US

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