Starbase Orion
Step into the gaming world with Starbase Orion, one of the top $7.99 games in the App Store! Crafted with creativity and innovation by Chimera Software, LLC, this captivating Strategy game is bound to grab your attention. With its content rating of 9+, it caters to a wide audience. Ever since its release on 12th October 2011, it has been constantly updated, with the latest version rolled out on 25th February 2022.
Whether you have a liking for Strategy, Simulation, games, Starbase Orion is sure to keep you hooked!
User Ratings
Join the crowd of 274 gamers who have given their verdict on Starbase Orion.
Ready to take on the adventure? Get Starbase Orion now from the APP STORE.
Dive into Starbase Orion
"The best 4X game currently available for mobile" – PocketTactics.com
"This one is geek heaven" – AppAdvice.com
"Master of Orion in Your Pocket” – GamePro.com
"Starbase Orion has an epic-feeling" – TouchArcade.com
"Starbase Orion is here, and it’s glorious." – TUAW.com
Explore. Expand. Exterminate. Can you defeat your friends and become the ruler of the galaxy?
Starbase Orion is an old-school 4X space strategy game that draws inspiration from titles such as Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations. Lead your empire from the birth of its space age; colonize new worlds, explore new horizons, and discover other players attempting to do the same. It is a race to the stars where only one empire can declare victory over the galaxy.
New to 4X Strategy Games? No Problem
Starbase Orion includes a hand tailored tutorial mission perfect for those new to the genre. It features high-quality voice acting provided by the very talented Maurice Thomas.
Aged like a Fine Wine
With nearly a five year life span the dedicated community of Starbase Orion players and the developer have produced twenty-four fantastic updates. Each update has introduced new features and player suggested functionality to make the game better, more strategic, and more immersive.
Strong Single-Player Experience
Compete against a battle-tested artificial intelligence. Our AI was derived from our entry into to 2010 Google AI contest, where it placed in the top 15% of thousands of competing intelligences. Go head-to-head against a single AI opponent, or ramp up the carnage with a 4 way free-for-all.
GameCenter Multiplayer Turn-Based Games
Starbase Orion was designed to provide a fantastic multiplayer experience. Launch the game, sign into GameCenter, and start a new multiplayer game. No need to coordinate play times or seek out other players. Just go play, when you want and on your terms.
Choose Your Race, Or Create Your Own
There are five uniques races included; Human, Draske, Vass, Cyban, and Isather. You can also create your own custom race by picking and choosing between different race characteristics.
Intense Space Combat
Design your ships from a variety of weapons, hull, and systems. Send them into battle against the enemy. Give them orders, then watch the battle in unfold as they duke it out in the dark expanses of space.
Diplomacy, Espionage, Free Agents
Direct confrontations not your cup of tea? Negotiate your way to victory through diplomatic endeavors. Confound your enemies with an army of spies. Contract one of the many power and unique leaders to help you to victory.
iCloud Support
Starbase Orion is built from the ground up for iOS 5. It supports iCloud so that your saved games are instantly available on all of your devices. Start a game at home on your iPad, then pick it up again the next day on your iPhone. Simple, streamlined, fantastic.
Universal – You Bought the Cool Gadgets, Go Play on Them
Full support for iPad, iPhone, iPod, standard and Retina displays. Play when you want, where you want.
Guaranteed Pricing
While it is quite common for apps to become “free for a day”, Starbase Orion is not one of those apps. The standard price for Starbase Orion is $7.99 USD; it will never run a “free for a day” campaign. Tens of thousands of players have placed their confidence in us by purchasing Starbase Orion, and this is our guarantee to you.
Guaranteed Free Updates
We have a lot more planned for Starbase Orion. We plan to release all updates for free, without any hidden fees or In-App Purchases.
What’s Fresh in the Latest Update?
Discover what’s new in the recent update of Starbase Orion on 25th February 2022:
Fixes an issue with the text on the planet build queue on iPads
Special thanks for all of the players on the Starbase Orion Discord who helped make this version of Starbase Orion the best it could be!
Hear from the Players – Starbase Orion Reviews
Find out what gamers are saying about Starbase Orion:
BUY IT RIGHT NOW LOOK at the ratings. This 4x classic is heavily inspired by a 90s classic Master of Orion In our mind though, this is our Stellaris! A shame no upcoming publishers or game investors have not looked at this game, and reached out to the developer (Rocco) He is amazing with his community, always engaging – would he had had the backing, this would have been a large platform bringing profits, easily could had fit in an esports type setting as well, focusing on the battles and various tech setups for each players – play style. Excellent multiplayer (main feature)
Returned to the game and discovered that the Galaxy screen is not working. Its sorted Alphabetically by default and cant be changed. Please fix.
Pick a race. Build a colony. Fight your neighbors. Whats better? Best part is no marketing whatsoever! Love the game and have played it countless hours over the last few years. Still our favorite game on iPad. Only suggestion would be to allow more than 1 human player. Smooth, no glitches, and always challenging.
Great tablet game that feels like Masters of Orion or Stellaris. Simple. Maybe too simple, but easily replayable many times.
Like the reviewer from February, the spying UI doesnt work for us. Cant move spies off an empire once placed there. IPad Air 2020 and iOS 15.5.
This game spits on the memory of Master of Orion by claiming to be it. Theyve managed to make an uncanny valley recreation of MoO that comes close enough to remind you of the original while falling substantially short of it. The gameplay isnt as good, the graphics arent as good, the AI is dumber in all respects (dumber than a game made in the mid-90s mind you). Just go get the actual MoO II (or 1 if you prefer) on Steam.
Since the latest update we cannot move our spies once placed on a player they cant be moved, also the build screen while on planet doesnt show properly it runs off the right side of the screen, please fix our game, its one game we’ve played for over 3 years. Ill go back to a 5 star if fixed!
Latest update makes the build queue render incorrectly, with overlapping text pushed half way off the right of the display area. Queue management is not completely functional now, making the game too frustrating to play. Would be great if this would be fixed.
Love this app but the recent update broke the game for us. We still play this frequently so im sad :(
It has a glitch. You assign a planet to build ships. It is all misaligned. You cant make changes. The game in not playable like this.
We love this game. Staying up too late playing it is our only problem hahaha. It’s engrossing, and thankfully they’re able to create a game with a lot of depth making you micromanage. The music’s great – nice use of strings. Playing it over and over through the "4X" stages is engrossing. They’ve really polished this over the years.
Great game! We have come back to play it multiple times which we never do.
Just like Masters of Orion. We think the only difference is you cant control each move within fleet battles, but otherwise so good. Worth every penny.
Still the best after how many years? And yet still supported. Worth every penny.
Review update for 1.2.9: The developer listened to user requests to make some final tweaks to the game, allowing this wonderful game to continue to be fun & viable, rather than forcing everyone to wait until the eventual release of the sequel. The game is still worth the full asking price. Unlike so many other games, there are no in-app purchases here! —- The community of this game is excellent and very mature. The forums are full of very helpful people. Even if you are only interested in playing single player, we encourage you to check out the forums or the multiplayer "spacebar" chat room for any questions you may have. If you want to be involved in improving the game, you can even join the beta testing group-a fun experience in which you can see your suggestions implemented very quickly while interacting with the developer.
This is the one game that we always go back to. Everything else gets deleted at one point or another. Why does the agent facility always take precedence on auto industry?
This is a good game. Plenty of replay. Good fighting.
6 years strong! Still one of the best 4X, premium games on the App Store!
We’re new to 4x games and this one is fantastic. It’s well-thought out, fun, and a great experience. We suggest playing a game against the ai first to get used to everything.
Brings us back to the days of Master of Orion. Love it!
We love everything about this game. If you played Master of Orion youll love this game too. We really hope there is a sequel!
We try playing other games but this is still our favorite game as it reminds of the masters of Orion game for the computer. Cant go wrong with a classic.
We highly recommend Starbase Orion to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a 4X game. Certainly worth the price compared to the number of hours we’ve put in playing it – I’d say that it’s cost us less than $.10 an hour to play at this time.
This is one of the deepest mobile games we have ever played. We would rank it right up there with classic strategy games. We would be more than happy to pay another $8 for DLC, or even more.
Everything we’re looking for in a 4X game!
This little gem is the best 4x game on the App Store. The reason is simple: Its a faithful recreation of the classic PC game Master of Orion II. We consider this a good thing, and you should too! Youll notice the similarities the most in the strategic game, which basically uses the exact same mechanics as MOO. Theres very little else to say about it. You move your citizens on each planet into research, industry, or farming, and construct buildings to boost their production in each category. The tactical game and warship creation feel a little simplified. Unlike its spiritual successor, you do not control your ships directly in combat. You can give the AI orders, and then check in at the beginning of the next turn to see how they fared. There are just a few classes of weapons which form a sort of rock/paper/scissors hierarchy. In practice, its best to use all of them. But hey. Its space 4x, and it really is the best youll find for iOS.
Our father played Stars of Orion when we were a really little kid. Now that Im grown up we have been playing distance turn based Starbase Orion games! Its been great! No matter where we are in the world or what time zone we can still hang out with our dad.
We’ve been playing for many years. Love this game. Wish there were more like it But diplomacy has bugs with new OS15 patch: the game freezes if you try to create a pact. Still playable. Just not with that mechanic.
Still an incredible empire building/space strategy game! Easy to get started in the game with helpful tutorials, but plenty of advanced options and depth for advanced players and replay-ability. We’ve played this game almost since release, and Im still a fan. AI needs update: it gets limited later in the game, especially in areas like like time management, resource acquisition, and diplomacy. I.e., sending a ton of single vessels spaced over several turns, against a large fleet: not smart. Regardless of race, spends all their money on ships, rather than investing in infrastructure to build wealth. Wont surrender when overwhelmed. Update the AI, and this game would be very refreshed.
This game is amazing and worth every penny. We were hesitant when we friend suggested it, due to it being 8 years since original release and a 7.99 price tag, now Im hooked and wish Id have gotten it sooner!! In those 8 years, this has turned into a well polished game thats complexity takes dozens of games to begin to appreciate, and hundreds to master. Id be willing to pay doubler or triple for Starbase Orion 2 when it launches. The player base is amazing and its easy to find games. If you like turn base strategy, this is the best out there for iOS. We play SO more that Civ 6, its that good.
This is the best, by far, of the sci fi strategy games. We do wish it was harder at the higher levels, with at least one Civ that is hostile in the multi Civ games. We like to build an empire, then fight it out with an AI empire.
Starbase Orion is the best game on IOS in our opinion! It is a well crafted and enjoyable 4X conquer-the-universe, turn-based game. We run it on our iPhone 6 and an older iPad 2, and it plays flawlessly on both. The server-based turns allow us to play a turn on one device, and the next turn on the other with no hiccups. We used to play Master of Orion with our friends during LAN parties years ago, but now we can connect up from anywhere with Starbase Orion! We often use the in-game chat to keep up with each other. We just wish it were easier to find on the APP store, as it doesn’t show up in most searches. Our thanks to the developers for creating this awesome game! UPDATE: Nov 2020 – IOS 14.2 update resulted in the game crashing at launch. Cant play on our iPhone XR now. Using our older iPad.
Turn based game like masters of Orion. The game is complex and for people who like strategy. It has an awesome multiplayer base and games happen regularly. It’s not a pay to win game. You pay once. Games can be short in length such as 50 turns.
Very engaging and easy to get started. Even better, the learning curve is steady and you have tons to learn to reach the top of the leagues.
This game is one of the best on the App Store. No micro transactions at all. So much fun to play.
We picked up this game a few days ago, after putting off the purchase for nearly two years, and now we regret not picking it up sooner! This game surpassed our expectations about how in-depth the development of colonies and technology and how much strategy there is. As soon as we said "Hello" in the chat, we had different people eager to teach us the ins and outs of playing! The community is very mature and helpful! Multiplayer is the most fun because there are so many options you can customize like match options, racial traits, and auto build focuses. If you are on the edge, do yourself a favor and get this gem ! Well worth the 8 bucks, and we own 242 apps, so we know what we’re talking about ! :-)
If you’re looking for a game that feels like MoO2, this is the closest you’ll get on mobile. Very high replay value.
As someone who played Masters of Orion when it came out on PC, we LOVE this game. We wish it were more difficult though in single player, and multi-player never really seems to work out. This is such a fun game though and Im glad to have it! Completely worth the money. When is the second version coming out?
More features than the last few desktop 4x games we have played! We especially like the battles. The standing orders are perfect for the genre. Our only regret was waiting this long to get the app. Couple of things we do wish were in the game: 1. Ship leveling, or veteran levels. Or, if thats too game breaking, a way to see how many battles a given ship has participated in. 2. More portrait options in the custom race creator – possibly just the commander portraits? 3. Really, thats about it. Game is great.
This is our go to game, all or most of the new apps out there are marketing pay to play games it seems, which keeps us coming back to games like Starbase Orion where you can play as freely as if on a PC game and thats what this is an awesome pc game for iOS! Cant do much better, but Id like to see them try, or at least do an updated version of this. Currently the game doesnt fit to screen on iPhone X.
Can no longer bid on a leader. The confirmation dialog wont work and just locks up the game. We hope this can be fixed and would be happy to pitch in from a Dev perspective.
We dont normally rate games, but ever since our gaming pc broke in late 2020 we’ve been looking for a game like Paradoxs Stellaris. People this is it. You can colonize planets like stellaris, make fleets and have tech like stellaris, its just great. We remeber playing an older game like this but idk what its called, but this is a must have for stellaris fans.
Even after so many years it is big joy and pleasure to play Starbase Orion once again and again! Game with high quality and as 4x strategy with high replay ability.
Awesome game we play It every late night for the past few years. We wish one could make up their own aliens stead of the same ones but otherwise going random helps. Its a lot of fun we also wish it was still supported with continued updates but we still beats any other 4x games out for the iPad.
We started playing this game years ago when it had about half the features it has now. It was great at half, now it’s probably the best 4x game on IOS. Unfortunately, the developers planned sequel died for reasons unexplained, so after playing this for many years, it’s getting old but we’re still playing on long trips….
Had this game since it came out…. Never regretted buying it. If your bored make your own species and experiment. Thank you for creating this game.
Been playing this game for years. Still our favorite.
Great game! The only quibbles we have is that one cannot rename star systems, nor choose your empire’s color. Otherwise, this game reminds us a lot of MOO II.
A terrific little game for strategy minded gamers.