A sprawling text-based incremental 4X where you build industries, command fleets, or run black market operations across a procedurally evolving universe. The game prioritizes player agency over guidance, letting you chart your own path through competing economic and military systems. Best suited for patient players comfortable with rough UI and willing to experiment with opaque mechanics.
About this game
Forged over 9 years, The Vanguard Expanse 4065 is a deep, text-based incremental 4X RPG that refuses to hold your hand. Survive a procedurally evolving universe. Build massive industries, command fleets, or rule the black market. It is difficult, rewarding, and you play however you want!
What players are saying
▲ Recommended1 hrs
Firstly, the game is pretty cool. It's got all kinds of stuff all over the place where you can do a dozen different things at a time. Unfortunately, the game feels like it's somewhere between alpha and beta, and while it's fun, it is very much not a smooth ride. If you are intrigued by the screenshots, I recommend you go to itch and play the 'demo.' There has been some clear progress between the demo and this version, and some of the things that don't make much sense in the demo were clearly meant only for a later version of the game. Still, some very basic things are not present or are broken. Clicks don't always register. There are almost no quantity modifiers making an auto-click macro almost necessary to play the game. The dark matter that is the currency for the black market takes a dozen seconds of auto-clicking on the planet, then selling the goods and trading for bulk amounts of illicit currency. Those are a tiny, tiny fraction of the things that aren't perfect, and the game is still fun. It's worth the price, certainly, but I hope it gets better.
Fun for those who like this type of game, have patience and enjoy figuring out mechanics. UI is a bit of a headache but Im sure it will clean up a bit. Sometimes buttons dont accept clicks. Needs more info boxes on some things. Overall a pretty fun game though. Worth the price IMO. EMPIRE is the main screen btw, just so you know, its not really obvious.
This is a pretty cool idler, I like what it's going for and my only complaints so far are the UI and purchase options. I think there should be a UI scale option to make things smaller or bigger, I like having my text slightly bigger than what's in the game, but it's manageable. And the purchase options are super needed, having my only options be 1, 10, or ALL instead of purchasing an amount I can enter or like 1, 10 (shift-click), 100 (ctrl-click), etc. Some other stuff they should add could be stock buy/sell order staff members where you hire them to buy/sell stocks so you can make more money while idling and resource breakdowns where you can see your material +/- per second, as well as the usage and gain of it.
I also think explanations of upgrades, traits, and a lot of aspects of the game would help players grasp concepts of the game. Like staff traits, colonies (you can really only tell what each does by purchasing them), how each resource can be obtained (e.g. dark matter which started generating for me but I don't know how). and really a lot of aspects of the game.
The game also has some technical issues, I bought an upgrade with dark matter that gives me 50 RP a second (research points, I assumed) yet my research points haven't ticked up since. Obviously that's not intended.
But I enjoy the game as is. As far as I can tell, there will be more content but I'm going to wait for that. For 2 dollars it's worth a try.
Attention Vanguard Commanders,We are thrilled to announce that the next expansion for The Vanguard Expanse 4065 is currently in the final stages of beta testing and will be deployed very soon!As the Abyssal Horizons continually shift and generate entirely new galactic maps, the massive gravitational anomalies left behind have exposed something hidden in the void: exotic, uncharted materials. Now, our engineering teams have finalised the technology required to actually harvest these anomalies.Here is a sneak peek at what is currently being tested on our beta branches:Enter The Abyssal DeepsAutonomous Harvester Fleets: You will soon be able to construct specialized drones that plunge into the deep-space rifts left behind by the shifting galaxy maps. These fleets passively harvest 20 distinct, procedurally generated exotic materials—from Null-State Plasma to Void Steel.The Horizon Weaver: Utilise your newfound Void Resources in this massive new forge to weave impossible technology. Craft permanent Abyssal Relics that grant massive, empire-wide production buffs.The Void-Weaver Titan: Surpassing even the Dreadnought, this late-game ship class requires vast quantities of Void Steel and Anti-Matter Cells to construct. Boasting an incredible 50,000 base fleet power, it is the ultimate testament to your mastery.Engine Optimisations & Fixing "Dropped Clicks" A few months back, shortly after the game went live, we rolled out an initial optimisation patch that made your galactic conquest significantly faster. Now, alongside this new content drop, we are pushing the engine even further—and directly addressing community feedback.We've read the reviews, and we know that in extreme late-game situations, some players were experiencing clicks not registering when clicking.Zero-Drop Click Queuing: We have entirely rewritten how the game engine handles user inputs. Inputs are now captured instantaneously on the hardware level, bypassing the visual render queue. Every single click will ...
This update brings important fixes to how the game syncs your total playtime to the global leaderboards, along with new backend security measures to keep the leaderboards fair. New: Encrypted Time Tracking (Anti-Cheat) To keep the global leaderboards fair and accurate, we have overhauled how the game tracks time internally. Secure Memory: Your playtime is now encrypted and tracked inside a secure memory vault while the game is running. Cheat Prevention: This change prevents the use of memory scanners (like Cheat Engine) or the developer console to manually alter playtime scores, ensuring that the top spots on the leaderboard reflect genuine gameplay.
Hey Everyone,Hope you're all well,Just before going into this new update I just wanted to thank you all for your support, it truly means the world to us.Since the last updates, we have really been struggling with getting leaderboards to work properly and reliably with data provided from Steam. So today, we give you.... a new global database to track your playtime and making some important clarifications on how in-game time interacts with Steam. Leaderboards -> https://www.cryosleepstudios.co.uk/leaderboards New Feature: Global Cloud LeaderboardsWe have implemented a brand new backend database (powered by Google Firebase) to safely track and display player statistics, such as your Pilot Name (Steam ID), Total Playtime, and global rank (based on Playtime) on a global leaderboard.How it works:The 60-Second Heartbeat: While you play, the game runs a silent background timer. Every 60 seconds, it checks your computer's real-world clock to calculate exactly how many seconds have passed since the last check.Incremental Saving: It then sends this exact number of seconds to the cloud. Instead of trying to overwrite your old save data (which can cause data loss if your connection drops), the database uses a smart "increment" function. It simply adds the new seconds to your existing total on the server.Crash-Proof: Because the game constantly adds small chunks of time to your global total, your leaderboard playtime remains perfectly accurate even if your game crashes, you lose internet, or you close the window before manually saving.Mechanic Breakdown: Game Time vs. Steam TimeYou might notice that the "Time Played" tracked inside the game (and on the new leaderboards) can end up being much higher than the actual hours recorded by Steam. This is intentional and ties directly into the game mechanics.How it works:Steam Time (Wall-Clock Time): Steam only counts the literal, real-world hours that the game application is open on your screen.Game Time (Simulation Ticks): The game engi...
Posts come from Steam's official announcements feed.
