Beyond These Stars Sandbox Mode lets you configure the world before you start: resources on Kewa, rivers, terrain and the planets you can encounter. You can also choose to unlock all buildings immediately. Dev Blog #27 confirms these options for the full release and recommends playing Story Mode first to learn the systems at a sensible pace.
Which settings has the developer confirmed?
Sandbox changes the starting conditions, including access to resources normally found on habitable planets in Story Mode. The developer gives sheep, cows and resource deposits as examples. That can change which supplies you need from elsewhere, so read the setup screen before assuming a Story Mode shortage will appear in a custom game.
| Setup category | Confirmed choices | What to consider before starting |
|---|---|---|
| Resources on Kewa | Animals and resource deposits available there | Whether you want local access or a reason to explore |
| Water distribution | A river or no river at the start | Whether water and landscape management are the focus |
| Terrain | Flat land, hills, tall spires or mesas | How much space planning and reshaping you want to practise |
| Planets | Number, resources, biomes and terrain | Whether to concentrate on one settlement or a wider network |
| Building access | An option to unlock all buildings from the start | Whether you want progression or immediate layout testing |
The final column is editorial guidance for choosing an experiment. These are not official presets, difficulty rankings or optimal combinations.
How should I use the difficulty indicators?
The announcement describes difficulty indicators for selections and individual planets, plus an overall difficulty summary. Read both levels. A setting you like for building space may interact with the resources and planets you have selected, so the summary is useful before you commit to a new game.
The developer does not publish a numerical formula for that summary. This guide therefore does not label a particular combination as the easiest start or assign an invented score. Use the game's displayed assessment, then decide whether its tradeoffs suit the part of the simulation you want to explore.
If you are still learning what a stable opening looks like, follow the beginner guide. Story Mode's optional tutorial helpers are the developer's recommended starting point; unlocking every building gives you more choices without teaching you what their inputs require.
Suggested experiments for a custom game
Choose a question before changing settings. For a first custom game, a narrow question makes the result easier to interpret than changing the entire galaxy at once.
- Compare two neighbourhood layouts. Keep resources and terrain consistent, then compare routes and recovery opportunities. The happiness guide explains the wellbeing signals to inspect.
- Follow one building chain. Immediate building unlocks let you inspect the available structures, but you still need to understand their inputs. Use the production chains guide to choose a specific chain to examine.
- Practise landscape changes. Select terrain that makes the question visible, then work through the terraforming guide rather than changing water, resources and terrain all at once.
- Compare recovery conditions. Keep the same colony question in view while adjusting food or working arrangements. The sickness guide separates energy and treatment from happiness.
Those are suggested uses of the confirmed setup tools. They are not promises that Sandbox supplies unlimited construction resources, pauses time, removes hazards or automatically staffs buildings. None of those features is established by Dev Blog #27.
Pro tip: Write down the settings used for a comparison. If your second layout also has different resources or terrain, you cannot confidently attribute the result to the layout alone.
Story Mode, Sandbox and the demo
Story Mode introduces the systems in a structured order. Sandbox gives you control over starting conditions and optional building access. The demo guide covers an earlier preview of the story opening, which ends around travel toward the next solar system.
Do not read the absence of a Sandbox option in that preview as the absence of the mode from the full game. Equally, the announced option list does not establish support for every possible custom rule. Exact menu wording, default selections and further switches need verification in the release build.