Building up your own fleet of customised spaceships, recruiting crews, trading goods, and blowing the merry heck of enemy fleets in top-down tactical battles sounds pretty great. "That Alice!" a rhetorical device mutters, "Off daydreaming again!" But no, this is a real video game and I'm not simply pouring whimsy into a text box. A new Starsector trailer warped in yesterday, showing just those sorts of galactic lovelies.

Developer Fractal Softworks describes Starsector as an "open-world single-player space-combat, roleplaying, exploration and economic game," which may not sound snappy but does sound nice. It drops you into a procedurally-generated sector of space to find fame and fortune as you see fit, and maybe decide the future of the area. It's pretty dang pretty, too.

Instant alpha access is on offer if you pre-order now for $10, half the price of the finished game. It's coming to PC, Mac, and Linux. Hit the official site for more info.