Maybe it's on the Internet Archive somewhere?

I'll set up an XP VM and extract it and upload it. It's shareware, so I don't see the problem with repackaging it and distributing it unaltered. I thought I might have a copy where I'd done that but I guess not. edit: from https://archive.org/details/SpaceEmpire to https://www.dropbox.com/s/rac1gouedkjqxve/se3.7z?dl=0

To be honest - I think the shareware game actually has better play than the full version. Having a fairly shallow tech tree, limited to light cruiser sized ships and no super OP weapons, without any of the stellar manipulation or planetbase/battlecruiser tier endgame ships is actually a pretty fun ruleset for casual play. It's a more arcadey game than SE4 (with just one "construction point" instead of 3 materials) and cruising around with big fleets having pew pew battles of massive task groups and crushing each other's planets really suits it well.

I dunno if the guy who wrote it is still attached to it at all. Apparently Strategy First bought Malfador in 2006?

Erm, confession time. This was one of the first games I ever ""cracked"", in a stunning triumph of sysadminery for 8 year old me or whatever. Malfador originally used the "send me a check in the mail" business model. then it suddenly popped up on a publisher's site - called Crystal Interactive or similar. They offered a "30 day free trial" that (in hindsight, surprisingly) actually worked and installed a legit key, then presumably was going to pull it when the trial expired. I pinned down where it was writing the key with registry editor and exported the key, then just used it with the normal game. I actually found that og .reg file a few months ago, it is probably the single earliest file that I've got saved.

(I also learned to use the "Executor by ARDI" macos 7 emulator so I could play escape velocity by Ambrosia Software on my windows PC. Executor had a 30 day trial... but you could delete the registry key and reinstall and use it forever. hackerman! )

(Executor is actually a very interesting "hybrid emulator" that attempted to replace the MacOS rom/mac toolkit with a windows native reimplmentation in native C and is now open source if you'd like to take a look - https://github.com/ctm/executor )

To this day I don't know if Crystal Interactive was legit or not - was that a legit indie publisher providing a framework for licensing and CC services (a not-trivial burden in the years before Steam) or did they pirate these games themselves and resell them? The registration had the legitimate username "REGISTERED USER", and they disappeared into the ether very rapidly, like within 6 months every trace of them on the internet was gone.

I'd gladly buy a copy, but I don't think there's a way to get it anymore either. I thiiiink you might be able to track down a copy of the Space Empires Collection disc? That one was registered out of the box.

Malfador eventually ended up with Strategy First, who was a legit indie publisher and sold their stuff for a lot of years. Again, it looks like Strategy First bought them in 2006, but he continued developing more stuff after that.

Space Empires Starfury is actually an interesting Escape Velocity/Starfleet Command kind of crossover. It is the tactical mode for SE V turned into an open world game. From what I remember it plays better than the actual SE V. Again, weapon mounts are cool, the actual gameplay sucks and is way too slow. Even SE 4 really needs a "move ships faster" mode. https://archive.org/details/SpaceEmpiresStarfury

FYI if anyone else ever played Warlords 3: Darklords Rising, that game is now available on GOG too.

Also while I was looking on Archive I found this Turkish clone (lol) of SE3 from 2003 with an Apple II aesthetic? Crazy. https://archive.org/details/MiniSpaceEmpires