
Space Engine - tosh
http://spaceengine.org
======
kregasaurusrex
I'd only found about this project a month ago when an author gave a
presentation and mentioned how she was using Space Engine to generate
fictional universes to test how realistic her story settings could be- things
like multi-sun (3+) solar systems, establishing what a habitable zone could
be, and planets with permanently dark spots to name a few. Great that it's
made accessible for people to customize it far enough to be limited only by
their imagination.

~~~
gobins
Who was the author?

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kregasaurusrex
Sorry I can't seem to find the name, it was a panel at Origins Game Fair about
how to be a better Game Master through storytelling.

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t0astbread
I don't know how it compares but there's also Cosmonium, which looks like a
FOSS alternative to Space Engine:
[https://github.com/cosmonium/cosmonium](https://github.com/cosmonium/cosmonium)

Anyways, both look absolutely stunning.

~~~
f00zz
There's also Celestia which has been around for a while:
[https://celestia.space/](https://celestia.space/)

~~~
t0astbread
While we're at it, just for the absurdity: Google Earth is also open source
(albeit without planetary or maps data so it doesn't really fit here):
[https://github.com/google/earthenterprise](https://github.com/google/earthenterprise)

~~~
myself248
Contemporaneous to Keyhole which became Google Earth, there was an open source
project called WorldWind:

[https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/](https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/)

It's changed a lot over the years, but I figure it belongs in this thread no
matter what form it's presently in.

~~~
reaperducer
Wow. I forgot about Keyhole.

A place I worked from 1999 to about 2002 had what they called a "Keyhole
machine." I'm not sure if it was supplied by Keyhole, or it was just the
company's machine with Keyhole's software on it, but part of my job was to
produce three to ten maps each day for use on a broadcast television station,
and it was an incredibly cumbersome process to get the maps from the computer
onto videotape (Betacam, IIRC).

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headsupernova
There really is no comparison to this program and it's a shame that it doesn't
get more attention and support. I used to use it all the time when I worked at
a planetarium giving free form tours of the universe with just a joystick and
a microphone. It is the closest I will ever get to exploring the universe, and
I've found no better tool for showing others the cosmic perspective.

~~~
bidluo
Have you tried Elite Dangerous? It leans more towards the Sci-Fi aspect but
those elements can be ignored and you could just spend your time exploring the
milky way like a lot of others do (even more so if you use VR), if I recall
they sourced real data to build the universe and extrapolate to fill in the
blanks. Sure it isn't the universe but it's still a pretty good way to explore
our galaxy

~~~
hannasanarion
Elite Dangerous doesn't give you _nearly_ the sense of scale that Space Engine
does.

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Tepix
Have you tried it in VR?

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wolfd
SpaceEngine let's you zoom through _galaxies_ like that old windows
screensaver was for stars. I've always sorta understood that the universe was
"big", but it never clicked how infinite it really is until I zipped through
SpaceEngine for an hour.

That said, Elite: Dangerous is pretty awesome. It helps ground how far away
everything is. Even with the game's FTL travel, the fact that it takes actual
weeks to reach Sagattarius A* boggles the mind.

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tectonic
Scott Manley recently reviewed Space Engine, which is now on Steam:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htyv6m9jaNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htyv6m9jaNY)

He uses it frequently for visualizations in his videos.

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Schoolmeister
What a magnificent accent.

~~~
andrepd
I cannot read names of Kerbal Space Program things without internally hearing
his voice.

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tempsolution
You need to earn money, sure. But it's really sad that things like this are
not OpenSource for people to play around with. I am sure the possibilities
would be endless. This seems to make a great foundation for a new MMORPG in
space.

~~~
Animats
They could release a free version where you can't exceed the speed of light.
Gameplay would be slow, of course.

~~~
Nition
Are we living in a free trial universe right now?

~~~
Nition
P.S. I highly recommend reading Liu Cixin's _Remembrance of Earth 's Past_
trilogy for another creative perspective on why the maximum speed in the
universe might be limited.

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AdmiralAsshat
Makes me pine for a sequel to Freelancer.

Or, at the very least, a legal,digital version of Freelancer that I could buy
and play on modern systems. My original disc is lost in a box somewhere.

~~~
galapago
You should check Librelancer[0].

[0]:
[https://github.com/Librelancer/Librelancer](https://github.com/Librelancer/Librelancer)

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AdmiralAsshat
Many thanks! Although it looks like it still needs the Freelancer game data,
so, I'm either gonna go digging for the disk or see if I can find the ISO
floating around online, I guess.

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pndy
I think I've missed the moment when it went from free to paid version; still,
it's a great piece of software - a good Celestia alternative, which I was
using for years and customized with tons of addons

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zamadatix
Happened just last month
[http://spaceengine.org/news/blog190611/](http://spaceengine.org/news/blog190611/)

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wesammikhail
For those of you who love space and haven´t heard about this game yet, I´d
recommend space engineers
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/Space_Engineers/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/Space_Engineers/)

The steam trailer videos do not make it justice. You owe it to yourself to try
it out!

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uses
Can anyone comment how this compares / contrasts with these projects?

[https://stellarium.org/](https://stellarium.org/)

[https://celestia.space/](https://celestia.space/)

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admiralspoo
>Will there be a version for Android and iOS? >A: No, because there would be
no point: very few – if any – mobile devices are powerful enough to even
theoretically run SpaceEngine.

A12X isn't fast enough? I call bullshit.

~~~
ladberg
Yep, this is just a bad excuse for not spending the effort to port it. I'm not
saying they have to port it, but a simple "it isn't worth the money" would be
better.

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hombre_fatal
That it's not worth it is the entire implication of their FAQ answer.

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johncoogan
Highly recommend the Space Engine subreddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengine/](https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengine/)

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tluyben2
I love this thing, but I would really like for it work on an iPad. I am not
much of a GPU person, so I will ask; is the iPad not powerful enough or is
this just a choice of the author?

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cookingrobot
You could try using a game streaming service, some are compatible with iOS.
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18274498/game-
streaming-s...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18274498/game-streaming-
services-pc-mac-ps4-android-cloud-google-stadia)

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jadei
Space simulators have come a long way from 1985 when I first played "The
Halley Project" on my Commodore 64. It was just as cool as this though (to
15yo me), even though the graphics were limited and it was only our solar
system if I remember correctly.

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chrisweekly
Hoping I just didn't look closely enough, but is this Windows-only?

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flixic
It is. From FAQ:

Q: Will there be a version for Mac and Linux? A: Eventually, yes. This is
planned for the future.

[http://spaceengine.org/manual/faq/](http://spaceengine.org/manual/faq/)

~~~
mrmondo
Thanks, definitely keen on a macOS version, looks interesting I've played with
Universe Sandbox which is great, but I'd love this level of detail on
planetary bodies and procedural generation.

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epiphanitus
Wow, that shot of Jupiter looks amazing. I had no idea that it was
feasible/practical to make graphics/games in Python.

Is it becoming a thing to develop games in Python, or is it mostly just
hobbyists?

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regnerba
The MMO EVE Online has a substantial, if not the vast majority (I never looked
at the non-Python code so don't actually know how much of it there is), of its
code written in Python. Most of that Python code is gameplay code. The
graphics, networking, and audio layers for example are NOT written in Python.

~~~
trilila
“The graphics, networking, and audio layers for example are NOT written in
Python.” - so...the game’s code is not written in Python at all, except some
gameplay scripting.

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sgt101
I would like to design planets : like earth, but 1.2 times the mass... And see
what the atmosphere and oceans are like. Are there any engines that would let
me do that?

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Galaxeblaffer
Universe sandbox comes close
[http://universesandbox.com](http://universesandbox.com)

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owens99
Space Engine is the most absorbing tribute to the question of our existence it
has ever been my privilege to experience.

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cfv
This people made me fill a 5 page long form in order to download a thing that
doesn't work on my Linux box.

It would have been awesome if they were a bit more upfront about it _before_
making me fill the form.

Also, the form seems to have been designed to be filled after using the thing,
not before download.

Overall, I'm not super thrilled. I guess I'll have to look for a gameplay
video to form some opinion on it.

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hosh
Is there a VR edition?

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aresant
Yes, it's supported in the steam version ($25)

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/314650/SpaceEngine/)

~~~
pre
Was just thinking about how I'm nearly going to be getting the payoff from not
playing any No Man's Sky until there's a VR version.

And here's another proceduraly generated universe that pips it to the post.

Have you used the VR system? Looks like some of that UI in the video wouldn't
work without a mouse/keyboard. How much of the system is VRable?

Looks like it's just rocks and light too, right? No pretend life?

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phs2501
When I tried it VR support was pretty rough control-wise. Some UI stuff looked
like it was trying to work but was borked, and also it looked like custom
control binding was necessary to get it more useful.

It looked really awesome though!

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shmerl
No Linux version?

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hannasanarion
Coming eventually, it's been promised, and Space Engine is a long term
project, the first public release was in 2009 and it's been continually
improving since, and launched 1.0 just recently. It's a one-man project.

In the meantime it works great in wine. You don't even need dxvk or anything.

~~~
shmerl
Is it using a custom 3D engine?

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jaimex2
Developer was mid making a No Mans sky clone then got bored. "Screw it, I'll
just publish the world generator I have for a few bucks and call it a day"

~~~
hannasanarion
Space Engine started development in 2005 and saw its first release in 2010. No
Man's Sky wasn't even a gleam in Gareth Bourm's eye.

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benj111
Was I the only one attempting to wipe the bits of dust off my screen?

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jcoffland
No Linux support. Lame.

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mrhappyunhappy
Newest release requires payment. You can only use an older release if you take
a survey.

Having used an older release, I am unimpressed. Half controls don’t work and
the universe itself is not as explorable as you’d think. I have yet to figure
out how to find a planet without going to one of the bookmarked ones.

