Space Engine - Less gameplay than No Man's Sky had on release!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Space Engine - Less gameplay than No Man's Sky had on release!

sigher: Apr 22, 2008; My guiding Moonlight...

SpaceEngine is on Steam and supports VR! $25

UP AND ADAM posted:

Warning: the realistic scale in this game may be humbling.

What is Space Engine?

Space Engine is a space "simulator" that uses known catalogues to map out :siren:

the Universe :siren:

, you're free to explore any planet/sun/moon in great detail thanks to everything being procedurally generated. There's trillions upon trillions of star systems. This picture goes into better detail:

Also check out SpaceEngine: Serenity to get a jist of the game.

Explore the Solar System, bounce from planet to planet, land on an icey moon and watch the sunset, get really baked, sit on the lake of a far planet in VR as you watch an eclipse or leave the Milky Way altogether and visit the countless other Galaxies around us. There are no objectives. Just take awesome photos and share your findings with others. This was a passion project of a single person until the Steam release (from what I remember). :drat:

There's a whole space flight simulator in Space Engine and you can import different ship models but I don't know gently caress all about it since moving through the galaxy realistically sounds like misery. If anyone does this feel free to post about it.

Last Freeware version, 0.9.8.0 isn't supported anymore and doesn't work with newer Nvidia drivers; the game is only updated via Steam, but you're still free to try out the older version if you can get it working
Official Site Download Page

Controls

Basic Movement:

W/A/S/D - Move
Q/E - Roll
R/F - Ascend/Descend
Click - Select
Click+Drag - Look around
Right Click+Drag - Orbit around a selected object
Mouse Wheel - Change Velocity

Auto-Pilot:

G - Auto-Pilot to selected object (you'll be using this a lot, tap twice to go faster)
Shift+G - Land on planet (or if you have a Galaxy or system selected you'll go to it's center, easy way to get to Black Holes)

Time:

J - Change the flow of time forward or backward
K/L - Increase/decrease the flow of time
Spacebar - Pause Time

Other Stuff:

1/2/3 - Change Movement Mode
Page Up/Page Down - Change FOV
F1 - View Orbits and nearby celestial bodies
F2 - View System (the easiest way to preview planets in a selected system and go to whichever you want)
F3 - Find an Object (and set it as a Marker)
F6 - Locations (This will allow you to set your current location and viewing angle in a log so you won't lose your place)
Crtl+F3 - Spawn Spacecraft (You can control these but it's a bit cumbersome and lovely, but they make for good pictures)
F11 - Screenshot
Esc - Menu

And of course, screenshots:
sigher

Rollofthedice

TildeATH

Minrad

mudlark

This thread is mostly made up from the corpse of the last thread I had two years ago, let me know if there's anything anyone would like me to add to the OP. Also the pictures in the OP are from older versions, so if you see pretty poo poo I'll update the OP with it.