OT SpaceEngine. A free Universe Simulator engine,planetarium,game.

[wolverine2710]

OT but just wanted to share a FREE GEM I found yesterday - 960 MB sized. I hope I'm not abusing this DD forum of ED.

I'm into space games like ED ofc and know quite a few of them but this one very unfortunately flew under my radar. SpaceEngine (SE) is created by ONE person, a real russian "SpaceEngineer" as I read a few times, though the SpaceEngine wiki page says he's an astronomer and programmer called Vladimir Romanyuk

We all like ED because of its realism as it procedurally generates our milky as real as possible where the stellar force takes as much real data and known knowledge of the Universe laws into account to generate our milky way. SpaceEngine takes this method one giant step further and generates our total Universe as scientific as possible. Its not a game perse (atm) but more of a Planetarium, though you can control spaceships. For more data see http://spaceengine.org/. There are ofc also comets and blackholes in it and one can go back in time or to the future to see things change. Also it features PG terrains on the planets,moons, asteroids. If the conditions are right planets will have an atmosphere and some green vegetation on it. Its in development since 2005 and its first public release was 2010 iirc.

There are also mods for SE like Solar System HD and Solar System Ultra which contain high-resolution maps of some planets, moons and asteroids of the Solar System.

Perhaps the following videos give you an idea. The last one is done by our own ObsidianAnt.
SpaceEngine 0.9.8.0 trailer (released 2016)
SpaceEngine 0.9.8.1 trailer (upcoming next major release indicated by a 0.0.1 increase)
Space Engine: Interstellar System. Blackhole as in the movie Interstellar.
Take a Journey from Earth to the edge of the Universe.
Beatifull Planets, by ObsidianAnt

There are zillion videos out there.

History of SpaceEngine. By the author.
Article "‘SPACEENGINE’ IS LIKE A FREE ‘NO MAN’S SKY’ MODELED AFTER THE REAL UNIVERSE" by digitaltrends.

You probably either say meh or you get hooked. As I said its not a real game atm but more a fantastic looking Universe simulator. I can imagine its a wet dream for the (hardcore) ED explorers amongst us. Should you like SE the author is open for financial support. You might want to give this GEM a try.

Wolverine over and out.

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

Space Engine is really beautiful. The total freedom and the presentation makes it stand out as a very unique experience. And some of the graphic effects are really second to none.
But what it truly lacks is "you" being there. As the viewer, you are totally separated from the environment. And that is the point, where games like Elite start to shine.

I really hope, Elite never gets this good in simulation space visuals, because then it would be most likely, that i will never ever take off my Rift HMD again

 

[Kayweg]

Naw, you're not abusing the DD forum, but there's a general gaming sub-forum, where this probably belongs.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php/3-General-Gaming-Discussion

 

[Voubi]

Space Engine Beta tester here, good to see more explorers coming to our 'verse...
Hold on for 0.981, you'll totally be blown...
Prophecy...

 

[UnhappyDev]

Space Engine is incredible, I never fail to be impressed by it.

Looking forward to the time when a dev kit is released for it, although I believe that is some way down the line.

 

[cpbtrading]

There are already threads about SE, have been for a long time now.

 

[starman]

If you look up at the night sky ....