Starship Simulator

Explore billions of distant, uncharted worlds on one of the most detailed starships ever made.
[email protected]
Press Kit:

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

There are many great space sims out there. Some feature beautiful ship interiors, some have stunningly realistic galaxies, and others have impressive simulated ship systems. There's even software that allows you to soar through the cosmos seamlessly without any loading screens, but what the space sim genre lacks is a title that features all of the above.

Until now, that is...

Demo: https://t.co/e4SjOS1R8S
Discord: https://t.co/Xm6Fi3uZMH
Ko-Fi: https://t.co/WlItojrQGh ( You can also buy the Kickstarter tier rewards here)
#spacegame #VR #gaming #pcgames

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@E2aGames

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@IndieGameJoe Hello! :) https://t.co/UpFBERwJuq

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Great video Sirius Sims! Thanks :)

https://t.co/m1oHfnS7Ra

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Hi 👋

- A 1:1 Milky Way galaxy to explore.
- A 7-deck starship with over 200 crew members to manage.
- Play as one of seven roles, or just chill in the bar and watch the stars fly by.

I hope your diplomacy skills are good because you'll need them!

Currently at tech demo on Steam: https://t.co/IMFctKVZtt

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@SimulatedSteve1 @firtoz Thanks. There will be another demo update soon :)

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@SimulatedSteve1 @firtoz We're looking at early access at the end of this year. The full game will be a few years :)

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Thank you, @ObsidianAnt

https://t.co/fihM5VrKdz

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@DevLand95213410 Starship Simulator is a space exploration sandbox, play solo or with friends. The tech demo is currently on Steam, and will also be updated fairly soon. https://t.co/UpFBERwJuq

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Development Build 0.227.0.21

𝗡𝗲𝘄 / 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀
• Added some very simple reactor controls to the Engineering station on the Magellan's bridge.
• The Caravella Class is now completely flyable and has functional NPCs on the bridge. ( Available for Rear Admiral+ )
• Upgraded Unreal Engine to version 5.7.4.
• On stream - Started building the A Deck bathroom on the Magellan Class.

Not Yet Implemented
• Created a more stable version of the sublight flight model with a fixed centre of mass.
• Created a modular thruster component that simply takes in Max Newtons * Throttle as an input.
Optimisations
• Created a new optimised light component and converted the temp lights around the ship to use it (the round ones).
• Enabled stereo and foveated rendering for VR.

𝗙𝗶𝘅𝗲𝘀
• Fixed the Caravella Class not loading.
• Fixed bug #02752 - Open/Close Refill Valve buttons on new bridge engineering screen have typo
• Fixed bug #02788 - Flying Camera shadows
• Fixed bug #02753 - Chat Spamming
• Fixed bug #02787 - Engineering Bridge NPCs are mislabelled
• Fixed bug #02757 - Power

Starship Simulator Portal
• Renamed the Bug Ticket Severity fields so that they're more reflective of actual game issues.
• Added the ability for players to set the Severity field directly when raising a bug ticket (we'll refine as-needed).
• Added automated screenshot capture/upload when raising a bug ticket (you can opt out).

Captain+ Notes
• Upgrading engine versions always brings with it the potential for unexpected side effects, so please let me know if anything is behaving strangely.
• VR is working much better now, but enabling stereo rendering has caused some side effects. Not least of which, if you have Bloom enabled, it will cause the right eye to have glitchy black areas all over it. Also, right now there are no in-game menus in VR, so once you are in-game you will need to hit Alt+F4 to exit.
• I've been testing both Wired and Air Link on my Quest 3, and they both seem to work fine. Typically, I'm seeing ~60fps on my 4090 on Medium settings.
• Unreal Engine 5.7 forces us to use the AgX Tonemapper over ACES, because the OpenColorIO plugin is required by MetaHumans. Ultimately, this is a good thing; it gives us more accurate colour and better visuals, but until I tweak the post process, it's going to look a little flat.

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Starship Simulator is an in development space exploration sandbox. Play solo or with friends, living and working aboard a starship in a 1:1 Milky way galaxy. Play as one of seven roles aboard the ship, while daily life aboard goes on around you!
Demo on Steam: https://t.co/IMFctKVZtt

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.20

New / Changes
• You can now refuel the ship from the bridge! We don't have volumetric gas giants yet, so for now you simply need to be within 1.25-1.75 of a gas giant's radius to be in effective fuel scooping range. Ice giants are the best fuel sources, with effectiveness falling off on classes I through V.

• Added a temporary /refuel command to the chat box to save anyone who forgets to watch the fuel tanks. It'll set the tanks to 10%.

• Added a temporary (ish) flashing light above the Engineering console if any tank drops below 10% fuel.

• The F1 bug reporting tool has been updated, and now also lists all open bug tickets in-game. More functionality on that will be coming.

Fixes
• Fixed bug #02613 Bug reoprt form too short

• Fixed bug #02742 Floors aren't being cleaned

• Fixed bug #01881 Feedback - Add audio in background when alt+tabbed

Starship Simulator Portal
• We've now replaced Mantis with our own proprietary bug tracker, built into the portal and the game.

• You can now upvote bug tickets that you think should be a priority fix.

• Anyone with an account can comment on bug tickets.

Backers - Notes
• The new bug tracker uses your Starsim account, so if you are logged in when you report a bug it will link that ticket to your account properly. You'll then be able to see any tickets you've raised on your dashboard, and it will glow yellow if any of your tickets have been updated.

• The NPC Captain doesn't know about fuel scooping yet, so don't leave them unattended, or you'll end up stuck without fuel. For now, I'll add a temporary /refuel command to the chat box to save anyone who gets stranded.

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Internal Development Builds 0.227.0.17, 18, and 19

New / Changes
• The Autopilot will now actively avoid flying through planets and moons.
• The Autopilot will now exit FTL alongside planets, ensuring to keep them on the Port side.
• The Autopilot will now always try to rotate itself to align with the star system's orbital plane.
• Clamped the Autopilot arrival throttle to a minimum of 10% to prevent slow approach crawls.
• Added little crowns above stars on the Long Range Holo-Display mode so you can see which systems have command actions queued.
• Upped the brightness on the Long Range Holo-Display stars slightly.
• Tweaked the FTL so that it ramps up a bit faster. It's now 1.05 times the current speed per tick, up from 1.025.

Fixes
• Fixed bug 2699: Started orbiting a sun and saw 2 of my ship on the holo display
• Fixed bug 2697: I can see myself on the holo as another ship.
• Fixed bug 2685: Mission time resets on reload
• Fixed bud 2315: Sensors - When Display order is to "From Ship", distances do not update.
• Fixed bug 2701: When warping into a new system, the AU distance counter on the holo display goes up.
• Fixed bug 2647: Galaxy - system labels flash when the ship is stationary.
• Fixed bug 2471: Distance to Objects withing a system not updating on holodisplay/Sensors
• Fixed bug 2159: Holo Display - planet distances don't change on bridge hologram
• Fixed bug 1924: Sensors - Setting Sensors UI Display Order to Ship Does Not Update Range
• Fixed bug 2706: Holo ship has a shadow

Starship Simulator Portal
• Added player ship positions to the galaxy map on the website. You can display all, or filter by organisation.

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.18

New / Changes

• Added a bit more in the way of outgassing to stars.
• Tuned the Sun Flare so that it fades out entirely as you approach a star closely.
• The Long Range Holo-Display will now immediately update the display of Org ships when zooming in/out.

Not Yet Implemented
• Significantly progressed the local content spawning system, which creates grids for spawning small object throughout a star system.

Optimisations
• Reduced the instruction count on the Sun Flare shader and added some better early-outs.

Fixes
• Fixed bug 2709: Started a new game and the ship is shaking
• Fixed bug 2714: Ship reorientates on load
• Fixed bug 2718: wobbly ship on new launch
• Fixed bug 2703: Ship Registration
• Fixed bug 2693: Dwarf lava planets in Sol system
• Fixed bug 2710: The Sol system icy bodies are lava planets
• Fixed bug 2680: Character Gen Screen Bio Windows expands
• Fixed bug 2673: Star hiding out in data centre.
• Fixed bug 2695: The bottom engine pod marker lights need to be moved down
• Fixed bug 2501: Still seeing Sun Flare behind planets
• Fixed bug 2667: Sunlight shines thorugh planets
• Fixed bug 2708: Sun flare size.
• Fixed bug 2711: Ship stuck in 10% max mode.
• Fixed bug 2698: System scan count not retroactive
• Fixed bug 2717: Other player ship names visible a long way outside the holodisplay.

Starship Simulator Portal
• The ship will now do a telemetry update with the website every 60 seconds while actively at FTL.

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.19

New / Changes
• The Bridge NPC's dialogue will now show in the chat box and in a speech bubble above their head. (Toggleable in the future)
• Added a little arrow under the speech bubble.
• Added the ability to spawn an NPC Captain. The captain will autonomously direct the ship to search for Earthlike worlds.
• Removed the Zoom In/Out orders from the Sensors NPC because it was just clunky and awkward to use. It will be replaced with a better solution.
• Improved the look and feel of the Nav and Sensor target markers.
• Set the Planet and Star labels out of the bridge window to Off by default, to improve system approach visuals. Targeted objects still show labels.

Not Yet Implemented
• Built a new "Territory Bubble" generator which uses a Signed Distance Field mesh to display a Civ's territory as a 3D bubble on the Holo-Display.

Fixes
• Fixed bug 2726: Holo display - Command targets are no longer saying Command.
• Fixed bug 2727: Galaxy - Cloud coverage button is broken and is making the planets white
• Fixed bug 2681: SaveGame Owner Dan
• Fixed bug 2734: Bread Crumb Tail
• Fixed bug 2723: Breadcrumb trail remains when turning Holodisplay off
• Fixed bug 2721: Duplicate of back button when returning from descendant menu of children menu in context menu..
• Fixed bug 2656: Looping execution of a command on Galactic Position radial menu
• Fixed bug 2713: Unable to Read Arrival Information sitting at Helm
• Fixed bug 2542: Floor panel hight missmatch on bridge
• Fixed bug 2567: Z fighting at the enterance to the bridge
• Fixed bug 2637: Flying Camreas no longer exit though bridge winows
• Fixed bug 2668: Command target icon still exists outside of holoprojector bounds

Starship Simulator Portal
• The ship will now do a telemetry update with the website every 60 seconds while actively at FTL.

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@CelticGundam Hopefully, the update will be out soon.
The reason we update the demo is so that people don't need to wait until early access to get new content, so you can enjoy it alongside us as soon as things have been polished.
The backers get all the broken stuff :P

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Development Builds 0.227.0.12, 13, 14, 15 and 16

New / Changes

• Significantly improved how moons are generated, enforcing Roche Limits and Hill Spheres.
• Added Roche Limit and Hill Radius data points to the holo display.
• Added a "System Overview" view mode to the Holo-Display on Medium Range mode.
• Created some generic planet-type textures for the new System Overview.
• Tweaked and polished various aspects of the star system generation code.

Fixes

• Fixed bug 2436: Galaxy - L Class Brown Dwarf - Direction light too bright
• Fixed bug 2625: Habitable zone start and end visible inside star model in holomap
• Fixed Terrestrial planets having a weird green tint on the surface map.

Notes

• The new System Overview isn't interactive yet, but that will be coming at some point. For now it's just there to provide a quick visual overview of the star system, whereby all objects are properly scaled relative to one another, including the star.

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.13

New / Changes
• Updated the "looking at nothing" Radial Menu to inherit your department colour instead of being grey.
• Updated the chairs so that the radial menu will always appear if you click them with E held, even if there is no NPC.

Optimisations
• Reduced the instruction count of the atmosphere shader to improve performance.

Fixes
• Fixed bug 2635: Shipwide Order Fails to Update Command Console that Mission is Complete
• Fixed bug 2604: Can't cancel shipwide order on the captain's console
• Fixed bug 2607: explore system shipwide order wont complete on UI or cancel
• Fixed bug 2554: Cable in Door
• Fixed bug 2371: Modelling - Pipes going through Engineering doors
• Fixed bug 2568: Radial Menu - Deadzone not scaling properly with screen resolution
• Fixed bug 2634: Lack of Command Target Selection Confirmation
• Fixed bug 2636: cant select systems in sensors holo display in center of bridge
• Fixed bug 2643: Changing display order or alignment rotataes the objects in the system overview
• Fixed bug 2640: Mouse Cursor is draging camera

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.14

New / Changes

• Added a new "Breadcrumb Trail" to the holo display (GPS & Long Range), which will update every time FTL is disengaged.
• Added an "Account" section to the game settings.
• Built a new framework for connecting the game to the Starship Simulator online portal.
• The (very early wip) Caravella is now available for Admiral level backers with connected portal accounts.
• Renamed "Start New Mission" to "Launch New Vessel" on the main menu. We're doubling down on the ship being the hero of the story.
• Added a new Ship Configuration page to the Launch New Vessel menu sequence.
• Added a new Select Character page to the Launch New Vessel menu sequence. (Not much on it yet)
• Added a new Crew Roster page to the Launch New Vessel menu sequence. (Not much on it yet)
• Added a new Online Fleet Registry Submission page to the Launch New Vessel menu sequence.
• We now have multi-savegame support! The number of save games is limited only by your HDD space.
• Each new vessel launched creates a new savegame, and if you opt-in, will also create a profile on the online portal.
• Added the ability to delete save games, which also deletes the associated vessel from the online portal.
• Added the first data output for the online portal. The ship will update its last known location every time FTL is disengaged.

Notes
• The new Starship Simulator Account system is purely optional and is not required to play the game. The only caveat is that you will need an account to access in-game backer rewards such as mission patches and the Admiral Cluck plush (both of which still need to be made).

• Aside from gating access to backer rewards, the main purpose of the online portal is to serve as a Fleet Registry, allowing players to share their progress with one another by way of info cards for their vessels. It will also feature some league tables with data points such as "Farthest distance from Earth" and "Number of star systems fully explored". In the future we'll look at storing "First Discovered By" data, along with a galactic heatmap to show community exploration progress.

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.15

New / Changes
• The ability to use gameplay-affecting debug commands is now gated behind staff account authorisation.
• The Target and Actual speeds shown on the Helm now transition to showing LY/H above 8,766 C (1 LY/H).
• The reactor draw value now shows voltage on the Helm UI, but it's going to need increasing when I do the next pass on it.
• Ships will now report Distance From Earth and Total Distance Travelled on the portal page.

Fixes
• Fixed the breadcrumb trail not properly setting Earth as the initial origin point on new games.
• Fixed the Continue Mission menu option not working if the old legacy save is deleted.

Notes
• If a debug command is used in-game (like teleporting the ship), it will flag as such on the ship's portal page and the vessel will then not be included in any league tables. Essentially that's cheating, so we need to ensure that sort of thing gets filtered out.

• The current top speed of the ship is now accurately stated as 285 LY/H. This makes the average time between stars (4ly) roughly 50 seconds. This is actually faster than the target 60 seconds between stars, which is actually 239 LY/H. I'll probably make that the baseline speed without any upgrades in the future, and have hardware upgrades slowly push the ship towards 300 LY/H.

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.16

New / Changes
• Your ship will now report its number of fully scanned systems to the website.
• Changes made to your ship details via F3 will now sync with the website.
• Added the Description field to the F3 ship customisation menu.
• Updated the layout of the F3 ship customisation menu to accommodate the new fields.
• You will now see other vessels on the Holo-Display if they match your ship's Org Prefix. In the future, this will be toggleable.

Optimisations
• Removed the old Ship Customisation global event and replaced all instances of it with the improved Gameplay Messaging Subsystem approach.

Fixes

• The Ship Customisation should now be working reliably in both single and multiplayer.
• Updating your ship's Prefix & Registry will change its URL on the website, so if you have your ship profile up and try to refresh it, it will give you a 404 error. The URL will always be /fleet/Prefix_Registry.
• The ability to see other ships on the Holo-Display is purely informational. You cannot interact with them, or see them physically in the world (yet).

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

A man and wife team creating their(his!) dream game in space.

Command the bridge of a massive, fully simulated deep space starship and explore a true 1:1 scale Milky Way galaxy in this immersive sandbox.
Live aboard with 200+ crew, manage complex systems, discover uncharted worlds, and uncover alien mysteries - endless, realistic adventure.
https://t.co/IMFctKVZtt

[Andy @jump_drive_flyr]

The new update to @Starship_Sim that's added moons to systems is awesome, our moon looks fabulous. Lots of new stuff to explore, a game worth taking a look at.

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@CelticGundam @londongamesfest 2...not 3! Fat fingers :D

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

Play @Starship_Sim at @londongamesfest!

New Games Plus - 16th-17th April at Exhibition White City, London.

Have a chat with Dan about the future of Starship Simulator, grab some merch, or have a coffee with Claire!
👋
#londongamesfest #gaming

[Starship Simulator @Starship_Sim]

@CelticGundam @londongamesfest Space Engineers 3 is a great game!

It's been 9 months since the last update and a lot of content has been created between then, it'll go out as soon as it's all polished. One more, and then that'll be the last demo update.