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[maniac-kun]

http://en.spaceengine.org

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68YK2FHkFjw

 

[toythatkills]

"For people that are scared of this game..."

That is genuinely me. :lol

 

[Conciliator]

Wait, how can it be developed by one guy and have infinity-billion stars? Is there some sort of astronomy archive database that it procedurally generates from, is it just a shit ton of copy-paste? Explain this to me.

Looks cool though. Exploration is the foremost joy of video games.

 

[Darklord]

Randomly generated? Man, don't fucking do that. Put if what we've discovered and leave it at that. What's the point of exploring a fictional universe like this? I'll probably still try it out but I'd be WAY more interested if it was factually correct.

 

[Corto]

I love Google Sky, I will try this for sure.

 

[Confidence Man]

This has been my desktop background generator for a while now. Scale is truly astonishing.

 

[maniac-kun]

 

[Brazil]

Randomly generated? Man, don't fucking do that. Put if what we've discovered and leave it at that. What's the point of exploring a fictional universe like this? I'll probably still try it out but I'd be WAY more interested if it was factually correct.

There is a portion of the universe that is exactly as the one that will be randomly generated by the software on your PC.

 

[strata8]

Some of my own images:

The terrain generator isn't entirely accurate (no tectonics, climates, poles etc) but it works very well for what it does.

 

[metareferential]

Holy sh-! I've been waiting for something like this. I'll try it immediately.

 

[SteveWinwood]

This looks like the greatest thing in the world.

 

[kyo_daikun]

This looks like the greatest thing in the world.

Would be if it was like some crazy RTS where you could take over the galaxy, I can't be satisfied just flying around and looking at stuff

 

[Red]

Looks awesome, but can't access the website.

 

[Mejilan]

Yeah, I don't like the procedurally generated stuff at all.
And the Carl Sagan thing is pretty tasteless.
Also, wouldn't having planets THAT close to each other as shown in some of the screen shots see them getting ripped apart due to extreme tidal forces?

 

[Consul]

My prayers have been answered. That video near enough braught a tear to my eye.. then i found out it was already released and free? Fuck yeah!

 

[TheCongressman1]

Minecraft 1.9?


Seriously though, what kind of beast computer do you need for this? I'd love to give it a go, but my comp is crap.

 

[xelios]

There is a portion of the universe that is exactly as the one that will be randomly generated by the software on your PC.

Believe.

 

[Alexios]

Do you actually fly a spaceship and have other light gameplay elements that make it somewhat fun to do so (even if the focus is on exploration and discovery, I don't mean space combat, just things like ways to warp between points instead of reach way too distant shit manually all the time, but without nulifying the core flying aspect as irrelevant because warping is too easy/infinite etc) or just control it like some kind of future Google Earth (or Universe)?

 

[strata8]

Do you actually fly a spaceship and have other light gameplay elements that make it somewhat fun to do so (even if the focus is on exploration and discovery, I don't mean space combat, just nice fun ways to warp between points instead of reach way too distant shit manually all the time, but without nulifying the flying aspect) or just control it like some kind of future Google Earth (or Universe)?

You can choose between the two. I haven't actually tried the ship controls so I'm not sure how well it works.

 

[NBtoaster]

Why would you be scared of this game?

It sounds amazing.

 

[maniac-kun]

 

[davepoobond]

that is pretty awesome looking, but is there a goal or objective to the game?

 

[metareferential]

It's amazing. It crashed on me a couple of times, but the scale is overwhelming.

And it is indeed a little scary.

 

[JVIDICAN]

Pretty cool. I can't get surfaces to load though. :/

 

[maniac-kun]

Pretty cool. I can't get surfaces to load though. :/

You have to set the LOD to 1 and adjust the magnitude

 

[Confidence Man]

that is pretty awesome looking, but is there a goal or objective to the game?

It's not a game, more like a toy. There's nothing to do but fly around and look at celestial objects. More of an OT topic, really.

 

[Ponti]

Yeah, I don't like the procedurally generated stuff at all.
And the Carl Sagan thing is pretty tasteless.
Also, wouldn't having planets THAT close to each other as shown in some of the screen shots see them getting ripped apart due to extreme tidal forces?

This thing is absolutely awesome, gives you some idea of how Infinity might work if it ever sees the light of day.

 

[JVIDICAN]

You have to set the LOD to 1 and adjust the magnitude

Oh. Okay, I'll try that out. Thanks!

 

[NBtoaster]

I keep getting out of memory errors when I get too close to a planet.

edit: may have fixed it by editing vram usage to 50% in the main.cfg

 

[Koren]

Randomly generated? Man, don't fucking do that. Put if what we've discovered and leave it at that. What's the point of exploring a fictional universe like this?

There's still people trying (really hard) to find interesting locations in Elite games, which are a quater of century old, and use a similar approach. Yes, Elite has gameplay beside exploration (I would love to see Elite 4, btw, which bested Duke Nukem Forever now ^_^), but for some people, finding an interesting spot is a game per se. I remember playing with many random landscape generators in the nineties...

And in a sense, that's not so different from walking in the nature to see a different kind of nearly-randomly-generated landscape... Less health, that's for sure, but when you want to see something else than earth forest and mountains...

 

[Dragnet]

Sweet, now I just need good space music...any recommendations?

 

[ultim8p00]

It won't even load on Vista

 

[Dmax3901]

To clarify: Are people saying it's scary due to the scale? The eeriness of space? The complexity of the tool itself?

 

[klownboots]

This looks incredibly interesting. Consider my interest peaked.

 

[NBtoaster]

So what's horrifying about ctrt g a galaxy? I don't really want to try..

 

[strata8]

Sweet, now I just need good space music...any recommendations?

The music for Infinity (a similar project) is pretty fitting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npdX5xLFlYU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZEKAzmR6Cc

EDIT: Wrong quote, whoops.

 

[Man]

Well I certainly approve of this!

 

[Winterblink]

So what's horrifying about ctrt g a galaxy? I don't really want to try..

In a word: WHOOSH

Such a neat tool, thanks for posting this!

 

[strata8]

Here's a torrent, if anyone is interested:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12527604/torrents/SpaceEngine0.94.zip.torrent

Seeding from both Dropbox and my own PC.

 

[chickdigger802]

how do you change the lod?

 

[NBtoaster]

how do you change the lod?

Hit escape, go to settings and then graphics.

 

[Teknoman]

Sweet, now I just need good space music...any recommendations?

The galaxy menu theme from Mass Effect, any ambient themes from Metroid Prime, some of the map music from Mario Galaxy 2. Music from the first Unreal and the menu music from Star Fox SNES or 64 seem like they would fit.

Has anyone posted this in the Space OT on the off topic side?

 

[Max]

Here's a torrent, if anyone is interested:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12527604/torrents/SpaceEngine0.94.zip.torrent

Seeding from both Dropbox and my own PC.

downloading this so hard thanks

 

[Stahsky]

Hit escape, go to settings and then graphics.

Can't seem to get this to work. Can someone explain how to see surfaces and such?

 

[Sax Russel]

I love this thing. I haven't played with it since 0.93, but apparently a lot of crashes are fixed now, time to take 0.94 for a spin =D

Randomly generated? Man, don't fucking do that. Put if what we've discovered and leave it at that. What's the point of exploring a fictional universe like this? I'll probably still try it out but I'd be WAY more interested if it was factually correct.

I'm pretty sure there's an option to turn off all the procedurally generated content and just display objects from actual databases

Spoiler

, but then it's not so.... infinite and whimsical anymore! =(

 

[chickdigger802]

hmmm all the planet's I've visited had pretty 'average' terrain.

Anybody found a badass one worth visiting?

 

[subversus]

 

[Ledsen]

Sweet, now I just need good space music...any recommendations?

EVE Online soundtrack. amazing, amazing music. Every time I listen to it it invokes images of flying through infinite space in a small, lonely vessel. And I don't even play the game!

 

[Teknoman]

I set LOD to 1 from -1 default setting, and I still cant see terrain.

 

[lastplayed]

If I can recreate this scene I'm in...