I wanted to share this gem with you guys because I think it's pretty fucking cool, and FREE!

http://en.spaceengine.org/

To put it bluntly, Space Engine is not really a game, but more like a fun thing to check out whenever you're bored. Its like Universe Sandbox but here you don't just get to smash a bunch of balls together, you get to explore the balls...in depth (Did I mention it's fucking free? Universe Sandbox is $25? Seriously. 25 Smackeroonies to smash some colorful balls together with a minimal physics engine and this bitch is FREE to explore all of the infinity of fucking space!)

Basically it has fucking everything in space that we know about and whatever we don't know it generates it randomly and a lot of times the stuff it generates is cooler than exploring the moon or whatever planet is in our familiar Solar System. The controls are a bit finnicky but really all you need to know how to do is move with WASD (and Q & E for roll) and the mouse and you'll have a good time. You can literally click on any star you see, right click on it, go to it and explore it. Save whatever cool places you find and the game has a button for taking screenshots without the GUI which is handy because this game looks so damn good every screenshot can be a wallpaper.

I've also heard there are some mods, like you can add in a working USS Enterprise from Star Trek or whatever ship you want and fly it. Personally I just like zipping along at light speed in free roam.

I'll shut up and just show you some screenshots that I have personally taken from my travels. Including the coolest shit I've ever found in this game, and I challenge you all to try and top me ;)

I found some lovely landscapes filled with magenta and bluish colors
I found a "dead earth" Just by zooming about, I think this was even described as a "hot terra"
It had a great view but heres the weird thing, everything was cracked dried dirt and the riverbeds/canyons were dry as a bone. It didnt just LOOK like a dead earth...it WAS a dead earth... :shock: It even had this weird orange "smog" over most of the planet, getting this clear shot of the sky was pretty hard!

Hold onto your dick for the finale kids.

I also found a couple of bright stars near each other
And some "super planet" with 5 small moons that were also the size of a planet like earth
And a really mountainous looking mars with a cool little blood moon!

Alright kids, get ready to have your dicks flying off into Andromeda.
I came across a boring looking planet but it looked like it could have a great view unless the atmosphere fucked it up
Nope, it's fucking awesomeonly downside is you have to be in the icey part of the planet to see it, but then it got even BETTER



A view of not only fucking Andromeda (I think thats the galaxy?) but a god damn Aurora lightshow as well. Yeah, pretty much the most amazing thing you can ever find. The only way to make it better is if the landscape was a bit cooler.

Well shit I guess some lumpy snow mountains will do!

PRO TIPS
Basically, click any random star, right click and go to it, move mouse to the left and click the "planetary system" button this brings up another UI thing above that I think shows all the nearby...well, anything nearby, look through them and ignore stars or gas giants (theyre usually boring imo but check em out if you want!) a good keyword is "terra" or "desert". Click it, now move your camera around because once you click it in the UI, it selects it for you, now right click it and go to it and explore the planet! It can be kinda finnicky and you may accidentally click some invisible dot next to it so be careful on what you select, you can always just fly towards it manually with lightspeed. :P

One last thing to end this post (like it wasnt long enough already)
On the website there are some "HD" textures for the planets in our solar system, this includes a 11.5 GB download for earth with a fully accurate heightmap, surface map, HD cloud textures AND city light map. Now, I mentioned this isn't like Universe Sandbox, well it kinda is in some ways. You can move shit around, put the planets close together and whatnot. So imagine having a perfectly modelled recreation of your town, and fucking mars is looming over head. Or saturn. I'm not sure HOW to do it since I'm still learning the controls but I know you CAN

Alright enough reading, go download this shit and explore the stars! And use this thread to share your adventures!

Is this what you do when you're high?

Judging by his avatar, yes.

ey yeah I foken love space engine

Space engineers just added it's infinite update, so that's fun too.

Quote from Arch-Angel

Is this what you do when you're high?

Quote from Xate

Judging by his avatar, yes.

N-No! ...Yes.

Quote from Captain Cook

ey yeah I foken love space engine

Space engineers just added it's infinite update, so that's fun too.

Woah really? I tried playing that awhile ago but the controls were so "What the fuck" to me I just dropped it and decided to come back when it had more done to it. Like correct me if I'm wrong but to rotate and do certain (Pretty awesome and important imo) things you have to use the numpad? Or some insane control scheme that no normal human with 2 hands is meant to control comfortably.

you have to use the numberpad but they're also keyed to keys below your delete key.

To be honest when you're building, just slam on those keys until it falls into place. you'll actually get the hang of it. However, there's only space rocks, no cool planets.

I'm actually going to fuck around on space engies, I'll dump my shit here if I get anything good.

This takes furever to download... then again my loptap is slow xD

This looks mad, downloading.

i'm getting the strangest feeling i didn't download it correctly...

alright fags image dump.

WELCOME TO RS 8409-1353-7-1365935-154 B3

Ground exploration crews dubbed the planet the "Meredith", a jab at one of their captains who was notorious for her irregular shifts in behavior from warm and approachable to cynical and bitter.


Oddly enough, half of the entire planet is covered in ice at all times. The rate at which the planet spins is the same as the rate at which it orbits its star, so this means that one side is consistently at slightly over 80 degrees farenheit, whereas the other side is frozen solid.

Miniman, you should create a competition thread. Either a competition for best screenshot, or best planet.

We'll spend the next couple of weeks exploring the universe, posting screenshots, and then vote at the end.


Here's my first find. I'm sitting on a frozen titan planet, looking at a warm oceanic planet or comparable size to Earth. The red dwarf star sits on the edge of a large globular cluster (hence the starry sky) on the edge of the Andromeda galaxy.

[Edit: Screenshots disappearing? can't locate folder?]

use F11 to take screenshots, and it'll automatically remove your HUD

Then look in your:
C:/Games/SpaceEngine/screenshots

Quote from Cronos

Miniman, you should create a competition thread. Either a competition for best screenshot, or best planet.

That'd be cool, but I wouldn't wanna run it, haha. I just like exploring and all of us sharing our findings :3 Lately I've been hunting these games down like a Republican Tea party hunting for the nearest McDonalds. I just found another gem called "Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution" and the description is in the title. You can control the temperature, choose how your world works, get a real basic little 'creature' or a hundred of them and then play god as you watch them grow new appendages and parts. Also, No Mans Sky looks like it's going to be the greatest shit of all time.

Quote from Captain Cook

use F11 to take screenshots, and it'll automatically remove your HUD

Then look in your:
C:/Games/SpaceEngine/screenshots

It doesn't appear? when i look up spaceEngine it just shows me the game shortcut, and when i search games, it doesn't even show space engine.