[GPMG]

I can't believe it. This "game" has been in productions since 2005 and was first released in 2010 and yet somehow I, being a huge fan of both astronomy and gaming, have only just now found out about it. And the only reason I found out about it is through a random post on reddit that piqued my curiosity enough to do a google search for it. Being completely free I pretty much had to try it out and... Damn!

What is Space Engine?

Spoiler

Okay, let me start by explaining what this game isn't so you'll not be disappointed when you read further. It isn't really a game in the traditional sense as there's no actual game play in it. You can fly around in a space ship if you so choose but this feature isn't fully implemented and it's not really as fun as it sounds. There's no combat, resource gathering or any kind of point accumulation. It's still in beta so some game play features may be implemented in the future but that's not the focus of development at this time.

So what is it? It's the entire universe. That's not an exaggeration. You can explore the entire universe down to the planetary level. Most planets are procedurally generated, allowing you to explore the surfaces in extreme detail. Currently this only includes the terrain; there are no rocks plants or animal life forms but who knows what the future holds. But the terrain is very accurate, even from a scientific standpoint.

Which is another great aspect of this game: it's scientific accuracy. Most known objects are featured in some form or another. You can visit the Horse Head nebula or the Andromeda galaxy or explore some of the recently discovered exoplanets or dwarf planets.

Functionally it's very similar to Celestia, another astronomy program that let's you explore the known galaxy. Having used Celestia for years it pains be to say that Space Engine pretty much renders it obsolete as it includes all of the same features and in much greater detail.

Anyways, this is starting to come off as advertising and that really wasn't my intention. As I said it's completely free and you can download it on it's http://en.spaceengine.org/.

I've been playing this game non-stop pretty much for the past three days. Feel free to post any interesting discoveries here. Astronomy related questions and discussions are also welcome.

If you want to share a discovery so other people can find it simply select the object in question, press "i" on your keyboard and it will show you the objects address. It should something like RS-1234-12-1234-123456. Or if you're really lazy you can post a screenshot with the HUD enabled and it will show the address on screen. To find the object simply press F3 and type or paste the address into the box. It most likely won't show up in the wiki but you'll still be able to select it and go to it with the "g" key.

Keep in mind shared discoveries of procedurally generated objects only work on unmodded versions of the same release. If there's an update you may not be able to find the same planet you found before or if you do it might not look the same.

Also I started doing scavenger hunts on reddit where you use a handful of pictures to try to find a specific landmark in a given area. I'd like to post some of those here but I have to adjust the way I do them as there's a bug that makes procedurally generated planets have slight differences at extreme zoom levels. Still if you want to try one out here's a link. http://imgur.com/a/zc6JP?