Look around
Build a world
Choose terrain, size, oceans, atmosphere, rings, moons and glowing cities. More planet options adds palettes, density/gravity, rotation (negative reverses spin), axial tilt, cloud cover, atmosphere thickness, one to three moons, ring tilt and a repeatable terrain seed. Create a new world or apply details to the selected one. Click a world in the Solar system list to travel to it.
Explore on foot
Select a planet and choose Walk on selected planet in Create, or land any ship with L and go ashore with F. WASD or a click on the ground walks, a mouse drag turns, Shift sprints and Space hops. Open Structures for photographs of 12 outpost designs; choose a module and use B to place its green preview. E enters or leaves nearby inhabited buildings. Walk back to your landed ship and press F to board. Spaceports include a starter outpost. Later ranks unlock gardens, hangars, relays, observatories, shields and reactors. Bases last for this sandbox session (72 modules total). Return to orbit with Esc.
Living hives
Virus & hive has growth, tentacle extension, regeneration, hatching and roaming sliders. Choose a creature species and movement style, pause only the hive ecology, or prune its tentacles. Cannons, bombs and lasers sever tentacles. Set regeneration to zero for lasting damage; Kill infection clears the ecosystem.
Discover more
Open Discover for 32 earnable equipment variants, 96 specialty typing classes, and 200 space facts with research missions. Earn a license directly or complete its three assigned science reports. Main academy ranks still apply. Stop probes, Stop & heal, Recall, and Kill all black holes appear in Fleet & Gravity Control when needed.
Flight Academy
Choose a pilot callsign and a simple game password. Switching pilots locks the previous profile. Certifications and passed checkouts save to the cloud. Basic building, scout flight, laser and meteors are available from the start. Earn Engineer for restoration, Pilot for probes and infection at promotion 6, Captain for pirates, Commander for drills and showers, Admiral for Nova and black holes, and Legend for fleet command. Each mission earns Third, Second or First Class, with matching uniform insignia; First Class unlocks the major tools. Two different passing checkouts earn each class and a reward: paint schemes, ships or equipment. Rewards are also granted for classes already earned. Retry now (Alt+R) restarts an unfinished attempt immediately. One typo may be deleted with Backspace per attempt; type the correct character next. Repair time counts toward WPM. All Admiral and Legend classes require two different 60-second reports with at least 99% first-press accuracy. Earlier certifications stay earned. Finger guides start easy, and Legend First Class requires two full 60-second runs at 40 WPM. The Practice workshop adds 54 easy, medium and hard drills with unlimited corrections and a safe hands-on ship simulator. Practice makes no permanent score and mistakes never erase progress. The game pauses while you train. Press / for short typed orders that deploy certified equipment on the selected world.
Make an impact
Pick a tool, then click a planet. Hold the laser to carve a crater. Planets now start at 8× toughness, and larger worlds resist more damage. Change toughness in the selected-world panel. Repeated hits excavate persistent craters; impact heat fades into dark scars. Fractures spread through the crust, mantle and core before a six-second breakup. The shell separates into solid crust sections around a glowing core, then bursts into rubble. Nova needs multiple hits. Apply details restores your selected planet. Laser fire can also destroy probes.
Virus & hive
Open the Virus & hive workshop tab and infect the selected planet. Purple biomass and green veins spread over its surface. At 45% it hatches winged space monsters; at 65% it grows bridges toward nearby worlds. Bridges infect the next world, thicken and pull the planets together. They grind together for five seconds before becoming a larger living hive that preserves their combined mass and momentum. Configure growth, reach, pulling power and the monster cap. Kill infection & hives cures ordinary worlds, removes all bridges and monsters, and destroys fused hives. Lasers and ship weapons can also destroy monsters.
Impact lab
The Arsenal tab adds a sustained purple Core drill, a twelve-meteor shower, and a Restoration beam. Hold restoration on a planet to gradually repair integrity and close scars before collapse begins. These tools preserve your world’s composition and orbit. Use 0.2× time for slow motion and Cinematic view to hide panels; the same button brings them back.
The multiplying swarm
Detailed armored probes follow arcs outside planet surfaces and avoid neighboring worlds and moons. Follow a probe in the Solar system tab for a close view. A tiny triangular probe splits its nose open and launches a twin every few seconds. Fragile but relentless. They attack their assigned planet, then warp away when it is gone. Up to 128 active probes keep the game smooth.
Mess with gravity
Place a black hole in space. It grows and pulls in worlds and debris. Select Grab, drag a planet or the sun, and throw it into the hole to trigger a huge explosion. This is a sandbox rule: real black holes do not explode this way.
Captain your pilot
Pirate ship (9) has rocket thrusters, twin forward cannons (hold C), and bombs (B). Use L within 45 units of a planet to auto-land, then L to lift off. H lowers or hoists the anchor; hoist it before takeoff. Landing follows the rotating surface. Sun landings are impossible. Use the tactical console for cannons, bombs, landing, anchor and going ashore.
Enemy pirates
Switch Enemy pirates on in Controls for occasional two-ship raids. A five-second warning precedes each attack. Black sails and red thrusters mark hostiles. They attack your ship while you fly, or a planet in sandbox mode. R tracks a raider in the sandbox or aims your pirate ship at one. Hold the laser on enemies, or use cannons and bombs. Your ship has 100 hull points; raiders have 28. Survive or defeat the wave for a quiet interval. Turning raids off immediately removes enemies and their shots. Raids pause with the game.
Take the helm
Fly ship enters third person. Drag to steer, or use A/D and arrow keys. W/S thrust; Q/E roll; Shift boosts; Space brakes. Assisted flight is on by default: it cancels ordinary gravity, reduces sideways drift and gently stops when thrust is released. Turn it off in Controls for classic inertia. Sensitivity, pitch inversion and a manual Mac/PC override are also in Controls. The flight console includes a thrust-limit slider, Precision / Cruise / Full presets, and hold-to-use thrust, boost and brake buttons. The limit scales acceleration, not a target speed; W/S and Shift still work. Esc returns to the sandbox. Assisted flight cushions terrain contact and limits speed near the ground so you can skim beside trees and buildings. G approaches the surface; arrows climb or descend. Hard impacts in unassisted flight, stars, moons and station collisions remain dangerous. Visit the station from the Solar system tab.