A galaxy you can
actually fly across.

The 1,215 star systems within 50 light-years of the Sun come from a real catalog of nearby stars. Each one sits at its measured distance from the Sun, and its color, size, mass and brightness are worked out from real observations. Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years away because it really is.

More than 200 systems are charted by hand, from real binary stars to about 90 systems with confirmed exoplanets: Alpha Centauri and Proxima b, the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1, 55 Cancri, Sirius and its white dwarf, Vega, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Antares and the Pleiades.

• 1,215real star systems within 50 light-years
• 200+hand-charted systems, from real binaries to confirmed exoplanets
• 224star clusters whose members you can visit
• 58real nebulae on the map

Past the charted stars, the Milky Way is filled in with procedurally generated systems. They follow the statistics of real planet surveys: hot Jupiters, packed red-dwarf systems, families of similar planets, and the occasional lonely giant. A system is built from its star's seed, so a world you find is the same world your friend finds.

There are fourteen kinds of planet, from lava worlds and deserts to ocean planets, temperate worlds with clouds and blue skies, ice giants and puffy giants with rings. Moons can be volcanic, icy, hidden under haze, or thick enough to hold air, seas and forests. Sky color follows the light of the host star.

Solid worlds can be landed on, walked on and driven across. Generated surfaces are simpler than the hand-painted planets of our own solar system; their character shows best from orbit.

Open the STAR INDEX from the map to search stars, galaxies, nebulae and clusters by name. The FIND tab goes further: it searches outward from wherever you are for systems that match your filters and lists the nearest first.

Filter by star type, single or multiple stars, number of planets, planet kind, size, gravity, liquid surfaces, rings, the habitable zone and moons. QUICK SEARCHES cover the favorites: a Pandora-like moon, a habitable planet, a giant with an air moon, a Titan-like moon, a pulsar with planets, a multiple star, a ringed giant or a black hole.

Tap a star, choose NAVIGATE and pick a cruise speed. The map plans the departure burn from your orbit. Then it is your rocket's job: the trip uses the engines and fuel you brought, so efficient engines and a good stack of tanks matter.

Between the stars, time warp runs up to 100 trillion times, so a voyage of thousands of years takes minutes. Push a craft toward light speed (the Sandbox fuel cheat helps) and the game tracks relativity: the HUD shows your fraction of light speed, the time-dilation factor, and separate clocks for the ship and the universe. Slow below five percent of light speed to stop at a star.

Inside a system the planner can find gravity assists for you, including slingshots past one star of a binary pair.

Orbit Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way, chase the star S2 around it, or fall toward a stellar black hole and get torn apart by its tides. Pulsars sweep their beams across their systems, some of them with planets. Red supergiants like Betelgeuse and Antares dwarf entire planetary orbits.

The map does not stop at the edge of our galaxy. It shows 916 real galaxies, from the Magellanic Clouds and Andromeda to the Whirlpool and the most distant galaxies known, then the superclusters and voids of the cosmic web, generated out past the edge of the observable universe.

Interstellar travel works in multiplayer. Players spread across the galaxy appear on the galaxy map, spectating works across star systems, and when the host allows teleporting, GO TO and launching to another star do too. A crossing between stars runs on your own machine and rejoins the shared world when you press SYNC.