Alpha 17 | Star Glows & the Likelihood of Life | Nov 16, 2015

[Dan Dixon]

If you already own Universe Sandbox ², just run Steam to update to the latest version.

Or you can buy Universe Sandbox ² here:
http://universesandbox.com/buy/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/230290/

What's new?
Alpha 17 introduces better looking star glows, a new Halley’s Comet simulation, and two values which show how similar a planet is to Earth and the speculative chance of it forming basic life. There’s also a “Make Pulsar” tool, better crash handling and reporting, and some bug fixes.

You can read about some of the other features we are working on for future updates on our blog:
What Are We Working On? | Alpha 17 & Beyond

Complete List of Updates

Let us know what you think! And please report any problems either with the in game feedback tool or by starting a new thread...

[Breakfestbacon]

Wow. I was playing when this was released and when I restarted the game just now it had an update! What a coincidence.

[crashman1390]

Nice job guys! Loving the update! 

[WitheHole18]

Good update 

[BRUH]

The glows on the stars are much better! On point

[Deadpangod3]

does the earthlike and possibility of life meters mean that we will see parts of a planet turn green with life, or does it not do that?

[Cryo]

interesting my main "Ubox planet" got a score of

Earth Similarity: 0.875-0.877 so this is a B+? Not bad..not bad...

Life Likelihood: 0.733-0.734 so my planets life likelihood is a C or C-? back to the Drawing board...

[kallisti]

Nice stars! Where's the pulsar tool?

[EnuclearFireball]

Small bug: Habitable zones make strange artifacts with planets intersecting. Example

[Prometech]

For the love of god can we please have settings save in-between play sessions, I am endlessly frustrated by having to type in new settings for my simulations every time I have to re-launch the game.
Other than that, great work, I don't think I have ever gotten this high a framerate before in previous versions.

[kallisti]

I wholeheartedly agree. That's my one big problem with US, and takes away from experience.

Aside from that I'm very happy with the way things are going.

[Physics_Hacker]

For the love of god can we please have settings save in-between play sessions, I am endlessly frustrated by having to type in new settings for my simulations every time I have to re-launch the game.
Other than that, great work, I don't think I have ever gotten this high a framerate before in previous versions.

Maybe we could have that as a setting?

"Setting saving:

--Always
--In session
--Never"

[Gordon Freeman]

Nice work! Star glows still seem to interact with the brightness of the background...

For example, if I had the sun in front of the Milky Way in the skybox, parts of the Milky Way Nucleus get brighter.
Idk if this is realistic or not, but if it is, I think it could also use some polishing.


So... galaxies... what about those?

[kallisti]

Maybe we could have that as a setting?

"Setting saving:

--Always
--In session
--Never"

I believe there's already such a function implemented in the Settings menu, although a) it doesn't work or 2) I misunderstood and it's for something else.

Anyway, go to Home->Settings->Input, and notice the Remember Dialog Choices button, and the reset button just below.

If this is NOT what I suspect it is, namely the feature  both Prometech and I crave, I'd love to know what it's for. If it IS, I hope it'll become functional ASAP.