How come I missed this?!

[bojo]

For years i've been watching documentaries about space, all the time thinking to myself "where can I get the software those guys are using so I can smash stuff up on a planetary scale".  Then I open steam and see Universe Sandbox on the frontpage!

FINALLY! I've been waiting since what feels like forever to get my hands on something like this.

So this post is mostly to say, thanks for making this   and also to say hello to the community  

Come on download dammit, I wanna start playing god already!

[Bla]

Welcome.

Yes, I had sort of the same feeling when I found the program.

(I've moved it to Universe Sandbox 2 Discussion because the version on Steam is the newest version, even though the page doesn't say so.)

[bojo]

Ok, no problem 

Ah, so the version on steam is in fact Universe Sandbox 2?

Had me scratching my head when I came here, "there's a version 2 already?", lol.

[Dan Dixon]

Thanks for posting that. That makes me really happy.

And yes the version on Steam is version 2.1. Sorry for the confusion, that's my fault.

[ultimaIX]

For years i've been watching documentaries about space, all the time thinking to myself "where can I get the software those guys are using so I can smash stuff up on a planetary scale".  

Ditto, that's Exactly what i thought as soon as i watched the Milky Way dance around Andromeda.  And then after playing CERN w/ the "Floating Moons" sim (let sim run, after all the moons have formed their own "atom" add mercury nearby, give it a nice healthy velocity towards the "atom" and increase it's mass to the same as that as the sun...  BAM, instant particle accelerator!) I marveled at how what i was watching on my screen was so similar to the models i've seen of real life particle accelerators.  Or watching the trails of uranus' moons on the "Voyager 2 visits Uranus" model after it runs for a while and suddenly wave-particle duality is actually tangible.  (try spinning towards the sun, and you've got a wave, spin back around so you can see uranus, and you've got a particle)   Sure, the scales are wrong, and the physics are different, but the models do look realistic and give you an easy way to get your hands on something as small as an atom or large as a galaxy.  Makes me want to try to make my own double-slit experiment, or perhaps create a fission reaction lol. 

[Nick Luckham]

Just want to second bojo's statement.

Found it on steam this morning and liked it so much I felt the need to join the forum to say so.

Awesome bit of software   

[bojo]

Not at all Dan. Worth every penny. Can't wait to see what else you add to it as time goes by  

Closest I've even come to this is web based programs that make little spinning dots to play with. Spinning dots just don't do justice to creating systems of planets and stars. Sure dots can be interesting, but with a fully 3d program such as this, the systems you create actually feel as large and fantastic as they should do (as do the collisions  ).