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Around a black hole, beside Saturn

Sunholo
Sunholo
Stapledon's Voyage team

Two new videos show recent work in motion: a stable orbit around Sagittarius A* and the guided voyage arriving beside Saturn. Both are captures of the game, with the AILANG simulation supplying the motion, clocks and arrival state.

Around Sagittarius A*​

The ship completes more than one orbit at three horizon radii. Gravitational lensing bends the background around the shadow while the native HUD shows the orbit count, clock rates and tidal load. This 20-second clip advances 1,800 seconds on the ship's clock, explicitly labelled as 90× presentation speed.

The background is the labelled Sol sky. A true Galactic-Centre background and a rotating black hole remain future work.

Arriving beside Saturn​

Saturn and its rings grow through the final approach, followed by six seconds at a genuine, stationary arrival. The video's 16-second approach compresses 25 seconds of simulation time; earlier guided stops are omitted. The camera widens its lens near arrival to keep the close planet and rings readable.

The space between stars​

Local interstellar clouds and dust have landed in PR #199. Routes cross source-based local cloud boundaries, the bubble wall responds to the medium, and individual grain impacts have an afterglow. The HUD and Archive explain the densities, assumptions and displayed impact statistics.

This 24-second preview follows six ordered intervals on the real route toward Aldebaran at 0.999c: LIC, Aur, LIC again, hot gas, Hyades and hot gas again. Cuts omit the long stretches between boundaries; each displayed dust tick is 1/30 of a ship second. The tan glow in the warm clouds and darker hot gas show the same renderer responding to different media. Dust emission and afterglow are labelled game approximations.

The source comparisons, rendered defaults and representative performance checks have passed review, along with the complete local and matching CI gates. Free navigation also starts at rest, keeps its system list stable, preserves Earth after arrival and uses unmodified mouse look by default. The separate dense-cloud dataset has unresolved scientific comparisons and is deferred. The remaining first-journey audit also stays on the roadmap.

Watch the videos and browse the captures in the gallery, or see the current roadmap.