Might it be possible for the catalogs to reside on a dedicated SE master server and organized by location (octree or similar) to be downloaded by the client when needed, internet connection permitting? This would of course be a future goal whose completion depends on funding for said master server to be operated, but if SE ever becomes an MMO that's going to happen anyway.
SpaceEngineer, I totally understand completely that not every last single star, planet, nebula, galaxy, etc can be updated into this game (otherwise this game would end up being like 50 gigs) but I was just thinking more along the lines of the major news in astronomy. Oh sure like the new Alpha Centari system with Proxima B can get added as well as the rest of those planets, but it won't utterly destroy and kill me if lets say you didn't add every single last asteroid. I still want to have a bit of exploration to the game of course but just major stars, planets, galaxies, etc is what I had in mind getting put into the game with each new update. So I apologize in advance if I was making it sound like I was asking for too much. I had no intentions of making it sound that way.
Oh sure like the new Alpha Centari system with Proxima B can get added as well as the rest of those planets
This will be updated of course, because, as I have said, exoplanet catalog is always up-to-date in every release. But you have to wait for the release, because SE didn't have auto update function. Or you may yourself make an addon.
TL;DR: I was not lazy these months, I worked hard, and I am in a beginning of a large amazing changes in SpaceEngine. Update will not be soon, sorry.
News about my recent work. Past month I mostly worked on updating the modding manuals, some work is still needed. HarbingerDawn and DoctorOfSpace now working on spellchecking of my updated posts. This is important because I want to put them in the new SE website, into the manual section, and launch it soon.
Working on VR is continuing, many things still must be done. 3D interface for Vive controllers is the most hard thing.
I am also working on advanced scripting system, which will be used to create the in-game tutorial. It is important for Steam release, because SE controls are quite complex for newbie players, and of course nobody cares to read the manual (so I didn't bothered with it's updating). So in-game training tour is very important. Scripts will also allows us to make a tours or scenarios like in Celestia. For example, tour through the Solar System. To whose who interested, here the example of the beginning (already working!) of the tutorial script:
Code
CheckVersion 980
GotoLocation { Body "Earth" Parent "Earth-Moon" Date "2016.10.02 18:23:39.62" Pos (+000000000000000000000CF2123FE674 +00000000000000000000059ED5FE38C0 +00000000000000000000502586FBE8E0) Rot (0.5008202623504712 -0.05331599430721364 -0.8586858287912289 -0.09484259066136355) Vel 8.2680508e-011 Stereobase 1 Mode 1 }
Orbit { Axis (0 -1 0) AngularSpeed 0.015 }
ShowMessageOk "Welcome to SpaceEngine. This tutorial will teach you basic controls and navigation in the SpaceEngine. Let's our journey begin!"
StopOrbit
Select "Earth/Earth-Moon"
Goto { Time 2 Height 20000 Lat 20 Lon 0 Yaw 0 Pitch 90 Roll 0 }
ShowMessageOk "This is our planet Earth. It is beautiful, isn't it? Our Universe have BILLIONS of such planets. Do you want to visit some of them? Then you must learn how to navigate in SE Universe..." ShowMessage "Lets start with your mouse. You can use it to look around, select objects, orbit them and change your movement speed. Try to look around using left drag. Hold the left button and move the mouse a bit."
WaitTrigger { Type "UserInput:Rotate" Rect (-0.5, 0.5, -0.5, 0.5) }
ShowMessage "Great. Did you noticed the Sun? Look around to see it. The arrow on the edge of the screen will help you to find it."
WaitTrigger { Type "Object:See" Object "Sun" Rect (0.2, 0.8, 0.2, 0.8) }
ShowMessage "Perfect. Lets look back at Earth."
WaitTrigger { Type "Object:See" Object "Earth" Rect (0.3, 0.7, 0.3, 0.7) }
ShowMessage "Do you want to see the city lights on the night side of our planet? You have to orbit around it to do that. Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse a bit."
WaitTrigger { Type "UserInput:Orbit" Rect (-0.5, 0.5, -0.5, 0.5) }
ShowMessageOk "You may do that at any time to explore the object from all sides."
ShowMessageOk "Now it's time to go somewhere. How about Europa?"
ShowMessage "Hit [F2] or press this icon to toggle the Solar System browser."
WaitTrigger { Type "GUI:Open" Object "SolarSystemBrowser" }
ShowMessage "This is the Solar System browser. You will use it a lot. Left-click on any object to select it."
It can give you idea of what is possible with SE scripting. If you are familiar with Celestia scripts, you can find it very similar. This is not surprising: both programs are Universe simulators and have similar functionality, and SE script format is very simple, as Celestia's (just bunch of pairs "parameter value", organized in a sections with curved braces).
I decided to give a ".se" extension to SE scripts. Is this good choose? The tutorial script have a name "tutorial.se".
I also needed a way to speedup script development, so I decided to add a command line parameter parser to SE. For now it have only two parameters: -planetarium forces SE to enter planetarium after launch, without displaying the main menu. Another parameter is a path to a script file, which SE must run at startup. So this gives these possibilities:
1) Associate .se files with SpaceEngine. Then double-click on it will launch SE and force it to run this script (Se enters planetarium mode automatically if script file name is passed in command line). 2) If there is an instance of SE is running already, no new instance will be launched. Double-clicked script will be "opened" in it. If SE was minimized, it maximized back to run the script. 3) Using this, you can make an interesting thing. If you use some advanced text editor (like Notepad++) to edit SE scripts, you can assign SpaceEngine.exe as a compiler or launch option for .se files. Then pressing a hotkey will launch or maximize SE with the script you are editing. (BTW I made a syntax highlight config for Nortepad++, for .se, .sc, .sss and .cfg files - over 1000 keywords!). 4) You can make a bat file (or just edit the desktop shortcut properties) and use it to run SE with custom script.
Another thing I am working on together with Duke is making a raymarching rendering of volumetric objects in SE. Duke made a lot of amazing shaders on Shadertoy, and we are going to import them in SE. Actually, almost every thing in space is volumetric and transparent, so this method of rendering is SE future anyway. Just think about it: galaxies, nebulae, stars, accretion disks and jets, comet tails, atmosphere, clouds, and entire gas giants - they all must be rendered as volumetrics. Even some ship effects such as warp and engine exhaust (which is already done in SE). Non-transparent-volumetrics in SE are only solid planet surface, water surface, and ships. Here is some first results:
Interesting thing about these nebulae - is what they are made as mods, which modifies some existing objects in SE. I implementing a new system which allows to replace rendering of any object with a custom mesh (model) with a custom shader and textures. For now it works only for nebulae and galaxies, but I plan to extend it on stars and planets. And also make a possibility to replace any type of object, for example all spiral galaxies. If I don't stop develop this system, any type of object in SE (even default) can be described with a script. This is very reminds the SDK functionality! Example script for a custom nebula model (yes supernova remnant is animated, although explosion parameters must be moved to a nebula catalog script eventually):
Holy cow, those nebulae look absolutely astonishing. Also, I didn't get the part about supernova remnants being animated - does this mean that they will actually expand now?
ENG
New site
United States 
Pirate 
So I apologize in advance if I was making it sound like I was asking for too much. I had no intentions of making it sound that way.
New Zealand 
Russian Federation 
France 
Croatia 