Empty Spaces

Empty Spaces is an open-world 2D space sim with realistic physics, cockpit instruments, sensor-driven navigation, thermodynamics, damage, and power.

You start with a rusty bucket, some debt, and a sector that doesn't care you showed up — mine, haul, refit, read the instruments, and try to get back in one piece.

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Cockpit · Pre-Alpha · 2026

Physics

Newtonian 2D rigid bodies. No friction, no auto-stop — burn to start, burn to stop.

Navigation

No map, no god view. Fly by LIDAR returns and dead reckoning.

Sensors

LIDAR and camera now; ESM, IRST, and radar next. Returns, not entities — cluster and classify before you commit.

Thermodynamics

Sun radiates, modules generate, radiators reject. The machinery is live; the survival loop is being sharpened.

Damage

Penetration and fragmentation, not hit points. Shells disable specific modules.

Power

Reactor produces, modules consume, battery buffers. Brown out and things start failing.

Roadmap

SHIPPED means playable in the current pre-alpha surface. BUILDING means the simulation substrate exists and is being turned into a player loop. PLANNED is the design target.

Physics

SHIPPED Newtonian flight 2D rigid-body dynamics. Velocity conserved, no friction, no auto-stop.
SHIPPED Collisions Impact transfers momentum and energy. Both bodies take damage.
SHIPPED Fragmentation Impact-seeded fracture. Fragments inherit mass, cargo, velocity, and spin.

The Ship

SHIPPED Modular hardpoints Hulls expose typed hardpoints. Modules slot by category, with mass and power budgets.
SHIPPED Power bus Reactor produces, modules draw, battery buffers. Brown-out cuts low-priority loads first.
BUILDING Solar thermal Sun, shadow, conduction, radiators, and overheat damage are live. Shade-as-terrain tuning is underway.
SHIPPED Fuel economy Fuel mass tracked per burn. Empty tank, no thrust.
SHIPPED Module damage Locational hit routing. Modules degrade with damage and fail at zero integrity.
PLANNED Wear & tear Modules degrade with use. Maintenance pressure independent of combat damage.

Cockpit

SHIPPED Cockpit-only view Normal play is instruments only. No free third-person camera, no top-down command view, no minimap.
SHIPPED Instrument layout MFDs assignable by role. Player composes the panel.
BUILDING Cold start Subsystems cold-start dark. The richer guarded master-switch sequence is being built out.
SHIPPED Hardware sound Synth voices for reactor, relays, RCS, weapon fire, locks, alarms, and cockpit switches. Event coverage keeps expanding.
PLANNED Radio Tunable receiver for navigation beacons, station traffic, distress calls, and direct communications.

Sensors & Navigation

SHIPPED LIDAR scope LIDAR returns drawn as a phosphor point cloud. Range and intensity authored per sensor.
SHIPPED Contacts Tracked contacts with range, bearing, closure, and IFF state.
SHIPPED Chart & routes Drop markers, author routes, designate tracks, and watch the live autopilot overlay.
SHIPPED Autopilot Goal-mode flight with context-steering avoidance, route following, and manual override latches.
PLANNED ESM Passive listening. Track emitters by signature without painting them.
PLANNED Jamming Active sensor denial. Effective, but visible to anyone listening.
PLANNED EMCON Emission control. Reduce signature at the cost of sensor range and certainty.

Combat

SHIPPED Fire control Designation, ballistic solver, lock state machine, engagement gate.
SHIPPED Kinetic weapons Mass drivers and PDCs. Per-mount recoil, dispersion, capacitor cycle.
PLANNED Energy weapons Beam and laser mounts. No projectile mass; thermal load stays with the firer.
PLANNED Guided weapons Seeker-equipped ordnance. Lock and release within authored envelopes.
PLANNED Countermeasures Chaff, flares, decoys. Defeat lock and degrade incoming guidance.
BUILDING Hostile pilots NPC command adapters are next: one hostile ship using the same hulls, sensors, damage, and control paths.

Economy

SHIPPED Mining Crack rocks, scoop fragments, stow into cargo. Mass affects flight.
SHIPPED Assay scanning Geometric LIDAR shows shape. Hyperspectral LIDAR paints resource shares on the scope.
PLANNED Salvage Wrecks remain in the world. Cargo and modules recoverable.
SHIPPED Dock services Sell ore, buy fuel, repair modules, equip from market.
SHIPPED Shipyard refit Buy a new chassis at station and continue in the refit hull. Hangar ownership comes later.
PLANNED Hangar Own multiple hulls at station. Swap between runs by role: miner, freighter, combat.
BUILDING Processing Stations already buy ore out of captured rocks and run processor cycles. Player-owned production comes later.
PLANNED Living economy Stations consume, produce, stockpile, and run dry. Traffic and prices respond to supply.
PLANNED Job board Procedural work generated by the economy and local politics: deliver, retrieve, protect, destroy, survey.

World

SHIPPED Asteroid field Procedural asteroid cluster. Field density gates navigation difficulty.
BUILDING Identity & reputation Transponders, IFF, station access, and pairwise standing are live. Faction consequences are the next layer.
PLANNED NPCs Named commanders, station operators, patrol leaders, and traders tied into identity and standing.
PLANNED Sector ecology Miners, haulers, patrols, raiders, and independents moving through the same economy.
PLANNED Storylines Authored threads carried by people, signals, wrecks, debts, and persistent consequences.