Universe Sandbox news & patch notes

Artemis II Mission

The recent Artemis II mission swept around the far side of the Moon, taking humanity farther than they’ve ever been from Earth. Experience it yourself in our new simulation, Artemis II: Humanity's Farthest Journey.

Earthset created in Universe Sandbox. Check out the original Earthset image captured by the Artemis II astronauts.

Orion Spacecraft

The Orion Integrity spacecraft from the Artemis II mission is now in Universe Sandbox. See it in our simulation of the Artemis II mission or add it to any simulation.

More Highlights

Object cohesion, how tightly bound together an object is, is now simulated based on its composition. This impacts object deformation and fragmentation rates and  prevents fast spinning objects like asteroid 2014 RC from immediately ripping themselves apart.

Before

After

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 36.1.

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Blast apart rings with lasers, deform moons as they become tidally locked, vaporize meteors, and more! We’ve reconstructed the physics simulation architecture of Universe Sandbox to provide a new base for improving performance, finding and fixing issues faster, and more easily adding new physics features.

“To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

New Simulation Framework

We’ve overhauled the physics architecture of Universe Sandbox to utilize the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox, to

• Improve performance now and in the future.

• Add new physics simulation, like stretched objects and atmospheric drag to simulate meteors.

• Make our game code easier to maintain and build on.

• Provide a foundation for future big features, such as building and flying spacecraft and constructing (and destroying) megastructures like Dyson spheres.

Improved Lasers!

Blast multiple objects at once (instead of just one object at a time) with the updated laser! You can even push objects around by increasing light’s radiative pressure.

Atmospheric Fireballs

Objects now burn up as they travel through planet atmospheres with our new atmospheric drag force to simulate meteors. Trails are created as volatile material, like water, is burned off the object. Check it out in our new Meteor Shower from Earth’s Surface simulation.

More Highlights

Objects Stretching & Squishing Simulate the stretching and flattening of objects in real life due to gravity or fast rotation. However, collisions and surface simulation will continue to simulate as perfect spheres even on stretched objects until this is improved in a future update

Customize Heat Glow & Luminosity Want to make a whale glow with the brightness of the Sun? Now you can make any object emit any color light at any brightness, regardless of its temperature.

Tidal Locking Gravitational interactions that change an orbiting object’s rotational period until the same side of one object always faces the other, as the Earth has done to the Moon, are now simulated. Visualize tidal locking by turning on Tidal Lag in the View panel to see the difference between the object’s orbital and rotational periods.

Lagrange Points Mark the location of Lagrange points, points where the gravitational forces between all objects in the system are equal, with the press of a button. There’s even a handy Place Object at Lagrange Point option

Predicted paths See the path an object will follow as we project its motion into the future. Checking for collisions along the way, this path will turn from yellow to red, showing the amount of predicted overlap. Turn on predicted paths under View > Overlays > Predicted Paths

Non-spherical Gravitational Fields Similar to flattening objects, we’re now fully simulating how an object’s gravitational field changes when it’s no longer a sphere by simulating its oblateness factor (also called J2). Previously, these factors, used to simulate the orbits of sun-synchronous satellites, had to be manually entered.

New Add Tool Views Automatically turn on orbits, the simulation grid, or show the habitable zone with the Add Tool View options as you add objects to your simulation.

New Overlays Use the new overlay options to easily see the predicted path an object will take, the orientation of its axes in the simulation, and more.

New Save File Structure Simulation and object save files are now more versatile and capable. In the future, you’ll be able to save and share custom presets (like individual species of life). Previously saved simulations and objects will still open, but new saves will not work in old versions of Universe Sandbox.

Number Formatting Show large numbers with commas, periods, half-spaces, or without separators. The initial number format will correspond to the selected language and can be adjusted under Home > Settings > General > Number Formatting

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 36.

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Our first planned major release of 2026 is our physics architecture overhaul that will simulate meteors (atmospheric drag) and improve lasers. We’re also continuing development on life simulation, bringing Universe Sandbox to mobile devices, and other grand plans. But before we get into those projects, let’s look back at some highlights from last year.

Work in Progress: Objects changing color based on their relative heating rate, heating up when blasted with the laser or crashing into each other.

Highlights from 2025

A supernova lights up, then boils away Earth in the Solar System.

Our first big release in 2025 included a major graphics overhaul, a new dynamic user interface, and multi-object editing. We also released four other updates throughout the year, with new simulations, supernova lighting, and object descriptions. Some of our biggest accomplishments include

• Replacing our 10-year-old graphics technology with a state-of-the-art system for a more awe-inspiring and realistic universe, a project that took about 2 years. (Update 35, March 2025)

• Implementing a new interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can focus on the simulation instead of managing the interface (Update 35, March 2025)

• Supernovas light up your simulation and leave behind a remnant if the exploding star is massive enough. (Update 35.2, June 2025)

• Releasing a preview version of our physics architecture overhaul, including improved lasers, atmospheric drag, and more! Try it now (Update 36 Preview, December 2025)

Our major graphics overhaul and interface improvements were both major milestones from our 2024 Roadmap, and our next physics update has been a major milestone for the last few years.

What’s the Plan for 2026?

• Finish our major physics overhaul. 

  • The preview of this update is now available and is receiving updates as development progresses.

• Add planet-scale life simulation where vegetation and animals grow, die, get eaten, and more.

• More simulation improvements, including

  • Overhauling the tech behind our surface simulation to make it more efficient.

  • Updating our heating and cooling systems.

  • Lay the groundwork for constructing and simulating spacecraft and megastructures with improvements to our collision simulation and detection systems.

• Bring Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets (iOS & Android).

We’re planning these projects for 2026, but additional challenges may arise that delay features, and our priorities may change.

Blast, Crash, & Smash - Physics

Many small moons bombard our Moon, heating up the surface as rocks and dust shoot into space as they collide.

At the end of last year, we put out a preview of our major physics simulation architecture changes, including improved lasers, atmospheric drag, and simulated visual stretching and flattening of fast-rotating objects. This year, we plan to release this update and begin improving the rest of our simulation.

• Overhauling our Simulation Architecture

  • We’ve been working on rewriting large portions of Universe Sandbox using the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox, to improve performance, make our code easier to maintain, and provide a new foundation for features such as spaceships and megastructures.

  • Our next update applies the DOTS framework to our gravity, collisions, and fragmentation systems and includes

    • Objects burning up as they travel through planet atmospheres with our new atmospheric drag force to simulate meteors. Work in Progress

    • Improving lasers to blast multiple objects at once (instead of just one object at a time) and pushing objects around by increasing light’s radiative pressure. Work in Progress

    • Simulating the stretching and flattening of objects in real life due to gravity or fast rotation. However, collisions and surface simulation will continue to simulate as perfect spheres even on stretched objects until this is improved in a future update. Work in Progress

  • Future updates will incorporate the DOTS framework into other simulation systems, including

    • Surface simulation, which simulates temperature, liquid, and gas flow, and all parts of the surface.

    • The graphics rendering system, to eventually enable us to smoothly simulate visual transitions between object types, such as rocky planets becoming gas giants.

      • These improvements will not change our overall visuals.

    • Our composition and heating systems, which manage the internal structure of objects, phase changes, and sources of heating and cooling.

• Gravity Simulation Optimizations We’re looking into adding an additional method of N-body gravity simulation, called Barnes-Hut simulation, that can allow more simulated objects at the cost of slightly reduced accuracy. This will enhance our ability to simulate rock fragments and dust clouds attracting and merging to form planets & moons. Work in Progress: The red boxes show how the Barnes-Hut gravity tree dynamically divides space into groups of particles to more efficiently simulate the interactions between thousands of particles, avoiding the need to brute-force compute the gravitational interactions between all objects. You can see the groupings change as fragments are created and spread out in space.

• Detailed Dynamic Collisions

  • Adding spin to fragments as they fly through space and roll across planets. Right now, fragments do not rotate when created. Work in Progress

  • Simulating collisions of objects with their true shape (called rigid-body physics). Currently, all objects, from dice to celestial objects deformed by spin or tidal forces, are always simulated as spheres. 

  • Unifying celestial and non-celestial object collisions, including rigid body physics, into a single system.

It’s Alive! - Life Simulation

Work in Progress: Creating a habitable planet and filling it with life in just a few clicks.

Make worlds habitable with the click of a button, create custom species, and watch populations rise and fall across dynamic planet surfaces. Simulating life is a big focus this year, and we're making good progress.

• Growth & Death

  • Vegetation will grow, spread, and die based on local surface conditions, such as surface temperature and concentrations of gases and liquids. Work in Progress: Life grows and spreads after being added to the surface of a habitable planet.

  • Herbivores can also be simulated on planetary surfaces, and their populations depend on their food sources. If you kill all the grass the cows eat, they won’t live very long. Work in Progress: The cow population decreases quickly when all the grass they eat dies.

  • Life is simulated on the same planetary scale as surface materials (like water and oxygen), so while you’ll see growth from space, you won’t see individual organisms on the surface.

• Creature Creation

  • Species will be customizable, so you can set the conditions required for any life you can imagine. Make your own custom methane-based life on Titan! Work in Progress: Simulating a custom methane-based microbe that can live in the cold, hostile environment of Saturn's moon Titan.

  • In addition to preset species, like grass, cows, and dinosaurs, you’ll be able to save and share your custom species and add them to any simulation. Work in Progress: Loading a preset dinosaur species to live on Earth. Custom saved species will also be settable here.

• Let There Be Life (and Death)

  • Creating a habitable planet is hard, but we’re making it easier. You’ll be able to make any planet habitable for a specific species with the click of a button (or two). Work in Progress: Quickly making the conditions on the planet habitable for our grass and cow species.

  • Life can take a long time to grow and spread, but if you’re impatient, Stabilize Life will instantly populate your species on a planet based on local conditions. Work in Progress: Stabilize Life on the planet based on the local surface habitability conditions to set population levels.

  • Because life varies across the surface of an object, we’ll determine the maximum possible population of a species on each part of the surface based on local habitability conditions, rather than with the old planet-wide Life Likelihood value. More vegetation will grow in forests than in deserts, for example.

    • New data views will help you monitor habitability, population, and more. Work in Progress: New Data Views will show the mass or population density of a species at each point on an object's surface, along with the habitability of that point for that species.

    • You’ll even be able to see the specific population, in individual count, of each species alive on each planet. Work in Progress

• Future Plans

  • Increase the complexity of the food chain by adding carnivores.

  • Simulating two distinct species per planet instead of having only two species in the simulation. Earth could have grass and cows, while the Moon could have fungus and beetles.

Looking Good - Graphics

Work in Progress: A purple star and a very large, very bright pigeon illuminate a planet.

Customizing objects to emit light with any brightness and color, improving object selection to use shape conforming outlines, and implementing upscaling to improve frame rates (especially on slower computers) are all in active development.

• Your Light, Your Way

  • Any object, from stars to pyramids, can be set to emit light no matter its temperature. Customize the light color and luminosity under the object’s Heat Glow, and make a whale as bright as the Sun. Previously, only hot objects could emit light. Work in Progress: A very bright pyramid illuminates Earth.

  • Check it out in the latest preview version of our physics simulation architecture changes.

• Selecting Objects

  • Objects will have stylized outlines that conform to their on-screen shapes, rather than always being circles, even for human-scale objects like teapots.

    Current

    Work in Progress

• Behind the Scenes

  • Adding more efficient upscaling methods (like DLSS and FSR) that resize lower-resolution images to higher resolutions will help increase performance across all platforms.

  • Experimenting with different anti-aliasing methods, which smooth out jagged lines and images, will help make Universe Sandbox look even better without sacrificing performance.

A Universe on the Go - Mobile

Work in Progress: Loading the Earth & 100 Colliding Moons simulation, then watching chaos ensue on an iPhone 14 Pro.

We’re still polishing our user interface and improving performance, but we’re closer than ever to bringing Universe Sandbox to mobile devices (iOS and Android). This has been a major focus for a few years, and we’re continuing to prioritize it and the required features this year.

• Big Simulation, Little Computer

  • Boosting performance across all platforms is a major mobile requirement for us. Our physics simulation architecture overhaul (currently available as a preview) will deliver necessary performance gains for both mobile devices and desktops.

  • We’ve been scouring our codebase to identify and implement performance improvements, including better caching for textures and the user interface.

  • Internal graphics improvements, such as new upscaling methods, will enhance performance on mobile devices.

• How to Control the Universe

  • We’re continuing to improve our interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can spend less time moving the interface around and more time interacting with the simulation.

• More Information

  • Universe Sandbox on mobile is built from the same codebase as the desktop version and will have the same features.

  • The mobile release date is still to be determined.

  • We expect to release the mobile version as  a one-time paid app with no ads or in-game purchases. We haven’t yet finalized pricing.

  • While we want to support as many devices as possible, the minimum hardware requirements are not finalized.

  • Sign up for our mobile mailing list to receive updates about mobile development http://universesandbox.com/mobile/

Behind-the-Scenes Changes

Work in Progress: An early version of our new development tool for comparing screenshots from different versions of Universe Sandbox to identify changes and possible issues.

Flashy new features are always fun to share, but we’re also constantly improving our development process. These under-the-hood changes may not be obvious, but they can make a big difference over time.

• Save Files

  • Simulation and object save files are now more versatile and capable in our physics simulation architecture changes preview. In the future, this will allow you to save and share custom presets (such as individual species of life).

• Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

  • We’re continuing to improve and standardize our suite of automated testing tools for quantifying and comparing collision physics, simulation performance, and graphical changes.

  • Continued improvements to the system we use to build, test, and distribute new versions of Universe Sandbox have made it even easier to release updates, patches, and preview versions. What used to take one person a few hours is now as simple as a couple of clicks.

And Beyond!

Experimental Test: An exploratory mock-up of how different tools could look in Universe Sandbox when using a gamepad.

Our plans extend beyond 2026 and include adding detailed planet surfaces, simulating stellar life cycles, and adding gamepad support. Some features are in early development, while others are still in the planning phase, and we don’t yet know when they will be released.

• Spaceships & Megastructures

  • From small spacecraft to Dyson spheres, we want you to be able to construct (and destroy) structures with simulated parts and physics. Adding rigid-body physics is the next major step toward making that happen.

• Detailed Planet Surfaces

  • Imagine flying over mountains and through canyons on planet surfaces in Universe Sandbox. We’re still experimenting with adding procedural detail and terrain to planet surfaces.

• Planet Customization

  • Satisfy your world-building desires and create a planet using custom maps or images (like a picture of your dog).

• Stellar Lifecycles

  • Realistically simulating how stars burn hydrogen into helium (and heavier elements) and die violent deaths is complex, but we’re thinking about how to rebuild our star simulation so we can bring stellar evolution to Universe Sandbox.

• Gamepad, Steam Deck, and Home Consoles

  • What could be better than playing Universe Sandbox from the comfort of your couch? We want to add gamepad support so you can control your universe in more ways. This will improve our Steam Deck support and could enable support for other gamepad-based consoles in the future.

We’re excited to bring so much to Universe Sandbox this year, and we can’t wait to share it with you!

For the last four years, we’ve been working on a major overhaul of Universe Sandbox to utilize the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox, to

• Improve performance now and in the future.

• Add new physics simulation, like visually deformed objects and atmospheric drag to simulate meteors.

• Make our game code easier to maintain and build on.

• Provide a foundation for big features in the future, like building and flying spacecraft, and constructing megastructures like Dyson spheres.

For this preview version we’ve only overhauled our physics simulation architecture, but we also plan to convert surface simulation, temperature and composition simulation, graphics simulation, and more over to DOTS in the future. This physics update, like our graphics overhaul from March 2025, is part of our plan to rewrite Universe Sandbox piece by piece with cutting-edge systems so we can continue to improve it for years to come. It’s like we’re gradually replacing every part of a spaceship out from under you while you’re actively piloting it.

You can learn more about all the additions and improvements that are part of this preview version in our preview What’s New.

Try the preview of Pale Blue DOTS | Update 36 right now!

Learn how to opt-in to this preview version on Steam, now available for testing and feedback on the !preview-version Steam beta branch.

https://universesandbox.com/support/previewversion

How does this make Universe Sandbox better?

New Features

Most of this update focuses on rewriting existing features, like gravity and Roche fragmentation, so you may not notice any immediate differences at first glance. But don’t worry, we’ve added a few new things to check out.

Simulate Meteors Objects now burn up as they travel through planet atmospheres with our new drag force. Check it out in our new Meteor Shower from Earth’s Surface simulation.

Improved Lasers! Blast multiple objects at once with the updated laser! Objects will now block the beam from hitting hidden objects. Increase the force from radiation pressure to push planets and their rings.

Objects Stretching & Squishing The stretching and flattening of fast-rotating objects and extreme gravitational forces are now simulated. Until we release our planned collision shape update, surface simulation and collisions will continue to simulate all objects as spheres, even if they do not appear spherical.

Non-spherical Gravitational Fields Similar to visually flattening objects, we’re now fully simulating how an object's gravitational field changes when it's no longer a sphere by simulating its oblateness factor (also called J2). Previously, these factors, used to simulate the orbits of sun-synchronous satellites, had to be manually entered.

Tidal Locking Gravitational interactions that change an orbiting object’s rotational period until the same side of one object always faces the other, as the Earth has done to the Moon, are now simulated. Visualize tidal locking by turning on Tidal Lag in the View panel to see the difference between the object’s orbital and rotational periods.

Predicted Paths See the path an object will follow as we project its motion into the future. Checking for collisions along the way, this path will turn from yellow to red, showing the amount of predicted overlap. Turn on predicted paths under View > Overlays > Predicted Paths

Lagrange Points Mark the location of Lagrange points, points where the gravitational forces between all objects in the system are equal, with the press of a button. You can also quickly place objects at a Lagrange point with the Place Object at Lagrange Point option.

Future Plans

There are many more features we’re planning to build on top of this new framework, including

Gravity Simulation Optimizations

We’re looking into an alternative method of gravity simulation, called Barnes-Hut simulation, that can improve performance and allow more simulated objects, at the cost of slightly reduced accuracy. This will improve our ability to simulate rock fragments and dust clouds attracting and merging to form planets & moons.

Everyday Object Collisions From dice to spacecraft, non-celestial objects will eventually collide according to their true shapes instead of simplified spheres, using rigid-body physics.

Maintenance & Performance

The structure of Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) simplifies our code by breaking it into smaller parts while maintaining the complexity required to simulate the universe. This restructuring makes it easier to maintain, build on, and identify and address issues as we add new features.

Moving as much of our simulation as possible to this new structure will let your computer perform calculations faster. Eventually, these performance improvements will allow us to simulate more objects, collisions, and fragments at once on desktop computers and mobile devices alike.

The code we previously used to determine the phases of a material on an object in Universe Sandbox. It utilized references to other functions and determined output based on multiple “if” statements.

The new method for determining the phases of a material on an object in Universe Sandbox. This code is streamlined with half as many lines and is easier to maintain and follow with no “if” statements.

What is DOTS?

DOTS (Data-Oriented Technology Stack) is essentially Unity’s version of a data-oriented design for game development within the Unity game engine. Okay, so what’s a data-oriented game design?

A data-oriented design means focusing on operating directly on the data within the game. This optimizes the main thing a game does: take some input data, do something to it, and then output the transformed data.

This might sound obvious, but it’s different from traditional object-oriented game design, which is what Universe Sandbox previously used.

Object-oriented game design focuses on game objects, like Earth in Universe Sandbox. With an object-oriented approach, you take data from an object, like Earth, do something with it, like determine its position and velocity as it orbits the Sun in the next frame, and then apply the data to the object. Typically, this approach works on one object at a time and takes longer when there are more objects.

In contrast, data-oriented design focuses on how we transform the data on each object. For example, we know that all objects in the Solar System have a position and velocity, and they’re all influenced by gravity. Each object has different properties, but the math used to find each object's position and velocity is the same. 

Since the math is the same, instead of computing the position and velocity of each object in the Solar System one at a time every frame, our data-oriented design lets us compute them all at once. Then we apply that transformed data back to each object whenever the data is requested. This design optimizes the data calculations and uses fewer computational resources.

How Does DOTS Work?

DOTS is really made up of three pieces: the Entity Component System, the Burst compiler, and the Job system. The most important things to know are

• Unity’s Entity Component System makes us strictly structure our code so that all of our data is laid out in a specific way in the computer memory.

• Because data is stored in a fixed layout in the computer memory, we don’t waste any computing time finding it since we know where it all is.

• Unity’s Burst compiler optimizes how our code accesses and processes data after we make a new version of Universe Sandbox, since we know where it is in memory, making our computations faster.

• With all our data laid out in a specific way, Unity’s Job system determines which computations can run simultaneously, enabling us to perform more computations in less time.

How is DOTS Different?

Previously, there was no specified layout for where data was stored in computer memory, so it took extra computation power to locate the data before we could use it for our computations. The Entity Component System forces us to structure our code in a specific way so that data is stored in a specific layout in computer memory. Rewriting our simulation code in this format took a lot of time and effort, but it not only allows us to improve computation performance but also makes our code more uniform, easier to maintain, fix, and build on. 

DOTS also makes it easier to run our simulation across all available CPU cores. Unity’s Job system determines which computations can run simultaneously so we can perform the most computations in the least time without introducing errors in the simulation. And the Burst compiler enables these computations to be run in the most efficient way, leading to more performance gains.

Why Move to DOTS Now?

In short, the technology is now ready and mature enough to use.

Unity didn’t start working on DOTS until 2019, 8 years after we started development on Universe Sandbox, so building Universe Sandbox with this technology wasn’t even an option. Unity also didn’t officially release the last pieces of the DOTS until June 2023 (though we’d been looking into making this transition since 2021). With that last release, we were finally able to begin our restructuring of Universe Sandbox in earnest.

What’s Next?

Our core physics simulation has now been migrated to the DOTS framework, including our gravity simulation, collision physics, and spin and Roche fragmentation. This transition really is a complete restructure of our entire physics simulation, and we’re in the final stages of testing and bug fixes.

And this is just the beginning. So far, we’ve only moved our physics simulation to take advantage of all that DOTS has to offer. We’re also planning to move our other simulation systems, including our surface simulation, material composition system, and graphics rendering, over to Unity’s DOTS system. With each piece, Universe Sandbox will get more and more efficient so that you can simulate more with the same computational power.

For now, we want to do a thorough job testing our physics simulation. After all, we simulate the universe, and it would be bad if we broke physics.

And, like any new feature, there may be issues we haven't yet found or fixed – and you can help!

Try the preview of Pale Blue DOTS | Update 36 right now!

Learn how to opt-in to this preview version on Steam, now available for testing and feedback on the !preview-version Steam beta branch.

https://universesandbox.com/support/previewversion

And Beyond…

Future updates will unify our collision simulation to allow for more realistic collisions of celestial objects like planets and everyday objects like pigeons, colliding according to their unique forms instead of as spheres, also called rigid-body physics.

This transition also lays the groundwork for us to eventually allow you to build and fly spacecraft, and construct megastructures like Dyson spheres. We’re excited for what’s already here and for what this will let us bring to Universe Sandbox in the years to come!

Join our community discussions on our Steam Forum and our official Discord community.

Every year, Steam gives the “Labor of Love” award to games that have been out for a while and continue to receive new content and support year after year. If you feel we are worthy, please nominate Universe Sandbox for the "Labor of Love" award!

This year, we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Universe Sandbox’s Early Access launch on Steam. We're proud of what we've accomplished in the last decade and are excited about the future.

Features we’re actively working on include:

• Improving collisions with more realistic friction, craters, and simulating atmospheric drag, which allows meteors to burn up in the atmosphere. (A preview version with these features is coming soon)

• Adding basic life simulation where life responds to the environment, spreads, dies, and can be eaten.

• Better collisions of objects, from simple shapes like dice to complex shapes like spacecraft, according to their unique shape, using rigid-body physics.

Learn more about what we’re currently working on in our 2025 Roadmap post.

We're so grateful that we've been able to continue improving and developing Universe Sandbox for over 10 years. Thank you all for the amazing support and the opportunity to make this crazy game.

- The Universe Sandbox Team

Learn about the recently discovered sednoid 2023 KQ14 and why it challenges the Planet Nine hypothesis. Enjoy a handful of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements like the ability to quickly fly to planets just by selecting an already selected object. We’ve also updated our game engine and improved support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays.

A New Sednoid In the Outer Solar System

The recently discovered sednoid 2023 KQ14 orbits way out in the Oort Cloud with Sedna, and its position challenges the current predictions of a hypothetical Planet Nine in our Solar System. Check it out in our new simulation Sednoid 2023 KQ14.

Updating Our Engine

We’ve updated Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox, to version 6.1. This update allows us to further improve our visuals with more accurate lighting, better support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays, and more.

More Highlights

Clicking on a selected object now flies you to the object.

We’ve improved HDR (High Dynamic Range) support for those with HDR-compatible monitors. Playing Universe Sandbox with HDR on adds higher contrast and more vibrant colors. HDR support is still a work in progress, but you can try it out by enabling it under Home > Settings > Graphics > Display.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 35.4.

As of this update, Universe Sandbox on Windows now requires a graphics card that works with DirectX 12, which has been a stated minimum graphics requirement since March 2025. Learn more.

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

The 10-year anniversary of Universe Sandbox’s Early Access launch on Steam is this Sunday, August 24, 2025!

To celebrate this milestone, Universe Sandbox will be on sale now until August 28.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve added so many new features to make Universe Sandbox better than ever, from simulating liquids and gases flowing over planet surfaces and lasers in 2019, to realistically simulating planet atmospheres and accurately terraforming planets in 2023, and our major graphics update just a few months ago.

And we have so much planned. We’re currently working on

• Improving collisions with more realistic friction and craters and simulating atmospheric drag, which allows meteors to burn up in the atmosphere.

• Adding basic life simulation where life grows, dies, and can be eaten.

• Bringing Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets (iOS & Android).

Our long-term goals stretch years into the future and include

• Detailed planet surface so you can fly over mountains and through canyons.

• More planet customization with custom maps or images, like a picture of your dog.

• Colliding everyday objects, including simple shapes like dice and complex shapes like spacecraft, according to their unique forms instead of as spheres, also called rigid-body physics.

• And so much more!

Learn about what we’re currently working on in our 2025 Roadmap post.

We’re incredibly grateful that we’ve been able to continue developing and improving Universe Sandbox over the last decade, and we're humbled by the ongoing support of our community. Thank you all for giving us the opportunity to make this crazy game.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished since Universe Sandbox was first released on Steam in Early Access 10 years ago, and we’re so excited about everything that’s still to come.

- The Universe Sandbox Team

Watch the third-ever discovered visitor from outside our Solar System, 3I/ATLAS, fly past the Sun and see how it compares it to other known interstellar interlopers. We’ve also improved the view that shows what parts of the surface of a planet are illuminated, updated our scientific notation, and more!

In the Light of Day

The Daylight view now shows surface illumination of a planet in real-time as the object rotates and orbits within the simulation. Previously it was a static snapshot of the daylight on a planet.

Before

After

Comets from Beyond the Solar System

Watch the comet 3I/ATLAS, the third-ever discovered interstellar visitor to our Solar System, pass by on its journey through space and compare the trajectories of all three known interstellar visitors. Find them under

Home > Open > Interstellar Comet 31/ATLAS

Home > Open > Interstellar Object Trajectory Comparison

Scientific Notation

Astronomically large (and small) numbers are already hard to understand, so we’ve updated our scientific notation to be friendlier: “1 × 10^#" (previously we used “1E+#”). Try changing Earth’s mass to 1x10^6 Earth masses and see what happens to the Solar System.

Before

After

More Highlights

Watch what would happen to Earth if the Moon were replaced with a black hole of the same mass or the same radius. Which simulation do you think will be more destructive? Check them out under Home > Open > Earth with a Black Hole Moon | Same Mass Home > Open > Earth with a Black Hole Moon | Same Radius

See small objects in your simulation even faster by turning on Markers by pressing “m” (previously “i”) on your keyboard. No need to go all the way to View > Markers.

You can once again add custom colors to your human scale objects to make purple cows and pigeon rainbow.

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 35.3.

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Watch the boiling surface of a star, then set off a supernova and light up your worlds (before your planets are vaporized anyways). Massive stars now leave behind a neutron star or black hole when they end their life with a bang, and much more!

Super(nova) Lighting

Supernovas now brilliantly light up space as they explode and boil away your planets. Be careful looking at them without your Space Goggles, they’re extremely bright before they realistically fade as they expand and cool down.

See Stellar Surfaces

Examine the boiling surface of a star. Cells called stellar granules are created when currents of plasma bring bubbles of superheated materials from the interior to the surface. Star surfaces are too bright for the human eye to see any detail, so we’ve used false colors to make these granules visible. Find it under

View > Perception > Star Surface Detail

Zombie Stars

Massive stars that go supernova now leave behind a remnant. For stars between 8 and 20 times the mass of the Sun, the remnant is a neutron star. Stars over 20 times the mass of the Sun leave behind a black hole.

More Highlights

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, named after the Lucy fossil, passed nearby asteroid Donaldjohanson, named after the fossil’s discoverer, on April 20, 2025. This flyby was a test run before Lucy begins its main mission studying the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit. Check out our simulation of the encounter under

Home > Open > Lucy Spacecraft Encounter with Asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025

You can now smoothly undo the deletion of a large number of objects at once with Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z on Mac), and they’ll even have their trails regenerated. You can also undo launching objects.

Exoplanet system simulations now include the inclination of known exoplanets around their host stars.

Before

After

3D data views no longer color points on the object surface that have a value of zero.

Before

After

Check out the full list of What's New in Update 35.2.

Please report any issues on our Steam forum, on Discord, or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

• Improving material simulation and manipulation with more realistic atmosphere colors and opacity and the ability to swap one material for another. (Update 34.1, March 2024)
• Replacing our 10-year-old graphics technology with a state-of-the-art system so you can immerse yourself in a more awe-inspiring and realistic universe. (Update 35, March 2025)
• Implementing a new interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can focus on manipulating the universe instead of managing panels. (Update 35, March 2025)

• ✅Finish our major graphics update.
  • Released on March 3, 2025!
• Add basic life simulation where vegetation grows, dies, and gets eaten.
• Optimize and rewrite our simulation using Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS).
• Bring Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets (iOS & Android).

• But Wait, There’s More!
  • Now that our new graphics rendering system is out, we’re planning to utilize it to add even more graphics features, including
    • Redesigning object selection outlines to be more visible, useful, and unique to that object’s shape instead of always being a circle.
    • Adding new Point Lights with customizable colors to light up your simulations without adding stars (and boiling Earth) for that perfect shot. https://i.imgur.com/i0cRYES.gifWork in Progress: Point Lights are a work in progress that allows you to customize your simulation's lighting further.
    • Simulating supernovas emitting light (Spoiler - they’re really really bright). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/d17691a4256809bd33716dec86fa68ff2cc58353.pngWork in Progress: A supernova lighting up a few different objects, including Jupiter and a very large banana. Space Goggles are On because the supernova is so bright.

• Simulating Vegetation
  • Life can spread to other planets on fragments from collisions.
  • As vegetation grows and dies, the amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere will change.
  • Vegetation will grow, spread, and die based on the local conditions on the surface of a planet. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/272b68b7c234cf972767a4aeb8a3b9e523da3411.gifWork in Progress: All life on Earth is killed, only to reseed it with some vegetation using the Planetscaping tool. The vegetation slowly spreads back across Earth.
  • You’ll be able to customize the conditions needed for life on your planets so your plants can absorb methane and emit hydrogen, for example.
    • You can even set the conditions to make life grow on Titan! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/255256f4080d3766dfbedcd28a698f60e4134e09.pngWork in Progress: Custom vegetation thriving on the surface of Saturn’s Moon Titan after setting the temperature range and atmosphere pressure to match Titan’s surface and having it take in methane and output oxygen.
• Animals & the Circle of Life
  • Herbivores, like vegetation, will also be simulated on planet surfaces. The overall herbivore mass will be tracked and will also depend on how much vegetation there is on the planet to support them.
  • The names and life requirements of the two species will be customizable as well, so you can let your imagination run wild to simulate your favorite plants and animals, like cows, trees, whales, dik-diks, skunk cabbage, aliens, unicorns, you name it (literally)!
• Future Models
  • We plan to make our food chain even more complex with carnivores in the future.
  • You’ll be able to quickly cause catastrophic events leading to mass extinctions. For now, we have a simple Kill All Life action. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/b27c20ea655b8f69daed9d447463989552f62601.gifWork in Progress: Kill all life on a planet with the press of a button.

• Advanced Game Engine Features
  • We’re continuing to reconstruct our simulation architecture using the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox. We’re excited about the expected performance gains and future opportunities it brings. We plan to roll these changes out in multiple phases.
    • Phase 1 replaces our current physics engine with a new DOTS-based system that will make Universe Sandbox easier to maintain and improve.
      • Upgrading to DOTS in phase 1 lays the foundation for everyday, non-spherical object collisions (like two dice), building and flying spacecraft, and constructing megastructures like Dyson spheres.
    • Phase 2 will unify our collision simulation to allow for more realistic collisions of celestial objects like planets and everyday objects like pigeons. This phase will allow
      • Objects to physically deform due to craters, fragmentation, laser impacts, and more, influencing how they collide.
      • Everyday objects, including simple shapes like dice and complex shapes like spacecraft, to collide according to their unique forms instead of as spheres, also called rigid-body physics.
• DOTS optimizes our simulation by efficiently running more computations simultaneously on the CPU, allowing for more objects, collisions, and fragments. https://i.imgur.com/yaWmo43.gifCurrent https://i.imgur.com/IFs4YwL.gifWork in Progress

• Our new graphics engine is a vastly improved realistic rendering system that’s more robust, easier to improve, and lets us better show you how the universe really looks.
• Doubling down on realism brought a new set of technical and design challenges for us to tackle to make every aspect of Universe Sandbox as realistic as possible.
• We’ve completely ripped out our old graphic engine replacing thousands of lines of code.

• A new interface system that automatically positions, resizes, and closes panels so you can always see the simulation.
• Editing multiple objects at once in the Properties panel. To select multiple objects, hold down Control (⌘ on Mac) and click on each object you want to include.
  • All object properties now support basic math.
• New Action buttons at the top of every Properties tab instead of an Actions tab so you can quickly fly to a planet or explode it.

• Focus on realism Making Universe Sandbox look as realistic as possible with physically-based lighting has brought new challenges. For example, stars can now be realistically bright.

• Collisions can result in blindingly realistic hot spots. Showing the action while preserving life-like accuracy has been one of our biggest challenges.

• Localized glow Objects now bloom only in hot areas, like those created from lasers or collisions, instead of being surrounded by a single uniform glow.

• Smoothly blending clouds Gas and dust clouds are now soft particles that smoothly pass over planets instead of creating sharp intersections.

• Light from hot planets All hot objects now emit light based on their temperature so you can use intense impacts to light up your simulation. Previously, only stars could emit light.

• Color temperature The color of hot objects is more accurately based on their temperatures.

• Realistic artifacts The surfaces of human-scale objects, or artifacts like spacecraft, have shiny, reflective metals and rough, rugged edges that interact with light more realistically.

• Light intensity with distance Objects are now always realistically lit based on their physical distance from a light source. Previously, objects were lit with the same intensity based on the camera's distance from a light source instead of the object's distance from a light source.

• Black holes warping black holes Black holes now realistically warp the visuals from other black holes instead of blocking any black holes behind them from being seen. The images below are from the same simulation, with custom colors that make the black holes easier to see.

• New and improved View panel We’ve overhauled the View panel with more intuitive controls and lighting options, including
  • Artificial Starlight switches between a realistic view, where only hot objects in the simulation emit light, and an enhanced view, where artificial lights also light the simulation.
  • Space Goggles switches between a realistic view, where stars and collisions can be blindingly bright, and an enhanced view, to show the action while preserving realism.

• Includes more features we can use for realistic, physically-based lighting while still providing the flexibility to add custom mathematical modes.
• Actively gets updates and new features so we can continue improving Universe Sandbox well into the future. While Unity still supports our old graphics rendering system, it no longer receives new features.
• Comes with the latest version of Unity’s Shader Graph, a node-based visual programming language that is still receiving updates for creating our shaders.

• 4 GB dedicated video memory (up from 2 GB). 8 GB is recommended.
• Windows:
  • DirectX 12
  • Windows 10 21H1+ (support for Windows 7 SP1, 8, 8.1, and older versions of Windows 10 will be dropped)
• Apple:
  • Silicon (M1 or newer). Intel Mac will no longer be supported.
    • Universe Sandbox may still run on Intel-based Macs, but we cannot guarantee good performance for every Intel-based Mac.
  • macOS 11.0+ (support for macOS 10.14 and 10.15 will be dropped)

Highlights from 2023

• Massive improvements to our gravity simulation's accuracy, stability, and performance.
• Adding 8 new materials, including oxygen & carbon dioxide, to realistically simulate, construct, and terraform planets and atmospheres.
• Rolling a Spherical Cow into Universe Sandbox. This refers to a joke that physicists sometimes oversimplify real-world problems to make them easier to solve.

What’s the Plan for 2024?

• Using a new graphics renderer to immerse you further in the universe with bright glows, smoothly drifting dust clouds, and more.
• Optimizing our simulation performance with Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS).
• Doubling down on our efforts to bring Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets (iOS & Android).
• Begin adding basic plant-based life simulation.
• Continue improving our development tools to find and fix issues quickly.

New Graphics: A Visual Glow-Up

• New Graphics Renderer
  • Last year, we started transitioning our graphics rendering to Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline (URP). This system allows us to use more true-to-life light properties and easily add and maintain new graphical elements. We’re expecting a performance boost too.
    • Dust clouds passing through planets currently show sharp lines at their intersection. URP will let us render transparent clouds that blend smoothly with planets, called soft particles. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/8eb3ab2be9d8bb477019cd93cf365db5f034f331.png Current: Dust clouds passing through a planet show sharp lines where they intersect. Our graphics overhaul hopes to remove these lines.
  • Planets will glow only where their surfaces are hot, with hot spots from lasers and colliding objects only glowing at the impact site. Currently, planets glow uniformly based on their average temperature. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/20a67e638ccb7382ebdbf8e77edf911e56fa7ef5.png Current: Earth glowing at 2500 °C. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/1a780c0d5c9a54e8f68adf347214fd7cc72b6cfa.png Work in progress: Earth glowing at 2500 °C. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/c378ebebbd7a0f25d768e98720148dbd4f875e41.png Current: The Moon has lightly glowing craters after being bombarded by many small asteroids. Even though only parts of the object are hot, the entire edge glows red. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/719e1e4dca23dc043b4bc651919d237a245a0dfe.png Work in Progress: The Moon has brightly glowing craters after being bombarded by many small asteroids. Only the hot impact areas glow.
  • Eventually, we’ll simulate objects casting shadows on themselves, like the solar panels on a spacecraft casting a shadow on its body.
• Lighting Up Space
  • Light – it’s not just for stars anymore. Hot planets will emit light based on their temperature so you can light up your simulation with intense impacts. https://i.imgur.com/jFRKaYM.gif Work In Progress: Moons collide and heat up. The hot spots glow, illuminating other moons in the simulation.

Physics: Collisions, Gravity, & Performance (Oh My)

• Advanced Game Engine Features
  • We’re continuing to reconstruct our simulation architecture using the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox. We made good progress last year and are excited about the expected performance gains.
  • DOTS optimizes our simulation by efficiently running more computations simultaneously on the CPU, which means simulating more objects, collisions, and fragments at once.
  • This transition will effectively combine parts of our simulation, like how different types of objects are defined, making it easier to maintain without sacrificing complexity.
• Grinding to a Halt
  • Our new friction model will simulate craters stretching out as objects skid across each other's surfaces during collisions. In our current simplistic model, craters are always circular. https://i.imgur.com/zY8NAmS.gif Current: Ceres collides with Earth, creating a circular impact and spraying fragments outwards from the direction it came. https://i.imgur.com/PSH9ocj.gif Work in Progress: Ceres collides with Earth, sliding across its surface to create a long crater and spraying fragments that impact and crater Earth.
• To simulate meteors, we’re working on adding a drag force so objects burn up while traveling through a planet’s atmosphere. We’re also exploring ways to apply this force to objects passing through gas clouds and liquids. Currently, objects pass through atmospheres unchanged. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/2f4cd998b730bd594ce8b6f4230ba03e21ae8957.gif Work in Progress: A meteor burns up as it flies through Earth’s atmosphere.
• Chaotic Consequences
  • Rock fragments and gas clouds are created when planets collide or are vaporized, but computer limitations mean we sometimes need to remove the old ones to create new ones. We’re testing better removal methods to immerse you in the chaos. This was released in March as part of Update 34.1. https://i.imgur.com/wVamJ4G.gif Before: 100 moons orbit Earth and collide, creating many fragments and dust clouds that are removed quickly to create new fragments from new collisions. https://i.imgur.com/q6V5g1V.gif After: 100 moons orbit Earth and collide, creating many fragments and dust clouds that expand and fill the space while creating new fragments from new collisions. This was released in March as part of Update 34.1.
• New Gravity Simulation
  • We’re experimenting with a new method of gravity simulation to allow rock fragments and dust clouds to attract and merge, forming planets & moons. Currently, these particles can only be pulled on and cannot form planets independently.
• Smooth Object Transitions
  • If the Sun gets too massive in Universe Sandbox, it instantly shrinks into a black hole. In real life, this shrinking and compression takes time. We’re updating our simulation so these transitions can occur on realistic timescales.
    • We hope to simulate the answer to the question, “What if you filled the Solar System with soup out to Jupiter?” (Spoiler: The soup would contract into a supermassive black hole in about 30 minutes.)

Universe Sandbox on Phones & Tablets

• Small Screen Interface
  • Unity’s cross-platform capabilities let us easily bring the same simulation changes to mobile devices and desktops.
  • Our biggest challenge with mobile development is adapting our interface to work well on small touch screens (like a phone). Development is underway to intelligently resize, hide, and reveal panels as needed so you can focus on cosmic creation instead of managing the user interface. https://i.imgur.com/4irX29Y.gif Work in Progress: Simulation panels are resized, hidden, and revealed as they open and close. This video was taken on a desktop with Universe Sandbox resized to the resolution of a smartphone.
• Running a Universe
  • Another requirement for mobile is boosting performance across all platforms. Alongside our new graphics renderer and rebuilding our simulation architecture, we're improving interface responsiveness and resource utilization and optimizing start-up times, among other things.
• More Information
  • Universe Sandbox on mobile is built from the same codebase as the desktop version and will have the same features.
  • There is no mobile release date yet.
  • We plan on it being a one-time paid app with no ads or in-game purchases.
    • Price is not finalized.
  • Minimum requirements are not finalized.
  • Sign up for our mobile mailing list to receive updates about mobile development http://universesandbox.com/mobile/

Surface Simulation: Let There Be Life

• Basic Beginnings
  • Initially, we plan to simulate just plant life, with vegetation growing, spreading, and dying based on the planet's temperature, atmosphere pressure and composition, and more.
  • As life develops, we’ll simulate how it affects the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, also known as a biosignature.
• An Evolving Model
  • Long term, we plan to add more varieties of life, like herbivores and carnivores, and simulate their interactions as a food chain develops.
  • Eventually, you’ll be able to cause catastrophic events leading to mass extinctions and customize life conditions, like the amount of oxygen required for life to develop.
  • Life will spread across planets' surfaces after being Planetscaped onto a planet or appearing spontaneously. It will even spread to other planets on fragments from collisions.

Upgrading Our Developer Toolkit

• Parallel Sandbox Construction
  • Our newest automatic build system, which creates a new version of Universe Sandbox in the cloud whenever one of our team members changes the code, can make up to 10 versions at once.
    • When many of us are making changes, this automation lets us test any new version within 30 minutes. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/e581e2526121071210aefe1011620d2fafb77faa.png Partial GitHub Actions flow chart of our new system to build new versions of Universe Sandbox. Each step records what it’s doing, how long it took, and if it’s complete.
  • Each store that sells Universe Sandbox has slightly different requirements, so making multiple versions at once lets us release new updates almost simultaneously to all stores, like Steam and Epic. This process previously took a few hours.
  • This new system will also create and deploy Universe Sandbox to mobile devices for testing on phones and tablets (iOS and Android).
• Automation
  • Expanding our automated test suite, which covers collision physics, simulation performance, and more, helps us catch and fix bugs faster.
    • We’re exploring programmatic ways to compare test results to accelerate issue identification.
  • Producing and capturing game trailers and screenshots entirely in-game with a single button lets us easily show off the latest developments, like our upcoming new graphics renderer. New screenshots generated this way are already on our Steam store page, and we’re planning to release our updated trailer as an in-game guide. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/fcf7c2be126dbdf08354b8bc07c1864ad35a8a2d.png Earth and many moons collide. Our automated capture system took this screenshot, which was recently added to our Steam store page.

Updating Our Minimum Requirements

• 4 GB dedicated video memory (up from 2 GB). 8 GB will be recommended.
• Apple: Silicon CPU (M1 or newer), meaning that Intel Mac will no longer be supported.
• Windows: Direct X version 12

And Beyond

• Stretch it Out
  • Most objects in Universe Sandbox are spheres, but in real life, some rotate so quickly that they stretch and flatten, like the dwarf planet Haumea. We’re working to simulate that stretching.
• Everyday Object Collisions
  • Currently, when objects collide, they’re treated as spheres. We’re working on adding new physics so that everyday objects, including simple shapes like dice and complex shapes like spacecraft, will collide according to their unique forms. This is often known as rigid body collision physics.
• Detailed Planet Surfaces
  • Imagine flying over mountains and through canyons on planet surfaces in Universe Sandbox. We’re still experimenting with ways to add more details to planet surfaces, but we’re excited about the possibilities.
• Volatiles
  • To simulate comet tails streaking through space, we plan to overhaul our volatile system, which determines how gas escapes from a planet’s atmosphere into space.

1

4

• A Comet, an Asteroid, and a Planet Walk into the Solar System | Update 32.2 | March 2023
  • Added a spherical cow and many simulations including the green comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) passing by Earth.
• Grand Collision Unification | Update 32.3 | June 2023
  • Combined our two previous collision models for more realistic shockwaves, heating, and overall destruction.
• Gravity Simulation Upgrade | Update 33 | August 2023
  • Overhauled our gravity simulation to increase accuracy, stability, and performance to run simulations even faster.
• Terraforming | Update 34 | December 2023
  • Added 8 new materials (for a total of 12), including oxygen and carbon dioxide, to realistically simulate, construct, and terraform planets and atmospheres.
  • Finally simulating the lakes of liquid methane on Titan.

8

• Helium
• Carbon dioxide
• Oxygen
• Sulfur dioxide
• Methane
• Nitrogen
• Argon
• Ammonia

36

727

2,336

2,405

9,757

15,747

25,326

56,466

592,638*

1,005,262*

1,380,778*

6,265,426*

31,394,000+

What's Next?

And Most Importantly

• Only water vapor and gaseous carbon dioxide contribute to our simple atmospheric heating model. We plan to add heating from methane and other greenhouse gases in the future.
• Silicate and iron can only exist on the inside of a planet, not on the surface or in the atmosphere.
• To minimize the impact to performance, only a maximum of 4 materials can be simulated flowing across an object’s surface at a time. We plan to increase the number of materials simulated on object surfaces in the future.
• When a new material replaces one of the 4 simulated materials, it is evenly distributed over the surface, which can cause an atmosphere to seemingly “pop” into existence.
• Materials not simulated across the surface of objects do affect their atmospheric heating, but do not affect the atmosphere opacity.
• Planning updates to the materials interface, including:
  • Viewing materials as a percentage of the mass
  • Updated Phase Diagram interface
  • Updated Atmosphere Preset selection interface
  • Better explanation of the Composition cutaway view
  • Add the ability to easily replace one material with another
• The maximum speed liquids and gases can flow across object surfaces is slower than the maximum speed of material phase changes and simulation speed.
• Computing planet radii from their composition does not take into account the object’s surface temperature (so heating a gas giant won’t make it expand, for example).
• Phase changes (like evaporation) do not affect the surface temperature of an object
• Materials in small asteroids do not undergo phase changes.
• Materials transferred during collisions are currently always transferred in the liquid phase (although they can change phase quickly after being transferred). The color of Titan’s atmosphere is not fully simulated because they are caused by tiny amounts of organic particles called tholins that are not simulated in Universe Sandbox. We plan to simulate the colors of hazes like those in Titan's atmosphere in the future.

Material Properties in Universe Sandbox

• Density - to compute an object’s mass and radius and determine where materials are within a planet (for example, iron is the densest so it's at the core).
• Thermal capacity - energy required to increase the material’s temperature by one degree. Used to determine the Surface Heat Capacity of a planet.
• Molecular weight - average mass of a molecule of the material. Used to create clouds of evaporating gas called volatiles.

• Boiling point - temperature where a material changes from a liquid to a gas
• Melting point - temperature where a material changes from a solid to a liquid
• Mass of the material in each phase (solid, liquid, or gas)
• Liquid and solid density, heat of fusion, and heat of vaporization - to determine how fast water flows, evaporates, and freezes on planet surfaces
• Realistic (and customizable) colors

Using New Materials for Simulation

New Minimum Operating System Requirements

What’s Still Being Worked On?

Try the Terraforming | Update 34 preview right now!

Pocket-Sized Complexities

• How to automatically arrange panels and adjust your view so you can focus on controlling the simulation, not having to manage the user interface
• Switching between multiple panels, like an object's properties, data views, and guide instructions, on small screens in landscape and portrait modes
• Overhauling our simulation tools (like explode, laser, and planetscaping), to adapt to all screen sizes

Under New (Layout) Management

Current Progress

Highlights From 2022

• Spinning up planets so fast they break apart using the new Force Spin tool
• Exploring constellations for 10 different cultures
• Customizing the look and topography of planets and moons with a library of realistic color and height maps
• Fundamental improvements to our planetary collision system

So What’s the Plan for 2023?

• Add more materials for constructing & simulating planets & atmospheres
• Overhaul our under-the-hood physics architecture to improve accuracy and performance
• Simulate light emission from hot planets
• Continue work on bringing Universe Sandbox to phones and tablets
• Improve our development tools to identify issues quickly and provide a more bug-free experience

More Materials & Composition Simulation

• A (Multi) Material World
  • Planet radii and atmospheres will be realistically simulated based on the mass and phase (solid, liquid, and gas) of each material in their composition.
  • Simulation of an atmosphere’s heating (the greenhouse effect), color, and opacity, including Venus-like atmospheres, will be based on their material composition.
  • Designing the properties, data views, and tools for you to construct atmospheres, build and terraform planets, and track these materials is a crucial part of our development process.
  {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/17db7f4611a2d70fcb42b23ddcf3684e8e5bb0ba.png This graph shows the calculated density of the materials of Earth based on their depth. You can see the density of Earth increases as you move towards its core. The cut-away view of Earth shows the individual materials, temperature, and phase of each material from the inside out. This feature and interface are a work in progress.
• Physics-based Phases
  • The phase of each material in a planet’s composition will be realistically determined based on its pressure and temperature. Make a planet entirely out of water and see the phases from the inside out (our current model says it would be 100% liquid inside).
    • Material phase models are based on geological and astrophysical measurements and research.
  • Planet radii will then be calculated based on the phase and density of each material that makes up a planet’s composition. If you change the composition, the radius will change with it.
  https://i.imgur.com/bRyVIq7.gif Liquid materials added to the surface of a planet with the Planetscaping tool will blend over time. Artificial coloring is used here to help differentiate materials. This feature and interface are a work in progress.
• Tracking Materials
  • Materials will have customizable colors based on their physical properties that will blend on the surface of objects. Watch oceans of methane mix with oceans of oxygen in real time.

Physics Fundamentals

• New Physics Architecture
  • Overhauling our custom N-body (gravity) simulation will improve gravity-related accuracy, stability, and performance. Tight orbits like the Hubble Space Telescope around Earth should be stable at simulation speeds as high as a month per second (instead of a few days).
  • These updates are the foundation for future physics improvements, like spaceships.
  {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/8f7e1e49dbceff40ad4da490b9ad8afc1843631c.gif Before - Our current gravity simulation has small inaccuracies, so the trails of these moons don't show a fish. https://i.imgur.com/7vIbkc7.gif After - Improvements to our gravity simulation allow these moons to orbit with trails that clearly show a fish.
• Everyday Object Collisions
  • Currently, when objects collide, they're treated as spheres. We're working on adding new physics so that everyday objects, simple shapes like dice and pyramids, but also complex shapes like sledgehammers and spacecraft, will collide according to their unique forms. This is often known as rigid body collision physics.
• Improved Planetary Collisions
  • We’re researching methods to allow objects to stretch and deform, like two fluids mixing, during collisions, to improve upon the sphere absorbing method we currently use. Stay tuned for a status update later this year.
• Meteors & Shooting Stars
  • To simulate meteors and shooting stars, we’re working on allowing objects to burn up while traveling through a planet’s atmosphere. We’re exploring ways of applying this drag force to objects passing through gas clouds and liquids too. Currently, atmospheres have no effect on objects as they pass through them.
  {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/4425618/2f4cd998b730bd594ce8b6f4230ba03e21ae8957.gif A meteor burns up as it flies through Earth’s atmosphere. Adding atmospheric drag is a work in progress.
• Advanced Game Engine Features
  • As an ongoing project to optimize our simulation, we’re transitioning to the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) from Unity, the game engine we use to build Universe Sandbox. We’re excited about the expected performance gains.

Lights in Space

• Light ‘em Up
  • Light - it’s not just for stars anymore. Hot planets will emit light based on their temperature so you can light up your simulation by setting Earth to 1000 °C.
  • This lighting system will eventually allow you to place and customize lights anywhere in the simulation so you can illuminate your universe without stars.
• Untitled Graphics Overhaul
  • We don’t want to say too much yet, but we’re working on a massive update to our graphics system that the whole team is very excited about.

Universe Sandbox on Tablets & Phones

• Small Screen Experience
  • The primary obstacle in mobile development is adapting our interface that works well on a large screen to work on a small touch screen (like a phone).
  • We’re building a system to intelligently resize, hide, and reveal panels as needed. Our goal is to reduce the need for you to spend time managing the user interface so you can focus on bending the simulation to your will.
• All of the Above
  • Universe Sandbox on mobile is built from the same codebase as the desktop version and will have the same features.
  • Performance is also critical, and we’re working to make Universe Sandbox run smoothly on mobile devices no matter the simulation.

Enhancing Our Developer Toolkit

• Testing 1, 2, 3
  • Creating tests that run automatically to check our collision physics, simulation performance, and more will help us catch issues before they’re released. These tests record data and images we can use to find bugs more easily.
• Tracking Feedback
  • Your in-game feedback and issue reports help us improve Universe Sandbox, and there’s a lot to review. We’re transitioning to a new system to sort and analyze your feedback more efficiently.
• Building the Sandbox
  • We’ve revamped our automated build system. This system creates a new version of Universe Sandbox in the cloud every time a change is made by one of our team members.
    • This automation saves each of us 10-15 minutes each time we want to review a change.
  • With a single button, we can also release new updates to all digital stores that sell Universe Sandbox. This process used to take many hours and involved dozens of manual steps, so this makes it possible to release more updates faster.
  • This new system easily makes versions of Universe Sandbox we can test on phones and tablets (iOS and Android) too.
• New Trailer
  • We’re producing a new Universe Sandbox trailer fabricated entirely in-game. We’ll be able to capture it with a single button press, making it easier to iterate on the trailer over time to show off the latest features and improvements.
  • You will be able to play this new trailer inside Universe Sandbox, breaking out of it to experiment or explore every shot and simulation.

And Beyond

• Custom Textures
  • We want to give you more control over the appearance of your planet. Satisfy your world-building desires by creating a planet using custom maps or images, like a picture of your dog.
• Gamepad Support
  • What could be better than playing Universe Sandbox from the comfort of your couch? We’re working on adding gamepad support for more ways to control your universe. This will improve our Steam Deck support and has the potential to support other gamepad-based systems in the future.
• Life Simulation
  • Our expanded materials improvement is the cornerstone of our plans for life simulation. Once Universe Sandbox includes the essentials for life, like oxygen and carbon dioxide, we will be able to explore simulating simple life that will spread across the surface of a planet.

1

8

9

• Consistent Collisions, James Webb, & Planetscaping Tweaks | Update 29.1
  • JWST is now in Universe Sandbox, and there’s an eyedropper for the Planetscaping tool
• Hit Hard, Spin Fast | Update 30
  • The new Force Spin tool allows you to spin apart planets with the newly implemented centrifugal force
  • Collisions between spinning and equal-size objects are more realistic than ever before
  • The habitable zone is now simulated using the selected planet's properties, and the Hubble Space Telescope is now in Universe Sandbox
• Constellations | Update 31
  • Explore constellations for 10 different cultures
  • Object glows now correspond to how hot an object is
• A Warmer Welcome | Update 31.1
  • Our welcome guides have been overhauled so you can discover the infinite power to create and destroy in Universe Sandbox
• Upgrading Our Engine | Update 31.2
  • We updated Unity, the game engine we use to create Universe Sandbox, to allow us to utilize new features for future improvements
  • Instantly see where water will flow on a planet with the new Settle Water button
• Planetary Defense DART | Update 31.3
  • Many collision improvements and a simulation of NASA’s DART mission, which intentionally collided the DART spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos, changing its orbit & testing humanity’s ability to protect Earth from future asteroids
• Space is Big | Update 31.4
  • Units of measurement have been updated to help you better understand the vastness of space
• Build-A-Planet | Update 32
  • Customize and manipulate the appearance and elevation of planets using any of the in-game visual and elevation maps
• Skies of Blue, Red Collisions Too | Update 32.1
  • Collision shockwaves are now more realistic, and we added basic Rayleigh scattering to atmospheres
  • The simulation speed can automatically adjust itself based on various conditions, like nearby objects and collisions, by turning on Automatic Simulation Speed

31

571

1,801

1,862

7,735

8,151

9,253

74,257

537,209

911,241

1,251,635

2,007,301

3,987,005

6,265,426

35,802,793

What’s Next?

And Most Importantly…

Improved Shockwaves

Automatic Simulation Speed

Rayleigh Scattering

More Highlights

Elevation Maps

Color Maps

Apparent Elevation Intensity

More Highlights