Genesis System

This page is a Work in Progress as much of the lore/Development for the game is yet to be established.

The Genesis system is the game mechanic used to create and generate the game world in Starship Simulator. It serves as both the galaxy and system generation mechanic, creating the layout of both the Milky Way galaxy and the various star systems that populate it.

Overview

The Genesis System utilises galaxy and star system generation using astrophysics papers and real-world astronomical data gathered from multiple sources. There are fourteen steps split between each phase. In Phase 1, it generates the galactic density and star generation around the Milky Way galaxy. In Phase 2, star-forming regions and HII-fit arms in the outer regions of the galaxy. In Phase 3, the star systems and their regions are developed, including planet locations and types, Kuiper belts, moons and stellar remnants. This allows galaxies to be seed-driven, enabling an infinite number of unique galaxies and paving the way for features like wormhole travel. Genesis features a celestial-sphere star renderer, utilizing a unit-direction by fixed-radius Niagara field with slot-stable incremental spawn and kill mechanics, which requires approximately 450 times less spawn work per light-year. The system also utilizes the Tanner-Helland fit algorithm for calculating blackbody color.

Real-World Data Integration

Genesis collates data from various real-world catalogues to generate a highly accurate universe. The foundation utilizes the AT-HYG v3.3 bright/named star base catalogue, supplemented by Gaia DR3 for faint-end M/K dwarfs and white-dwarfs up to 2,000 light-years from Earth. The Tokovinin 2018 Multiple Star Catalog is used to populate the per-star companions field. The system currently features over 21 million real-world stars, including:

• M Class: 12,567,403
• K Class: 4,058,175
• G Class: 1,598,614
• F Class: 951,215
• A Class: 324,345
• White Dwarfs: 197,692
• B Class: 58,093
• HII Regions: 8,399
• Exoplanets: 6,316

Additionally, the 862 stars required to draw known Earth constellations are isolated in their own rendering cell to guarantee accurate night-sky visibility.

The Generation Pipeline

The formation process is fully simulated from start to finish, dynamically calculating system architecture through a structured 14-step pipeline split across three phases:

Phase 1: Galactic Density Model

The Galactic Density Model phase is generated in four stages:

1. Three component galactic density model:
The Genesis System calculates the size of the galaxy and the location of the disc characteristics. It uses Sloan Digital Sky Survey provide data for calculating the thick disc, thin disc, halo, Sérsic bulge and disc breaks in the galaxy. The system then uses spatanic structures to calculate mono-abundance structures around the galaxy.

2. Analytic log-periodic spiral arms, bar, warp and flare:
Generates structural parameters using BeSSeL VLBI maser parallaxes, classical-Cepheid warp models (Chen et al. 2019), and galactic bar data.

3. Per class-distribution: arm contrast, vertical scale heights, younger-star cluster rational:
Determines arm contrast and vertical scale heights, operating on the rationale that old stellar mass traces two arms while gas and young stars trace four.

4. Real-sky catalogue:
Bakes the ~21 million real-world stars into the world.

Phase 2: Star-forming regions and HII-fit arms

The Star-forming regions and HII-fit arms phase is generated in a single step:

5. HII-fit spiral arms and the SFR layer: Fits spiral arms to 1,058 regions from the WISE HII-region catalogue and applies initial mass functions to determine O and Wolf-Rayet Star Forming Region generation.

Phase 3: Star system generation

The Star system generation phase is generated in nine steps:

6. Proto-planetary disc modeling: Calculates self-similar viscous disc profiles, temperature/snow lines, and disc mass/lifetime distributions, successfully fixing an issue where M dwarfs received giant planets by applying the M_disc ∝ M★^1.8 scaling.

7. Planet growth: Simulates oligarchic seeding, pebble accretion, and the Kelvin-Helmholtz gas race. This results in an emergent 10 Earth-mass threshold required for runaway gas accretion.

8. System architecture: Runs stability passes and calculates resonant capture, planetesimal-driven outward migration, and Kuiper belt structures. Kepler multi-planet systems are densely packed at 12–14 mutual Hill radii.

9. Planet properties: Determines radius and composition using a mass-radius relation with less than 3% error from Ceres to Earth, and calculates habitable-zone flux polynomials.

10. Moons: Simulates three formation channels (circumplanetary-disc, giant-impact, and orbital stability limits) while observing the "potato radius" for small bodies.

11. Stellar multiplicity and binary planet suppression: Simulates companion truncation/drainage and circumbinary flips. The model emergently reproduces a ~39.3% close-binary hosting rate.

12. Per-position metallicity and age: Feeds disc solids using galactic chemical gradients and alpha-enhancement mixture coefficients.

13. Stellar remnants: Generates white dwarf, neutron star, and black hole systems. It simulates planetary engulfment during giant phases, post-mass-loss destabilization, and the formation of second-generation pulsar planets.

14. Validation: Scores generated systems against SystemLab targets, confirming emergent properties like the giant-metallicity correlation and hot-Jupiter loneliness.

Development

During development of dev build 0.227.0.22, multiple engine crashes occurred during development due to flaws in the Galaxy Generation blueprint and overuse of GameState systems. It was eventually determined that the system had to be broken up and split into multiple files. This also meant breaking up and merging systems such as star and planet generation mechanics.

As of August 2026, it was announced that themassive visual and performance optimizations. The old "27 Sectors" approach to per-class stellar cells was replaced, which greatly increased the visibility of large/bright stars (O, B, Wolf-Rayet) while heavily reducing the generation and rendering cost of smaller, fainter stars (M, L, T, Y)., the removal of per-ly CPU hitching and hampering, and the ability to travel at speeds faster than 300ly/h. It also allowed stars to be seen from outside their 1ly cube, made multi-star system possible to generate and added star constellations visible from Earth. It also implemented features planned for version 0.225.1.0 such as atmospheric and ocean chemical modelling.

The update also implemented:

• Logarithmic arcs generated from accurate root locations to map the Milky Way's physical structure, utilizing a database of known HII star-forming regions.
• A new noise generator designed to mimic galactic cloud structures specifically inspired by James Webb Space Telescope infrared imagery.
• Accurate multi-star system lighting and the generation of planetary rings.
• * Volumetric stars featuring true 3D depth, density, and parallax movement for seamless interior to exterior views.