Dev Stream
Developer Live Streams are regular online broadcasts hosted by Fleetyard Studios' lead developer, Dan Govier, offering a direct look into the ongoing creation of Starship Simulator. These streams provide transparency and allow for direct interaction between the developer and the game's community.
Schedule and Platform
The live streams are typically held 3 times weekly: History List
- Days: Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays
- Time: 20:00 UK Time (Currently British Summer Time - BST / UTC+1; changes to GMT / UTC+0 during winter months)
- Platform: [Starship Simulator YouTube]
| Current Schedule | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day | Time | Topic | Direct Playlist | ||||
| Wednesdays | 20:00 UTC+0 | Building the Meganlen | Building The Magellan Class | ||||
| Fridays | 20:00 UTC+0 | Random Fridays | Random Fridays | ||||
| Sundays | 20:00 UTC+0 | Building A Starship From Scratch | Building A Starship From Scratch | ||||
Updates and Changes
- 2025-06-01: the Sunday stream was rebranded as a Sunday Funday, with a focus on adding new features to the game outside the scheduled roadmap. These included adding a playable chess set in the VIP lounge, version 1 of organic printers, and holo-display controls.
- 2025-06-29: the Sunday stream was replaced with a new series focussing on building a new ship called the Caravella.
- 2025-11-14: a third stream was added to Fridays. This stream focusses on adding new features to the game outside the scheduled roadmap. This is similar to the Sunday Funday streams that were introduced on 2025-06-01.
Note: While this is the regular schedule, always check the official Discord or other announcements for confirmation or potential changes.
Content and Purpose
During the streams, viewers can expect to see:
- live development work being done in the Unreal Engine 5 and SketchUp
- live Bug fixing from the Bugs List
- demonstrations of new features, systems, or content being added to the game
- discussions about game design philosophy, technical challenges, and future plans
- real-time interaction with the community via the live chat, including Q&A sessions
These streams serve as a key method for Fleetyard Studios to showcase progress, gather instant feedback and maintain engagement with their player base, and supporters.
Relation to Development Builds
New Dev Builds are often compiled and released to testers shortly after a live stream, typically incorporating the work or fixes demonstrated during the broadcast. This provides testers with rapid access to the latest changes discussed.
Monthly Dev Build Raffle
Typically, during the first stream of each month, a raffle is held giving viewers a chance to win a Steam key granting access to the Dev Builds. Entry details and eligibility (some backer levels may be excluded) are usually announced in the official Discord server prior to the stream. Regular backers may donate for Captain tier giveaways for the Raffles; however, is not guaranteed.
Sunday Funday
During the Dev Stream 2025-06-01 Dan announced the creation of the Sunday Funday in which he does something fun that is outside the normal Development Cycle. For instance, in the first Sunday Funday Stream Dan created a working chess board for the player to use in the ship's VIP Lounge.
Building a Starship From Scratch
During the Dev Stream 2025-06-29, the first episode of Building a Starship From Scratch was streamed, in which Dan set out to create an entire new ship from start to finish solely during live streams, giving viewers a chance to see the entire process. The current series is creating the Caravella Class.
Charity Dev Streams
On 2025-12-27 Dan hosted a Charity Stream for the charity specialeffect. This is a UK-based charity that uses innovative technology ranging from modified controllers to eye-tracking sensors to help people with physical disabilities enjoy the social and rehabilitative benefits of video games. The stream raised £1,222 of the target of £1,000. Dan did the dev stream for 24 hours continuously, with only a few toilet breaks interrupting the live stream. This also marked the beginnings of patch cycle 0.227.0.1, since the stream focussed on features from this development cycle. The Dev Builds release after this stream were labelled with the 227 patch number. The principal update from this stream was the ability to give ship wide commands. The first implementation was to be able to order the bridge crew to accomplish the exploration of a new system on a single order: to travel to the system, perform a medium scan on the system, then finally travel to each object within the system. Short range scans are performed upon every object at which point the system achieves a 100% explored status in the ship's database.
The development of long sequences of autonomous NPC activity represented initial steps intended to achieve Dan's stated aim of deepening the gameplay experience.
Other Content
Sometimes when other events correspond with the timing of the stream such as major news worthy rocket launches (e.g., the launch of the Artemis II moon mission) Dan may switch to a live watch-along if no timetable matters constrain his development schedule and the viewer base has stated an interest, naturally.
Community Interaction
The live streams have a consistently loyal viewership and many new watchers join in on the stream to learn about the project. Viewers discuss Dan's development plans and offer advice and suggestions, as well as occasionally commenting on possible mistakes that they might have spotted during the stream.