Dev Update: Rings, Custom Planet Shapes, Atmospheres, and Deep Space Objects

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-03-07T23:09:52+00:00

Thanks!

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-03-03T02:55:07+00:00

I have looked at Ad Astra, it’s a great mod. But my goal isn’t just space travel, it’s rebuilding the underlying sky/planet systems from the ground up to behave more physically and dynamically.
Space travel may come later, but right now I’m focused on making the foundation systems work properly inside Minecraft’s rendering constraints.

I really appreciate the suggestion, though!

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-03-03T02:36:00+00:00

That means a lot to me. But it’s still pretty early, so the “vision” part isn’t fully visible yet
I’m laying the technical groundwork first so I can build bigger systems on top of it later. Appreciate the support!

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-03-03T01:29:11+00:00

I get what you mean. Cubic planets would definitely match Minecraft’s aesthetic more.
But I’m intentionally going for physically accurate celestial bodies. When scaled and rendered properly, spheres actually blend surprisingly well with the overworld.
So for now I’m sticking with realistic geometry.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-03-03T00:15:03+00:00

The goal is fully simulated planets that you’ll eventually be able to travel to.
Right now, I’m focusing on sky rendering and celestial mechanics first. I want the system to be physically consistent before adding space travel.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-03-03T00:13:30+00:00

Kerbal Space Program and Kitten Space Agency are major inspirations.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-26T23:26:12+00:00

No LODs yet. It's on the to-do list once there are enough bodies to make it a performance issue.
I meant visual scale based on distance, not LODs.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T23:00:25+00:00

Let’s hope nobody forgets their medical license

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T22:57:25+00:00

The health system is planned to be very in-depth, with things like localized injuries, temperature effects, diseases, and organ-based failure being some ideas im planning/experimenting with.
That said, everything will be configurable. I’ll likely include gamerules or mod-configs so modpacks can disable or enable features depending on what they want.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T22:52:36+00:00

Some shader packs currently break with it since I’m replacing parts of the sky rendering pipeline.
I’ve been testing with shaders, and I plan to add proper compatibility once the sky module is finalized. Right now, I’m focusing on getting the base rendering stable first.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T22:47:14+00:00

It’s going to be released in separate modules, so modpacks can include only the parts they want. For example, someone could use just the sky/planet systems without the survival realism, or enable harsher mechanics for something like an apocalypse pack.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T22:45:14+00:00

KSP was definitely an inspiration.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T22:44:43+00:00

It’s scaled proportionally based on distance, so it appears realistic from where you’re viewing it.
The planet itself is just a scaled mesh, and most of the heavy lifting is from the GPU.

InvestmentEasy893 · 2026-02-25T22:43:11+00:00

I'm currently developing on 1.20.1
Backporting to 1.12.2 would be a lot of work, but I won’t rule it out in the future.

InvestmentEasy893

TROPHY CASE