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Starting your First Sim

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Connor Jakubik edited this page Jul 19, 2025 · 31 revisions
Installing Space Teams → Starting your First Sim

Up to date for Platform 0.35.1

Written by Connor Jakubik

Also available in video form:

Prerequisites:

This guide will take you through the process to start the Solar System Explorer demo, which is a good first sim to try out in Space Teams.

  1. Open SpaceCRAFT/SpaceCRAFT.exe.
  2. Press F11 to toggle fullscreen.
  3. Log in to your account
    1. Create new accounts on https://www.spaceteamspro.com/.
  4. Click Demos on the left panel.
  5. Click on Solar System Explorer.
  6. Click Start Demo in the bottom right.

After some loading time, you should see the Earth from above, exactly how it should look if you were in space right now (besides the cloud coverage). The screen may be black if the sun is on the other side of the Earth. The entire solar system is explorable in this demo.

Controls & Tips (UIP2D_Spectator pawn)

  • Press Tab to cycle between view modes.
  • Click the Help button on the top bar to display controls for the spectator pawn (the entity you are inhabiting).
  • Many of the UI elements have tooltips that explain more when hovered.
  • The camera controls are visible by default in the top right.
    • Click the button with the Sun icon to set proper Earth daytime exposure.
    • You can also use the scrollbar or number input.
    • Clicking the Camera button will toggle between "perfect" and "physical" camera settings
  • If you leave the local area of a planet / moon, your pawn motion will be unconstrained from that planet.
    • This means you can rotate any direction (including rolling).
    • Your velocity is now tied to solar system barycenter instead of the planet; the planet may leave you behind, especially at high timescale.
  • Time control is done with ,, ., and /.
    • These are used for what their shift-keys would do. The , has a < on it, so it slows timescale down. The . has a > on it, so it speeds timescale up.
    • / freezes and unfreezes the simulation (freeze sets timescale to 0.0x, and unfreeze sets it to its most recent non-zero value).
    • If timescale is 0.0x, pressing , will change timescale to 0.001x, and pressing . will change timescale to 1.0x.
    • If sim time matches real-life time within ~2 seconds of margin, Realtime will show in place of the timescale.
    • Pressing RAlt-, will force time to flow negative, and RAlt-. will force time to flow positive.
  • You can bring up more UIs from the Gadgets button; drag and drop them into the left or right tab.

Also try the sim in VR

Open the SpaceCRAFT app through SpaceCRAFT_VR.bat. From there, you are presented with the normal flat screen UI. Interact with this by pointing with your VR controller and clicking with the trigger.

You may need to log in once in flat-screen mode once before starting in VR mode. The login UI is (as of 0.27.5) partially flat screen only.

What to Do

Post screenshots in the Discussions section of this repository!

  • If you have a gamepad connected to your computer, try using that to move around
    • Left stick for forward/back/left/right
    • Right stick for view
    • Dpad up/down to change speed
    • Left trigger to go down, right trigger to go up
    • Left/Right bumper buttons for roll left/right (when not constrained to planet)
  • Find your home town
  • Look at one of our Earth sites with high fidelity data:
    • Grand Canyon
    • Mt Everest
    • Hawaii
    • San Francisco
    • Big Bend
  • Look at the Earth city lights at nighttime
    • The EV button with the crescent moon icon sets proper Earth nighttime exposure
  • Watch the sun set over the mountains
  • Look away from bright objects and see the stars and milky way (may need to manually increase exposure)
  • Find the moon in the sky, go to it
  • Look at one of our Moon sites with high fidelity data:
    • South Pole
    • Apollo 15 & 17 landing sites
  • Go to the other planets
    • The outer planets will require lowering EV to see them; they're far from the sun!
  • Mars points of interest:
    • Gale Crater (Curiosity)
    • Jezero Crater (Perseverance & Ingenuity)
    • Valles Marineris
    • Olympus Mons
  • Continue reading pages in this wiki and make your own sims!

Sections

Installing Space Teams

The Fundamentals

Simulation Development Workflow

Physics and Propagation

Use Cases

Verification & Validation

Publications / Theses

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