July 27: Update 21.1 includes a new History of Jupiter’s Moons tutorial (Home > Tutorials > Science), updated translations from the community, the addition of Indonesian, and a few other small improvements and bug fixes.

Universe Sandbox now supports 20+ languages, with support for adding even more in the future (see below for a current list of supported languages and let us know if there’s a language you’d like to see). We are proud to make Universe Sandbox more accessible to people from all over the world.

Change language:
Home > Settings > General > Selected Language

While most of the text has been translated via Google Translate, we’ve had significant contributions from our amazing community over the past month that have made improvements to many of the languages. We hope our community continues to help translate as Universe Sandbox grows and evolves.

Translate:
Home > Help Translate (learn more)

Currently supported languages (as of 21.1):

• Chinese, Simplified
• Chinese, Traditional
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Thai
• Turkish

Is there a language you want to see? Do you have feedback on the translation process? Let us know on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

This update also includes the 12 recently discovered moons of Jupiter. Initially discovered in March 2017, they have now all been observed several times and their orbits are confirmed. Jupiter now has a total of 79 known moons.

See Jupiter's new moons:
Home > Open > Core > Jupiter's New Moons

They are all very small, around 1 to 2 miles wide. One of the moons is unique, as it orbits in the opposite direction of all of the other moons it is near. “It’s basically driving down the highway in the wrong direction,” said Scott Sheppard, one of the astronomers who made the discovery.

Check out a full list of What's New in Update 21

Also: We’re still testing sharing simulations on Steam Workshop. Learn how you can try it out and help us test

July 19: Support for other languages has been officially released in Update 21! Thanks for everyone’s help with testing this feature and contributing to translations. Learn more about 20 Earth Languages & 12 Jovian Moons | Update 21

We are still testing our next big feature:

• Steam Workshop (Sharing Simulations)

Please help us test! Jump into the Community Test build and start sharing and exploring Workshop simulations.



Share simulations to Steam Workshop:
Home > Save > Share to Steam Workshop

Browse & open Steam Workshop simulations:
Home > Workshop

Sharing simulations now will help us test this feature and also help us build up a big catalog of sims on Steam Workshop, so we can show off the creativity of the Universe Sandbox community from day one of the official Workshop release.

As part of our redesigned save dialog and support for Steam Workshop, simulations now support custom descriptions that appear when the simulation loads. And even cooler? These descriptions support the same BBCode formatting that Steam does. Two differences: It also supports images with [img] URL [/img], and even animated GIFs! But it does not support the noparse tags.

• Right-click on the game title in your Steam Library
• Click on ‘Properties’
• Select the ‘Betas’ tab
• Set the dropdown menu to 'community-test'
• Close the Properties window
• Steam will now update Universe Sandbox ² to the Community Test build
• Once updated, launch Universe Sandbox ²

Please note: We’ve done extensive testing on this feature, but this is a Community Test build for a reason. There are still changes we have planned, and you may encounter bugs. If you do, please let us know on our forum or in-game via Home > Send Feedback.

Thanks for testing and for your patience!

See What's New | Community Tests for a list of changes

This update features improvements to orbits & motion:

• Improved Support for Hyperbolic Trajectories
• More Precise Control of Orbital Elements
• Reorganized Motion Tab in Properties Panel

A hyperbolic trajectory is the path of an object that is affected by the gravity of a parent object, but not enough to be pulled into an orbit. Instead, it escapes the gravitational influence and continues toward infinity.  

Learn more about hyperbolic trajectories:

• Home > Open > An Interstellar Object with a Hyperbolic Trajectory

There is also a new sim of Jupiter’s co-orbital retrograde asteroid 2015 BZ509:

• Home > Open > Historical > Retrograde Asteroid 2015 BZ509

Update 20.7 also has many smaller improvements, including autosaves and a revamped What’s New panel, along with a bunch of bug fixes.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.7

May 31: Update 20.7.2 is a small update with a few bug fixes, including fixes for issues with tutorials and the TRAPPIST-1 simulations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE4suCpQkoQ

June 15: Want to help us test translations & sharing simulations on Steam Workshop?
Opt into the Community Test build!

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A few weeks ago we talked about our upcoming support for Steam Workshop, a feature we've been working on in parallel to our work on Update 21's big features, Planet Grids & Lasers.

Now we're excited to announce another upcoming feature for Universe Sandbox ²: support for multiple languages. As with Steam Workshop, we still have work to do on this, but we've made great progress. Just check out the video above for proof. You may spot some words that haven't been translated yet, and some things may look a bit off, but all the big pieces are in place and everything is working smoothly.

If you're familiar with any of the languages used in the video, you may also note that some translations are a bit strange. Currently, everything has been translated with Google Translate, which has been a very useful tool, but it does not always produce the most accurate results. In the future, we’ll have professional translations for the most widely used languages.

Universe Sandbox ² is constantly growing and evolving; it's important that we have help from others to build and maintain translations into any number of languages. This is where you, the community, come in.

Along with the ability to switch languages at any time, you will also be able to help translate Universe Sandbox ² with a very easy-to-use integration with Crowdin. Crowdin is a system that helps manage localization projects by making it easy for anyone to submit new translations and vote on the best ones.

Once we have everything ready, we'll be sure to make an announcement and include full instructions for anyone who wants to help.

Please note: Localization is not yet available in Universe Sandbox ². It is still a work-in-progress feature and will look different in the future.

Big thanks to our developer, Dave, for all of his work on supporting other languages. We’re excited to make Universe Sandbox ² more accessible to people all over the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPFbcAcwS-c
We’re still hard at work on Update 21 and its two big planned features, Planet Grids & Lasers. But as promised, we’ve also been working on some other things at the same time.

For one, we are making great progress on support for Steam Workshop. It’s not quite ready, but we’re excited to share our progress with you, and even more excited about the possibilities this opens up once it’s released.

When we launch Steam Workshop, you’ll be able to easily share your simulations with the community and explore simulations created by others. Further down the line, we plan to add support for custom models and textures, too. Support for mods on Steam Workshop may eventually come, but not anytime soon.

Please note: Steam Workshop is not yet available in Universe Sandbox ². It is still a work-in-progress feature and will look different in the future.

Thanks to our developer, Jonathan, for all of his work on Steam Workshop!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPFbcAcwS-c

June 15: Want to help us test translations & sharing simulations on Steam Workshop?
Opt into the Community Test build!

-----------------------
We’re still hard at work on Update 21 and its two big planned features, Planet Grids & Lasers. But as promised, we’ve also been working on some other things at the same time.

For one, we are making great progress on support for Steam Workshop. It’s not quite ready, but we’re excited to share our progress with you, and even more excited about the possibilities this opens up once it’s released.

When we launch Steam Workshop, you’ll be able to easily share your simulations with the community and explore simulations created by others. Further down the line, we plan to add support for custom models and textures, too. Support for mods on Steam Workshop may eventually come, but not anytime soon.

Please note: Steam Workshop is not yet available in Universe Sandbox ². It is still a work-in-progress feature and will look different in the future.

Thanks to our developer, Jonathan, for all of his work on Steam Workshop!

March 22: Update 20.6.2 is a small update to fix a bug that affected simulation performance.

This is another small update, but we want to highlight how awesome our new supernovae look now. Thanks to our graphics developer, Georg, for all of his wizardry involved in making these look even cooler, all the while making them perform better, too.

This update also includes a number of smaller improvements, including improved trails in the Roadster sims.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.6

Now back to our work on lasers and Planet Grids for Update 21! Learn more about what we're working on for our next big update

April 19: Update 20.6.3 is a small update with a few bug fixes for issues with object selection, internal analytics, and database object information.

This is another small update, but we want to highlight how awesome our new supernovae look now. Thanks to our graphics developer, Georg, for all of his wizardry involved in making these look even cooler, all the while making them perform better, too.

This update also includes a number of smaller improvements, including improved trails in the Roadster sims.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.6

Now back to our work on lasers and Planet Grids for Update 21! Learn more about what we're working on for our next big update

March 14: Update 20.5.2 is a small update that fixes a few bugs, including problems with volume settings and camera control.

This is a small update in terms of content, but there have been some significant under-the-hood changes with the upgrade of our game engine to Unity 2017.2. As with past under-the-hood changes, it’s a sign we’ve transitioned well if you can’t see any differences.

But also: there’s a car in space! (And conversely, this car doesn’t even have an engine under its hood.) On February 6, 2018, SpaceX performed a successful test launch of their Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket currently in use. The launch was intended as a demonstration of the Falcon Heavy’s ability to launch a payload into an orbit that could reach Mars. SpaceX also successfully landed two of the Falcon Heavy's reusable booster engines, although the central core crashed during its attempted landing.

As part of the test, the Falcon Heavy rocket carried a dummy payload to demonstrate that it could launch a large mass onto the required orbit. For this launch, SpaceX chose an unusual dummy payload: a Tesla Roadster electric car belonging to SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In a press statement released before the launch, SpaceX explained that it wanted a payload that was "fun and without irreplaceable sentimental value." While the Roadster will not land on or orbit Mars, its current elliptic orbit around the Sun will take it beyond the orbit of Mars at its farthest point.
 

• Home > Open > Tesla Roadster in Space
• Home > Open > Where in Space is the Tesla Roadster

Update 20.5 also includes a database refresh for objects in our Solar System, a few other new sims (including the Ultimate Engineered System), improved supernova visuals, and a number of smaller improvements and bug fixes.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.5

We are making great progress on Update 21, but we unfortunately can’t provide a release date yet. Update 20.5 is just a step on the way to make sure everything is running smoothly. Thank you for your patience while we continue to work on Planet Grids and Lasers!


The Ultimate Engineered System, as described by astronomer Sean Raymond

March 14: Update 20.5.2 is a small update that fixes a few bugs, including problems with volume settings and camera control.

This is a small update in terms of content, but there have been some significant under-the-hood changes with the upgrade of our game engine to Unity 2017.2. As with past under-the-hood changes, it’s a sign we’ve transitioned well if you can’t see any differences.

But also: there’s a car in space! (And conversely, this car doesn’t even have an engine under its hood.) On February 6, 2018, SpaceX performed a successful test launch of their Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket currently in use. The launch was intended as a demonstration of the Falcon Heavy’s ability to launch a payload into an orbit that could reach Mars. SpaceX also successfully landed two of the Falcon Heavy's reusable booster engines, although the central core crashed during its attempted landing.

As part of the test, the Falcon Heavy rocket carried a dummy payload to demonstrate that it could launch a large mass onto the required orbit. For this launch, SpaceX chose an unusual dummy payload: a Tesla Roadster electric car belonging to SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In a press statement released before the launch, SpaceX explained that it wanted a payload that was "fun and without irreplaceable sentimental value." While the Roadster will not land on or orbit Mars, its current elliptic orbit around the Sun will take it beyond the orbit of Mars at its farthest point.
 

• Home > Open > Tesla Roadster in Space
• Home > Open > Where in Space is the Tesla Roadster

Update 20.5 also includes a database refresh for objects in our Solar System, a few other new sims (including the Ultimate Engineered System), improved supernova visuals, and a number of smaller improvements and bug fixes.

Check out the full list of What’s New in Update 20.5

We are making great progress on Update 21, but we unfortunately can’t provide a release date yet. Update 20.5 is just a step on the way to make sure everything is running smoothly. Thank you for your patience while we continue to work on Planet Grids and Lasers!


The Ultimate Engineered System, as described by astronomer Sean Raymond