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Pioneer Space Simulator

@pioneerspacesim.net

Pioneer is an open source game of lonely space adventure, with roots in Frontier: Elite II. We are a small group of developers from around the world, steadily building our dream space game balancing realistic Newtonian flight mechanics and space opera

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 08/09/2026

You'll find major improvements to the flight HUD, new and improved Rayleigh-Mie terrain lighting for atmospheric planets, visible thruster exhaust trails and dust kicked up on planetary surfaces, smuggler's holds to hide your ill-gotten cargo, and more!

Image showing the new atmosphere rendering

Screenshot showing the engine trails and shield-atosphere interaction

Apoapsis and periapsis displays, rearranging flight data on the reticule

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 13/07/2026

There are two bulkships in development, here in the blockout state, with a Deep Space Miner and a Natrix full of bananas for scale. #pioneerspacesim #spaceship #sci-fi #wip

A large, tower-sized spaceship, rough blockout model mostly in gray.
It has a tapering cylindrical hull, and two spherical tanks behind it, between four large engine nacelles pointing slightly outwards. There are several sensor clusters on the nose, and four trusses for the docking collars, extended outwards. At the center of the hull, it has two in-line rotating sections for artificial gravity, with slanted windows, for the parts of the trips, where the ship is not under thrust, hence there's no thrust gravity.
Behind the ship it a "trailer" with thousands of seemingly tiny cargo containers suspended in a truss structure. Next tot he ship are two smaller crafts for size comparison, and to the left, the tail end of the ship is shown, with an additional set of sensors, propellant tank and heat radiators.

Two large (kms long) bulk ships shown side-byside. One is the cylindrical one from the previous image, the other has a more elaborate hull shape, and larger nacelles with extending fin-like radiators, and two docking ports for shuttles. Its spinning sections are about two times larger. It has a cylindrical gargo mesh, compared to the rectangular of the other. The smaller crafts are also shown for scale.

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 03/07/2026

And ships will be able to land on sloped ground now, actually comforming to it. Not to mention them casting shadow.

A small gray spaceship landed on a hillside

View from the cockpit of the landed ship, looking up to some buildings

Two spaceships landed on sloping ground, next to each other

A spaceship landed on a steep hillside, with the scenery, and planetary eings in the background

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 03/02/2026

Earth completed another orbit today, Pioneertag is here! This release brings nice flickery thruster plumes, realistic star colors, trading updates and map UI polish among other improvements and bugfixes. github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/releases/tag/20260203 #pioneerspacesim #scifi #space

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 31/01/2026

Our dear players and contributors! We are nearing our Pioneer Day release, just 3 days from now. So we'd like to put out a call for anybody who would like to contribute translations. Now would be a great time to do so! Only one at 100%, and a couple close to it! #pioneerspacesim #localisation #i18n

A list with progress bars depicting the state of the first 15 translations of Pioneer in terms of completition. Only one is at 100% Gasp!

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 09/04/2025

Our community member pebblegarden created a mod with some spectacular new skyboxes ranging from Milkyway variations to nebulae. wiki.pioneerspacesim.net/wiki/Mods#Li... #modding #milky_way #nebula #pioneerspacesim

Grey, but orangely lit spaceship flying, with an orange circular nebula in the background.

A Gray spaceship flying before a gas giant, with a blue nebula encompassing the sky above the giants horizon.

A closer view of the circular nebula from te first image.

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 10/02/2025

Maks2103, a member of our community created a mod that reintroduces older versions of our recently redesigned ships, treating them as in-univers older versions, with stats set accordingly. It is available on our wiki: wiki.pioneerspacesim.net/wiki/Mods#Li... #scifi #modding #spaceship

The old and new version of the Xylophis shuttle, shown next to each other.

The two Natrixes sitting next to each other. The new one is quite a bit larger.

Screenshot showing the new and old Sinonatrix ship sitting next to each other on the landing pad

Coronatrix, and it's predecessor, the Amphiesma shuttle next to each other.

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 04/02/2025

Pioneer is an open source space simulator/opera project, a game of lonely space adventure takind place at the 33rd century. Our website is pioneerspacesim.net And development takes place on github: github.com/pioneerspace... We are a small team from around the world slowly building our dream game

A beauty render of the Natrix courier from Pioneer, seen from the cockpit of another. Made in Blender

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Pioneer Space Simulator @pioneerspacesim.net · 04/02/2025

As a debut greetings on Bluesky, we would like to announce our new Pioneer Day (mostly) stable release including a major rewrite of the equipment system, the redesigned Natrix courier, an unified UI color theme and a lot of polish work. #space #sci-fi #opensourcegame #spacegame

Screenshot from Pioneer showing the new Natrix flying away from Mars. A gray, somewhat streamlined, bit minimalist ship, it's side docking collar in the middle nicely visible.

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