Rocket Game — Orbital Launch Simulator

A compact 2D orbital launch simulator made with Pygame. Pilot a rocket from Earth, manage thrust and rotation, and use time-warp to explore orbital mechanics, atmospheres, and spheres-of-influence.

Demo

This repository contains main7.py which runs the simulation. The game features:

• Multiple thruster loadouts (Dual, Quad, Octa)
• Realistic gravity using mu = G * mass
• Atmosphere drag and altitude-dependent air density
• Sphere of influence switching between bodies
• Future trajectory projection
• Minimap, telemetry, zoom, and time warp

Installation

1. Install Python 3.10+ (recommended).
2. Install dependencies:

pip install pygame

3. Run the game:

python main7.py

Controls

• Mouse:

  • Left click menu buttons.
  • Mouse wheel: zoom in/out while playing.

• Keyboard (in game):

  • A / D: rotate rocket left / right.
  • W: thrust (also disables time-warp while pressed).
  • < / > keys (Comma / Period): decrease / increase time warp.
  • Close window or press the window close button to exit.

UI:

• Main Menu -> Play -> Select loadout (Dual, Quad, Octa).
• Telemetry on the top-left displays current SoI, altitude, velocity, mass, zoom, and current time-warp.

Gameplay & Mechanics

• Scaling and units:

  • The simulation converts meters ↔ pixels using a global SCALE value.
  • Gravity is computed using mu = G_CONSTANT * mass of the active body.
  • Atmospheric drag is modeled with a simplified altitude-based density and quadratic drag.

• Time warp:

  • TIME_WARP_LEVELS = [1, 5, 25, 100, 1000] — physics are sub-stepped while time-warped for stability.
  • Thrusting will immediately drop warp to 1x for safety.

• Trajectory prediction:

  • The rocket projects a future trajectory (using the currently active SOI body) and draws a line of predicted positions.

• Minimap:

  • Shows a small overview of the system and the rocket's position.

Tweakable Constants

At the top of main7.py you can adjust game feel and realism:

• WIDTH, HEIGHT — window size.
• FPS — frame rate limit.
• SCALE — map scaling (meters per pixel).
• G_CONSTANT — gravitational constant (default 6.67430e-11).
• TIME_WARP_LEVELS — array of warp multipliers.
• Bodies: modify or add CelestialBody instances in system_bodies:
  • CelestialBody(name, x, y, radius_m, mass_kg, soi_radius_m, color, atmo_height_m=0)

Rocket tuning:

• Rocket base_mass, base_thrust, thruster mass scaling, drag_coeff, cross_section_area — see constructor in Rocket class.

Known limitations / notes

• Units are mixed: physics use meters/seconds internally while positions on-screen are pixels after scaling — be careful when modifying SCALE.
• The trajectory predictor currently considers only the active SOI body (it stops when leaving the SOI).
• Atmospheric model is simplified (linear density falloff to the edge of atmosphere).
• No persistent save/menus beyond the main menu and selection screen.

Contributing

Feel free to:

• Add more bodies (planets, moons) or import system definitions.
• Improve trajectory projection to handle multi-SOI transitions.
• Add UI for configuration and pausing.
• Implement fuel mass reduction and staging for more realistic flight dynamics.

If you'd like, open an issue or a PR with feature requests or bug fixes.

Credits

• Author: vasyaeasley (project repository)
• Built with: Python and Pygame

License

Add a LICENSE file for the license you'd like to use (MIT recommended if you want permissive use):

MIT License
Copyright (c) 2026 <your name>

Permission is hereby granted...

Replace the placeholder with your preferred license text.

Enjoy piloting and refining your orbital launch simulator — tell me if you want this README committed to the repo, or if you'd like a shorter README or a more detailed developer-oriented one (with code diagrams and explanation of key functions).