The space game the community actually deserved.

Kraken Space Program is an open-source, community-built aerospace sandbox — a spiritual successor to the game we all loved, rebuilt from scratch the right way. Fast. Moddable. Cross-platform. With multiplayer baked in from day one.

Named after the ancient evil that has claimed more rockets than any Kármán line ever will.

Because we've been waiting long enough.

KSP1 was a miracle of indie development — a beautiful, physics-accurate sandbox built by a small passionate team that accidentally became one of the greatest games ever made. It was also held together with duct tape, running on an ancient Unity version, single-threaded, and slowly abandoned.

KSP2 promised to fix all of that. It didn't. It's dead now.

So we're doing it ourselves.

A from-scratch reimplementation of the KSP formula, built on a modern stack:

• Rust core engine — no garbage collector, no runtime overhead, actual multithreading
• Bevy game engine — ECS architecture that maps perfectly to part-based rocket simulation
• wgpu rendering — native Vulkan/Metal/DirectX/WebGL, cross-platform by default
• Lua modding API — every gameplay system scriptable, Factorio-style
• Built-in multiplayer — not a mod, not an afterthought, a first-class architectural decision

• Rocket building, orbital mechanics, atmospheric flight — all of it, accurate and satisfying
• N-body gravity as stock
• Realistic aerodynamics as stock (FAR-inspired)
• Life support as stock
• A solar system that is actually large

• Native multiplayer — fly together, race, collaborate, destroy each other's rockets
• Combat — BD Armory-style weapons and vehicles built into the base game
• A galaxy — procedurally generated star systems, not just one tiny solar system
• Performance — 1000 parts without a slideshow. Multiple vessels on screen. Actual frames.

• Full Lua API — write your entire mod in Lua, no Rust required
• Stable API contracts — your mod doesn't break every update
• Open invitation — if your mod is good enough, it becomes stock

• Linux, Windows, macOS — all first-class, not afterthoughts
• No Unity, no .NET runtime, no garbage collector pausing your launch window

This project belongs to the community.

There is no corporation here. There is no roadmap that gets abandoned. There is no early access where you pay $50 for a broken promise. The code is here, the issues are here, the decisions are made in public.

If the original contributors disappear, someone forks it and continues. That's the point.

Mod authors: your work doesn't have to live as a patch on top of a broken engine anymore. Come build it into the foundation. You'll be credited forever.

This project stands on over a decade of community knowledge:

• The aerodynamics work pioneered by Ferram Aerospace Research
• The n-body physics of Principia
• The visual bar set by Blackrack's volumetric clouds and scatterer
• The realism pipeline built by the Realism Overhaul team
• Every mod author who ever loved this game enough to fix it themselves

The open-source mod ecosystem isn't a reference — it's a foundation.

🚧 Early development — Phase 0 mostly complete.

The foundation is real. The architecture is established. A ball falls under gravity and bounces. It's not much to look at yet, but everything underneath it is built to last.

Phase 0 — Foundation (mostly done)

• Bevy project skeleton — window opens, nothing crashes
• Coordinate system types — SimPosition (f64), WorldOrigin, LocalOrigin, render_sync.rs as the single f64→f32 conversion point
• Rapier physics integration — rigid bodies, fixed 50 Hz timestep, gravity
• Module directory structure matching the full architecture in DESIGN.md
• CI pipeline — cargo fmt, cargo clippy, cargo test on every push
• Physics interpolation — fixed timestep running, render interpolation between ticks pending
• wgpu pipeline smoke test

Phase 1 — A Rocket Goes Up (not started)

Part entities, joints, thrust, drag, staging, Krakensbane origin shifting, camera tracking, crash detection. A hardcoded multi-stage rocket launches, reaches space, and stages. No Lua yet.

The full roadmap lives in DESIGN.md. Current tasks and decisions live in EXECUTION.md.

Read CONTRIBUTING.md first. It's short.

The quick version: the architecture is in DESIGN.md, the current tasks are in EXECUTION.md, and CHECKLIST.md is where you log tech debt when you cut corners. CI must be green before anything merges.

If you know Rust, Bevy, Lua, orbital mechanics, game networking, 3D art, or you just care about this existing — open an issue, start a discussion, submit a PR.

If you're a KSP mod author — your knowledge is more valuable than you know. Come talk to us.

If you're blackrack — please.

Kraken Space Program is an original work. It is not a port of any existing game. It does not use assets, code, or proprietary content from any commercial product.

The name "KSP" is not owned by anyone. The Kraken is public domain. Space is free.

This software is licensed under the MIT License

The Kraken takes everything eventually. We just named the game after it.