Space agency immersive-sim — you are the commander, you build the agency, you fly the rockets.
DeltaV is a browser-of-one solo-dev game project that combines three genres rarely seen together:
- Immersive-sim — you walk around your space agency base in third-person, talk to your MetaHuman crew, interact with consoles. Ambience inspired by Observation and Tacoma.
- Management game — you grow your agency mission by mission. XP and scaling come exclusively from loot brought back (resources, scientific data, artifacts). No grind, no microtransactions.
- Action flight-sim — you pilot the rocket you just prepared. Launch sequence à la SpaceX livestream (ignition, max-Q, MECO, staging, fairing jettison), orbital piloting with burns and trajectory prediction, reentry with plasma ablation shader, propulsive or parachute landing. Orbital math inspired by Kerbal Space Program (patched conics, f64 throughout).
The gameplay loop chains four playable phases (no cutscenes): Base (TPV walking) → Launch (multi-cam broadcast) → Orbital (piloting) → Reentry & Landing.
Pre-production. The Product Requirements Document is finalized and ready for implementation. 67 user stories organized into 12 phased releases, estimated 30–40 calendar weeks of solo development.
- ✅ Engine & stack decisions locked (UE 5.7+ C++, Chaos + custom Kepler rail dual-tier physics, Lumen HW RT, MegaLights, Nanite, MetaHumans, Mountea Dialogue, GenericGraph tech tree)
- ✅ Architecture documented
- ✅ Top 3 technical risks identified with mitigation strategies
- ⏳ Phase 0 (project setup + first passing Kepler Automation test) — next
| Layer | Choice |
|---|---|
| Engine | Unreal Engine 5.7+ (tested: 5.7.4) — always-latest policy |
| Language | C++ (Blueprints for wiring only) |
| Rendering | Lumen Hardware RT, Nanite, Volumetric Clouds |
| Physics | Chaos rigid body (local) + custom Kepler f64 (long-range) with dual-tier switching |
| Orbital math | Patched conics, Newton-Raphson, Leapfrog symplectic fallback |
| VFX | Niagara GPU (exhaust, plasma, smoke) |
| Audio | MetaSounds |
| Characters | MetaHumans (crew) + native UE character (commander) |
| Dialogue | Mountea Dialogue System |
| Tech tree | GenericGraph + custom UDataAsset |
| Tests | UE Automation Framework (headless CLI) |
| Distribution | Steam (Windows) — no web, no Mac/Linux in MVP |
| VCS | Git + LFS |
delta-v/
├── docs/
│ ├── PRD.md # Full Product Requirements Document
│ └── prd-status.json # Machine-readable story tracker
├── README.md # You are here
└── (UE5 project files land here on first Windows session — Source/, Content/, Config/, etc.)
Developed solo by @ArthurDEV44 — a web developer diving into UE5 C++ for the first time. Shipping-focused, parental constraints real, no deadline, quality over speed.
The project is public for transparency, portfolio visibility, and to share the devlog. Contributions are not currently accepted (solo-dev discipline), but feedback and discussion are welcome via Issues.
Kerbal Space Program (simulation), Observation & Tacoma (immersive TPV), Everspace 2 (juice & game feel), SpaceX livestreams (cinematic clean camera work). Visual direction: clean PBR realism — hero asset quality à la Star Citizen / Arena Breakout Infinite / PUBG Black Budget, not gritty photoréalisme.
TBD. Codebase will be proprietary (Steam commercial release). Documentation in docs/ is © Arthur Jean, all rights reserved until further notice.
