https://libre-space.zchira.workers.dev/

I made a spaceflight game where you fly robotic ships from a Linux shell (free, runs in the browser)

I've been building this in my spare time for a while and it's finally playable enough to show.

The idea: you're an operator at mission control, and the spacecraft you fly are robotic. The only way to reach them is an "ansible" link to their onboard Linux-like shell. No cockpit, no joystick - you connect to a ship and fly it with commands:

target tsiolkovsky
nav transfer tsiolkovsky
alarm ap
burn prograde 5.65
systemctl enable --now scanner
cat /data/scan-moon.txt

The physics is a real n-body simulation of the Sun, Earth and Moon, so things work the way they do in orbit: you catch up with a station by going lower, not faster; a push towards a station lifts you above it; the Moon you aim for is not where it is now, but where it will be in two days.

The ship is a set of modules that run as services (systemctl, journalctl), with files, jobs, alarms (at), and mail at mission control. The missions so far: a rendezvous with a station in low Earth orbit, a lunar survey with a probe and a mini lab, repairing a telescope at a Lagrange point, and waking up a derelict cargo tug that drifted silent for six years.

There's a terminal version and a graphical one (both running in browser); the graphical one has a beginner mode with buttons that simply type the commands for you, so you see what they do. The first mission leads you one command at a time.

It's free, with no account; your campaign is saved in the browser: https://libre-space.zchira.workers.dev/

It's still rough in places. I'd love to hear where it confuses you, especially if you know orbits but not Linux, or the other way round.

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