Stellar Miner

Stellar Miner

2D Physics-Driven Space Combat & Procedural Systems

Stellar Miner is a 2D space combat and mining game built around fully simulated physics and procedurally generated star systems. The project explores emergent gameplay arising from real momentum, inertia, and force-based movement, combined with large-scale object simulation and AI operating under the same physical constraints as the player.

Players navigate unstable star systems, mine asteroids for resources, and engage hostile AI ships while upgrading their own ship and weapon loadouts. The emphasis is on mastery of physics-driven controls, situational awareness, and system-level decision-making rather than assisted or abstracted flight mechanics.

Core Systems & Technical Work

• Full 2D physics simulation

  • Every entity (ships, asteroids, projectiles) is a dynamic physics object

  • Emergent behaviour arises from true momentum, collisions, and force application

• Physics-authentic player controls

  • Thrust and torque-based flight with no aim assist or stabilisation

  • Separate primary thrust and fine manoeuvring thrusters (“jink” controls)

  • Designed for high skill ceiling and mechanical mastery

• Procedural star system generation

  • Rogue-like system layouts with variable asteroid density, hazards, and encounters

  • Systems designed to support thousands of active objects

• Large-scale object optimisation

  • Asteroid “dehydration” system disables distant, non-interacting bodies

  • Simplified physics integration for inactive objects to reduce CPU cost

  • Enables high object counts without sacrificing simulation fidelity

• Unity Job System & Burst

  • Used to process velocity and acceleration for large numbers of asteroids

  • Significant performance gains when simulating dense environments

• AI using identical physics constraints

  • Enemy ships use the same thrusters, inertia, and stopping distances as the player

  • AI accounts for relative velocity, braking distance, and approach vectors

  • Aggro-based engagement logic to prevent immediate or unnatural hostility

• Visual & feedback systems

  • Shader Graphs used for damage indication and persistent damage states

  • Parallax background system providing motion reference in empty space

  • Secondary camera used for system scanning and situational awareness

• Game systems & tooling

  • Full menu system including upgrades, resolution, and audio controls

  • Unity audio mixer integration for layered sound control

  • Coroutines used for timed effects and feedback transitions

Development Context

• Solo project developed in Unity (C#)

• Strong emphasis on physics simulation, performance optimisation, and emergent gameplay

• Built as a systems-heavy foundation rather than content-driven experience

• Served as a major step in integrating physics, AI, procedural generation, and optimisation techniques into a single project

Driving controls (primary thrust and rotation)

Up - Primary thrust forward

Right - Torque right

Left - Torque left

Down - "Panic button" automatically reduce spin down to 0

Jink controls (small manoeuvre thrusters)

WSAD - small thrust forward/back/left/right

Other controls

Space - shoot

Escape - pause

Menu

Mouse control

The game will save automatically while on the menu.

Credits

Design & coding - Seph

Space sprite set - Tatermand

https://opengameart.org/content/space-game-art-pack-extended

UI elements - craftpix

https://craftpix.net/freebies/free-space-shooter-game-gui/

Ore sprites - bluecarrot16

https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-ore-and-forge

Font - wepfont

https://www.fontspace.com/plat-nomor-font-f45735

Some sounds - game supply

https://gamesupply.itch.io/ultimate-space-game-mega-asset-package

Thruster sound

https://freesound.org/people/MATRIXXX_/sounds/515122/

Jink sound

https://freesound.org/people/mango777/sounds/547442/

Laser fire sound

https://freesound.org/people/_MC5_/sounds/524934/

Laser damage sound

https://freesound.org/people/kev_durr/sounds/396511/

Cannon fire sound

https://freesound.org/people/Werra/sounds/244394/