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Guide to the experience
The experience has four ways to move: the guided tour, the Saturn flight, free exploration and the Voyage. Press ? at any time for the key list.
Take the crossing opens the guided tour at the first chapter. Everything below works from there, and the Keys button (or the ? key) shows the same lists in the experience itself. The controls assume a keyboard and a mouse.
What you need
A recent desktop browser. Chrome and Edge run the WebGPU renderer; other browsers fall back to WebGL2, which looks the same but costs more per frame. The first load downloads the models and terrain it needs for the place you open. Sound starts on your first key press or click, because browsers refuse to play audio before that. Add ?audio=off to the address to start silent.
The four modes
- The guided tour. Nine chapters from the Long Passage to the plumes of Enceladus, played as a sequence of shots with a caption on each. Space plays and pauses, the arrow keys step between shots, and the journey page links straight to any chapter.
- The Saturn flight. One continuous scripted flight past Saturn, its rings and every textured moon, with the fusion drive sounding as you go. Open it with Fly the whole system. Space pauses, the arrow keys seek and Esc leaves.
- Free exploration. At any stop, E takes the camera off its rails. At Kraken Shore and at the Enceladus station you can fly, board a vehicle or step out in a suit.
- The Voyage. The whole Saturn system with no script: pick any moon, dive into Saturn's clouds, enter the rings or land. Open it from the map (P, then "Voyage: every moon" under The Saturn system), or go straight to the Voyage.
The tour
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Space | Play or pause |
| Left, right | Previous or next shot |
| E | Explore freely from this shot |
| A | The atlas: the Saturn system on the real positions for 1 July 2100 |
| P | The map: a list of every place in the story, to jump to any of them |
| M | Mute everything |
| U | Mute the music only |
| ? | The key list |
The Sound button cycles between sound on, strict vacuum (the engine sonification in space is silenced) and muted. In space there is no air to carry sound, so the low rumble you hear from a vacuum engine is a styled sonification, and the stage note says so.
Inspect points
Labels marked with an ⓘ open a short note. Each carries its basis tags and, where one exists, a link to the engineering explainer behind it. On the launch pad and in the Long Passage engine gallery, Look inside plays a deep zoom, down to the molecules of a methane flame or the nuclei of a fusion burn. The deep zooms are diagrams, tagged illustrative, with the scale on screen.
Free exploration
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| W, A, S, D or the arrows | Fly forward, left, back, right |
| Space, C | Up, down |
| Shift | Boost |
| Drag | Look around |
| Wheel | Dolly toward the cursor |
| Q, E | Orbit left or right around the point under the cursor |
| Home, End | Orbit over or under it |
| Z, X | Roll; H levels the horizon |
| [ and ] | Halve or double the speed |
| R | Back to the opening view |
| I | Light or shut down the engines on this stage |
| Esc | Return to the tour, or close the atlas |
Vehicles and walking
- The V4 rotorcraft at Kraken Shore: F boards it. W and S pitch, A and D roll, J and L yaw, R and C climb and descend. F steps out.
- The inspection pod around the Long Passage: F flies it. W, S, A, D and R, C move it; I, K, J, L, Z, X pitch, yaw and roll it; T turns the flight assist on or off. F steps out.
- Walking at Kraken Shore or the Enceladus station: G steps out in a suit. W, S, A, D walk and sidestep, J and L turn, Space jumps and G stops. In the ship's habitat drum (shot 0.2), G walks the curved floor, and you weigh more walking with the spin than against it.
The Voyage
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Tab, click, the picker | Select a body |
| Enter, double-click | Travel to it |
| G | Land on a moon, dive into Saturn, or enter the rings |
| Drag | Look (free flight) or turn the moon (inspect mode) |
| W, S, A, D, R, C | Fly; Shift multiplies the speed by six |
| I | Inspect mode on or off, at a moon |
| P | Mark the places of interest on the moon |
| O | Orbit the body you are at |
| T, Shift+T | Time rate up or down |
| Space, L | Pause; show the orbit lines |
| Esc | Cancel a transit or a descent, or leave a landing |
Reporting a problem
Press the backtick key to turn the debug inspector on, click the object that looks wrong, then press the tilde key (Shift and backtick) to copy a report: a repro link, the camera, the object and the console. Paste it into an email to contact@davidveksler.com. The about page has the other ways to reach David.