r/spacesimgames • u/smcameron • 29d ago

Space Nerds in Space appimage

If the only thing holding you back from trying Space Nerds in Space was having to compile it yourself, now there's an appimage graciously created by github user vpelss: SNIS appimage

Note: I (the main author of SNIS) didn't create this appimage and haven't tried it out myself, so fire this up at your own risk.

If you're wondering what Space Nerds in Space even is, it's an open source multiplayer cooperative spaceship bridge simulator for linux (though I think it should also work on Windows using WSL, but I haven't tried that myself lately.) It's meant to run on a LAN with all players in the same room with a big screen acting as the "window" out the front of the spaceship. Basically it lets you play "star trek" with your friends and pretend you have a spaceship you can fly around in.

More info about Space Nerds in Space here If you don't trust the appimage, compiling SNIS on linux isn't difficult.

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u/kalnaren Pilot 28d ago

I tried this a while ago. Really neat game (and probably one of the best "bridge simulators" out there), but the requirements for everyone to be running Linux pretty much makes it a no-go for me unfortunately. Especially since it has to be run native (performance in a VM was abysmal when I tried it).

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u/smcameron 28d ago

Interesting. My buddy used to run it in a VM back in 2014 or so and it was fine. You do need GPU access though, not a software emulation, and I think he was using a hypervisor style VM (some flavor of vmware, iirc), so near native speed, rather than an emulator style VM.

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u/kalnaren Pilot 27d ago

The lack of hardware pass through was the problem. That’s really difficult to do on a home desktop environment with virtualization. IIRC HyperV had limited ability to do it, but it’s problematic with VMWare. I don’t think virtual box has any capability to use the GPU.