Physical SSA ROC
Remote Operating Center — planning strand · not in active development
Two strands, one universe
Hoshi no Isan (星の遺産) is the active product: a Japanese-aesthetic space visual novel and crew RPG built solo in Unreal Engine 5, documented on this site and in the Game Design Document.
A second strand — the original Spaceship Adventure (SSA) vision from 2010 onward — targets a physical Remote Operating Center (ROC): a road-mobile, two-crew cockpit with real controls, surround audio, and viewports driven by UE5. An onboard AI mission engine (ARIA) runs briefings, dynamic events, NPC voices, and debriefs offline. That experience is not under active development on the same schedule as the game; it lives in long-range planning and Phase 0 software work. This page recaps the direction so visitors understand how both pieces fit together.
What the physical ROC is
Two seats, one mission
The planning MVP centers on a two-crew layout that fits a standard enclosed trailer: a Pilot (flight, navigation, evasion) and a Systems Officer (shields, sensors, weapons, life support, comms). Physical switches, touch surfaces, and tactical displays sit alongside browser-based console apps. Windows double as screens: parked, they show the real world; in mission, they show the UE5 space environment.
ARIA and the mission engine
ARIA (Autonomous Reconnaissance & Intelligence Advisor) is specified as the ship’s AI: status, mission control, NPC voices, adaptive difficulty, and post-mission debriefs — running locally on dedicated hardware (e.g. Ollama-class LLMs + voice synthesis), not as a cloud-dependent chatbot. A structured mission layer (events, timing, hardware cues) keeps sessions predictable; the LLM layer adds language where variation matters.
Mission design emphasizes systems that talk to each other (power trade-offs, shields vs weapons), physical feedback (directional hits, LEDs, seat transducers), and STEM-tagged learning surfaced in debriefs. Longer-term concepts include a youth UCN Cadet Corps program, consumer ownership models, franchise operations, and hardware specs (ROC, shields/haptics, exterior structure) — all captured in internal SSA specification documents for when the program moves past planning.
Phase 0 — software before metal
The roadmap calls for a Phase 0 that builds software IP first: ARIA core, console web apps (pilot and systems MFDs), WebSocket protocol to the mission engine, tutorial missions, a first UE5 cosmic environment, and an Arduino test bench for lights and solenoids — all runnable on a development workstation before a trailer build. Hardware then becomes “a home for software that already works.”
That phase is aspirational and parallel to shipping Hoshi no Isan. Progress on the game remains the public focus; the ROC recap exists so partners, educators, and fans see the full picture without confusing it with the current UE5 title.
Active product: Hoshi no Isan
Explore the Yamabiko, crew, JAXA missions, and the solo dev plan for the Unreal Engine 5 game.
The Game Game Design Document Dev JournalSolo UE5 development notes live in the project’s _game_dev folder (README and phase-by-phase markdown), alongside this site.