Starship is a runtime C++ plugin (with full Blueprint support) for Unreal Engine 5 that adds a complete 6DOF spacecraft pawn - fly, hover, land, take off and pilot a ship on foot, in atmosphere or deep space, in single-player or multiplayer. It is anti-gravity powered: gravity never drags it down, it only sets which way is "up", so releasing the controls leaves it hovering in place. The ship reads the engine's variable gravity and aligns to your world automatically.

New in V1.2: a fast zero-g Space-Flight cruise, water and steep-slope anchoring, thrust-vectoring engines that physically swivel, and telescoping landing gear that deploys itself. The whole pawn is network-replicated with a client-authoritative flight model that needs no changes to your character or player controller.

New in V1.1: full multiplayer and passenger boarding.

Preview Video | V1.1 Multiplayer Replication| Playable Demo | Discord Community | Documentation

Drop the included BP_Starship into your level and fly - it arrives ready to go with a full lander mesh, vectoring engines, exhaust FX, landing gear and HUD already set up. Prefer your own ship? The flight system is mesh-agnostic, so build any hull from the components.

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CORE FEATURES

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▸ 6DOF Anti-Gravity Flight - flies in full six degrees of freedom; gravity only sets which way is "up", so releasing the controls holds altitude.

▸ Six-State Flight Model - the ship auto-detects its state: Landed, Hovering (holds altitude, stays level), Floating (parked cold in space), Flying (turns to fly where you look, full tilt + bank), SpaceFlight (fast zero-g cruise), and Anchored (station-holding over water or steep ground). Each has its own controls and feel.

▸ Space-Flight Cruise (NEW) - bring the engines online in space and the ship enters a fast throttle-cruise: push to accelerate, pull to slow, release to HOLD speed, and steering carries the velocity with the nose. Deliberately far faster than atmospheric flight - space is big.

▸ Water & Steep-Slope Anchoring (NEW) - land over deep water or ground too steep for the gear and the ship holds an anchored hover (gear up, door open, engines running) instead of tipping over. Shallow water lands on the seabed normally. Take off with climb-up exactly like a ground landing.

▸ Approach Auto-Brake (NEW) - the ship probes ahead and sheds speed on its own: in cruise it detects gravity fields along the nose and arrives at atmospheric speed; while Flying it eases down before obstacles. Drive an "APPROACH BRAKE" HUD light off the event.

▸ Thrust-Vectoring Engines (NEW) - engines physically swivel to vector their thrust: they lean into turns, tilt against gravity for a VTOL hover look, and cant for roll. Optional differential power turns canted pods into strafe and brake thrusters. Per-engine deflection limits and critically-damped easing.

▸ Telescoping Landing Gear (NEW) - a drop-in strut component builds its own telescoping sleeve + leg from your meshes, deploys on landing and retracts on take-off automatically, and line-traces the floor per strut so legs settle at different lengths on uneven ground. Correct on every machine and for late joiners.

▸ Reusable Engine Component - a self-contained engine (mesh + Niagara exhaust + power-scaled flame shells + optional sound) driven by one Set Power, or self-driven from the ship's flight state, with per-bank roles (cruise mains vs hover thrusters).

▸ Multiplayer Ready (Client-Authoritative) - the whole pilot loop is network-replicated for listen and dedicated servers. The piloting client runs the sim and relays its authoritative motion; the server fans it out with smooth interpolation. Possession, boarding and seating are server-authoritative. No changes to your Character or PlayerController.

▸ Passengers - a configurable number of riders board and ride along, seated welded to the hull on every machine. Players and NPCs, auto-seated at take-off, with landed-only or mid-flight disembark.

▸ On-Foot Pilot, Passenger & Door Interaction - walk up, get a key-aware "Press [key] to Pilot" prompt, board, fly, land and step out. Passengers get the same board/leave prompt, and a character at the door in space can open it from outside. The interact binding is injected, so no character-Blueprint changes are needed.

▸ Hover, Land & Take-Off Sequences - hold descend at the hover floor for a timed landing to gear height; hold ascend to lift off. A footprint box-sweep reads slopes correctly; ships spawned below the floor auto-land.

▸ Gravity-Aligned Free-Orbit Camera - an independent third-person orbit camera (absolute rotation) that stays level to gravity. Look anywhere; the ship turns to follow while Flying / SpaceFlight.

▸ Gravity-Agnostic - reads gravity through a small abstraction with no compile-time dependency on any gravity plugin. Engine variable gravity by default; an optional reflection bridge picks up directional (planet/ring) gravity from an external provider.

▸ HUD-Ready Blueprint Events - overridable events for flight-state, landing/take-off, gear/door, approach-brake, and pilot/passenger board-leave (plus per-machine local begin-end), and queries for state, elevation and engine power / thrust intent.

▸ Full Blueprint Support - thrust, speeds, elevations, landing rules, water depth, slope limits, engine vectoring and differential, gear, camera and passengers all exposed to Blueprint and C++.

▸ Space-Flight throttle-cruise (held speed carried along the nose), gravity-entry retro-braking, and a forward-probing approach auto-brake for gravity fields and collisions

▸ Water-aware + slope-aware landing: deep water or steep ground become an anchored hover; shallow water lands on the seabed

▸ Network-replicated, client-authoritative flight - the pilot relays transform + velocity + cosmetic state; server fans out with interpolated proxy smoothing; server-authoritative possession + passengers routed with no Character/PlayerController edits

▸ Thrust-vectoring engine component - critically-damped nozzle deflection from flight intent, gravity support and roll; per-engine roles, differential power, and power-scaled procedural flame shells; self-drives from the ship or a manual Set Power

▸ Telescoping landing-gear component - auto-built sleeve + leg from your meshes, per-strut floor trace, polls the ship's replicated gear state (correct for late joiners)

▸ No third-party dependencies (Niagara + Enhanced Input ship with UE5)

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INCLUDED

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▸ Full C++ source

▸ AStarshipPawn / BP_Starship - drop-in, ready-to-fly, network-replicated spacecraft

▸ UStarshipEngineComponent + BP_HoverEngine / BP_HyperEngine - vectoring engines with exhaust FX

▸ UStarshipLandingGearComponent + BP_LandingGear - self-deploying telescoping gear

▸ A complete lander mesh with materials/textures - already assigned on BP_Starship

▸ Engine exhaust FX (flame meshes + materials) + Niagara + looping sound

▸ Enhanced Input mapping context + thrust / strafe / climb / roll / look / stabilize / interact actions

▸ HUD widgets for the flight states (including space-flight and anchored) + a prompt widget

▸ Demo level with the ship ready to board and fly

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PERFECT FOR

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Space and sci-fi games, planetary exploration, landers and shuttles, co-op and multiplayer games with player-flyable ships, on-foot-plus-ship gameplay, and any project that needs an atmosphere-to-space spacecraft with a built-in pilot-and-passenger loop - without writing 6DOF flight, space cruise, landing logic, engine vectoring, gear, or the multiplayer replication from scratch.

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NOTES

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▸ Assign your own ship static mesh, or use the included lander (already set up on BP_Starship).

▸ Uses Enhanced Input and Niagara (both bundled with UE5).

▸ An optional reflection bridge connects to an external directional-gravity provider with no compile-time dependency.

▸ Multiplayer-ready: client-authoritative flight with server-authoritative possession and passengers; works on listen and dedicated servers.
▸ Supports Unreal Engine 5.4 - 5.8.