End of Day 2 now and I don't feel I've made as much progress. Still unsure my idea is going to be fun and how to extend the shadows theme, which I think is putting me off. I'm wondering if I can get away with ship upgrades for the evolution theme to give the player more to do and aim for. Or more difficult, include a space monster to fight who is gathering the resources himself so that he can evolve. Not sure I can model a space monster though, or get AI working for it.

I have made some progress though, I have added some collectible crates for salvage, and implemented them being tractor beamed to thew ship. No
special effects yet though. I did spend some time on graphics and added an environment map, shader for the sun and some glow/bloom.
New Sun

Asteroids, Environment and Crates

Looks better in motion!

I also added in some UI text functionality to show the hull temperature as seen above but never got around to the collisions and death mechanics.

Tomorrow, I will definitely look at death mechanics! I'm thinking of using library for the physics instead of my own not sure if it will be quicker to setup though.