It uses random points for stars, but tracking "the nearest few thousand stars" from Earth would be pretty simple.
I actually want to make a scientifically educational game. I want to make a game that demonstrates the concepts of relativity with accurate space travel at near light speed.
https://github.com/blevinstein/SRAsteroids
To see what it looks like, you can check out this youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hSCz7tRl1s
I wrote an engine that modeled object positions as "timelines", where position varies with time, and demonstrated the basic relativistic effects (length contraction, time dilation, and frequency shifting). Unfortunately, I never really figured out how to turn these into actual game mechanics.
It has a number of situations and warfare considerations regarding that.
Edit: I wonder what kind of horrible people would downvote the parent post.
I'm sure the top poster didn't mean to sound that way but it just sounds arrogant.
Arrow keys to steer and Q/W to roll. Spacebar applies thrust.