Marek Rosa - dev blog

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Announcing Space Engineers on PlayStation

SUMMARY:

Space Engineers on PlayStation in 2023
All you need to know about

Crossplay
Dedicated servers
MOD support
PCU limits

Add to your Wishlist

Greetings, Engineers!

Space Engineers, developed on PC, has sold more than 4 million copies and reached a worldwide audience. Now, almost two years after the successful release of Space Engineers on Xbox we are looking forward to another release. We want every engineer to be able to play on their platform of choice.

So…

...Space Engineers game is coming to PlayStation!

Keen Software House will be joining forces with Sony to deliver Space Engineers to PlayStation in 2023.

We feel very fortunate to have this opportunity to share our “Need to Create” and cannot wait to see what new creations are realized with this release.

Roadmap

As of today, Space Engineers are available to wishlist on PlayStation store.

Early next year, we will start the preorder and we will be releasing the Founder’s pack Beta, which will include the latest DLC package for free for all who pre-ordered. The Beta pack will be focusing on polishing and bug fixing the game before the final release.

Once we are happy with the status of the beta version, we will be releasing the final release.

PlayStation & Space Engineers

Of course, you very likely have many questions. We have compiled a list of some of the most anticipated topics and answers. While we cannot cover every topic or every possible inquiry, we wanted to cover the most common topics and feature requests.

Crossplay: Our PlayStation release of Space Engineers will launch with Crossplay enabled. PC, Xbox, and PlayStation players will be able to team up on day one!

Dedicated Servers: Yes, we will release with Epic Online Services (EOS) servers. These servers will be shared with Xbox and PC players. We are prepared to increase the pool of available public servers as we adjust for increased traffic.

In-game scripting (Programmable Block): Scripting will not be available in single player or locally hosted multiplayer. This is simply a limitation of all the console platforms. Scripting will be available on dedicated servers.

Mod support: Yes, mods will be fully supported with some restrictions. No client side scripting will be available.

Mods and Blueprints: Yes, of course, Mod.io.

PCU limits: PCU limits and restrictions will be identical to those seen on other platforms. These parameters will be consistent in single player as well as multiplayer, and in normal play as well as experimental play mode.

PlayStation 4 - 100k, 200k (Experimental)
PlayStation 4 Pro - 100k, 200k (Experimental)
PlayStation 5 - 100k, 500k (Experimental)

What’s inside the PlayStation version?

We strived to bring all of the key features from the PC version to the PlayStation.

However, these are the main differences:

Multi-player

PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro will support 4 player multiplayer (lobby)
PlayStation 5 will support 8 player multiplayer (lobby)
Dedicated servers will be available, on launch, through Nitrado.

Graphics

PlayStation 5 has a higher graphic setting (higher textures, better models, improved post processing) than PlayStation 4 Pro, which has higher settings than PlayStation 4.

Features

Some large asteroids are not available
Unknown signals are not supported
No community translations
All Armors cost 2 PCUs

Scenarios

Third party scenarios are not supported
All the first party scenarios are supported (First Jump, Learning to Survive, Never Surrender etc.), except for Lost Colony.

We are committed to bring all the future updates and DLCs to the PlayStation version of Space Engineer simultaneously with other platforms.

Performance Notes

Performance depends on the complexity of your world and which type of PlayStation you are playing on. Simple worlds run smoothly on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro while even better performance and a higher level of complexity (on worlds) is possible on the PlayStation 5.

Don't see the topic or answer you are looking for? We hope to address every topic as development continues. Expect regular updates on our progress as we continue development of Space Engineers for PlayStation.

Wishlist

Excited about Space Engineers coming to PlayStation? Wishlist your copy of Space Engineers today and receive notifications about the start date of PRE-ORDERS!

Pre-Orders will receive exclusive access to the Closed Beta as well as the latest DLC pack!

Wishlist link: https://store.playstation.com/concept/10002535

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will the PlayStation version be different from the PC version?
A: Yes, we expect this release to stay true to our vision of Space Engineers and include all of the core features we see on PC. Nevertheless, we had to reduce some complexity and quality settings to deliver the smooth performance on the PlayStation 4 hardware.

Q: Will the PlayStation version be different from the Xbox version?
A: No. Console ports are identical and performing very similarly to their generation counterparts (Xbox One = PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X = PlayStation 5).

Q: Will you release an Ultimate edition?
A: Yes, we plan to release an Ultimate Edition bundle in a similar way to XBOX.

Q: When will Space Engineers release on PlayStation?
A: Our tentative release date of the first half of 2023.

Q: What are the advantages of having Space Engineers on PlayStation?
A: We share Space Engineers with more players, the community grows, and more novel creations get created!

Follow our social media to get the latest news!

We are always impressed by the innovation of our modding community! We would like to thank the Space Engineers community for continuing to inspire us through their ideas, suggestions, and hard work.

Hiring

If you’re interested in working on awesome games like Space Engineers or our in-house game engine VRAGE3, and love solving unique challenges, we’d love to hear from you! Check out the open positions at Keen Software House and don’t forget to send us your English CV/resume and cover letter.

Remote collaboration is possible!

Our team is global.

Finding the best candidates to join Keen Software House means exploring every possible solution, including remote work. While we strive to provide team members with the best possible work-life balance here in Prague at our incredible Oranzerie offices, we understand that it is not always possible to transition, therefore we are very remote-friendly. Here’s a map of where our teammates live.

If you want to let me know your feedback, please get in touch via my personal email address marek.rosa@keenswh.com, or use our Keen Software House support site. I welcome all of the feedback we receive and we will use it to learn and provide better services to our players.

Thank you for reading this blog!

Best,
Marek Rosa
CEO, Creative Director, Founder at Keen Software House
CEO, CTO, Founder at GoodAI

For more news:
Space Engineers: www.SpaceEngineersGame.com
Keen Software House: www.keenswh.com
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
GoodAI: www.GoodAI.com
General AI Challenge: www.General-AI-Challenge.org

Personal bio:

Marek Rosa is the Founder and CEO of both GoodAI, a general artificial intelligence R&D company, and Keen Software House, an independent game development studio, best known for its best-seller Space Engineers (4 million copies sold).

Marek has been interested in game development and artificial intelligence since childhood. He started his career as a programmer but later transitioned to a leadership role. After the success of Keen Software House titles, Marek was able to personally fund GoodAI, to build human-level artificial intelligence.

GoodAI was founded in 2014, with a $10 Million investment from Marek. It now has over 30 research scientists, engineers, and consultants working across its divisions.
Currently, Marek is occupied with the development of Space Engineers, VRAGE3 engine, AI Game, and Memetic Badger.

Monday, June 6, 2022

Space Engineers Future News

SUMMARY:

News & Updates
Community Spotlight
Submit Community Guides
DLC Price Change
Grid AI - upcoming major update

Hello, Engineers!

We hope you are enjoying the “Most Wanted” update, news about VRAGE3 (more “Tech Talks” are on the way!), and the new “Community Edition” of Medieval Engineers. As you can see, we have been busy, and this is only the beginning.

Check my last blog post if you would like to get up to speed!

We have been working on a number of important updates and changes, and continued our focus building on our partnership with the community. Exciting news is on the horizon and we wanted to offer a preview of what's next as well as an update on important changes coming to the Steam Store and elsewhere.

News & Updates

Our latest release “Most Wanted” was community inspired and released as a free update.

All our releases are heavily inspired by you, our community. We are reviewing your feedback and from it, we prepare updates based on your requests.

Our next release is no exception. Grid AI has been often requested, so, our current focus is a full release centered entirely around this concept. You can find more info about the upcoming release below.

There is other news we’d like to share with you. We’re very happy with the Community Spotlights where we promote your creations and spread the word about your masterpieces. Additionally, we have issued a call for Community Guides & Resources!

With that, we would like to thank you for all of the suggestions, bug reports, and feedback submitted to our support portal.

Community Spotlight

We have been reviewing your amazing creations and spotlighting our favorites.

We are focused on mods and blueprints that catch our eye and have the potential to make your time in Space Engineers unique or add interest. We are fans, as well as developers, and love to see creations that are jaw-dropping, pretty, or simply hilarious.

Community Guides

Modding & Scripting can be hard and it's sometimes easy to feel discouraged. Even the most ardent modder or scripter can run into challenges when completing a design.

We want to help ensure that you have the resources you need and remove any barriers for aspiring creators!

Our community has created an extensive collection of resources, however, many resources can be a challenge to find, or it can be hard to know which one to use, or even what is up-to-date. Our goal is to gather and curate these resources, all in one place, and make it easier to find and use these tools, guides, and resources.

What are we looking for? Scripting, Modding, Building, Gameplay, or anything Space Engineers focused. We would love to help spread the word and share your guide, tool, tutorial, or resource with the rest of the community.

You can make submissions through our Community email address.

Resource Submission: Community@Keenswh.com

DLC Price change

Starting on July 7th, 2022 prices will receive their first increase in 3 years.

DLC content will have its price adjusted to $4.99 USD from $3.99 USD (or your regional equivalent).

This price change will NOT impact the base game price.

Before we make this price adjustment we would like to provide every Space Engineer one final opportunity to collect any DLC they may be missing. Starting today (June 6th), with the release of this blog post, we will be running the “Last Chance” sale.

In order to guarantee that as many Space Engineers as possible are able to take advantage of our sale and get caught up on DLC, this sale will last the entire month (June 6th - July 7th, 2022). So, from June 6th until July 7th, all DLCs will be on sale for a 30% discount for PC.

Unfortunately, we are unable to have the month-long sale on XBOX. The XBOX players will have the opportunity to get the DLCs at the discounted price from June 21st to June 27th.

Grid AI

That’s right. It's coming.
The time to “build your friends” is on the horizon. Coming later this year we will explore a future full of automated and animated allies and enemies. Our end goal for this Major update is to completely change what a “grid” is and redefine the “enemy” and “AI” experience.
We are currently in the process of creating tools that will empower your creativity like never before. We believe this may be one of the most impactful updates we have ever released and we cannot wait to see the workshop come ALIVE with new creations.
This update will not only reshape many major elements of gameplay, but it will also serve as a basis for continued exploration of the “NPC” concept. These powerful new mechanics will create new engineering opportunities and serve as a foundation for future upgrades and improvements to the existing PvE content.
It is still early in development, so stay tuned for more information as we get closer to release!

What’s next?

We have a roadmap for the continued development of Space Engineers for both PC and Xbox platforms, so I’m sure there is a lot you can look forward to.

Our “Major” releases for PC & Xbox are aligned so that all Engineers get all content, on the same day, regardless of platform. We will also continue our focus on further performance improvements and optimizations on both platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I provide feedback?
A: Please contact us with your bugs, and feedback here: https://support.keenswh.com

Q: Why are you increasing the DLC prices?
A: This is the first price increase of Space Engineers DLCs in the last three years. We are not increasing the price of the Space Engineers base game, but we feel that with continuous support of the game, we need to adjust the DLC prices simply because each new DLC is bigger than the previous one.
We are continuously adding new content to our existing DLC, so these DLC owners will receive new content, for free.

Follow our social media to get the latest news!

We are always impressed by the innovation of our modding community! We would like to thank the Space Engineers community for continuing to inspire us through their ideas, suggestions, and hard work.

Hiring

If you’re interested in working on awesome games like Space Engineers, we’d love to hear from you!
Check out the open positions at Keen Software House and don’t forget to send us your English CV/resume and cover letter.

Remote collaboration is possible!

Our team is global.

Finding the best candidates to join Keen Software House means exploring every possible solution, including remote work. While we strive to provide team members with the best possible work-life balance here in Prague at our incredible Oranzerie offices, we understand that it is not always possible to transition, therefore we are very remote friendly. Here’s a map of where our teammates live.

Thank you for reading this blog!

Best,
Marek Rosa
CEO, Creative Director, Founder at Keen Software House
CEO, CTO, Founder at GoodAI

For more news:
Space Engineers: www.SpaceEngineersGame.com
Keen Software House: www.keenswh.com
Vrage Engine: www.keenswh.com/vrage/
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
GoodAI: www.GoodAI.com
General AI Challenge: www.General-AI-Challenge.org

Personal bio:
Marek Rosa is the CEO and CTO of GoodAI, a general artificial intelligence R&D company, and the CEO and founder of Keen Software House, an independent game development studio best known for its best-seller Space Engineers (4 million copies sold). Both companies are based in Prague, Czech Republic.

Marek has been interested in artificial intelligence since childhood. He started his career as a programmer but later transitioned to a leadership role. After the success of the Keen Software House titles, Marek was able to personally fund GoodAI, his new general AI research company building human-level artificial intelligence.

GoodAI was founded in January 2014, with a $10 Million investment from Marek, it now has over 30 research scientists, engineers, and consultants working across its divisions.

At this time, Marek is developing Space Engineers, as well as leading daily research and development on recursive self-improvement based general AI architecture - Badger.

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Space Engineers: Most Wanted

SUMMARY:

Free, Community inspired update
New blocks: Plushie Engineer, Ladder Shaft, Conveyor Convertor, and more!
Updated DLC Blocks (free): Railing Variants, Neon Tube variants, and Grated catwalk variants, and more!
New skins: Weldless Armor Skin, Corrugated Armor Skin
Quality of Life & Bug Fixes: New Camera Skin, Targeting corrects for gravity, and of course a host of bug fixes.
Major update & “Free-LC”

Hello, Engineers!

Our newest release is here! YOU, our community, are the inspiration for this release. We have reviewed your feedback and from it, created a collection of new additions based on your requests.

We would like to start by thanking you for all of the suggestions, bug reports, and feedback submitted to our support portal. Over the past year (2022) You have helped us to identify and resolve over 345 bugs and crashes, and given us insight into your vision for the future of Space Engineers. We hope this update contains some of the many items we have seen on wishlists and the support portal. This update contains several highly requested blocks, fixes, and improvements.

While all Major updates are free, many include a premium (DLC) component. This “Community” update is completely free and contains no DLC. On top of this it includes new content for existing DLCs (this means an additional free update for everyone who owns these DLC’s). Our focus in the Community update is on blocks the community may consider missing, and on important fixes across Space Engineers.

This update will be just that, an update that focuses solely on community requested content.

We will not be releasing any premium content or DLC with this update.

Our focus in this update was to identify community requested content. Typically, with a major update that also includes premium content, we have a theme or vision and create cosmetics that help realize that vision. This time, the theme, the vision, was simply to review requests and answer as many as possible!

While we certainly didn't get to every community request (there are many) we focused on realizing as many as possible from the most commonly requested items.

New blocks added to the base game:

New Armor shapes (S + L grid, Light + Heavy, 10 shapes, 40 blocks total)
T Junction Conveyor (S + L grid, 2 blocks total)
Round Windows (S + L grid, 4 shapes, 16 blocks total)
Small advanced rotor (S grid, 1 block)
Conveyor Converter (S grid, 1 block)
Half Cover Wall Mirror (L grid, 1 block)
Plushie Engineer (S grid, 1 block)
Ladder Shaft (L grid, 1 block)
Reinforced Conveyors (S + L grid, 3 shapes, 6 blocks total)

New Armor Skins added to the base game:

Weldless Armor Skin
Corrugated Metal Armor Skin

We are also adding the new, and much requested Camera Overlay, as well as some quality of life changes. Lead Indicator is now working in Gravity, we have tweaked explosion values for Explosive Ammo and added center variable for block mirroring.

FREE content is also being added to some of the Existing DLC’s:

Inverted Corner Desks (L grid, 2 blocks total)

Grated Catwalk Variants (L grid, 4 blocks total)
Railing Variants (L grid, 3 blocks total)

Neon Tubes (L grid got 3 new shapes, S grid got 8 new shapes, 11 blocks total)

Diagonal Window Wall (L grid, 2 blocks total)

Industrial conveyor T-junction

Diagonal Bridge Window Inverted (L grid, 1 block)

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can we expect more mechanical and QOL changes, not just cosmetics?
A: Yes. We hear you and we have big changes, updates, and additions planned for 2022 and beyond.

Q: How do I provide feedback?
A: Please contact us with your bugs, and feedback here: https://support.keenswh.com

Q: Do you plan to release another DLC in the future?
A: DLCs give us the opportunity to explore new ideas and provide more unique content the community wants. We plan to release more thematic-based DLCs, those releases will be combined with free content, updates and fixes.

Q: Can we expect some special promotions in the future?
A: We are always looking at new ways to bring Space Engineers to a wider audience. Special promotions are good opportunities for this. We have a number of exciting promotions planned for the future, which include both game and DLC content!

Recent news

A lot has happened over the last few months and would like to share some highlights, in case you missed it. From our game changing Warfare 2 update to our very first VRAGE Tech Talk, and Community Driven ME development, we have a lot going on!

Warfare 2: “Broadside”
The Warfare 2 update released in February and has been one of our most successful releases to date. The community immediately outfitted builds, baddies, and bases with the newest weaponry! From artillery to assault cannons, War will never be the same.

Developer Tech Talk “Volumetric Water”
Our Engine Team has been busy with a host of research projects, developing the next generation of our VRAGE engine, VRAGE 3. Our first Developer Tech Talk covers our current progress researching the realistic simulation of water across a broad range of scenarios, from a droplet, to an ocean.

Medieval Engineers: Community Edition
Medieval Engineers has returned! In partnership with our community, we have created a framework for continued, community-led, development. We are committed to supporting our volunteers and to providing them freedom to pursue their passion for Medieval Engineers in this new “Community Edition”. We feel very fortunate to be able to work so closely with our community.

Follow our social media to get the latest news!

We are always impressed by the innovation of our modding community! We would like to thank the Space Engineers community for continuing to inspire us through their ideas, suggestions, and hard work.

Hiring

Remote collaboration is possible!

Thank you for reading this blog!

Best,
Marek Rosa
CEO, Creative Director, Founder at Keen Software House
CEO, CTO, Founder at GoodAI

GoodAI was founded in January 2014, with a $10 Million investment from Marek, it now has over 30 research scientists, engineers, and consultants working across its divisions.

At this time, Marek is developing Space Engineers, as well as leading daily research and development on recursive self-improvement based general AI architecture - Badger.