Thursday, March 13, 2014

Space Engineers - “Survival mode” update

Introduction


Today’s “survival mode” update is the biggest since Space Engineers launched on Early Access. Even the multi-player update didn’t bring so many changes.

We chose to name it “survival mode” and not “realistic mode” as we originally planned. Everyone seems to have a good understanding of “survival games” these days - it’s a common term for describing a gameplay mode where players have to harvest and process resources, craft and build things and watch their stats to survive.

Survival mode comes in three variants:
  • Survival (default) – realistic inventory capacity and processing  times
  • Survival x3 – inventory capacity and assembler efficiency and speed increased by a factor of 3
  • Survival x10 – same as “x3” but only multiplied by 10

Differences between creative mode and survival mode:
  • In survival mode, you can get hurt and die, e.g. falling from a height, high-velocity collisions, depleted energy in your space suit, explosions, etc.
  • If you die, you respawn in your nearest medical room
  • If you don’t have a medical room, then you respawn in a rescue ship at a distant location in the sector and you will respawn as a new player (this will get important in later stages of the development, once ownership of things becomes useful)
  • Energy in your space suit depletes as you use it - life support, jetpack, welding, grinding, etc.
  • Medical rooms aren’t just for respawning – you can use them to recharge suit energy and fix your health
  • Nuclear reactors need uranium ingots to produce energy. You can save energy (and thus uranium) by turning off energy consumers such as thrusters, lights, refinery, assembler, gravity generator, etc.
  • Building is now a complex activity, here’s how the full cycle works:
    • Gather ore by drilling and harvesting asteroids (iron ore is the most used material in block components)
    • Use refinery to refine ore to ingots (e.g. iron ore to iron ingot)
    • Transfer ingots to assembler and create block components (e.g. steel plate)
    • Put components to your backpack (inventory), move to a construction site and place the first stage of a block. Then use welder to continue all development stages - you need block components to finish it
    • Deconstruct blocks by using grinder - removed components are transferred to your backpack (inventory)
    • Repair blocks by removing damaged components and installing undamaged components
    • If you want to see the inner structure of a block -> get welder or grinder in your hand and aim at that block from a close distance. You will notice an overlay screen that shows all you can know about a block: integrity, components installed, etc.
  • Survival mode has copy-paste disabled
  • If you get into an unsolvable situation (e.g. you are stuck inside a ship with no tools to get you out of there) and you don’t want to wait for a slow death –> just press Backspace and commit a suicide

Block integrity – this parameter defines the level of completeness or damage of a block

Blocks are built from layers of components - each component is installed on top of the previous component.

When building a block (using welder) – you are actually adding components to block and welding them together - which increases block’s integrity as well.

When deconstructing a block (using grinder) – you are actually separating components, layer by layer, and putting them to your backpack, therefore the integrity decreases (it can get decreased by damage as well, e.g. explosions, collisions, etc.) Please note that non-armor blocks don’t display damage yet – if they get zero integrity they just disappear.

When block integrity drops under a certain level (each type of block has a different threshold), the block will stop functioning. Blocks that have a computer component usually stop working once integrity gets below the computer layer. Another example is reactor - it wouldn’t do its reactor-job if it had only one steel plate installed and 5% integrity.

Damaged components are turned to scrap metal, which can be recycled in the refinery to iron ingots. Last-moment change: please note that this will be added in a later update, we didn’t make it for the first survival update.

Last-moment change: block repairs may not be very intuitive in this first version of survival – if you don’t see a block damaged or deformed and only its internal parameter “Integrity” is bellow 100%, you may easily miss it. We are working on this.

There’s a limit on how many freely floating objects are allowed in the world (ingots, components, ore, etc.). When the limit is reached, the game will erase the “oldest object” - like a FIFO buffer. I understand that some of you will not like this but every object requires physics calculations and if we allow infinite numbers, your computers wouldn’t be able to simulate the game. On the bright side, there’s a new parameter in the “Custom World” screen where you can set this limit up to 1024. This limit doesn’t apply to asteroids and grids (ships and stations). Also, items in your inventory and cargo containers won’t get removed as well.

Thrusters now inflict damage on objects (your days of thrusters installed one behind another are over!). Though, the effective distance of damage is limited, so you can still put thrusters inside interiors – if you leave some empty space in the discharge area. Last-moment change: please note that this will be added in a later update, we didn’t make it for the first survival update.

Hand drill has a low-distance ore detector which is activated every time you use it. Medium-distance ore detector is available on your small ship (as a distinct block type) and long-distance detector on large ships.

The “Toolbar Config” screen now shows what components are required to build each type of block.

We have modified the world generator code to produce higher amounts of iron ore – it’s more realistic and also block components are made mostly from iron.

Inserting a new object into the world has been reworked as well. For example now when you click on “New Small Ship”, the game will display a landing gear positioned in front of you (it moves as you move). If you move it close to some other surface, magnets will snap and the landing gear will get attached. This small change should improve the process of building new ships – they will appear more solid and will not fly away in case you suddenly bump to them.

There’s no oxygen, food or water. Your engineer has only two stats: energy and health. We have chosen this direction because we believe that Space Engineers should be about the things you create and not about your body functions.

I enjoy playing the survival mode very much – the building process feels natural and rewarding. Sounds are not final yet, but they already emphasize the process. I hope you will like it too.

Development


The development of survival mode started at the end of summer 2013 (you can see the welder in our first Space Engineers trailer). We kept working on it alongside with other features such as multi-player and all those weekly updates.

We have approx. 300 new 3D models because each block needs 2 to 7 models for its construction phases, there are small and large blocks and we needed floating objects such as components, ingots, ore, etc.

We produced some new animations as well: welding, grinding, etc.

We decided to finish multi-player first and only then do the finishing touches on survival, mostly because multi-player is a feature that spans throughout the whole source code, every little thing has to be considered in terms of network synchronization, packet updates and authority.

The development of survival mode will continue and it’s the area where we will focus our attention in the upcoming weeks. We need to polish it, make it more intuitive and easier to use. We wanted to release it rather sooner than later, so we can play-test and balance it together with you. Please let us know what you think - what parts are annoying and boring, what parts are hard to understand and last but not least: what do you enjoy.

Once this first phase of survival mode is completed, we will work on dedicated server support, factions (very needed for survival multi-player!), wireless communications, etc.

You can find all our previous updates at http://forums.keenswh.com/?forum=326211

Survival Tutorial



Screenshots

Internal structure of a block: integrity and layers with components

Deconstructing a block with grinder

Adding a new block

Constructing a new block with welder (block components are retrieved from your backpack)

Constructing a new block with welder (block components are retrieved from your backpack)

Steel plate block components in your backpack (inventory)

Drilling

Recharge suit energy and fix your health in medical room

You are receiving damage

Survival mode selection in “custom world” screen

Inserting a new object to the world - small ship landing gear

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Please keep posting your feedback and suggestions to our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers or our forum at http://forums.keenswh.com/?forum=313735

We can’t reply to every comment, but I can assure you that we try to read as much as possible and your comments will influence how Space Engineers develops.

Thanks!
Marek Rosa
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Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers or follow us on
Twitter https://twitter.com/SpaceEngineersG and you will be notified on all updates.

Warning: Space Engineers is still in development. Everything in the game is subject to change.

124 comments:

  1. So I suppose the big question is what about conveyors? It would seem that they would remove a lot of the mundane parts of inventory management as your creations increase in complexity? Can we get some news about what is planned for them and a hyper-qualified ETA? Just curious if we should conveyor everything up sooner than later and how larger ships might behave with multiple reactors and storage units.

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    1. We added conveyor blocks very early in the development, because wanted to let you build your ships with that option already. Once we implement conveyor transportation, you will have your ships ready. But there's no ETA on conveyors yet. Sorry.

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    2. What about Large Ship weapons? The game isn't necessarily to it's full potential until we get the large ship guns activated.

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    3. We need to implement system for factions first, otherwise large weapons (turrets) wouldn't know who is friend and who is enemy :)

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    4. Storage containers are now glitched. I produced a large amount of building materials and placed them a small container I built next to my assembler. All the materials are now gone. =(

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    5. I think he is talking big cannons and stuff. you see a lot of turrets on user creations that used to have missile behind missile for massive damage, I think we need cannons to use there

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    6. You don't have plans to implement oxygen? Food and water, fair enough. But to be honest, oxygen would be a good idea and it would add a whole load of new scenarios. Here's how I think oxygen could work: If you increase the amount of suit energy depleted by simply staying alive (by, for example, 3x), and then make it so if you're within an oxygenated environment you can disable your suit's air-recycling systems, your suit will consume 1/3 of the energy it usually consumes because it doesn't have to recycle oxygen, but still has to keep you warm (unless you add some kind of central-heating for ships but maybe that's a bit too in-depth). If you take a rocket hit to your hull and parts of your ship are depressurised, not only would your suit be consuming 3x the amount of energy it usually is keeping you alive, but you could run the risk of players, floating objects and maybe even small ships (that aren't locked down) being sucked out into the vacuum of space. I (personally) would like to see this in-game and it would add some new layers of gameplay and thought into how you're designing your ship.

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    7. Why not make it possible to control the turrets manually using the little button that is on them. Won't work if there is just 1 player on the ship but it is a start. It would be nice if they would be automatic unless a player controls it later on.

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    8. and what about pipes for conveyors and npcs or mobs?

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    9. Ohh and maybe animations for engines?

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    10. I purchased Space Engineers several months ago and enjoyed it a lot. I made lots of items and the game was fun. I stopped playing it the past 2-3 months due to being busy and I came back to Survival mode. Well. All I can say is WOW. This is a game changer! I am really enjoying this mode a great deal more.

      I wanted you devs to know this is awesome! I know lots will ask what about this or that, but I am saying, home run. Already talked a few people into purchasing. You get servers we can run outside of the came that we can persist and this will be right up there with games like Minecraft.

      Great job!

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    11. I would suggest having oxygen implemented as well - it would allow for players to create life-support systems on board their ships or space stations, adding a whole new layer of depth to the game. I agree with all the reasons MBKill3rCat stated in his post about it. :)

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    12. With regards to conveyors, will they--for lack of a better word--"suck up" nearby debris? For example, will we be able to build large structures with gravity generators to funnel the stray debris from mining drills/ships into a conveyor system automatically, or will we still have to physically pick up the rocks and transfer them to the containers?

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    13. first of all i played a lot of little big planet 1 and 2 (especially 2) ever since beta.
      i made lots of complex in game menu screens and controllable crafts and programs with logic gates and so forth and i know some out there could care less but anyway my point is...

      there is something i would really love to suggest if not all ready.

      i built a large ship, it had a list a mile long with things i can turn on and off.
      to turn a room full of lights on/off or operate different sets of motors and other things as groups i had to scroll down the list and manually turn on and off things and when you have a ship with 600+ lights and find a room of them and label and turn on or off each and every one of them is tremendously tedious and time consuming. i try to increase the range of them and narrow down how many i have but its still a pain. also once the large ship guns are working my biggest fears are that if you have say 30 large ship guns that span all around your ship. to try and manage the front back side or other side could also be a pain and (provided they are made as auto targeting or even manual targeting) to hope that a turret wont fire in on it self at parts of your own vessel because it detects targets on the opposite side.

      i have a potential idea that may solve most if not all those possible issues that other players might be facing....

      That the control panel have a feature that lets you add extra tabs that you can label with there own on/off switch so that you can add or remove 1 or more controllable options into one tab so that when you activate the tabs on/off function that every thing in that tab will turn on or off with one single click of one single button. or even make it possible to have 2 individual tabs be dropped into a whole new one.

      for example you have a large ship room with 20 lights 1 reactor 2 motors that was made to operate a big manually made door and a big landing gear that was holding the big door shut. you go over to a control panel and click on a tab that had a label that read "Room 1B" and you click on... what will happen is... the reactor turns on, all the lights in that room turns on, both motors turn on and open the big door and the landing gear will release and let your small ship in that room go free. and suddenly the thousands of players will start to fall in love with the control panel and the wonderful developers that made it all possible!

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  2. I have a world that i work on, and has pretty much all my stuff. Can I use the asteroid slider on an already created world? It needs more space rocks.

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  3. Engines behind Engines... I hate and love it at the same time. At the first time, it just felt unnatural and ofcourse its not logical at all. But on the other hand, Large ships will be impossible to controll whithout massive broad engine sections on the side of the ship. I would suggest that engines behind engines would just add together to a bigger engine that has more power and needs more energy.

    Oh and by the way, i love survival. Even though its rather complex, its really amazing and almost doubles the value of the game for me. Well done.

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    Replies
    1. Or just bigger engine components... A realistic space craft is unlikely to use such tiny engines en masse anyway. Why not create significantly larger engine blocks for massive ships - which could involve smaller engines as components?

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    2. Anyone who can't wait for bigger engines then look no further, here is an engine created by a very talented modder. Although I think it may only work in creative. It's 5x5x20 large blocks! It is a power beast so you only need a couple, this is better for FPS aswell cause you don't have to use 20 odd large thrusters to get same result. But you do need a lot of power to run this, something like 5 large reactors to run 2! Two of them with 5 big reactors speed up a 4,500,000kg ship to 105 m\s in 11 secs. Check it out: http://forums.keenswh.com/post/darth-biomechs-rarely-updating-not-so-rarely-after-all-modeling-thread-6697919?&trail=120

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    3. There needs to be some factor that limits the scale of large ship builds. The massive massive massive constructs with stacked engines will be completely ridiculous in multiplayer fighting. Either take your speed and acceleration penalty, or build smaller and smarter.

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    4. Perhaps they will add different engine types that use rarer ores...Long, narrow engines, solar sails, etc.

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  4. Marek are you planning some performance update soon? Because if you want to implement turrets, think you need to do some performance tweaking for very large ships :)

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  5. Love the update ! I might just be stupid but do I really have to mass-press my T button when I'm drilling with the hand drill to collect the "ores"? Because goddamn these little "rocks" just launch straight out from my tiny hole I've made in one of the asteroids. As for now I gotta hunt down ever little ore that launches away out of the asteroid :(

    Otherwise I would love to see some sort of danger in the game, I play alone because I lack friends interested in this type of game.

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    1. Here's a Hint: Try keeping a container on your collection ship (If you've gotten that far) that has all of the resources to make Three Items, as well as a Bit of Prepped Uranium. These Items would be "New Station" option after Pressing G, Small Reactor, and Gravity Generator.
      Then, whenever you find a Nice Mining Vein, Simply Set them up, and you now have Gravity! Mine Downwards an aaaall the little rocks will follow you.

      Good luck!

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    2. If you are starting on hard mode where you just have the rescue ship, I usually park my vehicle up against the entrance of the tunnel carefully so any ores/rocks that go flying get trapped by my vehicle. If I have spare uranium to waste I ramp up the power of my artificial gravity to make collecting ores easier.

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    3. Place your rescue ship above the ore deposit and use the gravity field of the rescue ship to aid in your mining. Be sure to increase the gravity field dimensions (most important being height.) I like to also add a downward facing spotlight and a landing gear for this purpose. If you want to get more fancy you could build a funnel and use gravity to pull the rocks toward your catch ship instead, though that may be dangerous and annoying having to deal with the collision damage.

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  6. Mark,

    In regard to large ship weapons. Do you plan on adding larger version of small guns and missles? I don't mind the turrets but cannons the size of the larger blocks would be so appreciated.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, we actually want to move some blocks from small ships to large ships and vice versa, e.g. small cockpit could work on large ship very well, etc.

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    2. double posted on accident. But yeah it would be cool to use blinders and stairs on a small dropship coming out of my hammer head the other day and I went "oh Poop" that aint going to happen. Also anychance of getting some of the models modders did like the halo displays and bunks?

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. plans to make ships programmable in some way? something a little lua console with simple commands that I can give to conveyors/storage/rotors/etc. it give me the room to creatively engineer away an assload of the tedium that manual mode is introducing

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  9. will there be other forms of power gathering. for example solar and batteries where instead of relying on uranium you could have a base with solar fields. In addition you would have power cells to recharge and those would power engins. I would love this because I plan on Minning so I don't plan on leaving far from my base. this would make realistic more real and a beautiful tool for outpost workers.

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  10. Out of curiosity, regarding large ships, will they have some form of heavy direct fire weapons at some point? Like large artillery-grade gun?

    Or are they truly limited to "lighter" weapons like those gatling turrets and missiles(though I assume the missiles might pack a bigger punch than small ships rockets, looking at them). That is, meant to be more dedicated lifeships/carriers meant to actually avoid combat in favor of letting lighter/nimbler ships handle such matters with weapons meant to be more of a self-defense thing?

    It's one of those "future of the game" things I was oft curious about ^^;

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  11. By any chance do you plan on adding solar cells as another form of power which would make many miners and factory worker's life much more convineint. I would understand it would take something like 20 or something equal to one small reactor or something.

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  12. From looking at the video, its going to be hard to make large ships I would suspect. Mainly because you have to do a lot of mental pre-planning and communication with friends before you start construction.

    What I believe would make things easier is to make some sort of 3d blueprint in space that people can see. Then people can start filling it with components.

    On top of that, some or way to colourise the blueprint layout. So friends can work on the ship primary systems and skeleton before they start filling in armour for protection and other aesthetic stuff.

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  13. Mark,

    Right now, to fix bent and broken blocks, you do not need any materials. Is this intended or will it change in the future. I just feel like you need additional materials to fix broken blocks. Also are there going to be damage states for the other "blocks" too? im just a little curious

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  14. Are you guys/gals planning to add a toggle option and grouping for objects?

    for example: group several rotors together and toggle the rotation direction (it would be useful for things like hangar bay doors, switching of all gravity generators at once etc)

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    Replies
    1. Thats one thing i am hoping for too, otherwise it would be very difficult to operate large ships with a lot of different abilitys!
      But i love your work so far ;-)
      keep going.

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  15. The biggest request I have for a possible mini hot fix update is the ability to adjust more then the normal 3x and 10x. Id like to just change inventory space and nothing else. I like the balance but till more tools are added in game to make life easier and slightly more automated it's really just annoying having to run back and forth 2 times just to make a heavy armour block.

    Just my 2 cents. That and I like to see something with the ship you spawn with changing. Wrote a while thread on that:
    http://forums.keenswh.com/post/i-dislike-the-survival-system-spawning-especially-in-multiplayer-i-have-a-few-ideas-and-6803789?pid=1281942902#post1281942902

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  16. Love the look of this update! Can't wait to take it for a spin.

    My only question really is this - I respect why you don't want players worrying about food, water etc... It's not what the game is about, it's about the creations.

    Oxygen though is a weird one - if you're not factoring in realistic Oxygen usage etc..., what's the point of building stations or enclosed spaces? Or having doors? Or any of that stuff.

    It's not a game breaker or anything, but I dunno, would have been nice to have oxygen involved at least.

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps the suit has an electric recycler that turns your exhaled CO2 into O2 so you can re-breathe it?

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    2. That makes the most sense. Ships already have CO2 scrubbers. It's only lociacal that the next step would be to miniaturize it for personal use; a sufficient supply of O2 would be pumped into the suit at the time of donning it, and the scrubbers would do the rest, stripping the carbon from your exhalation through electrolysis or some other means and reintroducing it into the suit.

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  17. Loving the look of this update! Can't wait to take it for a spin.

    My only question really is regarding player-specific survival elements. I respect why you don't want to involve food, water or anything like that. It's not what the game is about.

    Oxygen is a weird omission though, but it's just as essential as 'energy' to the concept of life amongst the stars, thus just as thematically relevant.

    Also, without oxygen, what's the point in building enclosed spaces? What's the point of having doors? I dunno, I just think it would have been nice to have Oxygen as a consideration, to justify that initial rush of building a base with which to operate from. Although depleting energy concerns also do that, I guess.

    It's not a huge deal, just something I found a bit odd, that's all. Love what you guys are doing!

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  18. I like the getting rid of thrusters behind thrusters, but I feel if you do that then you really need to boost the power output of them, otherwise everything would move too slow, and indeed needing\ even larger thrusters.

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  19. You made a wonderful work with the survival mode.
    Now I would suggest to start gathering some ideas about "what do we have to survive from".
    My opinion: natural phenomena, oxygen loss and in FEW cases pirate raids.

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    Replies
    1. Or even to add to that.. How about a comet or a cluster occasionally flying through which could damage components. If they hit astronauts they will be severely injured or die if they are not inside a base. We could probably have a warning alarm made that we would have to build to go off in such case scenario.

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    2. Other things could be solar flares that temporarily disables electricity and communications and so on.
      Personally I think oxygen should be introduced. I think it makes the game really space survival and oxygen is one thing you really need in space.
      One thing is sure. We need some serious threats out there. Without them survival mode is still good but pointless.

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    3. Surviving against space is pretty challenging as it is, let alone when you factor in other hostile players. I really don't understand this insatiable need that some people seem to feel for AI, it isn't always needed in a game!

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  20. Mining is improved and the ship doesn't rock back and forth anymore, so that's wonderful. However, refining now takes a ridiculously long time. I played for 8 hours today and not even the first bit of ore was finished into ingots. I thought refining time was fine as it was. Why did you make it so much longer? Please return refining time to something more like it was so I can actually use the stuff I mine.

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    Replies
    1. I must add that now in two days of playing the new update (for 8 hours on each day) my ore from the first day is finally made into ingots and gravel. Luckily for me, I only play single player on quick start mode or I would be floating in space with no resources and no energy. Hopefully the refining times will be readjusted as to make it possible to actually play survival mode and well, survive!

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  21. yesturday evening, i saw my entire weekend going up in smoke thanks to this update.
    it realy blows my mind,To see what this game has to offer.
    i myself am playing allot of games, Mostly so named "Tycoon" games.
    Those games gave me complete freedom, To build custom city,s or even funparks.but complete freedom to build anything anywhere, Does not mean you got the ammount of space / room for your end goal. So as you constandly have to take care about that, You end up never building your "Dream". But Space Engineers, Removed that "Mind Barrier" for me.
    i wont even tell myself to devote the rest of my life to Space Engineers, As i,m sure it cant be good for my health in general anyway. But i will surely play it much more,than any other games i have. so far i never posted an reply on this blog,but please allow me to atleast share my toughts to the entire team behind this game in an nutshell.....i personally whant to say thank you Keen Software House for the time,efford,and not to forget money,you guys have spend on developing this game. it means allot to many people all over the world, Not to mention the entire gaming community on itself as a whole. Not only does this game mean allot to us gamers now, But also in the near future ahead of us. there is no perfect world, Neither game. But we can atleast try to come closer to that idear, And this is exactly what this team is trying to do. And on an personal note, i thank you Marek Rosa For allowing me to have complete freedom of tought and widom to build my dream world. No other game than Space Engineers, Has had the strength to impress me this much. Its just mind blowing, To see what you can mean to others. Even people from my age ( Early 30,s ). i simply have no words, For what you have created for young and old to play with. Thanks allot for allowing me to dicover myself, And think beyond what i think can or cannot be done. It means i can improve myself, Online and offline. Continue doing what you do best......being Marek Rosa.
    again, thanks allot.

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  22. about the refinery how do i you refind uranium without power?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You don't. Refine uranium before you run out, an remember to switch things off!

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    2. What about empty scenario? You need refinery for uranium, but you need energy for refinery and uranium for energy...

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    3. "Empty World" is there for the creative mode

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  23. Has there been any more consideration on Pressurized sections of the stations or food production? You could use the pressurized hulls to produce food packs that provide health regen, and you could also use the pressurized portions of the stations, as places where you don't drain your suite power while moving around therein.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why would you comment on a blog you didn't read?

      "There’s no oxygen, food or water. Your engineer has only two stats: energy and health. We have chosen this direction because we believe that Space Engineers should be about the things you create and not about your body functions."

      Since suit power has nothing to do with oxygen, the need for pressurized interiors is non-existent.

      Delete
  24. Hi Mark
    we are really needed cables as Spacebase block case it's just annoying to build the reactor for open door or turn on light.
    and please fix the rocket launcher its explode my ship when i turn around quickly

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  25. After this update I have been unable to copy, paste, or delete ships in creative mode. I'd really like to see a fix for this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is possible that when you created a new world in Custom World screen you switched from Survival to Creative and "Enable copy/paste" check box remained in OFF state. You can change it now easily - just click Edit Settings on that world.

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  26. Today when me and my friends wanted to test out the survival mode together we encountered a problem. Only the person who's made the server were affected by the gravitation and were able to use the cargo's and reacters?

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  27. An idea for resources and gaming opportunities is having random comets. So players wouldn't be limited only by asteroids and they would have more opportunities. For example, two teams would fight for asteroid resources they build their bases and defend their posts or try to take over enemy controlled asteroids, and then a comet shows up in a distance. It enters the world with a high speed(higher than 104 cap) and slows down so it gets landable. Both teams rush up to land a small mining ship on it(it would be harder to do because it would move fast still). The comet would remain in that state for some time and start to accelerate back to its initial speed. players and their equipments have to leave the comet because the massive acceleration after the 104 cap would shred them into the pieces. And also add solar panel blocks, they would provide less energy compared to the reactors but it is necessary for long-lasting survival. because the materials in the world are limited and surely people will consume all the resources(most importantly Uranium for energy) so the worlds would not be sustainable.

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    Replies
    1. Nice idea.
      Solar energy should definitively be added.

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    2. I'm on board with the solar. The comet idea doesn't make any sense unless you could somehow construct a gravity well that would capture it and slow it down. Things don't just slow down in space for no reason.

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  28. Space Engineer's awesome SF.

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  29. Please,consider oxygen/food/water.They add immersion,variety,a reason to survive and a lot more things to build.Every space colonist needs those.I know is not what the game is all about,but imagine collecting ice from asteroids(water/oxygen),maintaining biodomes for nutrient paste,all the mechanics involving decompression(airlocks ftw),living quarters,etc.It would add so much for the game.Even if is just a basic machine that produces the food.More resources to micromanage are always good and we can have some natural green/blue in this hostile enviroment.A "home" instead of feeling like robots.
    Please,reconsider it.Love you guys.

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    Replies
    1. This is what I always wanted.The game is in alpha,I´m sure the devs will not let this chance pass since is like the basics of living in space.Most space movies/games have this little garden areas and looks awesome.

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  30. Totally agree. At least oxygen. Must not be something too complex; maybe just like suit health. When you're hungry or need oxygen you just go to a pod (previously filled with the needed resources ie food/oxygen) and just recharge.

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  31. This update has been excellent except for one thing: once one has fuel situation taken care of, and he has a small mining ship ready to access every kind of ore, there isn't much left to do. Of course he could start working on a huge mining ship, which harvests resources for even huger mining ship etc. but that's about it. And on a more important note, he has no real reason to do that. He doesn't have to go on an arms race against raiding pirates, then build a bunker against them, then build a dreadnought to destroy their base, and then build a throne out of their skulls for himself. Which is the exactly what i would love to do.

    Survival mode is still AWESOME, I couldn't have hoped for any better first update for it. Best birthday gift ever.

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  32. When you run out of uranium, you're screwed. A solar panel or other no fuel generator would be nice, very low energy output but you don't need to refuel it.

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  33. I think oxygen and pressurised enviroments are a must-have for me and my friends, or at the very least the later.

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  34. Get the big weapons working

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  35. This update is awesome!
    Also please ignore the people begging for food/oxygen/etc - the direction you are taking so far is excellent. :)

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    Replies
    1. Why?The game can have sandbox and proper survival for those who want to play that way.Is a no brainer that a high number of players want to have food/water/oxygen to feel alive and a reason to build and survive.The more option the better.Be a good sport.

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    2. I don't think food/water is needed, But I'd definately like Oxygen

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  36. The boring part is waiting for certain ores to refine. Silver, for example, takes forever and it is needed for many important components. As it is, I find myself spending a great deal of time letting the game run, smelting minerals, while I do other things away from the game, like watching Youtube videos on my tablet. It's a balance issue, I think, and I hope that it will be tweaked in further updates.

    Another issue is assembly queues. While the order of the smelting queue can be adjusted, the same cannot be said for the assembler. Adjusting the order must be done by clearing items, which is not ideal.

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  37. Maybe I found a bug ! Directed the video with subtitles on this topic.

    After patch -> After loading , the rotor turns 2 times faster !
    If you modify and save , and then load , the rotor all will be spinning 2 times faster than preserved !
    Also in the new patch reduced the number of components ! When I poured the walking robot on the workshop it worked!
    because there were two cargo on 30,000 bags and after the patch was just 30 sacks ! O_O

    Could crack the workshop and change my job? Or is it a bug of the new patch ? Download bug ? Or save bug ? slider or a bug ?

    Is it possible, in some manner , change the save file already attached to not fill a new one?
    Sadly it undermines the rating game! Sadly many admiring walking robot now can not run it in working order. And the sad fact that my competition in the workshop ends so weird !

    Could crack the workshop and change my job? Or is it a bug of the new patch ? Download bug ? Or save bug ? slider or a bug ?

    ( translated from Russian by Google )

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  38. Suggestions (just my personal opinions) in order of highest priority:

    1)Dedicated server support

    2)Working conveyors

    3)Larger maps or warping (I was thinking disabled warp gates that you have to fix and power, then you can use it to take you to a whole new randomly generated section.)

    4)Inventory enhancing item (Like a net bag that you push/drag around. 'Cuz you just can't carry enough in Realism x1)

    5)Weapons all functional.

    Low priority: AI (As optional enemy spawns and as a block for a ship that can take simple instructions like: A. Mine X ore within Y distance of beacon Z B. Patrol and attack non-faction within X range of beacon Y and other stuff like that.)

    Just my thoughts on what would make the game better fastest.

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  39. My biggest suggestion would be to add in small ship versions of the grinder and welder. Jaws of life for the grinder, Plasma cutter for the welder. Make them much faster than a regular welder or grinder. But make them use a lot of energy in the process. They would be amazing for building stations, large ships, and even salvaging ships.

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  40. Marek, the game is incredible and the survival update, very exciting.
    Many people are enjoying the multiplayer, but my thing is really the single player survival mode - if you add objectives, enemy AI and a storyline, this game will become even more awesome!
    For the moment, it seems that: lack of uranium = death - once the reactors stop running, there´s no way to recharge the suit and you die.
    A good way to overcome this would be adding solar pannels to stations only (the drawback would be a incredible high cost in resources and they would only power up health stations and refinery, not assemblers).
    As soon as enemy AI were implemented, solar panels could be a extra danger because they generate too much energy readings (after a certain level, your station could be easy to detect and more pirate attacks would follow, etc).

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    Replies
    1. Definitely NO to storylines and objectives. This is a sandbox creative game, putting any sort of story in it defeats the purpose, that's not the genre of SE.

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  41. The idea about power solar paneling has been mentioned but, I think that the reactors should act as a large power source for things like engines and weapons, and the solar panels be for the little things like lights, control seats, etc. In addition the solar panels could power the refineries at a low power so it could solve the, no power and no refined uranium conundrum.

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  42. Spent all day on this update. I really like the construction aspect. I do have a question, but let me precede it with a story. I modified the basic drill ship with a medium cargo bay so I could start a station on another large asteroid, out past the long blue ship in the Easy Start map. I decided to scavenge that ship for parts instead of waiting to mine and refine and assemble them all. En route to big blue, my small ship reactors ran out of uranium. I bailed out to see if I could pull some uranium ingots out of storage and pop them in the reactors, but I could not and my drill rig was smashed to bits. I even thought about grinding away one of the reactors and rebuilding it but it was no use. So...is there a way to refuel the small ship reactors?

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    1. Yes, there is. The sample small ships in Easy Start 1 are left over from creative mode. Their reactor doors face inward. You have to grind them up and refit them with the doors facing outward. Then you can refuel the reactors. Yes, I know I answered my own post as if it wasn't me... :)

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  43. I would strongly suggest a method of which ore can be more efficiently moved from drills to containers or refiners, manually moving full drills of iron (20k-30k kilograms) by hand is currently a painful affair.

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    1. This! Yes! Such suggestion!

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    2. How large will the "areas" be in the end? currently i really dont see large battles ever happening related to the size of the maps. How about connecting several maps and having to "warp" between them?

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  44. Hello there first things first this is a great addition to the game it Rules! Can't wait for factions and weapons to make full use of this.

    However I am curious if one is to fall out with his mates and run off into the void how is he / she to survive.

    As far as I am aware there is only one asteroid belt maybe two on Two platforms map. My question is.

    1. Will there be a spawn generator for asteroids similar to that of mine craft so community's of teams and players can be created to explore the void and create a empire.?

    2. Will there be planets integrated into the game?

    3. Will there be a warp drive/ slipstream to be added for long distance travel?

    If you could answer any the first would be nice as that is a big factor for me and a lot of my friends I have to the game.

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  45. I would really like there to be a npc enemy like pirates that fight you and compete.

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  46. I would strongly recommend oxygen or pressurized spaces in the future. Obviously since this game is still in alpha, I wouldn't expect it right now, but I would think that would be a very important component. A lot of players, including myself, would love to see this eventually. I'd have to agree with some posts I've seen here, I think it defeats the purpose of building enclosed space stations if you're stuck in an EVA suit anyway.

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    1. I totally Agree.

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    2. Wait for the modders !! I only think the devs should implement a abillity to consume things like food/water/drugs the rest should do the community/modders if they want. And there will be many people where want to have food/ water and space farms so i think in some time it will be happen by the community.

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  47. I would really like to see oxygen implemented in the game, it doesn't have to be right now, but I think it would add interesting angle on gameplay. Food and water, well... tough, but like you said, the game is not about bodily functions. Maybe if you could sneak water in somehow, maybe to use as a coolant or something...
    Otherwise I'm looking forward to this weekend - gonna test the hell out of survival, I was really looking forward to it. Good job!

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  48. Place me in the category for "No Oxygen"!

    Energy is fine. For those who want more 'realism' from a game with reactionless thrusters, think of it as energy for your CO2 scrubbers.

    An easy addition I would really like to see is keyboard shortcuts and more intuitive inventory control. Also the ability to control groups of items in the control panel would be nice (i.e. place all the gravity generators in a group so they can be all turned on or off at once).

    Long term I also think hostile NPCs/events would be a plus. Part of the drive in Minecraft is fortifying your position against those damn creepers.

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    Replies
    1. I think that more than realistic,it will be a fun mechanic to play with.Having airlocks and flushing cargo areas,making cannons with it and taking off the suit for walink inside.Lots of things to play with pressure too.Hope gets implemented some day(or at least someone make a game with those).
      Also vote for nutrient paste:p

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  49. Now , in your official survey , what does ''Single-multi' mean? :) Its just a mistake , i guess

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    Replies
    1. Yep, that's a mistake. We will fix it. Thanks Ondrej

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  50. I have so far only played single player "easy start" Creative Mode. Though I think NPCs would be nice to have, I am not so sure the first ones should be hostile. I would like to have "helpers" on the stations I built just to have some company. Later I suppose some hostile elements might be ok, but really I just like building stuff and a team of NPCs would be nice to have. Coupled with breathable ATMOSPHERE in my buildings so I could make living quarters for the NPCs along with some furniture and other amenities to spruce up the place. That would be good! Then maybe I could take off my spacesuit and take a shower! Need more ice for water and hydrogen/oxygen too, though I don't know where we would get some nitrogen from, but I'm sure it's pretty common in the universe.

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    Replies
    1. I don´t think they want to make a game like that.Is probably gona be semicreative game always.Lets hope for mods to add water and oxygen.

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  51. how about making a docking station to drop off materials faster? and an efficient way to connect materials from the drill into a cargo container that than can be directly dropped into a refinery?

    So far the survival is amazing but there's a lot of redundant tasks that make it tedious like transferring materials one by one, and specially the small player storage space, some pieces are way too heavy and take forever to move to build big pieces of equipment (i.e Comm components, medical components, Gravity generator components), and on top of that several are required...

    ALSO, there's the rescue pods...

    its nice and all but make only 1 per world to be available, otherwise the level just clutters with them every time someone joins the game (nothing wrong with extra resources but still, they take up space), and there's the asteroid count, when making huge ships, at some point one will run out of resources (specially Iron and Uranium, which are greatly needed), so I don't know if asteroids can be made to drift by, or random debris of leftover ships with materials could be found (just an idea though)



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  52. First. Amazing game. 180 hours played so far and still going strong. I've never seen or heard of a Dev team this in step and attuned to it's player community and I can't say in words how impressed and happy I am about this.

    My wants list are short, but this is the order.

    1. Conveyers! Manually moving ore in survival mode is a pain. I only pay on Realism x1 with auto heal off (hardcore all the way!)

    2. Multiple sectors. I want more then one asteroid field. I don't want jump gates or any type of instant transit. I can see a jump drive that sends a ship flying super fast for short bursts (say 800m/s for up to 60 seconds in a single direction, then you realign and jump again until you get to the next sector. (Hardcore ftw!). I mean, what's the point of building a ship with enough fuel for 30 days at full power if your known universe can be traveled in 2 minutes?

    3. Dedicated server support. For large scale world's and large multiplayer games you'll need this.

    4. Pressurized environments were your suit doesn't need to consume energy or consumes very little energy. Otherwise what's the point of enclosed spaces and doors beyond PvP security. And without sectors PvP is going to be pointless cause your all right next to each other.

    5.Factions and Large ship turrets/porting direct fire weapons to large ships and turret weapons to small ships.

    6. Linked engines. Much like when two armor blocks are placed in line together thrusters should merge into a single longer thruster with thrust equal to or close to the combined thrust of the connected thrusters if they were placed separately.

    Lastly I want to restate that I believe your Dev team is the absolute best I've ever seen and should be the example by which others are judged. Thank you so much for your hard work and close connection to your gaming community.

    P.S. Any chance of having a couple of "Play with the Devs events"?

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  53. For starters, I love *LOVE* the survival mode! It's even more fun when you bring your friends!
    But I have encountered a small issue. Upon a friend's arrival on any map type, they spawn on a small yellow ship. This was great at first, because we could deconstruct it or use it as a secondary mining platform. However, upon death or rejoining the game, they spawn in yet another yellow ship.

    At first it was ok, we decided we would eventually deconstruct it or let it drift off into space, but after a while the pile of ships began becoming lag-intensive.

    I understand the point of the ship is for multi-player survival and will come into play more when factions and ownership comes into play, but for those of us who do not want to play competitively, and just want to build with a few friends, this gets a bit annoying.

    I have a suggestion. Keep the ship re-spawn for those who want to play competitively, but add a "cooperative/competitive" button on world creation, so that only one player will spawn in the ship or whatever map type is generated, and the rest either spawn nearby or are drifting off into space. This way, those of us who wish to play cooperatively don't have a plethora of rescue pods floating around. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. it's not a solution, but a possible workaround perhaps. why not build a box of drills, so you just aim your rescue ship, give a slight nudge, and then eject, the ship goes into the box of drills and gets smashed to bits, then have a gravity generator shoot those bits off into space.

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    2. I BUILT ONE!!! HAAHAHAHA SO MUCH FUN!!! gravity doesn't really help the process it seems so i had to build a top area to smash the pieces that float up. overall i'm pleased with myself. just start the reactor when it's time to smashy smashy. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=248146547&searchtext=

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  54. There NEEDS! to be a way to automatically deposit all the ores in your drill to the refinery please add this soon (at this point in the game that me and my friends are in we need this or else it takes hours to move the ore)

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  55. What about food and water? I think that would be a main concern in space travel, especially in establishing colonies, or, in this case, mining stations. I personally would like to see such mechanics, but I'm not sure how you would pull off successfully

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  56. Great job!
    When survival came to space engineers, i had to buy it, i knew this game is for me now. I love to build my own space ships and space stations by mining, soldering, welding damn, i love this game now. Great job! Keep up the good work.

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  57. What are the release plans for a dedicated server build?

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  58. I love this game. My friends and family are all playing together in survival mode.
    But some of the younger members are getting bored, they need some sort of quests or missions in the game.
    So here are my first list of wishes for this great game:

    1. Make the conveyors work. Materials should be freely moveable between every storage interconnect with conveyors.
    2. Add proximity scanners and a map display on the terminals.
    3. I would like those scanners to detect some wrecked alien spacecraft/station, where one could gather improved technology: Fusion reactors, antimatter trusters, teleporters...
    4. Alien NPS's: Unintelligent all eating space beasts, metal/power eating minor creatures, intelligent violent race that wants to invade you sector. The latter could be triggered when you have build some special item/weapon. This could keep the younger players busy.
    5. A welding robot, where one can attach a robotic arm made of small blocks and motors, with a welder on the end. It should automatically weld anything placed, but not constructed, within range. Of course connected to storage with conveyors.
    6. A grinding robot/shredder: Line up a lot of grinders and push whatever item you want destroyed into it. Maybe it can already be done with drills, I'll have to try that ;-)
    7. Cameras!!! Place a camera and it should be available on a list in the terminal, select it to see its view.
    8. Wireless remote controls: a computer and an antenna is all that is needed. Add controlled units to the same list as the cameras. Maybe combine them into one item if that is easier.
    9. Achievements: Get awarded when you construct something, fly a ship, mine some ore, explores the universe.... This can keep the younger players interested.
    10. When communications have been constructed, get optional "missions" on a terminal page: Construct something or mine some minerals and deliver them on a cargo ship that will enter you sector and get them. Or bring materials to a wrecked ship somewhere in you sector.
    11. A "glue" block. A half block that is placed on two constructed parts, when moved close to each other they should "snap in" and can now be welded and the two parts are now one. Then we can build a real assembly line for production.

    I have many more ideas, but right now I see some people loosing interest because it simply is very time consuming to weld/grind vessels in survival mode.

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  59. ***There’s no oxygen, food or water. Your engineer has only two stats: energy and health. We have chosen this direction because we believe that Space Engineers should be about the things you create and not about your body functions ***

    First of all the game is lovely addicted and i enjoy over 2 days already. But it wasn't supposed the survival mode also have the needs of the body or at least be a option? Creating things is nice but if the game is only going on that direction, it may be boring after some time, as i like such challenge on needs (its space engineering afer all). Also, i hope the game in the future have the Meteor shower, and asteroid spawn point. If we're in space, then engineering planning is also necessary, in these bases--I see great potential in this game. Sorry if I'm being a little picky/harsh LOL, but I'm just giving ideas, this is just my way of talking, again lol.

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    Replies
    1. Speaking of needs and models, i forgot to add: I also found a wide range of models in short supply in the game (of course the game is in production yet, but anyway, the workshop steam only have ships and stations so far), in addition to medical equipment and other tools and... those containers where you put what you mined. lol need to play the game again.

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  60. Are we able to set a main medical ward, so that new players don't keep spawning in a rescue ship? Because 90% of them loves crashing in our station...

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  61. A deconstruction automation/robot would be nice, where are a built robot could be assigned to decontruct a targetted ship, and pool the scavenged ressources into a designated Storage box...

    Thanks for the updates!

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  62. Survival Bug Report: Seems in survival mode that the rotors cannot be chained. For example if you place 1 rotor on your ship, then attach a block to the rotor it works fine (and you can see the rotor in the cockpit display), but once you attach a second rotor to the block that is a child of the first rotor, the second rotor does not show up in the cockpit display (and hence cannot be enabled, or configured). This makes creating pistons or servos in survival almost impossible.

    Feature request: can we get hydrolic pistons? It would make creating mining rigs amazing - also - allowing drills for stations :)

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  63. I'm loving this game. just bought it the other day and i'm hooked. I started a crashed mother ship scenario yesterday morning and i've been at it nonstop. now i have this giant platform with a few cargo ships i've plundered after the long process of getting a barebones base set up with the parts i could scavange and whatnot. also spent like an hour trying to slow this one ship cuz it kept exploding.. i am now realizing this was probably a trap and i should have searched for a warhead. lol.

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  64. Hi! This game is a lot of fun.

    - I'd like to be able to tell my containers to "get" certain elements from the conveyor line, and ignore others. Also, it would be great to know visually that a container is connected to an assembler, reactor, collector, etc.

    - When working with rotors, I don't want to take time to do the math on torque and brake. Some auto settings would be nice so my creations don't shake themselves apart. Or maybe some kind of arc rail that can offer some stability. Last, can two rotors be made to connect as one fulcrum.

    - I'd like to put a drill on an angular block

    Keep up the good work!

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  65. Awesome game. Three major things I would like to see. To add another level to fun of survival.
    1.enclosed environments give infinite energy. (Ie. In my ship with the door closed, this would give a extra incentive to build a shipyard where you have it sealed from space and as long as you are enclosed you don't have to worry about energy loss.)
    2. A welding ship for the really big projects.
    3. The communications aray that allows contact with npc so you can trade for uranium or pirate. This could also make it where pirates can find you. And extra suspense to survival.

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  66. is there plans to randomize the asteroide spawn ... by that i mean increasing the number of asteroids generated to have more then 7 on 32 bit and 16 on 64 bit .... like some sort of endless world or limited but something like 300 asteroyds made in diffrent sectors other then flying around endlesly into notinghingness ..... i fint it would greatly benefit the player/players if it did a new sence to the game that would atract people not to only see 7 big asteroyds floating about .... but to actualy be able to build multiple stations and have there own comunity as well as area to build it in with out say stealing the other guys mine ..... in prespective say 16 players 2 factions with enof distance to hide there base from the other with out building it in empty space were resorce is ... non existing and have to travel grate distance just to get to the resorces .... if you understand what i mean

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  67. i only see bugs ..many bugs :( not playable at moment
    http://youtu.be/ct3HnwyhZ8U

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  68. "we believe that Space Engineers should be about the things you create and not about your body functions."

    Right, and that's exactly what adding in things like oxygen, hunger, and thirst does for you. It gives you something to build and a very good reason for doing so. If the ships do not actually do anything useful, we might as well all be sketching on paper or using cooperative CAD software, no? Nobody wants the game to turn into the sims, managing potty breaks and such. But we DO want to struggle against real and realistic obstacles. Engineering is about solving problems. If we have no problems, there is nothing to solve, and thus there is extremely limited potential for engineering.

    Thanks for the oxygen update, by the way. I am just hoping you get around to making it either mandatory or very very beneficial. Again, if there are no problems to solve, then there is no engineering going on... plenty of CAD software and creative cosmetic games out there. Let's have one we can actually enjoy, with creations with a significant purpose.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your point of view. This direction is something I missed in last 2 years (no sarcasm). I was so focusing on engineering that I missed the point of engineering - to solve problems!

      Thanks again

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  69. Hi Mark,
    I am trying to convince friends to join me in SE but the ideas of aliens really puts them off completely. Please provide option for Survival mode - no aliens. It would be nice to have passer-by traders, but perhaps naming them as "Chinese trading ship" or "German mining tanker...." etc. What would also be nice is a option for Survival in our solar system - Either in the asteroid belt or around in the rings of Saturn or similar - perhaps Oort cloud or Kypler belt. I think for the "people who like there feet on the ground, using more today realistic true life features might be an attraction to the product. I look for a Survival mode with creative abilities and no aliens or fighting.

    Thank you, Peter

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  70. hey man, I cannot seem to start when playing survival, when i drop on a planet, in my planitary drop pod, I cannot even amass the 40 computers to build an assembler.
    I cant salvage enough small tubes/pipes to build a small cargo container etc. i literlly have nothing else to do other than map the area around - noting whereores are.. what gives? even watching pros play on youtibe they 'cheat' by spawning additional drop pods. am i missing something??

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