Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Review of 2019 & Plans for 2020


SUMMARY:
  • Space Engineers released from Early Access 
  • GoodAI published new Badger Architecture 
  • Oranžérie (The Orangery) - our new office building


People are interested in knowing what our progress was in 2019 and what our plans are for 2020. In this post you can learn about the highlights of last year and our plans for the future.


Highlights for GoodAI Research


  • Badger architecture - we published a paper describing the framework and principles of our AI architecture. Badger is the culmination of our efforts over the last five years. It’s the main direction in which we will be focusing our research in the following years. Badger is an agent made from multiple agents (aka experts) that share the same policy (neural network) but each has unique internal state. They communicate and coordinate during the inner-loop (lifetime of the agent), and the result of this is adaptation and task solving. The search for a better expert-policy is performed in the outer loop, and only there the policy is modified. The advantage we see in Badger is the ability to automate the search for properties such as meta-learning, learned credit assignment, recursive self-improvement (via communication), gradual learning, transfer learning, and build up to AGI.


  • In December our team visited NeurIPS and used this opportunity to discuss Badger with experts and to recruit new colleagues. What we took from this experience is that Badger is perceived as an original and promising direction, and people are looking forward to seeing more demonstrations and comparisons on standardized benchmarks. We also received some new research ideas. Overall, the trip was very successful:
    • we organized a meetup on Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) which was attended by about 100 people,
    • our Senior Research Scientist Jan Feyereisl joined Matthew Crosby, from The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and Hiroshi Yamakawa, from The Whole Brain Architecture Initiative (WBA), to show the results of the Animal-AI Olympics which tested AI-agents on common animal cognition tasks.
 

  • New researchers have already started to join our team. We aim to hire at least 10 new researchers in 2020 which would lead to scaling up our R&D efforts, allowing us to run more experiments on Badger architecture. If you are interested check out the open positions here.
  • New advisors joined our team (Thank you!) & More will join later:
    • Šimon Šicko and Lucia Šicková: Šimon and Lucia have been working with GoodAI since September. Simon is the CEO and Lucia is the CLO (Chief Learning Officer) of Pixel Federation, a successful and growing free-to-play gaming company from Bratislava, Slovakia. They are both experienced entrepreneurs, we have been friends for years and they have already given GoodAI valuable input. 


    • Petr Šrámek - Petr Šrámek has joined GoodAI as a Strategic Advisor. He is a serial entrepreneur with a track record in the AI world which includes founding the AI Startup Incubator.

  • GoodAI is proud to have become a supporter of Prg.AI. We are happy to be involved with this initiative which aims to develop Prague as an AI superhub and help the Czech Republic become a major AI center of excellence in Europe.

    GoodAI’s Director of AI Policy and Social Impacts, Marek Havrda, was invited to speak at the launch event in May. The initiative was founded by The Czech Technical University (ČVUT), Charles University, Czech Academy of Sciences, and the City of Prague, and is supported by GoodAI as well as a range of other local and international organizations.
  • Patent - we have filed a patent application for the core of our technology. We strongly believe that this technology is the most likely way AGI will be created in the future.


Highlights for GoodAI Applied


  • This year GoodAI Applied started two sister companies to specialize in specific industries.
  • GoodAI Solutions was launched in October in order to take over specific projects from GoodAI Applied with a focus on predictive maintenance, visual inspection, and asset management in the manufacturing and energy industries.
  • GoodAI Digital was also founded last year to focus on the automation of human conversations using the latest disruptive technologies such as Natural Language Processing.
GoodAI researcher demonstrates image recognition technology for pressure ulcer prevention.


Highlights for Keen Software House


  • Space Engineers was released from Early Access in February 2019
  • Reviews are above 9/10 across all board - Steam reviews and games press
  • The revenue doubled in a year-to-year comparison

  • “Concurrent players” has grown significantly over the years.


  • In November, we shared the details about where we are with the Space Engineers Xbox One port by running the live stream gameplay session.

  • Space Engineers was awarded as the best game in the Technology category at the 2019 Central and Eastern European Game Awards. 


New office: Oranžérie (The Orangery)


My long-term dream has always been to have our own office building which we can fit out the way we need it, and how we like it.

This year we were able to achieve this goal. We finally found a building in Prague that has all the attributes we needed. We chose to call it Oranžérie.


Oranžérie's office space is 1000 square meters and the garden is 2000 square meters (plus there's a large public park with a lake in front of it). The new office also includes an underground garage and a large conference room. We will also have our own gym, a fully fitted kitchen, a fireplace, and a garden hang-out spot complete with grills for summer barbeques!

Right now, a construction company is finishing the interiors, making Oranžérie cozy and comfortable, for our teams at Keen Software House and GoodAI. We believe that what surrounds you impacts what you create.

We are planning to move to Oranžérie in May 2020.

History: Oranžérie was built in 1760 and originally used as a winter greenhouse, it was later converted into a residential building, and then an office for the municipality.

This is the first time we are publicly sharing these photos!





Plans for GoodAI


These are our plans for 2020:
  • Badger architecture
    • Solve the training difficulties = make it easier to train, so that we can do more experiments
    • Benchmark = Use standard Machine Learning benchmarks to compare with other architectures. Demonstrate that Badger performs better than other models or that it can learn and solve tasks that are not possible by non-Badger architectures (we will be mostly measuring adaptability to novel tasks, not task performance)
    • Business cases = investigate where Badger can be implemented already, without waiting for better curricula
  • AI Game - if things go well, we will work on an experimental game that’s built around adaptable AI characters. This technology could be later imported to Space Engineers.
  • 3rd Round of General AI Challenge - launch a new round, focused on expanding Badger ideas and proofs of concept. The winners will be invited free of charge and all expenses paid to our Summer Workshop.
  • AI Governance Congress in Prague - we will be playing a crucial role in the 1st AI Governance Congress which will take place in Prague from 16-18 April. 
 
  • Summer Workshop - a fully expenses paid multi-disciplinary retreat, organized by us and hosted in Oranzerie. We will invite experts who can contribute to research on Badger-like architectures. From the multi-day retreat we expect: new insights, and new proofs of concept (demonstrations).
    • Disciplines: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Meta-Learning, Network Science, Complexity, Social Intelligence, Biologically inspired neural networks, etc.



Plans for Keen Software House


  • Keen Software House has continued a process of adaptation and development which we believe will ultimately bring great benefits for Keen Software House, as well as for our community. Rather than having a divided focus and spreading limited resources over multiple projects we are now devoting 100% of our development time to the much anticipated Xbox release of Space Engineers and to continuing the development of Space Engineers for PC.
  • Continue supporting and developing Space Engineers. One major update every few months
  • Release Space Engineers for Xbox One
  • Perform an internal study on what game engine is best for the future of Space Engineers?
  • Run an internal hackathon - new game mechanics, features, stories for Space Engineers
  • Start working on something new & big - more details later!


Conclusion


See here for a review from 2018.

2019 was great, and truly game-changing for Keen Software House and GoodAI. 2020 will bring even more changes and growth.

Thanks to everyone who is keeping their fingers crossed for us!

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
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
General AI Challenge: www.General-AI-Challenge.org
AI Roadmap Institute: www.RoadmapInstitute.org
GoodAI: www.GoodAI.com
Keen Software House: www.keenswh.com
GoodAI Applied: https://www.goodai.com/goodai-applied

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 started in January 2014 and has over 30 research scientists, engineers, and consultants working across its Research and Applied teams.

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

92 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. About when is it belived to be released to xbox one?

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    2. About when it is belived to be released to xbox one?

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  2. Nice to read. Love ur support for the game. Maybe thinking Vulkan API would be the best for the space engineers engine btw. At the moment runs on Amd Cards way more worse than on nvidia cards. ;)

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    1. i doubt that will ever happen considering they literally created their own engine just for this game...

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    2. They literally wrote that they are considering which engine to use for SE2.

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    3. I hadn't heard anything about SE2. I thought it would be a completely different Engineers game.

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  3. Mr. Marek Rosa, I am very pleased that your Company has made it into that fantastic Office, (early May) and hope to enjoy Space Engineers for years to come. Thank you for the update.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you very much. We're looking forward to continuing the development of Space Engineers and moving into our new office. :)

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  4. What about Medieval Engineers ?

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    1. We're currently focused on Space Engineers for the PC and Xbox One. However, we'll have more news about Medieval Engineers in the future.

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  5. i'd ask as this speaks of focusing on space engineers
    unless i missed something whats happening with
    medieval engineers too!

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    Replies
    1. Although we're currently devoting our time and Energy to Space Engineers, we'll have news about Medieval Engineers in the future.

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  6. Please dont abandon Medieval ENgineers! There are many who love the game.

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    1. Thanks a lot for your feedback. We'll have more news about Medieval Engineers in the future. Right now, we're currently focused on Space Engineers.

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  7. Hopefully a fix for npcs, right now their broken. I miss engineering defenses against them like in 2015 SE.

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    Replies
    1. We have lots of new features coming to Space Engineers. :) Please also submit all feedback here: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general so the Space Engineers Team and community can vote, as well as comment on it.

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  8. I would love to work in such a nice looking place. Congrats!

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  9. "What a read, what accomplishments", all stemming from our beloved space engineers' team at Keen Software House. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication all these years, through good times and bad. No game company that I know of has progressed as far as you have with core values still intact. I've bought about 10 copies over the years for friends and myself, bought all the DLCs', I want to continue supporting this company with what little I can do. Thank you again!

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    1. Wow! Thank you very much for your support.

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  10. Sad to see no mention of further development for Medieval Engineers :(

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    1. Not at the moment, as we're currently focused on Space Engineers. However, we'll have more news about Medieval Engineers in the future.

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  11. UHhh.... I could read was NPC NPC NPC NPC NPC.... hope my eyes aren't deceiving me.

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  12. Space engineers is a great sandbox game, but you'd retain much more of your playerbase if we had an objective. I spent about 20 hours creating a 10k pcu ship that's producible in the Keen Official Servers in 2 hours, but now that I've built it I've reached the end of the game. Give us something meaningful to fight over and maybe make ship loss less severe.

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    Replies
    1. well, now you could either work on perfecting your creation while doing contracts, or start a new project. But i'd love actual NPC's and Mission and stuff

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  13. VR FOR SPACE ENGINEERS PLEEEEEAAAAASEE

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. We currently don't have any plans for this, but Sekatan (a very talented Space Engineers modder), made this:

      https://store.steampowered.com/app/1142180/SE_VR_World_Demo/

      Which is awesome!

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  14. Well done keen, space engineers is a fantastic game and multiplayer with teh right people is the best , however i hope one day you are able to get some AI into the game so we can play alongside some npc's on our space adventures or have a special AI block we can build and put into our ships for what could quite possibly one of the coolest things ever been seen in a game ever, i wish you all the best for many more years of success.

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  15. Thanks a lot for your suggestions. We have lots of exciting new features coming to Space Engineeers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. any plans for changes to in-game scripting to improve server performance? I would have expected events to have a positive outcome for populated servers (so people can have scripts without 1s timers that still performs as desired and server is not struggling)

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  16. Me and my friends are loving Space Engineers! Can't wait to see what comes in the future!

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    Replies
    1. So happy to hear you are enjoying Space Engineers!

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  17. Is it possible there could be any physic's engine updates in the future for space engineers? it would be interesting if planetary rotation could be implemented, also orbiting objects could go along with that since the most practical way to build a station in space is still to build one on an asteroid. I see a lot of potential for general solar system simulation, at least more advanced then how it is now since the only moving object other than ships is the sun.

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  18. "a few months" are pretty dangerous choice. Im afraid you will release updates after long periods. You may need time and staff to focus your work on new projects but please dont lie or dont use tricky languages. Give us exact times for updates. It can be long between them but at least give dates and at least make it happen.

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  19. Even tho you guys are focused on Space Engineers next Medieval Engineers update, It would be great to see the outfit customization like in Space Engineers with things like a armored outfit,noble outfits,king/queen, etc.. you get the idea.. but would be interesting if the outfits on both games gave different stat changes ie, miner suit reduces power used for headlamp and drill,soldier suit gives extra health and periodic healing "using energy to heal" etc.. but would require the entire set to gain the benefits..

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  20. heres fingers crossed for AI troops for raiding player bases! Nice job keep up the great work

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  21. I hope more DLC and parts release for Space Engineers! I certainly LOVE some vanilla parts expanded!

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  22. I already own SE and ME. I will buy SE on XBO as soon as it's available!

    Also, I'm about to finish college, hiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrreeeee me, lol.

    Love this company, looking forward tip the future and AI in SE.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the support and congrats on finishing college!

      https://www.keenswh.com/jobs.html

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  23. I really hope the "something new" is a new game in the Engineers series since I've given a couple of suggestions through the Steam discussions as to possible game idea to work on.

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  24. One rather massive change on SE I would like is some general game optimizations to help the game use memory more efficiently and overall improving performance on lower end machines that only just play the game (such as my own) since although my computer can play the game it does suffer from frame rate drops at times and full game crashes. I suspect these are caused by my computer running out of memory since the game usually works fine with reasonably consistent frame rate of 30FPS+.

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  25. Hello, guys! Saw reports that you're looking for 3D graphics specialists. I submitted an application and sent the made test task on December 16. Still haven't gotten a feedback. Can you somehow help with this, maybe hand over to colleagues responsible for it ? My surname is Trufanov. Thank you !

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    1. If you have already submitted an application then we will get in touch with you as soon as we have more information.

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  26. "something new and big stay tuned" :P i hope its a new game or SE 2!

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  27. I hope to see SE polished before anything else.

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  28. Wow this is incredible, I had no idea KSW was involved with AI research. I've been researching and developing toward AGI as a solo project for years. I'm going to look into GoodAI and see what it can do!

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  29. Its wonderful to see your company blossom into something a little bigger i hope your company can become as big as bethesda or EA in a couple years time you guys deserve it for all the hard work you put out daily to keep fans happy and excited i am one such fan and im bursting with joy to receive such a magnificent game on xbox should we get any news on the xbox version before you move office

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  30. Should we expect any news on the space engineers xbox version before you move office im saving my allowance up i have £50 ready to buy deluxe edition and will there be physical copies/disc im also saving for cyberpunk 2077 so thats out before SE im pre ordering that

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  31. I believe that AI will make a significant breakthrough in the next few years because we have many outstanding scientists working hard for it. Our life will be more and more convenient in the future. For example, if we want to do online shopping, we don't need to do a text search, scan the products to get detailed information.

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  32. Did you thought about to take the star citizen engine lumberyard and add the build feautures? That would be a great SE 2

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  33. Hello,

    I'm really happy to see that all your efforts are paying ^^. Continue like this, I'm sure you're at the beginning of something really great. I'm happy to have discovered space engineer.
    Thanks for all the work, and yes, if you upgrade the game, it will be awesome ^^
    I can't wait to see ^^.
    Cheers !

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  34. YEEES FINALLY IVE BEEN WAITING FOR NEWS ON XBOX AND I CANT WAIT FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL GAME

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  35. YEESS I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR XBOX NEWS AND I CANT WAIT FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL GAME

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  36. Hope the Ai side of company don't turn into something like Skynet :o

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  37. Congrats on the big Orange Palace, you guys deserve it. Keep up the awesome work

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  38. When is the X-box Release date? Im dieing to know!!!

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  39. As a player who just bought ME, sad that any news for ME will be months down the line.

    I hope that one thing you guys consider is NPCs who'd assault a player's claim and ones who can defend, or at the very least NPCs that "work" in a created town.

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  40. The future is bright. Find me more ways to give Keen money and then spend it on making Space Engineers the greatest game of all time, as it is now approaching being. I look forward to every update, the ones that dont break mods have been amazing. The game has improved 1000%, more than some billion dollar companies can achieve with 10 years to work. Keep up the astoundingly amazing work.

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  41. I really wanna join you guys to create space engineers but I need a couple more years of Software Development anyways space engineers is now my top 5 most favourite games I love it like a lot

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  42. Making milestones Keen and thank you in advance SE Team, for the whenever it happens Xbox release. Don't let these organic, outdated bots disrupt the focus.

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  43. Hi, congratulations on the achievement
    I would like you to add tutorials on how to do basic things like a miner, or a 3D printer.

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  44. \\\KEEN STAFF OR MAREK ROSA HIMSELF PLEASE READ\\\

    Love the name by the way

    Hello i have heard news of Space Engineers Xbox version not being able to implement the programming block into the Xbox one version due to Microsoft policy but back on Xbox 360 a indie game Xenominer got to have a programming droid bot to mine and build for you but its skript had alien like symbols to type instead of letters or numbers as well as pre made programs but Microsoft the company who owns the rights to Xbox 360 and Xbox one aloud programming in games back on xbox 360 i don't know if they have updated the policy now but i wanted you to know

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    1. Thank you for sharing. The programmable block will not be available on release.

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  45. hi there keen :) happy to see everything going well .. was just wondering if yalls got more pics of the new office ( i want to build it in SE :D)

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    1. Thank you for your support. We have not moved in yet! Once moved in we will see.

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  46. Maybe in future dlc decorating packs for space engineers maybe we could have some sort of holographic and neon advertising sign for bars outdoor or indoor markets shelving and racks for armour weapons items and block and pipe systems to go around maybe even more armour to look more like a space marine instead of a astronaut i would just love to make a cyber city like blade runner ghost in the shell or maybe even like cyberpunk 2077 it would be awesome to fly a space taxi around the cyber city i would of put the suggestion on the forum but i already used my email once and cant remember my user name

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    Replies
    1. We have a lot planned for the coming year! Keep an eye here and on our social media!

      If you have feedback or suggestions for the how we can improve we want to hear it! You can share your ideas, or vote on the ideas of others here: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general

      Delete
  47. I love that you guys are bringing it to xbox one, but can I get a new weapon like a laser, cannon or something?

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  48. Shall we be seeing any progress news soon on SPACE ENGINEERS for xbox we the xbox community are being eaten away by the excitement and anticipation of the release of such a outstanding game even the tiniest bit of detail to how close we are to a information update would help put many minds at rest i understand that you the company can not say too much but the slightest bit you can say would help

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  49. So hyped foe SE on Xbox! Since it outpaced my PC's power through development, I've been keeping tabs and watching videos from Last Stand Gamers, XP Games and of course your own uploads.

    Love the stuff, love the content, cant wait to get back into it. And you can bet your behinds i'll spring for the premium cosmetic items in support of the studio.

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  50. When will space engineers be released for PS4?

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    Replies
    1. NEVER

      nah jk they said they are just focused on the pc and xbox one versions for now

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  51. I have seen your news feed on your website about a xbox stream coming soon for space engineers and ive been waiting for so long for something like this i deeply gratefully thank you i hope you get lots of profits from the game i shall help do my part by spreading the name of your game and recommend it to everyone i know and meet

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  52. Please please please i say this respectfully don't ruin this company like bethesda did with fallout 76 or EA and their greed for money with lootbox these companies don't care no longer for their fan base a company once looked up to by millions i once grew up saying when i have a job i want to help make games but that dream was crushed ever since i saw how bad games and companies have become no more good fun games that can run without shutting off the system companies corrupted by greed for wealth i see hope in you you listen to your fans you give us what we like in return we pay you for your hard work to make us a brilliant game it may take time to get to be bigger in the industry but you'll get there don't ever for a second stop believing in yourself you can push through us the fans we have your back show the gaming industry we can beat all other companies purge the gaming industry of greed for money bring back the good old days of sitting back on the couch with pizza soda and vg (video games) because we need someone like you keen by our hero lead the fight

    THANK YOU❤

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  53. I am really curious about what would happen if your team put your ai into a game enviroment.

    The chaotic nature of humans in general, more so in games, is a wonderful test bed for the limits of any program. As many players are happy to do whatever they can to break a game, or destory its structure.

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  54. Are there any plans to improve survival mode? Fightinf against more engaging threads and add more concrete goals would be nice. Or introduce some defense mode, where you have to defend against larger waves of invaders similar to the now hyped scrap mechanic. Since they introduced a good survival mode, the number of players improved significantly. I would like to see you do the same, because I do not like their childish graphics. This setting in space engineers would be real awesome! Please please push survival mode content and improvement! :)

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  55. I really want to see a Steampunk Engineers game.

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