Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Space Engineers: Heavy Industry

SUMMARY:

  • Introducing the industrial theme
  • Magnetic plates, Beam Blocks
  • Industrial conveyor pipes, Cylindrical Columns
  • Vertical button panel, Warning Signs and more
  • New skins and LCD images

 

Hello, Engineers! 

“When war calls, industry answers.”

The next Major (1.199) release for Space Engineers is upon us. Heavy Industry Introduces a whole new vision of industry in Space Engineers! A reimagining of industrial might, from lunar mining site to factory floor; smelting, refining, and mass production never looked so good.

This massive update is one of our biggest! Including DLC, Heavy Industry adds nearly 100 new blocks and block variants to Space Engineers! We hope you enjoy exploring Heavy Industry as much as we did creating it.

 

 

Free Content

With this release, we are expanding the number of blocks, introducing new gameplay features, and expanding your creative tools! 

You can find a complete list of all free game content below. We are also offering you the opportunity to support the continued development of Space Engineers by buying the Heavy Industry DLC, which includes even more thematic additions to Space Engineers!

Armor Panel Blocks - Sheath your cruiser in armor or frame out an interior, when space is at a premium. Introducing 16 shapes, heavy & light armor variants, small and large grid versions. Expand your creative options with 64 new blocks!



Small grid merge block - A 0.5, small grid merge block. Handy for a spare tire, PMW, or modular cargo.

Magnetic plate - Heavy industrial Magnetic Plate, Large and Small grid versions. Allows for surface locking, similar to the landing gear. Useful for cranes, mecha, or custom landing gear.

Propaganda Poster LCD images - The war effort continues! When war calls, industry answers!

Scenario “Pertam Orbiter”- Positioned high above the scorching deserts of Pertam, this asteroid outpost is fully fitted for an excursion to the surface or exploration of the nearby asteroid field. 

Take advantage of the provided manufacturing facilities or strike out! Investigate this tiny industrial complex and explore the nearly 100 new blocks and block variants included in the “Heavy Industry” update & DLC.

Improved Default Behavior - Brake toggle

Why did we change it?

The default behavior for the parking brake meant that any time it was triggered ALL grids attached via connectors, or landing gear, or parked wheels, would toggle. This could cause unexpected behavior and often resulted in a great deal of clang. 

What's new?

This update improves this behavior by adding a toggle option to connectors, landing gear, and wheels that will allow you to ignore the Parking Brake functionality. Additionally, parking behavior has been streamlined and unified, allowing you to trigger parking actions on cockpits using timers, etc.

Improved Default Behavior - Power toggle

Why did we change it?

The default behavior for toggling power had the undesired effect of impacting all grids, subgrids, and connected (connector) grids. This made it very hard to control large or complex constructions and was especially problematic when landing at a charging station or base. Default behavior made the simple action of docking overly complex.

What's new?

Several changes are being made to improve the behavior of the power toggle. Docking, subgrids, and alternative power supply configurations should now all operate in a much more intuitive manner.

  • The current functionality of pressing Y has been remapped to CTRL + Y (and RB + dpad-left).
  • Pressing Y will only affect the current grid and no longer toggle power off on any sub-grids.
  • By default connectors on the current grid do not transfer any power when power has been toggled off with Y.
  • This new functionality can be overridden with a setting in the connector.
  • Connectors no longer require any power themselves to function. This will allow you to connect to a rover that ran out of battery power, for example. This should aid in recovery and salvage operations.

Community Collaboration

We would like to thank you, our community, for your continued support, collaboration and inspiration. You feed our “Need to Create”.

A very special thank you to...

...and so many others that have, and continue to, inspire us with their creativity, ingenuity, and passion. 

Sounds of Space Engineers - Music Update

We want to thank everyone who made a submission to the Music Contest “Sounds of Space Engineers”. Included in the free portion of today's update, we have incorporated all of the winning contest tracks! Crank up the Jukebox and have a listen! Tracks are listed by title. You can find the artists, and a complete track list, in the game credits.

  • Sands of the Slave Princess - Windflower Falls
  • Space Pirates - Bart Zeal & Ruben Isarin
  • The City Lies - Exelan
  • SpaceItOut - SWAUSAGE
  • Sector 347 - Jan Altherr
  • Designing The Fleet - Limnull
  • Last Day on Triton - Aaron Schxfer
  • EXODUS - Gordon Saverimuthu
  • Entropy - Epicarmina
  • Growing Wild - Timo Letsch
  • Space Angels - Musicfonts
  • Into the Asteroid Field - Lynxi Ft. Umbria
  • Colossus On Fire - Dave Rodriguez
  • Timeless Space - Marcin KĹ‚ysewicz
  • Space Engineers Main Theme (EPIC COVER) - KhydroDjent
  • BONUS: Space Elevator - Gordon Saverimuthu

Heavy Industry Pack

Similar to our previous major releases, we hope you will take this opportunity to support the continued development of Space Engineers. This DLC pack consists of cosmetic items that enrich your game visually. None of the features in this package provide any advantage to players who purchase this DLC. 

The price of the Heavy Industry DLC is $3.99 USD or your regional equivalent. Show your continued support for Space Engineers and check out the Heavy Industry DLC.

This DLC package includes:

Large Magnetic Plate
A truly massive large grid magnetic plate (3x3x2), and a small grid version. Big enough to accommodate the largest jobs.



Beam Blocks
A collection of industrial-style beams for structural support and exterior decoration. The Industrial beam, 10 variants in both large and small grids.

Industrial Conveyor Pipes
A departure from the classic, angular conveyor design. The industrial conveyor pipe is provided in 7 variants for large grids which includes a new conveyor sorter. 


Cylindrical Column
A new column offered in both small and large variants, designed to reinforce your starbase, starship, or underground fortress.

Vertical Button Panel
Big, red, button. Space-saving design for industrial application; three buttons, vertically aligned.

Large Hydrogen Tank Reskin
Striking spherical design, high-pressure hydrogen storage tank.

Large Cargo Container Reskin
A new, rugged, industrial-style cargo container for all of your shipping and storage needs.

Industrial Refinery
A new, highly accessible version of the refinery.

Industrial Assembler
A new, highly accessible version of the assembler.

Industrial Hydrogen Thrusters
A community request now made a reality. The much-anticipated Hydrogen Thruster variant! Featuring 2 sizes for both large and small grid creations.

Hazard Pattern Armor Skin
Beware, Danger, Caution. A hazard skin for all of your industrial creations.

What’s next?

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

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why are you releasing another DLC?
A: As with our previous DLCs, this release gives us the opportunity to explore new ideas and provide more unique content the community wants. This is another thematic-based DLC where all players will be able to interact with new blocks, but only those who own the DLC pack will be able to build them.

Q: Should we now expect that we will get a new DLC every three months?
A: Free and paid content releases support the continued development of Space Engineers, as well as bringing new things to the game. All paid DLCs are not pay-to-win, but rather cosmetic. We think this is the right way to bring interesting content to the game and keep the game improving. We bring a lot of free content to all players. This content is usually highly requested by our community.

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

Hiring

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

Remote collaboration is possible!

Follow our social media to get the latest news!

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

 

Thank you for reading this blog!

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

1 comment:

  1. As for what I wish for to help building stuff in SE, that would be a "blueprint mode". The idea is from Cosmoteer, a 2D ship building game. In this mode, the simulation is frozen and you can edit the ship more like in CAD software. I.e. you can pick blocks and move them, or split the grid and put it back together in a different position. And since no simulation is running it also allows for an "undo" function.
    Creative Mode is great, but I often lose time on small-grid because I accidentally delete the wrong block and my ship falls apart or I have to rebuild a section entirely because I want to move it one block further.

    Best regards,
    Marco

    ReplyDelete