What is this
Every Thursday, I will share a dev diary about what we've been working on over the past few weeks. I'll focus on the interesting challenges and solutions that I encountered. I won't be able to cover everything, but I'll share what caught my interest.
Why am I doing it
I want to bring our community along on this journey, and I simply love writing about things I'm passionate about! This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly. Any plans I mention aren't set in stone and everything is subject to change. Also, if you don't like spoilers, then don't read this.
Space Engineers 2
Why SE2?
We’re building SE2 because we believe in the dream of the ultimate space-sim—one that goes beyond anything seen before. We want a game where engineering, survival, and combat truly matter, where every action has weight, and where players can shape their own destiny in a vast, living universe.SE1 was just the beginning. SE2 is our chance to push the boundaries—to create the space game we've always wanted to play. A game where players build, explore, and fight for survival and the colonization of Almagest, a raw and untamed frontier filled with danger and opportunity.
This isn’t just a sequel. It’s our vision for the future of space simulation—a world where creativity, skill, and ambition define your fate.
SE1 Alpha Footage recreated in SE2
FighterPilot O5 has recreated the classic SE1 Alpha Footage in SE2. Thanks very much for the effort and for reading my mind because I was honestly considering asking Janusz to do it.
What I worked on this week:
- Music Design: We designed an adaptive music system to fit different locations and situations—sandbox mode, campaign mode, and dynamic moments based on player actions.
- Character Art Expansion: We recently hired an amazing new character artist, growing our team. This means SE2 will feature a greater variety of characters, suits, and skins.
- Character Animations & First-Person Camera: We are improving how the first-person camera moves, making sure it feels natural and immersive. One example: the first-person camera isn't just a single point but behaves more like a position on a stick, which means its rotation also introduces unintended movement. This results in unnatural optics, and we’re working on refining the offset system to make the camera feel more stable and immersive.
- 3D UI Prototyping for Partial Copy-Paste: We have been working on a new 3D UI system for copy-paste mechanics in the game.
- Jump Animation Improvements: We are working on more natural jump animations—detecting whether the jump starts from the left or right foot, then adjusting fall/landing animations accordingly.
- We are having a discussion whether projections (blocks or blueprints) should cast shadows or not. My opinion is that they should because it will help with depth perception of the scene, player will be better aware of where exactly is the block/blueprint being projected. For illustration, here’s a screenshot with one bug where only part of the projected block is casting a shadow (the alpha masked grid inside of it).
What is your opinion? Leave your comments.
- Future Plans: Unifying spectator mode and character controls to ensure smooth transitions between gameplay perspectives.
AI People
Why AI People?
Our vision is to revolutionize AI NPCs and move beyond scripted interactions. We want NPCs that feel alive, form relationships with players, and generate emergent narratives over time. Whether they are your companion, rival, or life partner, every AI character should feel distinct and dynamic.
What I worked on this week:
- Emotion System: We designed an emotion simulation for NPCs where their emotional states change dynamically based on player interactions and inter-NPC communication. These emotions affect behaviors and decisions and are conveyed through HUD, sound, voice, and animations.
- Daily Plans for Agents: NPCs now follow structured daily routines that adapt dynamically. Initially, we are implementing predefined schedules (e.g., farmer, soldier, etc.), but over time, LLMs will generate personalized daily plans with both structure and variability.
- LLM API & Perception System: We refined how NPCs interact with the LLM to optimize performance and avoid unnecessary computational load. NPCs now have a Level of Detail (LOD) perception system, meaning they are aware of events in their immediate vicinity while ignoring distant, irrelevant occurrences. This ensures that prompts to the LLM remain efficient and contextually relevant, allowing NPCs to react dynamically to their surroundings without overwhelming the system.
- Backstory Integration: AI People is set in a world where AGIs emerged in 2030, quickly surpassing human intelligence. Their incomprehensible goals reshaped cities into vast computational centers, disregarding humanity. Society collapsed into chaos, and by 2033, the AGIs mysteriously vanished, leaving a transformed world behind. Our AI NPCs are aware of this past, shaping their behaviors and interactions within this new reality.
- Balancing Player Control & NPC Autonomy: NPCs act independently while collaborating with the player, balancing personal goals with player requests. They can decline unreasonable tasks, prioritize their own needs, and manage schedules realistically. The goal is a dynamic system where players have influence, but NPCs remain true to their character and motivations.
Marek’s Blog: New Visuals
We are working on a long-overdue visual update for this blog—something I’ve wanted to do for years. Our amazing 2D artist, Aleksandar Serafimovski (Alek), has created new concepts that will give the blog a fresh yet timeless aesthetic.
Alek, who is responsible for all 2D art in SE2, websites, banners, and more, has poured his creativity into this redesign. Here is one of the first drafts.
Strong Europe: My Political Vision
A Sovereign, Powerful Europe
Europe must take responsibility for its own future. We cannot remain dependent on external powers for security and economic stability. To build a Great Europe, we need:
- A European Army capable of defending itself.
- Less regulation to encourage innovation and economic growth.
- A cultural shift towards entrepreneurship, ambition, and risk-taking.
- Smarter governance—fewer bureaucratic layers, more efficiency.
- True unity—a powerful united Europe, not fragmented nationalist states.
- Pan-European leadership—visionary leaders who unite the continent through strength and ambition.
With 450 million people, Europe has the potential to be a global economic and military powerhouse. But to achieve this, we must stand on our own.
Final Thoughts
SE2 is evolving rapidly and VS 1.1 will be released in coming weeks. AI People is shaping up to be something truly groundbreaking. At the same time, I remain deeply invested in the future of Europe and believe we must take bold steps toward sovereignty and strength.
I would love to hear your thoughts! Please share your feedback, suggestions, or ideas - what excites you most, and what would you like to see next?
Thanks for doing these blogs. It is a pleasure for Me to get a glimpse into the seriously cool dev work behind SE.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the post! I agree with your opinion on projections, I think not having shadows or some sort of environmental connection makes it harder to really visualize where it is in the environment. I do like how the shadow is more subtle for the projection though, as a full shadow wouldn’t look quite right. Something to consider might be a blue tint or something? Like a potential difference to the shadow could be that it’s less of a shadow, since that doesn’t make too much sense physically, and instead more of a glow from the projection.
ReplyDeleteI kind of wonder if guides (think photoshop) would work with projections. The shadow there looks okay although from a glance it took me a second to figure out which part was the projection. The lower opacity helps, a color overlay might make it more obvious. Do really like how the copy box is looking.
ReplyDeleteAlso agree on Europe, a lot of potential there.
I appreciate the blog post. It's insightful to learn more about your motivations and thoughts on SE2 and European sovergnty.
ReplyDeleteUsing LLMs for NPC dialogue is a bold choice. I always knew it would happen eventually, but SE2 might be the first major project I've seen to declare it as a feature. It's exciting, but it also worries me a bit. Will these run locally? Good LLMs take gigabytes of system memory and SE was never a "light" game to begin with. The idea of similtanously running an LLM and a fluid simulation is making my graphics card melt just thinking about it.
In future blog posts I'd like to learn more of your thoughts on gameplay and progression. I think that's the greatest opportunity for improvement over SE1. You start the game building ships and mining ore, and you finish it building bigger ships and mining more ore. This is in contrast to factorio, a game which I've only just picked up despite nearly a decade of being a professional engineer (playing it seems to be mandatory for my profession).
It's another building game but I think the pacing, progression, and variety of building activities is really exemplary. You start by building factories, but then you run out of resources and must pivot to building long supply lines into enemy territory. It forces the player to adapt and take risks as the construction scale grows. Finally, the player advances to rapid blueprint construction, gaining the ability to leverage the production power of their factory to quickly build enormous structures with rapid speed using an army of bots. SE is not as factory focused as factorio obviously, but I'd like to see that kind of thought put into the pacing, crafting, enemies, and building system during the development.
I'd go with no shadows on projections personally. Or maybe make it toggleable in settings?
ReplyDeleteShadows do not make sense for projected blocks. There should be a clear difference between projected blocks and “real” blocks. How do you show projections highly depends on how you implement welding mechanics. In SE1 going inside the projection with hand held welder is very confusing. I would prefer to have different modes. Besides “show only build able” it would be nice to see only projection of a block you are looking at. You can also see just and outline of adjacent blocks where they are connected to the already built block, once you look at that outline the target projected blocks will pop up into holographic projection. When moving fast there should be a delay before a block projection disappears to avoid too much of a flickering .
ReplyDeleteSo, AI people and SE2... is there a possibility to see this happening?
ReplyDeleteUkraine is now fighting for a safe and strong Europe. Join the fight more actively
ReplyDeleteХорошие мысли на счет Европы - но у вас нет первичных энергетических ресурсов, про независимость забудьте
ReplyDeleteА як пов'язана незалежність та ресурси? Ресурсів у вигляді вугілля, газу та урану у Європі предостатньо, а якщо трохи не вистачить то за гроші продасть будь-хто
DeleteIn SE1, I like that players can turn realistic audio on or off. Would it be difficult to implement a similar system for projection shadows? Since holographic projection isn't a well-realized technology in real life, I'm not even sure which one is more realistic
ReplyDeleteWith this being a new game, are you considering adding some sort of CAD-like way for building ships? Even if it's just in creative mode? I love SE, but sometimes when building I feel like I'm fighting the controls and my character's rotation/inertia more than focusing on building. Being able to have a birds eye view of my ship and orbit around it while building would make the experience much smoother for me. I hope you can consider it :)
ReplyDeleteI like your games, but your ex-right populist now "centrist" opinions I find a bit shocking, considering that you are an "entrepreneur and philanthropist" maybe not to surprising. :/ Maybe the coming war will be the last one when common folks die for the interests of profit driven sharks like you and your compadres, one can hope.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your team's last game, but your ex-right populist now centrist political opinions I find a bit shocking, but in retrospect, you being a "entrepreneur and philanthropist", another other Steve Jobs copy, not really that surprising. I hope the next war will be the last one where people have to die for the interests of profit and market expansion , of small fish with big aspirations, and the big sharks of global capitalism.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see the implementation of a system similar to the "Build Vision" mod. The point is to have access to the functions of the block (at least to the piston, rotor and hinge) as if through an augmented reality window. This is the future, even in our time we can control devices remotely to a limited extent. Those who have used it know how life improves, the time wasted is significantly reduced and you have more time for creativity, and not for going into the menu and looking for a block to change its parameters. Of course, I do not suggest transferring it completely, you can balance it, or to use it you will need to craft a special module, there are many options. This is my suggestion, thank you for your work.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your political position - I support you. This requires long and painstaking work over a long period of time. But I believe - everything will work out.
I would like to see the implementation of a system similar to the "Build Vision" mod. The point is to have access to the functions of the block (at least to the piston, rotor and hinge) as if through an augmented reality window. This is the future, even in our time we can control devices remotely to a limited extent. Those who have used it know how life improves, the time wasted is significantly reduced and you have more time for creativity, and not for going into the menu and looking for a block to change its parameters. Of course, I do not suggest transferring it completely, you can balance it, or to use it you will need to craft a special module, there are many options. This is my suggestion, thank you for your work.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your political position - I support you. This requires long and painstaking work over a long period of time. But I believe - everything will work out.
Forgive the url. I didn't want to post as Anonymous. I am Stoked by your vision for SE2. I have friends that I would like to play with in a big immersive and expansive setting. I can't wait for all the good things you're going to do. As much as the Cult of Clang would be sad to finally put to rest, giving them some byline or short story about a clan that "purportedly built ships but none of them could fly" might be a funny wink and a nod.
ReplyDeleteYou said, "[...] where every action has weight, and where players can shape their own destiny in a vast, living universe."
I had suggested starting factions (posted in the feedback section). Each faction has a bent. One has access to superior weapons. One has access to superior power distribution. One has access to superior armor. (etc). All controlled by (similar to Factorum) frames which are traded on the npc market. You can make PC and NPC trade hubs. This requires players to interact and puts weight behind their choices. I won't belabor the point, and I'm sure You/Keen have something awesome for SE2 endgame content. I am stoked to see where that goes.
As for Blueprints. Would be cool to have them a blue or green color to denote that it is a blueprint we have. Then if it can throw a blue or green hue that would be awesome!
And with regards to Europe: I'm on board. I'm always pro-freedom. I hope that the people of Europe choose freedom and to throw off the nanny state. Unleash the potential of the good people of Europe. All the best!
ReplyDeleteafter reading and seeing some of the things you and the keen team are building are you stepping back from the use of conveyor blocks in the future even though cargo blocks and processing facilities still seem to have the hook ups for them if not any chance on getting the conveyor blocks added into v1 so we don't have to completely redo everything we have worked on?
ReplyDeleteNo, conveyor blocks and conveyor system will be in SE2.
DeleteI bought the game not politics, thanks for the Dev blog
ReplyDeleteSorry. But this is also my personal blog.
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