Marek's Dev Diary: March 6, 2025

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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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.

image credits: arturkandla

Space Engineers 2

• Target-based gyro - Almost complete, now we only need to polish the UI. This control system is inspired by War Thunder, where you see a cursor on screen, aim somewhere, and the ship rotates towards that direction. It feels remarkably good, actually much better than expected because we implemented a little trick that maintains aim while the ship rotates.
  
  We are also improving camera and ship handling in tight spaces.
  
  
  
  
• Offset camera - I needed to "sleep a few weeks on this" to better understand what I wanted. Quick recap: in third-person mode, the camera is slightly offset to the right (or left), so you can see where the character is looking and walking towards. We tested multiple alternatives, like adaptively changing the offset distance based on character speed or zoom distance, but ultimately decided on the simplest version: 20cm offset to the right. It feels good, provides better visibility, shows the character from a side angle which creates a more connected feeling, and prevents you from hitting walls when running. I'm satisfied with it. Now we just need to polish and it's ready for VS 1.2.
  
  
  
  
  
• Merging character and Spectator Controls - There were two independent pathways handling controls for character mode and spectator mode. Now they're unified, which saves development time and improves consistency. This means you get the same tools and UI whether you're in spectator or character mode (paint tool, shift+G, copy-paste, etc.).
• Debug Gun - We've added a new model, muzzle effect, better projectile, and the ability to destroy voxels.
• First person animations - several improvements:
• Tools/guns are much more stable in front of the camera, creating a feel similar to other FPS games
• We're reducing the distance between the camera position and the character's pivot point, ideally to zero, because then mouse movement and rotation would occur around that exact point, instead of a point offset by 20cm
• Here’s what first-person animations would look like in third-person - if they weren’t designed separately. Spoiler: it’s broken and hilarious!
  
  
  
  
• With designers, we've discussed character inventory and grid inventory for VS2
• Recently we also explored the topics of core loop, meta loop, progression, challenges and rewards. Essentially how SE2 can evolve from a sandbox toy into more of a game. This is very important to me, as I believe it can introduce SE2 to a much wider audience, and as a player myself, I want this. This topic is still not finalized, but I want to have a clear design during the next few months.
• VS 1.5 will introduce Modding, with the release of VRAGE HUB and Editor, enabling creators to make new blocks, textures, and skyboxes. We'll soon begin workflow testing with our Close Testing Group. Our goal is to streamline the process, making it easy and especially fast to add new content to SE2.
• Water - The team is still addressing some core challenges (such as making water cells 25cm to enable flow through tiny holes in our 25cm unified grid system), but we've already discussed ideas for visual enhancements coming in a few months. These include adding a second layer of low-frequency, long wavelength waves to the water surface for greater realism, applying a water texture to simulate tiny color variations in the surface, and of course, adding foam near shorelines.