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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
- On Monday we released our first update (VS 1.1) - Steam Workshop. Now players can share their blueprints and worlds. I can see a lot of activity there.
- We are now focusing on VS 1.2 and polishing the last few things, and then the testing period begins.
- Our graphics team is hard at work on planetary features planned for Vertical Slice 2. They’re currently focused on improving flora draw distance and developing new foliage for a variety of biomes, including high mountains and savannas.
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- Today we are finishing the design for Dynamic Music. Here’s a short summary: The music system will feature dynamic tracks based on context, including missions, and sandbox exploration. Music selection will prioritize combat scenarios, playing faction-specific tracks if applicable, or generic combat music otherwise. Location-based ambient music will play when no combat is detected, with unique loops for different planets (Verdur, Byblos, Kemik) and biomes, underwater areas, and space. Combat and danger states will trigger specific loops with a 15-second cooldown before reverting to ambient music, while transitions from danger to combat or ambient to danger/combat are instant.
- Adding support for emotes/animations + here you can also see the Inverse Kinematics on character’s feet
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We are also streamlining our animation tools
- We are improving the 3D UI for Partial copy selection. Currently it’s a bit confusing where the selection volume is because it is rendered without depth-testing. We will enable depth testing and also add more contrasted edges.
- More and more survival mechanics are being added (for VS2), for example here is “manual respawn”. The block dropped after death is a current placeholder for the character backpack. ;)
- There’s a Brown Dwarf in the center of Almagest System, here’s how it will most likely look (The in-game side is just the first iteration - so far without any added effects).
Space Engineers 1
- SE1 team is almost finished with the 206 update, and soon to start working on 207. Looks promising!
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Thanks for the new bridge blocks, will we be getting floorless versions of all the shapes?
ReplyDeleteThe flora looks great especially when it's densely packed. It really stands out from the sparse flora density in SE1
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it's a little boring, this is suppose to be another world and yet it's Earth foliage 2.0.
DeleteRegardless of the place of origin what looks like a tree will be considered a tree, what looks like a bush will be considered a bush. Just because it "looks" boring doesn't mean much, All these plants could be made of silica instead of carbon, or other minerals for that matter. If all you are seeing is Earth plant 2.0 you will always be disappointed no mater how unique or exotic a place you are in.
DeleteWell, yeah. It's an earth-like planet. The planetary conditions and environments are similar to Earth's, so it makes sense that any life that emerges there would be as well.
DeleteLooks great! Really liking that mountains are getting their own foliage! Can't wait for the SE1 1.206!
ReplyDeleteP.S. Any thoughts on adding cosmetic Raditor blocks like on the ISS (low temp) or Children of a Dead Earth (high temp)
Nice progress. I always like to see foliage. Kind of interested to see more of the "alien" foliage though. And critters? Show us an alien squirrel! :D
ReplyDeleteI would love to see a "Most Wanted 2" type of update that adds missing block shapes. I swear every time something gets added that fixed a problem I had my brain finds a new way to make an impossible shape!
ReplyDeleteThe engineer faces are visible in the SE2 suits, there will be a story from what I've gathered. Will we, at some point, be able to modify the engineer's face or will it be mod-able? Otherwise, I'd like a dark visor please or the ability to set the darkness of the visor.
ReplyDeleteAmazing progress for SE2 and happy to see SE1 is still getting some love, I noticed its really nice to see you guys are adding more variants to existing SE1 blocks.
ReplyDeleteWould you think something like this (Conveyor ports in the back of gatling gun and auto-cannon) would be something to expect in this next update?
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/44932-add-back-conveyor-port-to-gatling-gun-and-auto-cannon
I believe you should see this Marek Rosa! This could be revolutionary for space engineers! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DExOc50JM6z/?igsh=MW0wc2M1ZHp4M3l3MQ==
ReplyDeleteLa, now will build a tree mower
ReplyDeleteIt would be cool to see an official gameplay feature that allowed for orbiting planets that used a proxy system like the "Real Solar Systems" mod in SE1. Maybe could have a vanilla warp drive mod to speed a ship past the speed limit (turning off collisions of a grid) to go super fast to bridge the gap between planets!
ReplyDeletewith all the bp's and some new blocks might make sense to give us control over PSU limits ,i tried checking out a couple workshop builds and unless you spawn them in on a empty game you cant
ReplyDeleteloving the update however it would be nicce if we the players could get control of PSU limits some of these builds are huge in the workshop
ReplyDeleteI'd like to build more in SE2, but some of the basic shapes are missing, like the bigger part of the sloped angle block, as I only see the smaller sloped angle block. Not sure why such a basic block is missing, but makes it hard to do certain shapes without it. Also I ran into a personal PCU limit when pasting in a few ships and no settings to adjust PCU limits yet.
ReplyDeleteI'd imagine those blocks are missing because the unified grid system makes them "redundant." You can build them by combining block sizes, but it seems far less efficient than having the single block.
DeleteA brown dwarf is a cool idea, I wonder how there would be a proper daytime on any planet as I'm pretty sure most brown dwarfs don't emit enough light to see much, and even more so, it is the center of the Almagest system? interesting, does that mean orbits??
ReplyDeleteI hope we can see conversion of all the different block types, specifically things like cockpits and cosmetics that aren't covered by the 25cm system, or other shapes that are harder to make. (Maybe a guide for creating certain shapes if we actually don't need all the block types).
ReplyDeleteMaybe even one day we might get blueprint exports/conversions, although I know that isn't an easy or high priority concept, but could be neat if it happened. (It would probably need some form of AI assistance to analyze and replicate things, though.)
Im sorry if this has been asked before but can we expect GAS GIANTS to be a planet type in SE2?
ReplyDelete