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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
First of all – thank you for the 130+ comments on the combat system in last week’s dev diary. I really appreciate it. You’re a great community. I love you for it.
And the same thanks goes for all the FTUE feedback the week before – see this post.
Fractured Cryopod Design
This week in our internal playtest:
Asteroid Clusters – Asteroids are now grouped into clusters – soon they’ll be organized into proper asteroid belts and rings. This is part of a bigger plan to add structure to space using the Star Map (we’re now calling it the Colonization Map).
Multi-Character Emotes – These can be triggered from the debug screen (not available to players). We’ll use them in trailers and cutscenes. For example: two characters shake hands in a synchronized animation. Animators are also working on the facial rig now – for emotions and lip sync in cinematics.
Hand Drill Animations – I’ve always wanted the hand drill to feel heavy and dynamic. When you push it into rocks, it should bounce and fight back. We realized we need three clear states:
- Idle (just holding it)
- Drill on, no contact (drilling into air)
- Drill on, in contact (drilling into rock, bounces, etc.)
This should feel instantly gratifying – like hitting something with a crowbar in Half-Life. That same feedback loop. We’ll apply this to the grinder and probably the welder too.
Acceleration-Based Camera – Shake When piloting a grid or jetpack-boosting, the camera shakes slightly during acceleration and deceleration. It gives you that visceral sense of momentum – like engines pushing. It only triggers during velocity changes, not while cruising. We tuned it down a lot to avoid being annoying, but I think we still need to reduce it by 40%. I expect some veterans will hate it – so maybe we’ll add an option to turn it off.
Space Engineers 2 Grass Tests
Story and Sandbox Merge – We’ve decided to merge Campaign into Sandbox. Originally they were separate: Sandbox was colonization only, no story, no main characters – just systems and generic NPCs.
But now we realize that having story outside of Sandbox would be a waste. It complicates production and splits our focus. So: no separate Campaign mode anymore. We’re putting the story into Sandbox.
Space Engineers 2 Rocks Scattering
So how will story work inside Sandbox? (SPOILERS!)
- It starts with a cutscene: who you are, what the Bering Project is, what Almagest is, who your brother is
- FTUE begins – you repair your ship, build a small spaceship, and reach the Orbital Station
- From there, you take contracts and missions that progress colonization of Almagest
- Some missions push the story forward (not just colonization meta)
- Cutscenes play at the beginning or end of key missions – but they will avoid anything that the player could have influenced (e.g., ship builds, destroyed stuff, character skins), because the cutscenes are pre-rendered
- There will be datapads and hidden locations to reveal more of the world and its mysteries
I’m really looking forward to telling the story of Almagest. It’s deep, has a big twist, and is quite personal – shaped by how I see the world.
Space Engineers 2 Grass Biome Tests
Complete Roadmap, Player Experience: Besides that, I’m looking forward to getting a full day just to dig deep into our “Complete Roadmap” – to lock in everything that needs to be in the final version of SE2, the version that leaves Early Access.
The goal is to deliver a complete and well-balanced experience – and then keep expanding through updates, like always.I’m also working on the Player Experience document – it’s a short doc (just a few pages), but it outlines how players should experience SE2, from the very first moment all the way to 50+ hours of gameplay.
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Let me know what you think about any of this.
I read all your comments – it’s one of the best parts of my life.
Map is nice, i support that. Also do a face editor please, so we don’t all look like clones.
please please please. face editor is a must. even more with those transparent visors
I agree with this, a face changer atleast lmao
I doubt they would have transparent visors with non-changeable faces, so I bet that has been in the pipeline since the transparent visor change.
Hopefully not basic presents like default male face 1, default female face 1 etc etc..
yeah a custom player is a must let us choose to take our helmets off maybe so the hair and ect can be part of our play threws and more
Please don’t combine sandbox and story mode. I don’t really enjoy story games and personally hate cutscenes. That’s the reason why I played Space Engineers 1 — it was just a survival sandbox game, and it was perfect. So please separate them, or make it so that people can decide whether they want story elements in their sandbox experience.
That’s what a custom scenario start would be, in that case. Not having proper NPC content and NPC factions is kind of a big problem in SE1.And there is nothing “survival” SE1 unless you mod it up to be actually “survival”.
well it sounds like you could just not do the story missions and do your own stuff (kind of like how in Minecraft you dont have to defeat the ender dragon)
I’m sorry, I have to respond to your comment on behalf of others like it. We have a selection of scenarios in SE1. Why does anyone think we won’t have this selection in SE2 (even though it might not be called a scenario there). I’m really looking forward to the scenario Marek described. It’s everything I’ve always wanted from SE1, and I’ve had SE1 since the alpha, too. That’s why I find such a request strange. What I’m saying is, I’m sure you’ll be able to set up a game experience exactly the way you want it without much effort. Kind of like Solar System at the moment.
I think it’s just about which world they use, you still can prob opt out of the campaign if you don’t want that kind of scenario.
@Steyrenns The reason why Mango thinks that there may not be a selection of scenarios is because Mr. Rosa wrote that there won’t be a campaign mode anymore and that it’s being merged into the sandbox. The obvious logic is that the true sandbox mode is gone because it’s being merged with the campaign. I think many of us would at least like the assurance that we are not pushed towards the story in sandbox mode and that it would only appear if we went looking for it.
I’ll be straight forward in saying I don’t see how this could in anyway detract from the game that there is an optional story in the sandbox world. Literally it is just a cut scene you go though at the beginning, and then you get started. Based on previous posts it’s not like you have to follow what’s laid out in front of you.
im curious how will the merge of campaign and sandbox work at multiplayer. we will get everybody doing the same missions and going to the same places? if so, what will be used to prevent griffing (like hiding a warhead triggered by sensor inside an airlock players will have to go by or doing a literal minefield at the starting point)? or will multiplayer be only sandbox. if so, is there a chance for Co-Op multiplayer?
In multiplayer, will everyone be the main character? I honestly don’t know what you would do here. Will the host of the game be the main character and the rest of the players random Engineers? That would be weird, only allowing one player to play the story and the rest might be able to help? I would like to see where this goes
my poor poor 1650 lol
Well considering the minimum requirement for SE2 is a 1660 super… yeah, it might be time to budget for a new GPU/PC 🙂
i don’t know if that’s in the plans but i think a lot of people would like a way to start se2 like se1 did in the sense of the start of the world so it would be best to “add” or have a predefinition for the Story where you start a little further after the tutorial or at least where you start the game at a similar point on where you would normally start in se1, like in satisfactory where there is a checkbox to skip the hub tiers
I personally enjoy SE1 for the lack of Grind and Sandbox style play. I hope SE2 Campaign portion allows you to by pass the story and do as one pleases jumping back into the story when ever one wants.Side note I really hope automation is taken to the next level. The event controller in SE1 was one of the biggest game changers for me. Combining these different blocks into something useful is beautiful end game loop.
Can we still have a separate, storyless sandbox?
The new billboards look way better than the old ones. How unfortunate that we can not have the Static mesh spawn variant.
I really felt that the idea that the cutscenes in the game being prerendered is offensive to a game based on the players creations, It’s not going to be delivered with any value, I urge you to include real-time content of the creators in SE so that it is something we can watch over and over and yet still find satisfying, it isn’t wise to create a constructive creation game and not include the player or player creations. Pre-rendered entertainment won’t last long, even to fans! SE needs to celebrate content not the games frustrating theme that feels childish.
The story needs to be optional. Imo it should be a mission that you start with, akin to the missions you can pick up from trade stations in se1, but updating objectives like you would expect from a campaign.
From what I have gathered from the blogpost I think that this mission based story campaign is what they are going for. (“Some missions push the story forward”)
I’d prefer a separation of storyline and sandbox. A start in sandbox mode and then a block or npc that could start the storyline or just the storyline elements can be found
I’m not sure I’m a big fan of the idea of the story, I’ll have to wait & see to fully judge. But I want to be able to just start a game & get right into it, I don’t care to go through some FTUE every time (ideally the FTUE is just that, first time, like a tutorial that automatically loads for new players then you never really see again unless you intentionally go to play it again) and deal with cutscenes, I want my game to be a true sandbox where I’m not forced to interact with some story system, where I can just completely ignore the AI for the most part, maybe even go to war with all of the different factions. Basically I think players should just have options, complete freedom.
Having the option to have a pure sandbox mode is really important. I would love to have the ability to add the story into the sandbox at a time of the player’s choosing rather than being railroaded into it.
@Marek: Definitely have the option to disable screen-shake. It can be a direct trigger to motion sickness, vertigo, or even migraines in some people.
Or slider bar.
I wanna be able to see myself accelerate when I accelerate!
Please include an option for the players to not be the sibling and part of the Bering project. I’m sure it’s going to be a nice story but SE players are creative and have their own fantasies.
+1 good simpleseparation idea.That way you can still later on, interact with the story if you choose, but you can still feel immersed in the story you’re writing yourself.I can feel the fantasy of being whichever Faction I like, with the goals that I’ve chosen, and interact with the Bering project as I see fit in my “sandbox experience”And in multiplayer, I may not even want that Faction, just those of me and myfriends, and our internal/external politics
Thank you for realizing that the hand drill needs to be tactile and satisfying. One of my issues in other lesser games with mining is they use a “laser”, or some other poor method which kills immersion, but the SE implementation was always satisfying both personal or in a ship. I loved going on several hour-long mining sessions and it never felt boring because of how the mining felt.The same has to do for welding and grinding. I love the way the welding feels in SE and would love if that continued into SE 2.
-hour-long mining sessionswe need interesting cave systems
caves would definitely be cool. while huge long maze like caves aren’t really that common in nature. (at least to ones that could hold a spaceship) it would be really cool to explore and look if you find stuff.Could even have POIs and PvE to give it a Subnautical feel… underwater caves would also be really cool. but also if we have caves and water physics… everyone will flood at least one cave
I like the progress on the grass. Sometimes when I look at a field of grass it is like looking at the sea, the grass heads bend with wave like patterns when there is a good breeze. Occasionally a small gust would puff and ripple out across the plain. I have seen Studio Ghibli use this in some of their anime films.Will datapads be able to store blueprints or images?
Datapads storing blueprints sounds great!
I’d like Story and Sandbox to stay separate, or have an option to turn the story off in Sandbox. I enjoy playing freely without the story sometimes. But looking forward to see how having both story and sandbox in one will work,
I think an option to turn off story mode in sandbox would be better.
Also, slightly off-topic here from previous poster: It might be a good idea to nerf the jetpack at least on planets. SE is first and foremost an engineering game not just a “legos in space”. Engineering by definition means solving problems, and a good portion of design decisions are completely negated when building if the jetpack is way to powerful.
Completely agree, ground vehicles are REALLY cool, and fun to messWith in SE1, the jetpack is so strong that Hydrogen bottles feel like a better investment than a truck– and it’s usually just more worth it to build a ship at that point.I’m hoping that SE2 Early game on a planet makes it feel potentially worthwhile to build a truck, or even a boat (spawn depending)
This was actually one of my few complaints about SE1 is that I didn’t find it worth it to build a rover because it was too easy to just go straight to flight. It would be nice to actually earn flight so it feels like a reward after hard work. No suit flight either til you earn it. Which makes me concerned with merging story mode and sandbox because it sounds like you end up with flight in the first hour of game play….which is too soon IMO!
About Multi-Character Emotes, Dota 2 has a high-five system, where one character can “raise hand” for a high-five and if another player in range also uses that emote within a few seconds the animation will play out. It’s simpler there as it’s an effect above the characters and so the character models themselves don’t need to move, but maybe a similar system could make it into SE2 eventually, where if you want to handshake with someone, you use the emote on your end that puts your model in a “ready for handshake” state, and if there is someone in front of you that also does that then you trigger the handshake. Obviously it’s not something worthwhile before the game itself and multiplayer is there, but I would love to be able to shake on a transaction with another player.
Let the Gras grow amd give is a mower
You already have one, it’s called “large amount of explosives”. 😀
Before this becomes the latest Space Engineers controversy, we all know that there’s going to be an option to turn the story off or that you can just ignore it.Nearly every single good survival or sandbox game that has released over the past 10 years has had some kind of story built into it, whether it be Subnautica, the Forest 1 or 2, Dune: Awakening, etc, all of the games have them but you can just do whatever you want. We don’t need to lose our minds over SE2 having one and obviously there’s going to be a way to disable it so multiplayer will work correctly.
I expect that multiplayer would work with the story, since that would be the default SE2 experience. Kind of cool to think that players could complete the story together like that.The thing about games like Subnautica or the Forest is that, at least for me, the game feels mostly “done” after completing the story. I might build a couple more modules after launching the Neptune rocket, but other than that the game is “completed”. I think SE1 felt different because it didn’t have an end condition, and was designed around that. I think SE2 will be similar in that it will not feel so much like the story is all there is to do, because of the SE1 precedence, and the extensive sandbox tools over other games.
Can we please have an option to disable the shake and sparks from the hand tools locally? My fiancee loves playing the game with me, but unfortunately she has epileptic seizures, in Space Engineers 1 we relied on mods (that did not always work) to disable them and that would affect everyone playing with us, specially since we also had to ask “hey can you purposely install this mod on your end if you want us to play with you?” quite often whenever a friend invites the two of us. Having the option would be great so people can play the way they want and disable what, in the case of my fiancee, threatens their health.Thank you for your hard work and make it the best game to fly!
Some more accessibility options would be amazing. Another example being a colour blind mode. A lot of the emissive textures, like the different function states on the conveyors, are hard to tell a part. Same goes with a dedicated option to toggle hand tools on. I know there’s the double click in SE1, but having the option for it to just default to toggle would be great for accessibility
In regards to the additional story segments, datapads etc to enhance the story, can you make it in a way that it’s expendable easily (like when I make a server I can add multiple datapads that are distributed randomly as story? Also it would be nice touch if it would be a 30-70 mix of voiced and text. Rarely anyone reads ingame books and texts anymore, perhaps a future looking solution would be to AI text to voice read them up optionally? Most people I’ve seen skipping simple texts on datapads. In SE1 people kept looking at them slightly longer since they might contain coordinates, but text was mostly skipped.. Reading stops the action and the actual gameplay..
maybe some kind of ai companion that can read them for you as you listen kinda like a podcast
Will there still be a purely sandbox game mode, similar to the solar system map in SE1 (but with the generic npcs to interact with) later down the line? It’s not that I’m not interested in the story, it’s just not something I can see myself playing through more than once, as my enjoyment from SE comes from creating engineering challenges and their crazy solutions.
I appreciate to have sandbox and story to be combined. It could lead to a very dynamic gameplay between building your stuff and doing quests. Furthermore it could make the world more interessting when there are some quest npcs and story specific places.
Very excited to see what’s in store. If we are going to be interacting with a living world it would be interesting to have some personnel transport missions as some of the contracts you were talking about. It would be fun to “roleplay” as some sort of colony transport taxi.
I thinks it’s a great idea to combine sandbox and the story. It gives you a reason to do stuff and if it is implementet via mission as descripted, player who want a pure sandbox experience can just ignore the story missions.
I would suggest not just “scattering” the rocks. Look at real environments. It’s easier to find rocks near cliff faces/uneven terrain than just scattered everywhere.
Would also be crazy annoying for rovers if theyre just scattered everywhere..
+1 Rocks are great, but going to riverside near mountains, or rockier biomes to find them is even better.Allowing some ground-vehicle friendly terrain is much appreciated
Agreed. I also hope that rovers feel heavier than they do in SE1. In SE1 it genuinely feels like rovers weigh little more than paper.
I personally like that the story mode and sandbox are combined, in the sense that at any point during my sandbox playthrough I could decide to dip into some story elements.But I do think that the FTUE should be something you can toggle off, or at least after your first playthrough. If it’s off, have options for different planetary drop-pods, but the story mode is still available if you happen to visit the Orbital Station, take contracts, learn about your brother etc. That would satisfy the vanilla veterans to a degree.I also get why you would not include character builds in cutscenes as that’s a logistical nightmare where 90% of the camera placements would be obscured by various ship designs, but if the cutscenes don’t at least include character skins, does that mean the player is never in the cutscenes? Would be pretty jarring if it cuts to what seems like another character playing the role of what we’ve accomplished.Otherwise, love the updates. Looking forward to seeing more video updates on combat 🙂
FYI to the devs asking for reviews on steam is a violation of steams distribution agreement. This is also a hot button issue for steam right now due to Blue Archive.
Who cares?? They definitely deserve the like for all the hard work and updates they are doing!Even if the game is not filled with content atm, they are absolutely clear on what is currently included and have shown to be totally reliable in the past! One of the last trustworthy game devs out there!
The review problem is about coercing players to leave reviews. From what I’ve seen, reminding players to leave a review if they have something to say isn’t against steam’s policies. Instead, asking players to leave positive reviews, paying people to leave reviews, or offering rewards for leaving reviews could probably count as a problematic manipulation of the review system.
With all this cool stuff coming I really hope someone with an older pc (think Geforce 1060 type) can still run it. I guess I’m just wondering if the minimum specs are eventually going to be like games such as Arma Reforger. Where people could play on the lowest settings on their dirty old Thinkpad, still have the game look great, and clock in at more than 52 fps.
Please don’t make the story mandatory to play…. I like to play this game as a sandbox game. Story is great but what if i just want to survive and progress.
I am not a big fan of merging the story in sandbox. I feel like a lot of people who are coming from space engineers like me aren’t Going to want to play story mode right away also, won’t this add more time to the development?
Maybe the first time you load up SE2, it can pop you directly into the scripted FTUE to play through (or basically a campaign survival world). Loading up the game after that would take you to the main menu where there is an option to create a traditional sandbox survival. I do agree that the campaign should be the focus and probably the main singleplayer experience, but removing the option for an unguided sandbox setting might not go over well with the community 🙂
Are developers overpaying for environmental representations such as grasslands?How many people have machines capable of rendering realistic landscapes?Shouldn’t they invest in other game systems that should be pursued and keep costs down to realistically necessary levels?
Please make them separate I don’t know how a campaign in sandbox with other players with cutscenes is going to work
Based on what i gather from the blog post regarding story and sandbox, it seems like similar to X4 , only first few part guided similar to tutorial, after that everything goes, same with pre rendered cutscene.
Wow! The landscape and grass looks absolutely mesmorizing! Amazing job by your team! Just the engineer looks kind of off in this landscape^^ Hopefully there will be at least one type of non-space suit clothes for living on planets (maybe a backpack-like jetpack? Even a purely decorative one would be fine for cutscenes, NPCs etc). Why would you or NPCs wear a big clunky spacesuit on a planet? xDAlso pleeease, give us some kind of farming! I would love to plow some fields with my buzzing “sonic hoe” and vapourize some weeds with my laser gun on the fertile volcanic gound or in between those beautiful grass ! I really hope food and environmental challenges are coming to SE2 (in survival, VS2 maybe?), like they will be in SE1 soon :)Hopefully the rocks arent just scattered everywhere randomly, but remain close to mountains, like in reality (like in valleys where a stone avalanche came down the mountain). Otherwise it would be incredibly annoying for driving with rovers.Merging story and sandbox sounds good in my opinion! I would do the same. But there should be the option in advanced world settings to manually turn off cutscenes and progression (when I replay for the 10th time I may not want cutscenes or progression that time). This way new players get the engaging full story experience, but veteran players can progress how they want by turning it off.Also curious to see how story and cutscenes will work in co-op multiplayer especially, but also PvP. Would be awesome, if two players can compete against each other in colonizing Almagest and tracking each others progress on the colonization map.
I like the idea of an animation happening while boosting, and turning that off when there’s no acceleration. I would love for ship sounds to also turn off when no thrusters are firing. The sound that hydrogen ships make at 100 m/s while cruising in space with no thrusters firing was quite loud and made traveling from asteroid to asteroid a noisy experience.Also I’m looking forward to seeing the campaign. I think it’s a good idea to merge campaign and sandbox, because sandbox might end up feeling like “The game”, and the campaign might then feel like an add-on, sort of like the scenarios in SE1.
Space engineers has always been a sandbox first, campaign last. The option should be there but the people shouldn’t be forced to play it every time you load up a survival world.
Please allow us a lawn mower tool or a tree cutting tool. One of the biggest frustrations in SE 1 is finding an awesome base location only to have a tree growing through it
Also I would add on this, that road making blocks like buldozer block, or some kind of element that helps transform voxels, not only drills, would be greatly appreciated.I want to connect things with roads, and make highways that go through deserts.I hope you get the point im trying to make. I don’t really care, how it would be implemented, but I just want to make natural roads and over all terraform the planet, other than building a mega refinery out of steel :DD
Thanks for your diary and hard work, love u :з
I would like if there would be a heavy emphasis on underwater gameplay.I also think that lots of time and care should be put into missions so that they will be unique and engaging, merging the campaign and sandbox is great, but will the campaign come after the survival update or with it?
For an april fools update make it so that using the drill will spin you around
oh god, I hate how much sense that makes if the jetpack is off
Hello. I really like your plans about the story mode and I would like to know more !I hope those missions will not have the same negatives things about Empyrion Galactic Survival story missions.I think missions like in Kerbal Space program would suit well in SE2 context: a clear mission that let you plan yourself an expedition, that let you imagine the perfect ship or setlement for that particular mission in the name of the great Colonization !
Regarding the merging of Campaign and Sandbox. Space Engineers has an identity, a reason for why so many have poured countless hours into it. It’s open ended nature complimenting the sandbox. People use the sandbox to create they’re own stories. However this is further complicated by the introduction of a forced campaign. I feel that the sandbox with an optional colonization index was perfect, and then a side story, the campaign, a brilliant move. Making multiple players’ interests be met in an equilibrium. Cutting to the point, after playing the game for however long, doing everything the story has to offer, at what point does it become stale. The sandbox which has an infinitude of possibility is bogged down by something that the players have already completed. I am aware that this choice is being made to simplify the game. But having a story outside of the sandbox is not a waste it is simply making a game for a wider audience. I feel that there should be two options, sandbox with an optional colonization index, and story which includes the sandbox + index features while adding a background to the overall game. This game has fostered so many communities and stories because of it’s solely sandbox nature, being force fed a campaign will only hinder the community’s overall creativity.
I wonder what ‘colonizing the almagest system’s really means. It would be disappointing if it’s just a progress bar that quests fill up. On the other hand if after a handful of resource prospecting and locating quests we see refineries begin to appear/be built, then I’d feel like we had an impact that was tangible. Similarly if we get a quest to clear an asteroid field or root out pirates and the area gets a colony, etc. Maybe we submit a ship blueprint with certain specs and it suddenly becomes a part of the NPCs repetoir
The merge is a good idea. Im only suggesting that you don’t make the missions always in the same exact place. For example, minecrafts way of making you do the same stuff every time is still exiting, even though i have done it like 10 times, because you have to do the loop every time, there is no youtube tutorial that shows you exactly where the mission happens, just how to do it. I think personally that’s really important to do the systems so they are procedural kinda. It makes the playability better, and also avoids instant metas. Because there are always people who try to find the most efficient way and then make a yt video about it. Chaos is good, and finding out stuff is good. And really important after the first play trough.
Combining Sandbox and Story will be cool. It will hopefully feel like subnautica 1. Where you have the agency to ignore story content, use it just for the benefit of your survival, or delve fully into it. The cutscenes are a bit scary but hopefully the only forced cutscene is the first one, or first several as long as they’re skippable. Cutscenes will drastically lower the feeling of agency a player has to invest (or not) in the story
There’s a lot in this post that I really like, not the least of which is asteroid clusters – depending on how this is implemented it could be a really welcome change from the randomly spaced, pseudorandom generation we see in SE1. Distinct asteroid feature ‘landmarks’ would feel amazing and increase immersion and will be great points of interest to compete for resources in the future multi-player release.Progress on grass textures looks really good, we’re going to have some real picturesque vista’s in VS2…
Tools:Since I saw the sparks of the angle grinder fly in the wrong direction and even Joel stating he had never used a grinder, I thought it would be a great idea for the KEEN team to do a little “research”. Grab yourself a few scrap steel pipes and girders and let the boys and girls have a go!Much love! :o)
I think it’s a good idea to make campain encompass all of the sandbox features, but not 100% the other way around.If you wanted to make an “early game campaign” optionally accessible and interactable in sandbox mode, that seems fine to me, but I want an escape pod to be plummeting towards an earthlike planet, and to build my empire from there, with any other Faction-interaction optional.Still accessible if you guys want, but not directly tied in. Lemmie start the game, hit dirt, and start building.
The grass looks stunning!I know it’s quite a stereotype at this time, but sadly with the way some companies move I have to ask it, are there any plans to block Linux systems from playing via anti cheat and such? I don’t expect, nor honestly want the game to be supported for Linux, I’d much rather you focus on the game itself, but deliberately blocking it would be quite a bummer.
I’m very happy with the game so far, but being a veteran of SE1 it’s hard for me to design hulls and such without taking provisions for fuel storage and such. I entirely understand that inventory systems are complicated and not coming for a while (likely not till survival drops I figure), but I’d love to have a placeholder hydrogen/fuel tank or something. I’m sure I’m not the only SE1 player who’s allergic to ion thrusters.Anyways, good work, from a SE2 Linux player (no need for official support, we’re chillin fine with proton, but please don’t block linux with anti-cheat)
It’s obviously not right to force story mode. Especially the start part should be skippable even if we play the story. Story elements can be discovered in the world, but they shouldn’t be forced. Also, don’t assume only a specific world will be played. Engineers often want to play in custom worlds. Make sure all elements are valid and customizable and optional there.
I know it is not the topic of this diary but, regarding the previous one about combat, I would like to suggest the addition of active defenses to the ships such as flares in fighters or the Iron Dome of Israel
Pre-rendering kind of breaks immersion
Question are the spawn system for asteroids going to be like SE1 where the player has to go to space for the asteroids to spawn. If it is can we have it setup that remote controlled blocks can also spawn them? I was trying to do a kinda NASA like survival where i would send out a probe like the Voyager probes to have them look for asteroids with ores I can crate a marker to and come back to them when I’ve build my mining ships to head to space and mine the ore. Is it a difficult thing to allow remote blocks to spawn asteroids?
I really don’t think rolling campaign and sandbox into the same thing is very usefulpeople play sandbox because they just want to build, without quests, without discovery, without being bothered by NPC’s, without goals, and preferably in an empty or near-empty world.as well, campaign really wouldn’t be conducive to multiplayer. what is this, a “hero simulator” like WoW where you line up to accept your quest, so you can be savior of the realm #44279127? even worse would be if blocks are tied to discovery, and then you don’t have access to them for the build mode… sandbox is arguably the second most important.campaign; full-fat experience. story, quests, cutscenes, discovery, exploration, building, survival, objectives. Good for single player.survival; discovery, building, exploration, non-story quests, survival, player-directed quests (not enough games let you add custom quest logs)creative; building. that’s it. there’s a reason these are standard gamemodes in the industry. it works, and provides something for most players. I know you guys really seemed not to like how people didn’t ever really do the scenarios, and they should be more fun in the new one, but truth be told, the thrill of starting from nothing but a crashed escape pod and drill, and eventually becoming a space pirate with your friends, and building a ship that eats police interdictors with a grind-pit, having one friend start on another planet, and deciding you’re going to race him to get to space and save the other, or doing quests for NPC’s and becoming my group’s ambassador and procurement officer, with a personal silver-trimmed corvette- that’s what keeps me playing.
Hi,I was wondering if there are plans, in the future, to add a wear system of key blocks (reactors, thrusters, production modules) that would wear out and thus be less efficient over time until a maintenance is done (adding components to fix things), also maybe wearing out faster when used at a 100%. It could add an extra layer of realism and implication for players.Anyway keep up the good work and good luck to you all !
When I first read the “merging sandbox and survival” I thought it was about implementing a way to create blueprints inside your survival world using all of the tools available in “creative”, I’m not sure about feasibility and if it is in line with your vision of the game, but adding something like a late-game virtual-zone block (maybe only findable after completing the main story) which would transport the player in a virtual realm, where there is no limits to building, but you can only take out blueprints from there would be kind of good to fix the almost necessary use of a creative world, especially for more complex build. Thank you for your devlogs!
Have you considered a potential terraforming system or potentially animal and growing fauna species?
cool updates but i was wondering if there is any plans to put it on switch 2 its on ps4 and xbox one and the switch 2 is more powerful and the mouse controls would work well
Part 1: Hello, Mr. Rosa. I didn’t write in the last blog entries because I didn’t have time. As always, thank you for writing these, it’s very interesting to see the process. As I’ve written before, the engine and art teams are really giving players their money’s worth. From today’s pictures, the grass and its different types are beautiful. The rocks and the soil too. I can already see that I’m going to start the game and just sit there watching nature.I have some thoughts about the FTU(Maybe “P”, for player)E. The aim of the first part seems to be to have the player fix a ship and start flying. Is this really okay? I have been following the development of this game from the start, since it was just a rumor, and many times you have mentioned that instant gratification is one of the aims. I think that it should not be the main goal, and that instead the goal should be maximum gratification. Instant gratification is okay for small things, like having pleasant and satisfying sounds when doing things like walking, selecting things, pressing buttons, and such, but for “bigger” things, so to speak, it’s a bit cheapening because you don’t get a sense of the extraordinary. For example, imagine some famous painting. What makes it special is the amount of work that went into it. If you take a picture and print it and sell it for an euro, will the print be as treasured? What if, for example, everybody got a giant ship in a few hours? Having a giant ship wouldn’t be really anything special, because it doesn’t take anything special to get it. In this case I have flight in mind. We walk a bit and after some work we are flying already? This is a problem that we already had in Space Engineers 1: flying is too easy. With these planets we are getting that are like pieces of art, wouldn’t it be good to take some time to enjoy them? The view, the feeling of driving, the time taken to learn about the planet and how it behaves… I know that you want to catch the interest of new players before they get bored and leave, but I can’t help but feel that it’s wasted potential. To me, it’s like eating half of a sandwich in two bites quickly and not enjoying the taste, the texture, the different ingredients. Unrelated, but I would call the map “map”, so it wouldn’t be distracting. I think special terms should be minimized in order to follow “Show, don’t tell”.
Part 2: Going back to the topic, imagine if getting a ship was “I can finally fly! I can go wherever I want at high speed and I can avoid all ground obstacles” instead of “Okay, so I can fly. What’s next?”. Another thing is that I would like a lot more focus on the human level rather than the ship level. There’s just not much that can be done as a ship: you can fly it, crash it, shoot. Maybe you can move other ships and grind them or weld them, but it’s somewhat limited. To me the interesting thing is the human level, where men and not machines are the focus. The progress seems good on the two-people animations. I think I have written it before, but carrying injuried teammates to something like a medical bed or to safety to heal them would be so cool. If the full spectrum of combat was introduced (different classes of guns, grenades, binoculars, personal armor) it would be great. If we had personal customization like body, face, clothing that would definitely expand the potential audience of the game. If there were different types of foods it would be nice, too. This for example would be a place where so much instant gratification could be packed. I went back to read, and I think that cutscenes should definitely contain the player’s character no matter what. It would be too much of a disconnection for many people and it would not be seen as a sign of quality. Personally I don’t care a lot about it, because seeing how the industrial process is going there will be a lot of modding to do, even though I really wished that you would do that right. I wished that the process was simple yet complex, starting from a generalist block that could do many things at low efficiency, to a simple chain with higher efficiency, to a complex chain with maximum efficiency, where the simpler chains would still be useful if you wanted to make a very small ship. It’s sad, but at least the base of the game (the engine, the art, and the modding capacity) is solid.
Climbing, crawling, and swimming would be cool too.
Are you going to integrate the story into the sandbox mode?My opinion is “never.”First of all, sandbox mode should not be tied to a story or cutscenes. It should be free, except for research progress. Some people say it’s fine if you can progress whenever you want, but if there is an opening or a quest list somewhere, it can’t be called a free sandbox.So, what’s good about it? My opinion is to separate it into story mode and sandbox mode. That way, players can choose the mode according to what they want to do. Don’t force a story on people who don’t want it.
Locked things are only respected there and then, abandoned after the second time. Remember the failure of SE1 economy?I’m very happy with the emphasis on the hand tool experience. With more character customization, multi-character emotes will be put to better use. I can’t wait to discover Asteroid Clusters in Almagest.
Hey Marek! One thing I haven’t heard much or anything about is Console/Controller compatibility. Being someone who primarily plays with controller this is a big plus. Could you tell us something about this?
“Static Mesh Spawn (test 1)” looks like the bestone to me, the heigh variety and density is just beautiful, I can’t really tell the difference between the later tests, they look “ok” I guess.I feel like more than the grass itself, it would be really cool to have different areas and terrain have different height of grass, some really high even.Another cool thing could be to have thrusters blow the grass down while flying very close to it, and rovers driving over it leave trails with the grass compressed to the ground, then slowly it could go back to normal after a bit of time, imagine how cool seeing all the trails left by rovers coming and going could look!
I am curious to ask; with the new fast travel between sectors, or otherwise, would it be possible to have a drone cargo ship ferry resources back and forth? I’ve always been enamoured with SE’s automation side, and have in almost every playthrough tried to create some sort of drone cargo transport to varying degrees of success. An interplanetary/inter-sector cargo network would be incredibly satisfying to set up, so I’m wondering if this would be a possibility or not?
I like the integration of the story into the sandbox world. Some comments say they don’t, however when you don’t need the story to progress then I don’t see why you shouldn’t integrate it.
Please don’t combine sandbox and story mode 🙏🙏🙏
Combining Story mode and sandbox is a good idea because it allows a player to do both on one world, kind of like No Man’s Sky.
ok baby, do you love me
Things that SE2 should have imo:**Landmarks (ex: super-large mountain that reaches towards space, shipwrecks, abandoned quarries, forest with larger trees, volcanos, etc)-Engaging Combat-NPC/Faction interactions (war/fighting/trade)-Caves-Very, Very optimized multiplayer-Sandbox/freedom (not forced to do story)-Probably new liquids (Oil? Lava?)-Optimized AI presets for player ships (cargo transport, defense, etc)-Balance between space and planets (some ores only in space or on planet, or better options if you have both)-AI crew (whether enemy only or also players, mainly for better boarding defenses to be necessary, could even have special ships that try to board the players)I’m sure there is some other stuff that I’m missing, but I think these are all things that would make the game better on release.
Also having space based landmarks and more viable hydrogen compared to vanilla SE1 would be nice 🙂
SE ships have really nice complex damage models. Each and every part can be damaged. You can take out weapons or thrusters or power. Shields would be a big step back. It’s like having a health bar instead. Shield are lame.
They need to increase the player health or decrease hand weapon damage in SE1 and i hope it will be better in SE2
While I love the idea of SE2 having a broader story to it, I really hope I’m correct in assuming that there will also be a truly sandbox mode where NPC mods and scenarios can take the helm and deliver story elements in varying degrees. I would love to be able to create scenarios with a few extra tools at my disposal than hand placed assets, datapads, and a world save of that breadcrumb trail…but if we had a forced intro cutscene that would break the lore of my scenario, I would rather have no tools on that front and the ability to disable story mode before starting a fresh empty world.