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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
Story is Optional, Sandbox is Still King
You can accept missions from NPCs or the Contract Block - or simply play free-form sandbox.
Some of these missions are part of the Colonization of Almagest - our meta-progression loop. This system unlocks new areas, resources, blocks, upgrades, and more.
It’s not mandatory, but it’s a key way to grow your capabilities and unlock more of the world.
Separate from colonization, some missions push the story forward - including cutscenes and narrative moments.
The story layer is completely optional. If you ignore both the colonization missions and the story, you’ll have a pure sandbox experience.
You decide how deep you want to go - colonization, story, both, or neither.
What About Multiplayer?
The last blog post focused on single-player, but here’s our current thinking on multiplayer:
- Co-op Story Mode: Your friends join your world. You play as Miro Sokol, and they’re your companions. Together, you experience your story.
- Vanilla Sandbox Servers: On public or dedicated servers, the story is turned off. Nobody is Miro Sokol. Everyone starts freely, just like classic SE sandbox.
This design is still a work in progress and subject to change. But your feedback is helping us shape it in the right direction.
with these cool stuff i hope you guys never have to go public
ReplyDeleteit's not only about not going public. there are also possibilities for investors to ruin private companies.
DeleteI just hope and believe in Keen that they are careful who they accept support from and don't let outsiders influence their decision or stress them
can wait for water
ReplyDeleteCan’t wait for multiplayer and water
ReplyDeleteI feel that pushing the player character into a designated story protagonist (Miro Sokol) kinda ruins the point of a SANDBOX story mode. I understand that it's not a required progression, but it's less appealing than being something like The Engineer or just a nameless engineer helping out.
ReplyDeleteThis was exactly what I thought. Having a story mode is cool but having it so story focused where you're playing a character in the universe instead of just yourself in a sandbox game feels wrong
Delete+1 to this, especially as it forces a gender. I personally always play "myself" in games, I don't generally identify with a named protagonist (regardless of gender).
DeleteAs stated, it’s entirely optional and seems like a fun thing that they’re working on. I’ve been more of a sandbox type but I do want to play the optional story too.
DeleteWhy not just let people name their characters...
DeleteEverything else sounds good, except the main protagonist. Please dont force a character on to people. I like the story, it gives some structure, but a character makes it a story game in a sense.
DeleteWe want to create our own characters, it's part of being sandbox.
Maybe you can name your character, or it just takes your username, but the mc needs a canonical name
DeleteMaybe they could go a middle way, where you play your own caracter (possibly with customization) but Ivan Sokol is still your brother in the story.
DeleteI think that last one is a good idea, a middle ground between customization and having a fixed thing in the story. Ivan Sokol would be your brother but you the main character can be many other things, if you wanted to put yourself in the story
DeleteCould you guys release a prototype planet or a small planet to the public?
ReplyDeleteYou can already spawn planets via the dev menu. They aren’t finished yet and can be buggy, but it’s still cool to explore them. https://youtu.be/SLtwBuPScoQ?si=AKTfLeHvQ9PuJDxo
DeleteThis is awesome, the water turbine REALLY interests me, how will it likely work?
ReplyDeleteI cannot understate how much I love the idea of the performance indicator on the Water turbine. This was really missing on the SE1 Windturbine.
ReplyDeleteThe story structure sound fine. Reminds me a bit of Breath of the Wild, and most people would agree that was a good sandbox game. Being actually part of the active story (unlike BotW) certainly is a plus.
Will the story be linear, or are there decisions the player can make to affect it? Like for example support one faction more than the others, so they "win" in the end?
I think I saw something that mentioned players will have the options of different paths within the story, though I think they still may lead to the same ultimate result.
DeleteWith the story unlocking new blocks and progression, will some blocks only be obtainable through the story? I hope this isn't the case for players who just want to play sandbox
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it will be a toggle like with progression now
DeleteWith the story unlocking new blocks and progression, will some blocks only be obtainable through the story? I hope this isn't the case for players who just want to play sandbox
ReplyDeletei do really like the concept of personally voiced, established characters in story mode, but i like my engineer gal from SE1 and hope we still get character customization and we can still make our own characters! in an ideal world, male or female and we can pick from presets like asian girl or slavic girl or scandinavian or whatnot
ReplyDelete+1
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DeleteWith all the crap that's happening with 7 Days To Die, I really appreciate your (and your team's) commitment to keeping the game true to what has made it great! Thank you for your unwavering passion, creativity, and focus to create the best possible space sandbox game. Space Engineers 1 has never been better and I'm excited to spend thousands of hours in Space Engineers 2!
ReplyDeleteIn regards to multiplayer, I feel like the Rust gameplay loop is such a great one, or at least one I'm partial to.
ReplyDeleteJoin a server with a few hundred people on a large map, find resources, possibly get killed a bunch along the way. Then you build a base to avoid being killed, you get transportation (building cars / ships), and you upgrade your base to avoid it being destroyed so easily. Then you arm yourself better, as you collect more things. And the loop being, raiding other players for their loot. It keeps you in this ever-lasting loop of needing to gather resources for a real reason, and needing to innovate and create defenses and offenses to win. It's the reason so many people who play Rust have thousands of hours on it, it requires you come back to keep your stuff safe. It's very engaging.
The idea of one team of players driving a convoy of trucks from a place where they mine minerals back to their base, and being ambushed on their way back by another team who steals all their loot, it's just an awesome gameplay interaction. That first team will then have to think of countermeasures to being ambushed, upgrade their vehicles, and try again.
This type of gameplay is also in Ark Survival Evolved, as another example. Of course, hundreds of players on a server, with combat and networking that is smooth enough to be fair to all players, is a DIFFICULT task, and one I don't think is in the vision of SE2 currently. But I do feel like the resource gathering gameplay loop, combined with combat, and multiplayer servers, works so well when you add in that base raiding element, and perhaps weekly server wipes, is such an engaging experience. It keeps it sandboxy, but adds a real (since other players change it), dynamic element and events that keeps you coming back forever.
I would prefer if multiplayer servers maybe didn’t function so PvP heavy as rust, a strong PvP element is still very good but there should be other things as well.
DeleteI would love to play the story mode with my friends on a dedicated server. Because one of us is always not online and we couldn‘t continue, when the story host is not online. And also the performance should be a lot smother (better internet connection of the server and the computing load of the multiplayer session is serverside).
ReplyDeleteAn option to enable/disable storymode on start of a dedicated server or a singleplayer/coop game would be nice for everybody who doesn‘t want to play the storymode.
Greetings Justin
Really glad to heard Sandbox first in multiplayer. I don't mind at all single player stories, a lot of games zero in on a story, naming the main character etc. 100% down for this.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that makes this building game stand out from other sandbox building games is that you get to build things that do things. There is a sense of accomplishment when putting together different blocks to achieve a particular goal. If I could influence SE2 in anyway I would recommend adding more blocks similar to the event controller that give the players the building blocks for automation and logic. Factorio did this on the extreme end with control circuits etc, allowing a massive bubble of players to create amazing things. In my humble opinion the event controller, and action block, and more settings for every block in SE1 pushed the game to a whole nother level.
So if we're playing as an established character in the single player story, how will this effect character customisation? Will there still be the option to change suit colours, suit skins, gender? Or will that type of thing be limited to co-op "companions" and dedicated servers? It would be a shame if I'm stuck in the default blue suit while all my friend who joined me can have all that customisation.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI like the idea for the coop story mode. The free start in dedicated multiplayer is OK to, but if you want to innovate, I'd add something in there that could guide free multiplayer optionally, something that is randomized and perhaps can be customized by server admins. Randomization and customization are the future of gaming, every game I've spent thousands of hours in features one or both of those. Just some quick ideas: Having a faction with a random headquarters to conquer, if there are planets, their base is on a random planet, if there are no planets, their bases is a random station. Digging mission with something valuable to find if you find where to dig, and can go deep enough. This needs to be something deep in a planet that needs the player to set a base, make proper planning. A mission to build aquaducts from a watery place to a town far away, or railways connecting 2 points. Mirror enemies, that have similar buildings, structures and ships as the player. Once a ship is completed by the player, the enemy faction also have one, and they can print it out as their blueprint, like if they would have stolen the blueprint from the players. Reconstruction projects, to make a ship from larger parts that the player cannot build so they need to gather them, have machinery to transport and move them around, like forklifts etc to make a larger ship as an assembled project. I can probably come up with more ideas. The point is story don't need to mean just the main story. SE2 can have compartmentalized bits that can populate dedicated server gameplay. Lots of NPCs for sure. If you look at the most popular mods for SE1, you can probably find MES in the top. A sandbox is fine, but players like to see some traffic in the air, maybe a ship they haven't seen yet, that would interrupt their game by their choice if they get up, get into their ship and try to captre it. There are many ways to do this, my main point is that next to the bare arse sandbox, there should be a way to make a rich sandbox with more than just sand in it. :-)
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, having the story left out of the multiplayer experience (on servers anyway) isn't great. We have quite a few people in our community alone that play on servers just to play with friends because of the cross-platform. Unless a player can join another players game with cross-platform capabilities without needing a server, it may not be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I understand why, there's just alot of examples that show a story in servers is possible, even with voxel destruction, and the physics as well. Really isn't any reason to not even include an option to turn it off, just like progression.
Otherwise I love that the sandbox-first is still a thing. So many games nowadays force the story onto you, or make it to where you NEED to do the story to unlock stuff. It gets repetitive and reduces the replay ability of games.
Can't wait for multiplayer though, keep at it everyone!
I like the way things are going, the small steps that you share each week appear to be quite measured and added with care.
ReplyDeleteIt is good to hear news on the game's campaign story, I wondered if you had any intention of introducing any reoccurring side characters that could potentially be used in future modded player made campaigns.
Having said that.... I wonder if an in game programming language can be added to do very very basic logic. A special programing block/event controller that can run up to X amount of lines, basically doing all the things an event controller does in SE1....
ReplyDeleteI hope that colonization and story will basically end up beeing a voluntary guide through the games progression. I feel like it shouldn't lock you out of new blocks or new locations if you don't do the story. Not doing the story can simply mean you don't get extra help with reaching your goals and maybe need to do some extra steps manually. Most importantly I'd love it if you gave everyone a reason to explore. For example by having higher concentrations of specific resources in some locations, unique ones or maybe even special processing/trading opportunities which make you want to move around, setup outposts and engineer solutions to get around efficiently (would love to see rovers/trains/ships come in handy for efficient planetary transport over flyers).
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting seeing a lot of pushback against the story. I guess it's just people resisting change a little bit but as a reminder, SE 2 isn't going to be SE 1 + water. It's a new game, with new rules and features. Any concerns you have about what is and isn't in the game should be put to rest when you remember the amazing modding tools that already exist for SE2. Keen's product has always been the VRAGE engine so feel free to mod the game into "SE 1 + water" if you want to. That being said, I trust the vision of Marek and KSH to turn this game into something even better than what we can imagine at this point.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI can't wait building ships for missions in order to unlock new blocks to build even better ships. It'll be great tinkering to build ships that are capable of taking various missions. Will different progression trees (engineer, warrior, pilot, etc.) still be a thing in this story oriented gamemode? I hope so at least, because I think it would be a great addition.
ReplyDeleteMORE SPINNY BLOCKS (still waiting for Zer0s new video)
ReplyDeleteWe could recreate the newest mission impossible in SE2 i bet
ReplyDeleteThe progress of this game has been great so far. Although I would love to see basic co-op / multiplayer added between VS2 and VS3. A lot of my friends are hyped for this game but won’t buy it without multiplayer.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be cooler to give us a dinamo block? kinda like a rotor that if turned produces energy depending on how fast it's spinning.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer something like this over a turbine block.
if you can make the colonization system work for multiplayer servers and have clans own regions that would be so cool
ReplyDelete#Keen shall reign supreme
ReplyDeleteAs an Xbox player i can only hope the prophecy of SE2 coming to xbox in early access will be fulfilled
ReplyDeleteNo pressure though, keen, happy engineering!
DeleteGive us the ring version of the thruster with their own attachment blocks please! The cube one feels more like a fan or a VTOL propeller.
ReplyDeleteThe day SE2 exits early access will be known as… Engineermas
ReplyDeleteOr Engiween
DeleteDepends on if Klang shows up
DeleteWell, if he does show up, lets all scream: ALL HAIL KLANG (or clang)
DeleteBut the great Klang was left left behind in SE1 (wait, what if Klang play a role in SE2s campaign?????)
DeleteThis mode of playing in my opinion not is very important. All that improve the games, this welcome!
ReplyDeleteThe blocks generations energy with solar panels, reactor, turbine, and whater turbine. Need adds a machine that works incinerators of elements unnecessary, more that adds the water, are block's that work as trash
My question is, will pass all blocks of SE to SE2 or the most blocks?
Maybe what is missing in the meta-progression loop is multiple routes of progress. One engineer travels to many places in the universe. Another engineer builds many things on Earthlike. Another engineer fights pirates or becomes a pirate. Another engineer lives as a truck driver, another engineer leads a fleet and makes profits from trade (I hope that's possible)... They have different experiences, but they need to get the same thing in the end! It can't just be turning off the progress. Add progress customization to the world settings. Split the rewards into several categories and let the engineer choose which experience to get it.
ReplyDeleteThen, what many engineers are worried about is whether Miro Sokol, the engineers themselves, and the Almagest are divided. Maybe Miro Sokol's personal fate will be appreciated only once. The engineers will play survival many times. The secrets of the Almagest will be discovered little by little. It's dangerous to contain all of this in one loop.
By the way, what do you think about displaying chat messages above the engineer's head, or turning the engineer into a robot with a display head that lights up with a personal emblem or emoticon? I feel like we need more ways to communicate.
I would like to be able to have the campaign on a dedicated server. Because I usually host a server even if I'm only playing with one friend so that they can: play without me and it improves latency.
ReplyDeleteSo the story unlocks new areas, blocks, upgrades etc. but is optional? So there’s a way to unlock it all without playing through or interacting with the story?
ReplyDeleteThis game is going in some really cool directions, but I still am missing my rotors and pistons (and hinges, oh my!).
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey are working on Rotors and pistons as the code for them can be found in the game files as shown by the fact that modders can use them as mods such as the "Not a Rotor" mod by "Inflex"
DeleteJust wanted to add my 2 cents.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I think the majority of people are MOST excited for the new water mechanics and how that will interact with survival. Ive been hyped about this personally for years. So, while I understand Keen’s interest in the story part, I think a majority of the existing playerbase, which is likely also the same group of people who are playing the early access, are already predisposed to being interested more in the sandbox than the story. If more resources were put into these new game features rather than the story part, I think that would retain the interest of the existing player base more effectively.
Im not personally excited for the story mode, I play the game for the freedom aspect, not to be constrained by parameters for a story, but Ive never been against it being added.
I also wanted to agree with a comment I saw above about appreciating this feedback capability, as Im watching 7 Days To Die continuously disappoint me by adding unwanted features and removing desired features despite public outcry. I REALLY hope you continue to listen to the players who PLAY the game, not just look at spreadsheets, twitter threads, and popular discourse.
Something Battlefield V for example got wrong was prioritizing sensationalist attention grabbing game features that broke the immersion of the game rather than focusing on balancing the historical accuracy against the playability and competitiveness that those constraints allow. To use an extreme example, Id be disappointed in Keen if they were to appeal to a loud minority and allow you to make your player an animal or something because thats what they want, rather than recognizing that it just doesnt fit the game at all. Keeping a game good means balancing the desire to make everyone happy against the practicality of doing so.
So far, Ive been pretty happy with Keen in SE1, and my biggest gripe with SE2 is the planned exclusion of ingots from the game. While I understand that its a new game and doesnt need to port over every feature from the previous one, I think it was a minor bit of complexity that added an immersive or realistic aspect that ore-to-component crafting just doesnt have. You can retain the more complicated crafting tree while using ingots, just add a feature that allows for early game smelting, some kind of primitive tool that can be used anywhere if needed, even just using the welding torch on the ore and mining ingots off of the melted surface would be a cool way to do it. But considering thats my biggest gripe, I think that means yall are doing pretty well, and I hope that continues!
Sorry to be kinda all over the place with this post. The context in which I was speaking through felt relevant to flesh out a bit to better convey my points.
Agree on ingots, in my opinion they should remain in game. From the transporter/trader perspective:
Delete1) RAW ORE: more weight wasted on impurities, more volume wasted on the same, BUT no energy/time wasted on processing, the cheapest
2) INGOTS: no weight wasted on impurities, no volume wasted on impurities or processing into components, BUT some time/energy spent on processing from ore, MORE valuable
3) COMPONENTS: no weight wasted on impurities, SOME volume wasted because it's not smooth ingots, but different shaped components, THE MOST time/energy spent on processing from ore and ingots, MOST valuable.
So players will have 3 ways of transporting/trading goods each with its benefits/tradeoffs. And, for example, it will be easier to process ore to something (at least ingots) on the planet surface, and then bring it to space.
Its crazy to me how many people resist the story element and have issues with one or another element of progression. SE2 will be a completely new game and this obviously comes with changes.
ReplyDeleteI think we also have to keep in mind that the people who ready this blog are mostly hard-core SE1 players (me too) and just are afraid of changes to their loved SE1 game.
Marek I think the ideas you described during the recent blog posts will make SE2 so much more accessible for new players, and I love it!
Keep in mind this is an " SE extremist" bubble and the majority of new players will thank you for a nicely integrated story and progression, so just keep up the awesome work and don't worry too much about our comments here. Fulfill your vision!
And if in a year or so it turns out the SE2 story approach really didnt work as well as intended... Just change it then, you're the dev :)
I love the idea, idk why everyone is hating on it
DeleteIt's kind of a wierd thing to bring up but the water turbine reminded me of it. I would love some kind of harpoon block for combat encounters. Specifically after the encounter when your enemy doesn't have thrusters or is using them to get away. Being able to quickly amd freely have an attachment point to the enemy would be fantastic. That being said I can also see this being pretty difficult to make so if it isn't something wanted or needed, I'll find another, probably more explosive way to salvage
ReplyDeleteIm at a space center rn, very inspiring for a space engineer
ReplyDeleteAre we going to be stuck with the generic characters like in SE1 or are the faces and bodies going to be customizable? There is nothing worse than seeing a massive bunch of clones walking around.
ReplyDeleteif I understood correctly, then until you do a certain quest, I won’t be able to get to another corner of the map if I play more in the sandbox and not the story mode?
ReplyDeleteWe need survival mode now 😀 Soo excited to get started
ReplyDeleteKeen, I am a avid e foyer of your games, and I think I speak for the majority of your player base here, though I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteCUSTOMIZABLE PLAYER CHARACTER FOR THE STORY. the entire point of space engineers is to express yourself through the wo derful medium you've created for us. Please dont make the mistake of railroading players into a specific narrative of a pre made character. The option to name ourselves, and maybe even have a bit of character and suit customization goes a long way for rpg elements. Also, being able to create or choose our faction also opens up avenues for player driven gameplay and story elements.
+1
DeleteOops. Typos.
ReplyDeleteYour not alone, I am a avid e foyer of Keen too
DeleteNot sure how I feel about Miro Sokol. Could work out great. Could also easily fall flat. Would generally be in favour of playing a custom character in the campaign.
ReplyDeleteMight be harder to pull certain story beads off satisfyingly that way, but feels more sandboxy to me.
On a different note: blocks are built around moddability, is it possible to handle story/campaign and cutscenes similarly?
Haven't played nearly as many workshop scenarios in SE1 as Inwant and should, but I've heard great things about some scenarios, but also that they weren't exactly easy to setup.
Would be amazing if modders had easy to use tools to make amazing stuff there.
If the story is required to open access to blocks and worlds, is it really optional? Will players be able to play a sandbox survival and not be restricted?
ReplyDeleteI only bought a computer for this game. I love to build. I love to Pve. I love to Pvp. This game got me into gaming in general.
ReplyDeleteBuilding and showing off/using your ships in a multiplayer setting pve/pvp has always been the best experience for me.
Multiplayer & fully released Engineering would be amazing to have first and foremost. I am old school though... :)
I haven't read through the entire blog yet, so I don't know if this topic has already been addressed.
ReplyDeleteWhat really bothered me in Space Engineers 1 when I played the game with my friends was that our approach was always pretty much the same. We always built a tower out of several extended pistons and then rotating drills and drove it down. This provided us with sufficient resources, so we did not need any drilling ships or similar equipment. We only required a small ship with an ore detector to locate gold and cobalt.
Unfortunately, this approach did not motivate the others for very long. There was a lack of objectives to further explore the planet or even land on other planets, except for reaching outer space.
They also often easily tricked the NPC pirates by flying solo ships and hacking only the weapons, then taking over the ship without any problems. Are there any known changes to this yet?
Having goals to achieve and challenges to overcome was my biggest wish in SE1 and I am really glad that you are adding it as survival for the sake of survival isn't engaging. I hope that you will look at Satisfactory's campaign for inspiration, it thought it provided a good balance between sandbox and story. Because multiplayer is a big part of the SE community I hope that you will consider adding a simplified story/objectives to servers that encourage players to explore and engage with the world and other players, otherwise servers are pretty dead unless someone is organizing events like races and pvp etc.
ReplyDeleteHi Marek! Since space engineers 2 is all about early feedback I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate 1 weekly livestream to community feedback. Where you can hold polls and discuss important topics live! It also would be good to explain the process of how feedback is being processed by the team to give People an insight of how seriously it’s taken/used. You could even talk about some interesting features of diggrok’s video about combat or others people’s content so that the community feels really heard!
ReplyDeletePs: keep up the great work! I truly think this is the best way to develop a game.
Just stay passionate and don’t be scared to dare and this will 100% be a great success!
the vision this game has is impressive. it really is all a player could ask for. but i think you guys really need to address the current playability. the here and now.
ReplyDeletei understand the scope of this and that it’s in alpha state. but a spaceship without batteries or hydrogen tanks… is like a child’s bicycle without training wheels…
I know its not exactly the best way of going at this but imo its good as it is. With Devs working somewhat mostly on the core parts of the plan and block releases every week its a compromise between blowing off the main plan and going through all the small things or vice versa. Current playability is coming, just not as fast as some would hope. Still, the great work is coming out of this and personally i can be patient with it.
DeleteAre you still planning for 2025
ReplyDelete