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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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.
My dev blog has a new home!
As you can notice, I’ve moved from Blogger to a new, WordPress-based platform. Same behind-the-scenes updates and insights – now on a prettier, more modern site.
Space Engineers 1
Works on Space Engineers Update 1.207 are in full swing. Here’s a sneak peek of what happens to your crops in space when you forget to close the doors. Pro tip: vacuum is not great for vegetables!
And where do you get seeds for your farm plots? A wild bush appears!
Forage the surfaces of planets like Earthlike, Pertam, or Alien to find harvestable plants and mushrooms.
Space Engineers 2
Clouds are looking better and better:
Our graphics team is testing the new flora – and I have to say, they’re doing a fantastic job. I love how the planets are shaping up – it’s starting to feel like a real, living world.
Space Engineers 2 Alpha – Planet Flora Testing:
And we have a surprise for you that I think many of you will love – Space Engineers 2 will have colorful icons!
I think they add a lot of clarity (and fun) to the UI, and I’m excited to hear what you think.
Space Engineers 2 Modding Livestream & Poll
We had so much fun during the Space Engineers 2 Modding Showcase livestream. I’m constantly amazed by the creativity and ingenuity of the mods and game changes you all come up with. It’s always inspiring to see what the community builds.
Also – we’ve released a quick poll during the stream. If you have a minute, I’d really appreciate you filling it out: https://forms.gle/rSLUdb4qttWp91do8
Thank you!
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.
He’ll yeah, will any plants being grown in a ship be able to help provide the craft with oxygen? Sort of like an o2 generator that needs fertilizer and heat but less ice?
sooo…. an oxygen farm? Feels like we already have that, could just remodel it.
Sounds good so far. Really looking forward to update 207. And I cannot wait to try out se2 survival.
Finally a better reason to pressurize rooms in space! Do you think it might be possible to make the transition look a little smoother? Maybe with a slow color shift or particles to cover up the “pop”? Foraging to get the seeds sounds interesting. I hope these won’t have the same issues with clipping through base floors as bushes and grass have atm.
Colorful icons is one of those awesome features that i always missed with SE1. Even with most you always had the issue that other mods didn’t have colorful icons and there was only colored icons for vanilla things. Definately makes more sense to make them colored by default! If somebody does want them greyscale, maybe they can install a mod that removed the colors in postprocessing.
Very excited for this update!
Please make the planters grow decorative grasses, bushes and trees! I’ve yearned for those since planets released! Their function may be an increased oxygen production compared to regular crops, which I hope will produce oxygen as well.
Also growlights would be helpful for space nomads or space dwarves.
The plant life for SE2 is looking amazing, for crops sunlight and or plant lamps affecting growth rate would be interesting.
Colored icons is way, way, wayyyyyy better than boring dull grey/blue-ish. Great job!
The planets look sick! Will there be any major weather events (tornadoes, etc) in SE2 at some point? Furthermore, will harsh weather like thunderstorms cause large waves on the water?
Hopefully, I’ll be able to jet pack over the grass without the game crashing and telling me my graphics card overheated.
Very Happy with the colorful icons. The planets look great! I hope SE2 will have a really good pve/pvp gameplay with varying tactics. Although nobody had done this before in 3D, i’m imagining something like cosmoteer where you can really spice up your ship with various weapons and tech, and combat like EVE online, where small ships can kill the big ones but the big ones have advantages for example when sieging stations or in bigger battles, and all the types are useful. I also think stations should have some advantage over ships like some extra big guns that perhaps generate lots of heat so you cant have thrusters on top of that. But safezones are boring and kind of a clutch that just makes you immune to attack. I would really like to see a heat system, hopefully it’s not outside of the scope. Anyway, Thank you for reading all the comments, I love feeling like I can contribute to making a game I will enjoy, I hope you sometimes consider them in development But I would like to see other peoples comments like on the old site again, It’s fun reading them.
Nvm on the last part about seeing the comments, I’m just blind haha.
I would appreciate if we could have some variety for plot sizes/tradeoffs. Having every plant able to grow on the same 1×1 block gives the impression that they aren’t much different and that specialized infrastructure wouldn’t be necessary for certain crops. Some ideas could be large grain fields, hydroponics tanks, tall vinery meshes, a tree/bush plot, each providing space for different plants that have different tradeoffs in terms of cost/reward. With something like grain giving the best bulk output for larger factions, hydroponics being ice costly but providing relatively simple food output, vineries that give ideal food supplies but could require manual harvest. These are just possible examples that could be built off of but some sort of infrastructure variety would make the choice and cost for building either be mechanically engaging to players.
Colorful icons are a good idea, I’ve already been using the mod because it looks better than monocolor icons. Planets are also looking insane and I’m very hyped for VS2. I really hope you guys add some form of multiplayer soon though, even just 4 player coop for the time being.
I second this, a small-scale multiplayer earlier on would be my choice, rather than waiting for normal large-scale multiplayer…I only ever play on private servers with my friends, so 4-player is perfect (and I would assume easier to implement than large-scale?). Not a programmer so could be entirely wrong 🙂 Would not entirely surprise me if multiplayer in general is the same headache whether for small-scale or large-scale.
Everything planet-wise is looking AMAZING, I am stoked to try it out on my new-ish build PC!
Just a thought, might be too much for the game mechanics and engines to push but, what about NPC’s? What happen3d to the engineers that built the bases and such? I know we can find a few bodies, but what if we found a populated area? With different traders and people to help fix the ship, for a fee of course?
Anthony, NPCs have been talked about a ton by keen for SE2, and they will certainly be a big part of it! Not just ship NPCs, but player NPCs will be added eventually, which should make the game feel so much more alive.
You should Add a way for a person to control the aim of the ships guns and then choose which to shoot so it isnt just boring AI autoshoot and instead actual adrenaline combat like it should be
Foraging for seeds looks awesome and finally gives a reason to go down to planets, but please I’m begging you, DON’T make the seeds available to be bought at NPC stations! That would just negate the point of going to planets for them. It would also promote player trade if you can’t just get them from the NPCs in multiplayer – instead you’d have to barter for some or buy them from a PLAYER-MADE station.
Thank you for not adding unscientific fantasy elements to the game (nanite, protective field, etc.). Special thanks for the ability to grow food.
Survival Kit respawning? Speed limits in space? Fission-to-electron reactors? Magnesium as gunpowder? Mining stone to be able to produce 90% of the components in the game? Those fantasy elements I listed help keep the game fun for everyday players. Mods that add things like nanites or shields are just as fantastical, but fun for different players.
Beautiful work on everything! Especially digging the clouds, thats incredible. SE2 will be my go to game for the next decade I have a feeling.
I at least hope console will get the alien planet on official. Pc gets all planets where as console only gets 3. I get why but I at least hope we can get the alien planet in as well so this is accessible for console users.
New blog looks amazing! Must’ve been a lot of work to archive everything on here too.
Marek please consider different icon backgrounds for different object types in the inventory. I find SE1 a little frustrating with having ingots and components in the same cargo container. Difficult to manage at a glance.
Another massive quality of life improvement would be have a blocking/blacklist feature/filter in each cargo container. I think that would simplify the build and improve sorter management.
Good new design of the Blog. But the website certificate is invalid and should probably be renewed.
Never mind, doas not happen anymore.
Hey Marek,
I like the pressure feature with the greenery. Is there a chance there could be a vanilla “leak finder”
Nice update, foliage coming along nicely. I wish the SE1 crops withering would have more animation and movement.
The SE2 clouds look pretty good, I’d say almost in par with Star Citizen but they have more layers. I might send you a mail about it later on.
Will some plants be used for making Medkits?
ME WANT CABLE!!!! cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable cable
Btw, SE2 looks epic
I Like the 3D Model of the Space enginners Ship, will their be I method to change a Blueprint of a Ship in a 3D model for 3D-printing, or a method to make it in a clamping blocks model? I think that would be very cool.
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If you look at the names of the SE2 soundtrack songs, they actually reveal plenty of the campaign’s story.
Also, one song is named Palatine (possibly a planet????)
The environments are progressing beautifully. The terrain, sand, and flora are a true 10x. The icons look nice. Since they share a common palette, the good point of the previous monochrome UI gets preserved. It’s a very welcome surprise that somehow you made forageable plants. About the look of the blog, I’d recommend making it more compact and justifying the paragraphs. I think it’s good that you kept the background, I always liked it. I don’t remember exactly, so maybe it’s just a similar style.
Seems a little jarring for plants to just pop to a dead state. I don’t know how feasible it would be to add a couple of dead/dying phases. Maybe if you caught it in time you could still harvest like 50% yield.
Also possibly, growing on an actual planet would give some kind of bonus in yield because plants can grow in zero gravity, but not necessarily better than on a planet. While they can adapt and grow in the absence of gravity, they may exhibit altered growth patterns and require adjustments in how they are cultivated, such as providing artificial cues for root and shoot orientation.
I’m astonished by the new flora and clouds. I can’t believe that SE2 is going to have that level of detail in the environment. Base building and just flying around is going to be so much more fun with how well the surrounding terrain and plants are going to benefit the look of one, on top of he fact that it looks like the trees are big enough that you might even be able to use them to obscure your base.
Will there be something like the discolored patches in SE1 that indicate an ore vein beneath the ground? I hope that ores are biome-based or at the very least more sparse and random instead of the SE1 ore grid.
Also, will SE2 have the same food/environment mechanics as the future SE1 update?
Like the idea of growing plants /farming. I just hope it isn’t pointless to do so and the plants actually solve real issues and make your playthrough better somehow and not just role-playing eating different food for the fun of it. SE1, death is like, meh. I often would use death as a means of just fast travel back to base and not really care about getting drilled to death because respawning was just, piece of cake and had no repercussions. Make death meaningful and impactful.
Hopefully the pressurization bug will be fixed in this version, othervise plants in space are a no go for me, because this bug triggers for me everytime I edit my ship and only fix is server restart or ShipFixer Torch plugin.
If you don’t know what bug I am talking about. It is the one reported here https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/hangar-pressurization-breaks-when-docking-small-ships or the older supposedly duplicate one here https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/pressurization-not-working-properly
I think that the crops should have more status aspects. Like, once they die, instead of being an instant change from normal to dead make the plant go over a proccess in which it slowly dies.
Plant might no longer be edible but feels unrealistic
Really have to say that this is only good news all around! I love the style and everything you guys are doing.. Colorful icons is just😋🤌🏻 and also the clouds look unbelivable
Your new blog no longer has an RSS feed, and the email signup is for the main Space Engineers / KeenSWH newsletter not for this blog…
I do not even understand how I ended up here, but I assumed this publish used to be great
I really like reading through a post that can make men and women think. Also, thank you for allowing me to comment!
It looks like some of the ME assets are getting ported to SE1, I quite enjoyed farming in ME, will the plough/seeder/harvester and growing in voxel dirt be coming too?
The thought of making tractors and harvesters in SE seems more appealing and less difficult than doing it in ME!
it would be cool if could have some settings when you start a world for story and progression because i really like the survival mode in SE1 (with progression off) and dont really like being limited to needing to complete the story for some blocks that would be useful in my builds. i also would like to know how building in survival would work with the unified grid system becuae it would be hard to make something compact and weld it up without removing part of a wall or something because i weld the ship together after i build most of the ship, something like a small area of effect on the hand welder (50-100cm) would be nice. also hybrid thrusters would be nice, they could be weaker than normal thrusters or only small but could work in the atmoshere with just power (like SE1) and then in space use hydrogen (its just because it is really annoying to make a small ship that can go into space cheaply and easily while still being able to work well in atmosphere).
sorry for rambling so much but i hope you might take something from this (wishful of me, i know) and use it as an idea for some things down the road