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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
I’m super proud of the magic our render team is practicing. Because honestly, how else can you explain these latest screenshots?
Tree destruction tuning is successful – they no longer explode all over the place. Now they fall and break much more naturally.
And of course, we can’t forget to tune ship collisions with Verdure flora – something tells me you’ll be using this feature a lot!
We finalized biomes and voxel transitions. In real life, you don’t have only desert, rocky, or snowy terrain – everything blends together naturally. The same goes for our planets in SE2.
We’re using procedural masks and height based blending to merge materials smoothly across different terrain types. Each biome mixes gradually with the next, creating natural borders shaped by altitude, slope, and humidity/temperature. We made sure transitions are seamless at every distance and every LOD, so planets don’t end up looking like a patched clown costume.
The Art Team is working not only on VS2 content, but also thinking far ahead with our development – working on both surface flora and the underwater environment. The goal is to make the transition from land to water feel natural and alive, with its own atmosphere, vegetation, and lighting.
There are also new blocks connected to the water feature. The team is exploring several water-related concepts, and the latest concept art is looking really nice.
Here are the first try-outs of ocean waves tessellation. It’s early, but the shape and motion are starting to feel right.
And we are experimenting with the possibility of textured water foam.
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wow so cool can’t wait to play survival with my friends with all the cool things.
the biggest thing i would say is better building that you guys have added nothing is more painful in se the not beable to place a block right there when there is enough room XD.
i agree! I love the Minecraft way to instant place blocks but spend time to destroy. it’s a game, we want to build fast with component costs in survival, but not solder one by one 👍
Water is coming along nicely! Will weather effects cull out in interiors the same as water does?
The planets look fantastic and so do the atmosphere/clouds effects. Really looking forward to playing this game! Is there a chance we could see some eye candy like the aurora borealis at the poles and on other planets.
Please don’t forget about performance. Or make sure you can toggle things off if they end slowing the framerate too much, so you still can see things being very beautiful for a while and when it comes to actual gameplay you can toggle some heavy things off and enjoy the game running smoothly.
On the gameplay side, please fo consider making voxel deformation non visible from far distances.
Hopefully you’ll make it so that the liquid form can adjust for thickness for thin to magma flow or even radioactive green slime etc etc. Not sure how the fluids will mix but if course if you design it thickest would be like tar level. Imagine making quicksand pits lol
As allways, the progress looks amazing.
Speaking of surface flora: I still think you should add more plant types to the grass. Normal grass isn’t just grass, but weeds too. I think this would elevate the look of the grass greatly.
Absolutely fascinated to see you experimenting with planetary-scale water.
One thing I’m really curious about is how (or if) erosion might play a role once the water systems mature. Will erosion be a simulated mechanic for smaller, player-driven water sources (like rivers, channels, etc.), or could we expect large natural bodies of water to gradually reshape terrain over time?
I imagine allowing erosion at planetary scale could start mutating massive voxel datasets and balloon world-save sizes very quickly, so I wondered if you’re exploring any hybrid approach, maybe local procedural erosion decals or limited-scope voxel adjustments, to balance realism and performance. I’d love to hear how the team is approaching that challenge.
Underwater exploration is very intriguing,.Closer than space, but still requiring O2 management.
I’m looking forward to that.
Terrain transitions are looking terrific.
it would be cool to see the lightning degradation as you go futher deep in water where some light waves like red start to dissapear, for me i think thats on of the one things that might help sell a lot the realistic water thing
Nice updates. I like the new tree weight in destruction. Terrain texture transitions look good as well. Consider making a guide on how to make new terrain textures for SE2 modding perhaps. Not on how to make image but on what images are needed and how to integrate them into the terrain painting etc. so modders can make their own planet textures eventually.
I saw that initial tutorial guidance – I’d perhaps check in with the writing team to make the text a bit more ingame and feel less like a tutorial perhaps.Like, instead of “up in the mountain there’s a half made ship you can have” I’d weave it a bit differently, add a bit more story and personalization to it. Not critical at this phase, it’s just an idea for later, because I like to see more organic tutorials.
Underwater flora movement is OK, but it could be slower. Shore wave movements looked OK but the foam for that looked very early stage. The textured foam in the video looked OK, bit weird but overall not too bad.
Well done!
Hey Marek,
I’m a landing support officer (LSO) flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. I learned how to program C# thanks to SE, and almost flunked out of my aerospace engineering degree thanks to SE modding, too.
When dealing with landing and recovery, aero and water drag are critical factors we constantly account for. Having these in SE2 would not only feel good, but also tie directly into gameplay: drag naturally provides the damping planets need (instead of the current “super dampening”), and it makes a higher speed cap feel earned. It fuels “the need to create” by opening up design tradeoffs for reentry, splashdowns, and engineering that players could really sink their teeth into.
I hope Marek will see bob’s comment. If he does, Hi.
Great real world input there!
I’d love to have ‘drag’ factored in.
My SE1 rockets are all skeletal because I cant justify the extra weight of an aerodynamic shell just for aesthetics. I want to be forced to make a shell, with all the challenges it presents, like weight, internal access, maybe shielding/module placement due to friction heat.
It would also validate ‘forward thrust only’ air vehicles and air braking. How cool would that be! Big air brakes opening up, maybe redirected thrust too!
I’m getting carried away, probably far too complex to implement, but I can dream! I’m already so excited for water, place anywhere blocks, and the gorgeous graphics!
This is random but how long does it take to go to planets
The water foam is the best it’s ever looked! Keep up the amazing work!
will erosion be a thing? all that water running down the hillside it would wash away alot of the soil.
Erosion would be cool lol
Amazing progress!
Great progress ! though I think it is crucial that flora and soil interact with water, to make the world feel more like a functioning ecosystem ans less like a static background for grids. recently submerged areas should organicaly become “water biome” and emptying a lake should result into a parch of swamp and dry land with enough time.
I like the clouds.