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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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 1
The SE1 Core Systems Update and Pack are now live!
The update is packed with quality of life improvements and tons of new set value actions.
And if you want to support the continued development of Space Engineers, the new Core Systems Pack is an amazing way to do it.
I love watching the community interact with the new blocks and features – there is so much useful feedback and so many sharp observations.
Space Engineers 2
We are launching Space Engineers 2: VS2 – Planets & Survival Foundations on this Monday, December 1, 6PM UTC!
I’m extremely excited. We’ve been working on VS2 for over six months, and it’s the biggest update since the SE2 Alpha launch in January 2025. Over the past year we also streamlined our management and production processes, so I expect future updates to move even faster. Increasing productivity and quality is one of the things I care about most – I simply love efficiency and getting a great ROI on time and effort.
After we release VS2, we’ll spend a few weeks on hotfixes. Meanwhile, most of the team is already working on VS2.2, planned for Q1 2026 (likely toward the end of the quarter). The water team will also resume work on VS3 – we pulled everyone onto VS2 to finish it, so I expect solid progress there as well.
The final build is going through last polish, lots of QA work is being done. I am really proud of the whole team and everything we pulled together for this release.
Projection Building
One of the big stars on the survival side of the VS2 Update is definitely projection building.
In Space Engineers 2 survival, you are placing an holographic projection of a block instead of its lowest build state. This makes planning and building feel much closer to creative mode – more intuitive and accessible for everyone.
It even creates automatic support blocks for you!
And that is not all. This system opens up a whole new level of creative possibilities in survival mode, including mirroring, copy and paste, modular blueprint building, and even undo and redo.
The previews by our amazing community creators are already in full swing and more videos are revealed every day! The final countdown has begun!
We also managed to get a few last features in – Power Cells and Power Modules now drop out of damaged batteries.
Both planets Kemik and Verdure are looking better than ever.
And something is stirring in the depth of the cosmic void, soon to come 😉
Steam Awards
The Steam Awards are back! We are going for the “Labor of Love” Award with Space Engineers 1 and the “Best Soundtrack” Award for Space Engineers 2!
If you think we deserve it, please give us your votes. And thank you for sticking with us all these years!
Question to you: Verdure or Kemik – and why?
Share your thoughts in the comments below – I read them all, and they’re one of my favorite parts of making our games.
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Any chnce we ill have airtight voxels on VS3 with airtightness 🥺
Tell my why I thought that new plushie was a Kerbal 😂
Great work Marek! SE2 is shaping up to be even better than its amazing predecessor.
However, I do hope you guys will consider adding more complexity to SE2 like a heat managenent system or ships needing computing power. I think a little bit more complexity could add a lot to the ship design coming from SE1. Maybe even test it in SE1 if its faster to get feedback that way.
Keep up the good work!
100% agree! The Youtuber Diggrok made awesome videos about possible heat and shield/detection systems which got overwhelming support. I really hope they add something like this:)
A heat system and better detection, relative top speed and so on would make SE2 so much better than it already is❤️
Yeah I completely agree, I always felt that SE1 was way too simplistic in the engineering part of the game. Personally I’d most love to see modular systems like modular weapons as I suggested on the KSH forums for SE2. Heat management would also be awesome though, and is something missing from soooo many space games!
Yeah, SE2 will eventually get more complex.
This is how I see it: now we are focusing on making it more accessible – better UI/UX, meta loop, challenges, rewards … fun. So we do things like Colonization system, Backpack building, Projection building, Contracts, even Story and FTUE (first time user experience / onboarding). Next steps is Combat, Water and NPCs.
Once this is done – we will come back and start adding more complexity and options, but of course, still trying to do it accessible (not complicated if it doesn’t need to be complicated)
i cant wait for VS2 as i already have blueprints ready to be projected in survival mode (minus the batteries) but one thing i hope for in the future of SE2 is more fauna as it would be cool to find neutral and completely harmless alien wildlife that react to you in unique ways (maybe something for SE2 once its out of early access)
I’m loving the stuff I see about VS2! It seems to have exceeded my expectations and all of my concerncs has already been adressed.
One neat thing I noticed about Core Systems Update is how thrusters now “wind up” a little when you fly, very cool! Would love to see them “extinguish” in a similar manner when you stop thrusting.
As for which planed I prefer? For now, it’s a toss up. Verdure looks gorgeous, but I have also gotten quite fascinated by Mars and similar environments recently, so we shall see!
I cant wait for VS2. But i have few hopes for se2 that i hope would be adressed.
I would love for the game to have believable writing, systems and setting.
For example from what it seems, colonization is doing quests for the faction. Cleaning space debree doesnt seem to be a thing that colonizes the system so it brakes immersion, i think something like this would be believable:
– you make contracts for the faction
– that faction grants you merit + credits
– the more merit you have, the more advanced stuff you can buy from that faction
– you buy block blueprints from that faction so you can now build it
– you don’t increase colonization but faction merit per sector
Also i think there needs to be a reason that player doesnt know all the blueprints.
The main concern is that all things need to have believable reason to them since game aims to be realistic. My go to in that regards is Elite Dangerous since almost everything in that game is explained realisticaly, even the thing that you hear things in space etc.
I would disagree. Cleaning space debris absolutely would help the colonization. I mean: Would you rather live in a clean environment or on a dumpside?
Why is Suit Baterry and Power module, Two different things? with same function..
Would be cool to be able to jumpstart grid with own batery, or switch drained batt. from suit with charged one from grid.
I have a question how are you planning to handle the inventory system. In a few of the videos for SE2 it has inventory based on tons rather than liters, it is odd and does not make much sense to use weight instead of volume.
Really hoping to get PS5 controller support on PC for the launch.
Ask suit military and water suit and suit big backpack and skinny suit and pilot suit upgrade next 2026 day
Amazing new features and I genuinely can’t wait to jump back in and play. I do have one feature suggestion that I think could add a huge amount of depth to survival mode. Right now players can only remove voxels by mining, which is great, but it would be fantastic to also have the option to add voxels back into the world. Imagine a system where, as long as you have enough stone in your inventory, you can physically raise or reshape terrain. This could be done through a handheld tool, a specialised block on a grid, or even a dedicated construction mode for terrain shaping.
This kind of mechanic would open up a lot of possibilities. Players could flatten an area to build a clean, structured base. They could reinforce the ground around their landing zone. They could build ramps up cliff faces without resorting to tons of scaffolding. They could create defensive berms, trenches, artificial hills, or even repair terrain damaged during battles or crashes. It would make the world feel much more mouldable and give builders a whole new layer of control over their environment.
Considering how much creativity the SE community already has, the ability to both remove and add terrain while in survival would massively expand what’s possible.
Yeah, adding terrain, not just removing it, would be great, and is on my todo list for the future.
Verdure or Kemik?
My guess is Verdure for the green plant life.
A couple of the images show a polydome, if I could have climate control inside of a polydome with Vedure’s plant life on the inside on Kemik, I may be tempted to say Kemik. I see Kemik may have better mining opportunities, so with my own Eden project and production facillity on Kemit I could probably call it home for a while.
Hello Marek, thank you for all the amazing stuff you and your team bring us. Even though I am taking a break from playing SE, I still get excited to see all the new things on the horizon.
I have a question though. I was wondering if se2 gets controller support too?
Unfortunatelly we don’t have controller support in SE2 yet.
please have gravity based snapping so my base is flat. my only request for VS2 so far, amazing job you guys are doing. never thought i’d see a SE2 or any dev team actually put effort into a game thats more than a money grab these days! incredible stuff!
will rhe new vertical slices being added in between VS two and VS three make V3 take longer
Not really … or only minimally. VS3 is handled by a separate team, so work on VS2.X won’t be held up by them. Things get more complex once we merge, of course.
There’s also another angle: if VS3 takes longer to finish, we don’t want that to block the opportunity to release VS2.X.
so a couple weeks, a couple months?
KSH implement HOSAS for SE1 & 2 and my life is yours!
Will it have steam deck suport?
steam deck support
yes
https://www.protondb.com/search?q=space%20engineers
nice canyon crush video XD
I would love to see some kind of survival version of the voxel hand for edititng the terrain it would make filling in all those holes form my failed ships easier
Looks amazing!!! Waiting VS2.2, coop and water with 3 my friends!!