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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
We’re getting very close to the VS2 release, and right now my main focus is finishing the remaining tasks – bugs, polish, small fixes, everything that needs to be done before we can call it stable.
On Wednesday (yesterday), we had around 360 open tickets, but as you can see from this chart, we’re closing about 50 per day. That’s possible thanks to our large team of roughly 70 people, where work can be nicely parallelized.
Another big priority is testing – finding and fixing bugs as fast as possible. We’re also doing playtesting – going through the FTUE, contracts, encounters, and meta loop, to see if it’s actually fun.
VS2 is “just” the introduction of survival, so it covers only the basics. I think it already feels fun in parts, but the real fun will come in future updates – when we add NPCs, more engineering mechanics, challenges, objectives, combat, and exploration.
We have first working subparts in VS2 – doors!
VS2 will include a small but very handy feature – your suit light can turn on automatically in dark areas (it works the same way as auto light in your car; and you can set it to: always on, always off, automatic on). It’s a simple quality of life improvement that makes caves, night missions, and shadowed interiors much easier to explore.
Sound design is nearly complete. The last step is to fine-tune the audio mix for the FTUE voice-over, so the dialogue between Miro (the player) and Ivan can be clearly heard even when music or other sounds are playing.
We also spent time polishing the UI, animations, and visual effects, making the whole experience as smooth and immersive as possible. But keep in mind – this is still only VS2, and a future polishing milestone will take it even further.
Just to recap, VS2 is about adding planets and introducing the foundations of survival – backpack building, projection building, colonization progression, contracts, and encounters.
It’s still an alpha, but it’s already starting to feel like the game I’ve always wanted Space Engineers 2 to be.
Question to you: How do you usually play Space Engineers – with full sound and music, just sound effects, or completely silent?
Share your thoughts in the comments below – I read them all, and they’re one of my favorite parts of making our games.
Subscribe and get an email whenever I publish a new post!
i turned off the music in the first game for immersion but also just becuse it was poorly implemented. randomly playing tracks and no real transition between them, nor any room for them to breathe and intake the atmosphere without music
i hope se2 changes this!
i’m also still very much hoping for character customization and making our own characters ;(
I like how kenshi implements music, it rarely plays but when it plays, oh boy, it hits like a train.
i play with full sound, no music, you guys are doing great and i cant wait to see the future progress you all are making!
No music. I’m either doing discord with my friends, or i’m running podcasts or videos just to listen to in the background most of the time, so i always mute musics in games, except if its ambient enough to not collide with other sounds
I usually play with no in-game music and put on jeremy soule’s Skyrim ost and northerner’s diaries.
The most annoying part about music in SE1 was that the game soundtrack wouldn’t stop or tone down when a jukebox played. Jukeboxes also didn’t properly sync in multiplayer and selecting sounds for a jukebox without a searchbar was horrible. I hope SE2 improves on this. Maybe even by adding a way to play sounds from web sources?
I typically play with the music at 25% percent volume. I have over 4300 hours in space engineers and i honestly can say its in my top 3 games of all time and ive been playing PC games since 1993. Love you guys and keep up the good work!
Looking good! UI improvements are the main thing I am hopefuly for in SE2, SE1’s UI is the things that puts off most of the people who try to get into the game.
I always turn off the music in all games. The other audio options are always on, especially ambient sounds and effects.
I just hope this “projection building” and tools in general for building or modifying existing grids will be reconsidered from the ground up, not just a slightly better versions of tools we have in SE1. A dedicated design mode might be very handy to build or even to preview blueprints from workshop or those you can buy on NPC stations.
Same here. I’d like to see blueprints both in two variants: player and grid. The first one could include creative mode features like symmetry, copy-paste or just plain blueprint placement. The second one similar to the se1 projector.
I played se1 with full sound, but i agree with other comment that music was poorly implemented. The single propably most annoying thing to me regarding sound was that engine noise was proportional to grids speed and not actual engine usage. So you could sail at 1km/s through space on turned off engines and you could still hear them.
There’s a setting to turn that off actually lol and have engine sounds be proportional to thrust rather than speed as they should be. Really weird it’s even an option for them to be proportional to speed, it really breaks immersion and is just annoying…
I normally play SE with sounds on, music off. I played it with music, it’s important, but after 3000+ hours it’s just better to have my own music under it.
Nice small updates, I hope the inventory will have sorting options, at least weight and name / category
In future updates you should show a bit more about welding and such. How projections will work etc. Maybe you could have a short video of someone building a basic small base on planetside.
Playing usually without music as i play my own.
Hopefuly the game will have some sort of way of building with voxels.
Similar to that one terrain tool mod for SE1.
I know there are concepts for such tool for SE2 so hopefuly it’s gonna be implemented in some way, seems like a very handy tool for desgining around your base on planets/asteroids.
Well it just looks awesome and im looking forward to my FTUE with VS2. Going to takes it slow and savor it!
Hey, Mr M!
So, about the audio… I usually play all of my games without soundtrack, only SFX. Unless the soundtrack is dynamic (it adds cues like when danger is near, or the environment changes, like in Valheim – the sailing music is marvelous!). In SE1 I turn the soundtrack off, not because I dislike the music, but because I usually play with my Spotify on.
Now I have a small question: what is the schedule for adding wheels to SE2? I already bought the game (like in day #1) but I didn’t play that much… I’m still hooked to SE1, and decided to wait for VS2 and one of my favorite things to do in SE1 is to build rovers. Are weels coming along in VS2 or mabe sometime later?
TY for the awesome work you and the team are doing, Space Engineers perfectly defines gaming and fun for me!
Wheels/rovers will come later tham VS2, although just today we started to.implement first wheel prototypes
We want to do wherlee vehicles drive and feel real good, and give some advantages over flying ships, and be fun to play with
if its a good of a sugestion one thing that i like a lot from SE is hos the inventories worked, since you had two very customizable tabs and inventories that were dynamic of the items that were inside, not saying that the new one is bad since it might still not be finished but i would love to know if you guys will take the opriginal SE inventory route
Great progress ! The music is great in SE1 but most of the time so random and out of place I just turn it off. Most importantly I use a mod to reduce obnoxious tool noises because the sound is so painfully mixed. how a sci fi engineer does not use some kind of earing protection when drilling a god damn hole into the earth is beyond me. once again, please make vanilla all the mods every player uses daily in SE1, it is half the work we ask you and is desperately necessary.
Best regards
I’d always turn Music off on SE1 while leaving the sound effects on. The music was often very loud but also I’d heard it a hell of a lot. More recently though we’ve been using the Jukebox to play our own custom music. I’d love to see that option return and potentially be a bit easier to add custom audio files to it in 2. The 3D audio of the jukebox on the ship was great, and gave the game a new atmosphere.
i always wondered if aerodynamics was possibly a thing that can be implemented in the game, i jnow its hard because of the different preassures in the leves of atmosphere and the game is already hardware intense but i would love to see it, and maybe even in a rudimentary way like only some especific blocks are affected by it so you can make a plane. just some thoughts
When realistic sound was integrated in SE1, I stopped listening to music to hear ambient sounds like footsteps and engines; in SE2, it was always disabled.
With the music player block inside the SE1 game and the speaker block, yes.
The Space Engineers – Sparks of the Future DLC, which includes a disco, is a good example..
I play with the music off but it wasn’t always the case. When I occasionally turn the music on again, I’m hit with the nostalgia of my first times playing. I play pvp a lot so I keep it off so that i can hear those sneaky jetpacks.
Playing usually without music as i play my own.
Hopefuly the game will have some sort of way of building with voxels as well in future after VS2 releases
I absolutely agree! Voxel building in survival is always something that I felt SE1 lacked.
I play space engineers with environmental/ambient sounds only. If I want music while I build or explore, I use a third party app. I agree with others about poor implementation of music. One idea I personally would like would be a radio style option accessable via cockpit or custom block similar to the soundblock, but with a more natural flow. Possibly streaming abilities.
I recommend making the block’s status visible, even when it’s turned off. Currently, when you turn off the door, you can’t see whether it’s open or closed.
I leave the music on about 5% and sound effects on 80, the music just takes too much focus away from the game
The automatic suit lights are a nice feature. I’d like to see them implemented for grids as well, although I think it should be through a light sensor block rather than a prebuilt cockpit or control seat function. Using sensor to detect ambient light levels could trigger spotlights on a mining vessel or outdoor lights on a base.
Reguarding AI, which I know you said is coming later on, but my thoughts are, as a long time player of SE:
I want an enemy AI to have the same goal as us, to colonize/claim land, so we can see how the enemy faction is progressing on the map, maybe the longer it has a foothold in one area, the stronger it gets as it has more time to build up.
Because imaging joining a world where the AI has already taken the full map, so for extra hard mode you have to take it back? that would be insane.
I want singleplayer in this game to be just as fun as multiplayer, I wanna feel the same level of fear I do for enemy players, as I do for the enemy AI.
it will keep the game feeling so much more alive if they pull that off, especially if there will be enemy engineer AIs, not just AI ships.
I could even imagine a 1v1 mode, where there is an enemy AI somewhere out there in the universe, and his only goal is to kill you, so both of you build up ships, defenses etc.
Sorry I know this is all just random thoughts, but when I think of AI enemies I have soooo many ideas.
I LOVE that idea! That would be so much fun! I really hope they do something like that, as an option at least.
thank you @Star_Kindler, I really hope the AI in Space Engineers could be as fleshed out as it’s other features. Imagine going to planets to find alien life? eco systems? best of all, imagine taking that life off the planet, bringing it to other planets to disrupt that eco system just like we have done here on earth with other contries?
I really hope planets get filled with life, threats other races etc.
Those doors look like they won’t kill TFE on Splitsie’s streams anymore. I’m not sure if that is good or bad!! (haha sorry TFE)
It is nice to hear VS2 is close. I like seeing the operating doors and other details coming together.
It is kind of exquisite agony watching the progress and waiting to play survival in SE2. Thanks for sharing.
I play SE with the default audio settings unless using a bunch of mods in which case I load Sneaky Sounds as the drill/jackhammer is pretty loud and for some reason my helmet has poor hearing protection.
I normally have the music on low, so as to break the silence and not find the other sounds too jarring when they happen. I use the ‘Quiet Tools’ mod for SE1 most of the time.
I often listen to streamers on another PC whilst I am playing SE.
I do like games that use music to set an atmosphere according to danger, mystery, or location, though it is a bit of a give away sometimes.
hello can you please give us an explanation on why doors are “subgrids”?
I enjoy playing with the music on most of the time in SE1. I think the soundtrack is great, and there are also many good songs in the Jukebox to be heard dynamically when you’re in range of it.
I am hoping that in SE2, I can have the option to keep the game music on, BUT fade out automatically when in range of a jukebox playing other music, similar to the auto flashlight on/off, so that I can seamlessly transition from the overworld/exploring music to the songs I have queued up on a jukebox in my base or on a ship. Thanks team!
Awesome! You guys might want to make caves darker from the outside though, it looks like they only become dark when you enterwhich could interrupt immersion.
I always have sound effects on so I can hear the awesome realistic sound mode effects. Music I’ll have on for a week, then turn it off for month, repeat because it’s awesome music but I don’t want to get tired of it. The nostalgia when I turn it on again every time is so great.
Also, really neat to see the breakdown of tickets across the different teams! I love to see details like that.
нI never played with the music in the first part, it’s boring and never fits the situation, Also in the second part I would like more dynamic music or very atmospheric like in Kenshi, I didn’t like the decision to make the soundtrack too neutral in the second part, all the tracks in the second part are not catchy, there is nothing unique in them, you should learn how to make music like a Punishing Gray Raven.
Please, give us an option to set the volume of the UI interactions sound independently from the rest, it’s VERY important to me. 🙏
I never play games with in-game music. I love listening to my favorite music while playing 🙂
I love the music in SE1, however, I usually play with it off, becuase I am recording. Which is tragic.
The biggest issues with sound that you need to address from Se1, is that some of the sounds are TOO LOUD. It would be nice to have an option to turn down specific sounds… or to have sound options to choose from for specific sounds.
For example: Your thruster noises for SE2 are horrific. I may not be able to play the game without modding/removing them. How about having more than one option?
With SE1, the realistic suit noises are great… except… YOU CHANGE THE SOUND of block placement… a sound that has no actual bearing on gameplay except to let you know… “I placed a block.” That is NOT an actual environment noise. You should have left it alone. That incongruency stands out so much for me, that I cannot use the realistic noises.
hello. I am hyped to discover the VS2 version ! About your question, I prefer to play with full sound and music but music between 40 et 60% . I like the SE1 and SE2 musics designed for space moment
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but if the doors are sub-grids (instead of model components), does that mean that sub-grids will be capable of making an enclosed space air tight eventually? For example, a custom large hangar door, when closed, can be air tight without any grid merging shenanigans?
I usually have the music off or very low. That said, I agree with others here that event driven music would be incredible too; low, quite background music when building, and louder, intense music when attacking or being attacked.
I like to play the first game with realistic sound effects (as I personally find them more dramatic; suddenly everything goes silent in an air leak) and no music — because I prefer my own soundtrack. Some people are just particular about their music I think.
I play with both Music on or off depending on who I play with. If its just me then I usually have music on whereas if I’m playing multiplayer its usually off as I find it distracting.
I do occationally like to play with a soundblock or jutebox scattered around my bases though with a random playlist as that adds a nice mix to things.
I usually play with music, but sometimes I don’t.
I typically play SE1 without music but leave the sound effects on. I am deaf in one ear, so music tends to wash out sound effects when I’m turning around which can be a bit interesting when I can’t hear wolves or sabroids on the way. Another reason is that while I do appreciate the music of SE1, it puts me on edge and I don’t know why. I play games for relaxation and being put on edge ruins that.
Oh, I do have a request that I think would be well received by others. Would it be possible to have the sound block able to use sound files from the local computer? I would love to be able to make a relaxation room in my base where I can listen to some of my own playlist songs.
Sounds on amd Music off. Like most I run a dual screen setup and run podcasts or movies while playing.
With sound only bacause the music don’t fit the immense very much
I play SE1 with sound on, and music when i build and roam around the base, but when i am going to a mission where i expect the be enemies i turn off the music so i can focus and better hear the ship alarms that i implemented, like lock detection and intruder alert
With subgrids, please make them part of the main grid they are attached to for blueprinting mechanisms sake. It needs to be easy to remake complicated mechanical builds with blueprints. Its one of my biggest frustrations with SE1 vanilla.
If music is good and adds to the experience ill leave it on low.
loving the dev blogs, super excited for full release. I cant wait for the day full scale multiplayer comes and everyone gets to bring their designs to PVP to see what works best.
I usually leave the music off when playing space engineers or play my own music. Now that the patents have expired for mp3s and they are free to use, it would be nice if mp3 format was added to the sound block and jukebox, so we could play them natively in the game, like the grand theft auto series of games.
Boring tracks are turned off, while up beat tracks are left on. Additional music may be added thru mods. Music is generally set lower then sound effects are. Example music at 50, sound effects 55, npc voices 60.
Have a pleasant day!