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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
Please join us Monday, December 22 for the release of Obliviara Sector to the Almagest System!
🚀 Monday, December 22, 6 PM UTC
🛰️ YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/SpaceEngineersGame
🛰️ Twitch: https://twitch.tv/keencommunitynetwork
**Story Spoilers!**
Our story has already begun – you have met the two brothers, Miro and Ivan. On their journey through the Almagest system they will cross paths with many different characters. Some of them will be friendly, others… not so much.
This is one of the friendly ones I personally am looking forward to meeting – Aya, a member of the Astronaut Without Borders (AWB) faction.
VS3 – Water
The vertical slice 3 “Water” is not only about volumetric, planetary scale water. The update will also need a lot of blocks and supporting features to make real water gameplay possible.
Without them, the water would be just an interesting physics gimmick. We have many gameplay designs that involve water – and our Art team is already on the task. Here are some of the recent concepts I had the pleasure to review.
What more can I show you? Maybe a small sneak peek at a unique backpack for a future story character:
And here is a behind the scenes video from the basic rigging of another story character.
Question to you: What water-adjacent features would you like to see?
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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I hope we can play as a female character as well. Character customization is more fun than only playing as a guy who is mean to his brother!
Water adjacent features: some nice post-processing to make properly frothy and misty waterfalls! And maybe some ferns and vines to go with them!
100% same, i’ve been asking for this since they started posting development pictures for SE2!
i’m all for established characters, it adds to the story, however i much prefer designing and playing my own characters and writing my own headcanons and roleplaying specific to that character.
i just want actual custom character customization and the ability to play as a lady space engineer
Agreed.
I was thinking the same thing. I used mods for this before customization became possible in SE1, but it took a while. Hope SE2 will have it much earlier.
I’d also like to see different character options or a character creator like SE1, at least for a non-campaign / story mode. I’d prefer the choice of gender and things like colors like we have in the first game so I can match the character I play with myself better.
Though generally I’ve found I’m actually a little against story in the game, having played the first integration of it, as much as I hate to admit it, so maybe I’m a bit biased against story-based characters for that reason. I feel contracts and dialogue tedious to get through when I already know all of it and just want to unlock blocks to build with, or am more interested in making my own stories.
I agree about the female avatar. As a quick and easy solution, let us use Aya’s avatar in non-story mode. More choices would be nice but I don’t consider that a super high priority.
Two things that I consider highly desirable for water:
1) Turbines for power generation as well as propellers. Maybe the existing model of the propellers with a duct around would do, making the graphics aspect relatively low-effort. Using those in hydro power plants would be a logical extension of having water in the game.
2) Aerodynamics/hydrodynamics. A lack of drag might be easily handwaved away for flight, but submarines going at 300 m/s would completely break immersion (pun accidental but I regret nothing.)
Once the relevant physics for water are implemeted, extending them to air should be fairly easy. In terms of drag and buoyance, air is not that different from water in principle. The numbers for drag and buoyance would be much smaller because the medium is thinner, but the math is still valid.
Whenever I played the first part, I dreamed that there would be water in it, and there would be unique ores under the water so that I could craft drilling submarines. I hope there will be such a thing in the second part, at least on a water planet.
yes! I want this
I like the idea of a uniqiue ore only found below water. what else could we find? maybe unique npc bases as well
ooooh i cant wait for water. Ive got some sub consepts in mind i am excited to try out. Any idea how long we can ROUGHLY expect it to be?
Will there be any combat advantages for being in the water? A flying vehicle can just hover above a spot and just rain down bullets, but what if bullet won’t reach further than a certain depth? Same goes vice versa. Surely will add some interesting stratergies. Now both parties need either water type bullers or a torpedo…
Water-Adjacent Feature: Concrete. Desperately need a way to fix/add voxels in Survival, and dynamic, physics-based water/concrete presents a very balanced way of adding it.
Yes, concrete voxel building would be amazing. Making it normal terrain that the player can make would be awesome, but… when the game is stable I would not complain about realtime voroni fracture on player voxels…
Well, ok, I admit full destruction like that would be silly, making them back into concrete rocks or something would be better. Maybe rock material gets turned into concrete at a 1/100 efficiency rate.
we desperately need concrete or something similar! and Its definately not impossible to do, Marek, we’re counting on you!
As a Swiss I really really hope to see hydroelectric dams, and if they had features like a pumped storage dam pumping water back up from a lower reservoir when the grid doesnt need too much power, like they do during the night on some dams, would be awesome. But not just dams, power generation with water could be so awesome, its the basis of most, like if you connected water pipes to the nuclear reactor it could make it lets say twice as efficient, or have a hydrogen generator hooked up to the nearest lake… Boats and underwater bases are cool, but honestly to me I feel like the main reason for water should be for energy, I would love to have entire powergrids.😍
Will water extinguish the fires on our damaged grids? Will it freeze in the coldness of space?
I’d love to see a futuristic version of a wind sail so that we could build a ship that has a back-up means of propulsion. Or landing gear specifically for water landings.
Water leaks on damaged tanks, too.
Reactors that require water to function like real reactors and the way they use turbines. And water to shield from radiation.
Water as a functional coolant resource.
Just some ideas (:
Water rather vaporize, than freeze in space, because lack of atmospheric pressure
It kinda does both. Without atmospheric pressure, water boils and turns to stream, but this uses up energy, which cools it down and turns into tiny crystals of ice.
this is so exciting, I think water adjacent features need to present us with challenges and pros and cons to work with. example is that we want water to be a place we can hide from airborne ships, but what challenges are we met with buikding water ships/bases? things like gradual oressure that makes it difficult to make larger spaces without thicker walls, having heat be really hard to maintain in the cold water (if heat beckmes a mechanic). a major feature id personally love to see is drag in water (alongside aerodynamic drag). it presents a great challenge for us to work with to come up with creative solutions as well as reflect a major mechanic in real life! either way im so excited to see where volumetric water goes because yall are killing it!!
How about a long-requested concrete block?
We do not have stone in the game right now, but there could be a “stone”-type ore added, like calcite. Mixed with water, it could be used to produce concrete and build a variety of blocks. Calcite could be very abundant on planets, making them ideal for base building without relying on iron for everything, while also giving water more gameplay relevance. We had a nice discussion about this on the support site under Mining and Production topics.
Another cool water-related feature would be cooling nuclear reactors. The more power they produce, the more water they might need. This would encourage interaction with water and promote planetary gameplay, such as building reactors on planets to power large refining operations using nearby water for cooling. This could also tie nicely into heat management, another highly requested feature on the support site.
Also bricks from clay. Stone is such a good building material, the game should have it.
I second this with concrete!
I also think some sort of calcite or lime/quicklime (used for roman concrete) would fit nicely into the game and be only accessable on planets with water (Verdure, Byblos, etc.)! Not “stone” but a specific resource thats abundant on those planets.
This block set would be made with a component like “concrete mix” thats produced in something like a “Mixer” block – uses water/ice and the lime/quicklime/calcite.
A recipe for the blocks could be something of a mix of steel bars and concrete mix. Cheaper in iron resources than light/heavy armor.
Note: it is of course easier to simply have concrete as a texture, but I think creating a separated pallete for these blocks would make water more fun and useful to base builders (like creating a concrete Dam base like in ARC Raiders). Concrete would also probably be one of the strongest blocks with high damage absorption but at the cost of very very high weight – so it will rarely be seen on ships.
Not sure if OP is referring to this, but I put up a post on the discord about Production block adjustments if you’d like to see! (https://discord.com/channels/125011928711036928/1333812832503988307/1449588669861335150)
Not sure if my reply is being reviewed or wasn’t allowed because I added a link to SE Discord, but yes I 100% agree with you.
No “stone” but a resource like calcite, lime/quicklime mixed with water to create a concrete powder component for the blocks. If such a resource was added, I would suggest only be available on planets with water. A special production block (like a Mixer) could be the way to produce the component.
I see a concrete block being composed of both steel tubes and concrete powder. Like OP says it would be a great way to build giant bases without the need for tons of Iron!
My thoughts is that these blocks would be very strong at the cost of its insanely heavy weight – so it won’t be viable on ships only planetary bases. I for one would love to build a concrete dam base (like in ARC Raiders!!)
I won’t add a link this time, but in the support & feedback forums, I mention concrete in my production system rework post (13 votes so far! So lets bump up the numbers lol).
Thanks as always Marek for these blog posts and keeping us fans excited and chatting!
Hi Hi, first time leaving a comment here and wanna say I freaking loooove reading each new dev diary page, can’t wait for more!
In theory could said same volumetric water system be used for other liquids? How moddable you plan to make it? Because i would LOVE to have ability to add a “lava planet” or methane ocean frost moon :v
Not quite suggestion but I can already see someone making a steam turbine mod that uses that water converted into steam via reactor and then sent into said steam turbine generator. Why? Because that way you can multiply reactor output by using more machinery and water as resource perhaps :v
But also it would be really nice to see some kind of heat mechanics in future to complement that water system. I think it may give a certain level of complexity that could potentially spice up the gameplay to something that can be called engineering and actually may help people keep that in my opinion pretty important aspect of space travel in mind. Be it as heat signature detection and weapon overheating (like woah ISS has sooo much radiators just to deal with cooling hardware) or simply water boiling haha. Machinery heat theoretically could be a helpfull thing for frost climate bases or similar scenarios and well I understand that it can be very tricky system to add into a game but so far SE2 feels like generational leap comparing to first game so hopefully it won’t be completely imposible in future.
USS Iowa size guns would be a great feature
I’m eager to see if the river currents will cause any drag on the ships, the characters, or even the vegetation.
Nice progress as always.
As a water related feature I hope we’ll get proper hydrodynamics, for proper rudder control.
Space Engineers )) there is no water in space, but there is ice. Water on planets is, of course, very cool, but the game is still about a space engineer, not about submarines )
– Underwater/subsurface explosion effects.
– Lava/Water interactions. I just recently make my way to core of Verdure and noticed the huge solid core of lava-veined rock. Assuming flowing Lava will be a thing, I’d love to see it cool and form additional land mass from an erupting volcano.
For water related features I would like to see two things: Sonar technology and small and large fish.
Imagining myself as Aya, I feel that the loose hairstyle could be annoying in space. Unless the hair is tied or stiffened somehow there’s no way to fix it if it gets in front of your eyes in space.
The backpack is strange. Could it be that it’s some kind of underwater propulsion system?
About water-adjacent features, it would be cool to have things like ships and people being swayed up and down by the motion of the waves, big waves that drag light grids if a ship splashes down on water nearby, rain that collects and is usable as physical water, and dynamos. Being able to freeze water and move it would be funny, but maybe difficult to implement with the voxel system. If moving voxels was possible, maybe planets could have proper satellites and they could cause tides. Another thing would be to generate a lot of steam when burning water with thrusters, and also smoke grenades, for example. They could benefit from volumetric calculations. Another similar thing would be wind, directional wind. It would make flags and sails behave in a satisfying way. Water could also be a thing that affects terrain. It could make soil wet and more fertile. It could freeze and crack rocks. Maybe there could be “temporary voxels” in the form of ice sheets forming on top of water in cold areas or in winter. Are there any plans for a water table that could be reached with a well and provide water anywhere? What about soft blocks (a plastic or fabric bag that would contain air)? They could be used for inflatable boats or tugs, and also as floaters for capsules and ships. Maybe there could be a desalinator block. I could think of more ideas, but it’s probably enough for now. I will just add one more: fishing please. Okay, sorry, another one: If a water pipe breaks, will it flood the room?
Our characters have hair mostly for artistic purposes, because when we made them with space hats, they lost 50% of their personality. It’s strange and you have to see it to believe it.
I would really love to see some fish, predators, and any large unique animals that are extremely rare underwater. It would be amazing to not feel alone down there and have a purpose to explore the deep waters, lakes, and rivers. The idea of encountering such rare creatures would make the whole experience so much more exciting and meaningful!
This would be so cool!
My water adjacent features wishlist (sorry it’s quite long):
Nice sound design: Crashing waterfalls, serene beach waves, rivers.
Storms+thunderstorms. Heavy rain and waves to add a bit of excitement to water travel.
Combat: sonar, depth charges, torpedoes.
Water flowing in large volumes should knock down trees.
Suit upgrade to traverse faster in water (like a suit propeller). A tangent but other types of suit upgrades would be awesome too like combat suit, radiation suit etc.
When food is added, water used for irrigation + fishing. I would live in a beach shack and go out fishing on my boat 🙂
Unique resource found on the seabed that are used to build an upgraded tier of blocks. Make it a challenge to get to, i.e pressure is high enough that you need a heavy armour hull to not crumple.
Love these ideas – I think good ambience is a gamechanger!
I also think rain and thunder has to be a part of the planetary cycles (wouldn’t it be so cool if Byblos was a heavy lighting planet?).
If not to “refill” water sources slowly, just for the ambience and potential hazards. I actually also feel like a secondary cloud layer could be great. This could be used to visualize weather from space. We could have the clouds we have now a bit higher and a patchy”weather” layer of overcast/rain/thunder to add more variety AND fulfill the idea of a water cycle! Just some thoughts on top of yours:)
the thing I look forward the most is having full HOTAS support. A feature which would be nice is if you have weather on the planet to add wind, making flying during a storm challenging where your small ship will be blown arround. that way weather will play a role. you will need to wait out the storm before taking off.
Melting components back into their constituent Ores makes no sense realism wise.
It would be a purely visual change to swap Ores for Ingots. No mechanics would change. Then you can melt components into ingots and have it feel logical. Ingots “feel” more valuable than ores anyways so thats a plus.
Very excited for weather to be added, it will make the game so much more immersive! I hope this is factored into water physics, so a storm gives bigger waves (purely graphical I assume but anyways).
Also excited for the potential as a “space RPG” where you can play a trader, buy low sell high, deal with pirates after your cargo, buy cool new ships and make modifications to them, stuff like that… Just like to play a trader in games 😀
Hello. I am hyperd to see that you want to make water part of the main gameplay. Here are my water-adjacent ideas and they are mainly funny missions:
-The uranium reactor needs to be filled with water before usage.
-A mission needs to fill a bassin with water and a lake is conveniently placed nearby and elevated. An aqueduc could work.
-A mission base is under water, in an elevated crater, and needs to be unflooded. A smart player could easily terraform the crater to make the water flow out (Like how we collect tar in Valheim)
– A mission in caves has narrow hole that the player has to dig to pass through, like in VS2 mission but, surprise, it is water behind the rock and now the path is flooded
– A gunfight in a marine laboraty full of aquariums
– Dumb pirates built their base just downstream of a dam…
– A planet has water source but only in deep natural caves
– Acid lakes, lava, oil and other funny liquids
I would love to see water related industry and gameplay.
Obviously under water drilling is one thing that should feel diferently to surface drilling but apart form making hydrogen from water we could have:
-> New Surface drills tiers requiring water connected with conveyors (or rather water pipes, would be cooler) to function.
-> Water as a coolant for some engine tiers?
-> Power generation based on rivers (:
-> Late game ores created by combining water/hydrogen with another ore type.
Overall anything that makes water/liquid gameplay part of the gameplay loop until the very end is good.
It’s the main feature that will make planet based gameplay VERY distinct from flying around in space looking for ice.
Anything that links water to late game /mid game play is good. It will make planet – based gameplay relevant until the very end.
In SE1 PvE once we reach the stage of moving base in space planets become a gimick rather than an actual necessity.
Underwater gameplay ( with distinct drilling)is one thing.On the other hand we could have:
-> Water based power generation(Dam)
-> Water based drilling( A drill requiring water linked with pipes/conveyors to function)
-> Water based industry ( Mixing liquid water with ore X to generate ore Y)
-> Some planets can have acid oceans instead of water. Exact same physics/blocks as water but it could require heavy armor to dive in? Also it could be a new tier for mining for instance.
-> Water as a coolant for some types of engines/jump drive?
-> If you add rails one day in this game I want a space elevator to transport things to orbit. ;P But htat’s a very different topic ^^”’
Nice work. I was surprised that the propeller won’t move by default like the atmo thrusters. That backpack kinda looked like a helmet at first.
I saw that there was some modification to the hair of the female astronaut – I suggested that to you and to the modeller Alice too. It looks more believable now. but maybe that’s just an illusion in the helmet. 🙂
Water will be nice, I don’t have any specific request, but I hope its functionalities will be properly used. I plan to make aquaducts, waterfalls etc. The big question is what will happen to it in space and how that would work. Can water be used as a weapon? like flooding someone’s base or I can imagine a scenario that I bring a lot of water in space, let it solidify, and use it as an ice missile. Can water be used in space as a lootbox? like an entire ship inside ice, and you’d need to heat it up to thaw the ice and reveal the loot inside?The other is how to transport small amounts, like if I’d want an indoor pool or sprinkle it over a small area to remove fire? Can water be used to remove fire from burning ships?
And most of all? Can we get a water gun? 😀 You can totally 3D print a space engineers themed water gun and sell either that as a product or give out the 3D STLs. It can be a promo material for the water planet?
As for features with water:
1) maybe add simple spherical pockets of oil underground, which can be detected by ore scanner, and pumped with drills/pumps, maybe they should act as an infinite source for some time, to make it more interesting to build and maintain pumping station, or fight over it in campaign/multiplayer.
2) don’t know if it’s possible but to add ice or make upper layer of water become ice voxels in space or cold planets, imagine ice moon like Europa, which is smooth ice outside, but has liquid water and weird geology under ice.
3) mission/missions to resupply water somewhere, to hydroponics station, or small colony, or to help extinguish fire, or to stabilise overheated reactor (maybe not usual one, but something experimental like prototech), maybe to save drowned spaceship by destroying/excavating a dam and releasing water
Anything that links water to late game /mid game play is good. It will make planet – based gameplay relevant until the very end.
In SE1 PvE once we reach the stage of moving base in space planets become a gimick rather than an actual necessity.
Underwater gameplay ( with distinct drilling)is one thing.On the other hand we could have:
-> Water based power generation(Dam)
-> Water based drilling( A drill requiring water linked with pipes/conveyors to function)
-> Water based industry ( Mixing liquid water with ore X to generate ore Y)
-> Some planets can have acid oceans instead of water. Exact same physics/blocks as water but it could require heavy armor to dive in? Also it could be a new tier for mining for instance.
-> Water as a coolant for some types of engines/jump drive?
water valve,
mechanical and electric version.
just to open/close “tube” or spill water out from system.
I have played SE1 for longer than I can remember (I remember my sense of awe at seeing the sunrise on the Earthlike planet for the first time, something I never stopped feeling) and I am excited to see the progression of SE2 as things get added like NPCs and quests/contracts that fill in a lot of the gaps from SE1. I love the vision that Keen has laid out and I am so excited to get there.
At the same time, I am a little bit apprehensive about some of this, too. I worry that in maturing the game, some of what made SE1 special might be at risk. Space Engineers is an engineering sandbox first and foremost – when people ask me why they should play it, I tell them “because if you’re willing to set your own goals, you can build really cool stuff and it scratches that creative itch perfectly.” Quests, NPCs, and fast travel are neat QOL, but they feel sort of at odds with that.
If you follow the current tutorial, you have no need to even think about shipbuilding or engineering. There’s no need to make your own goals because contracts and colonization provide them for you in a temporary, transitory way (i.e. “fix this station, and then never come back to it again.”). Resource management and planning is minimized by ever-present resource patches and magic backpack building.
I guess my feeling is that these new features can be good for the game, but I really hope they’re done in a way that isn’t so opinionated that it crowds out the soul of space engineers, which is building cool stuff for fun and accomplishment, not to check a quest off.
I know development is early with much of the “campaign” being temporary, and being able to toggle some of these things on or off is good.
Ultimately I trust that Keen will pull together a cohesive game that will be fun. I just hope it still feels like Space Engineers when we get there.
This is all incredibly exciting stuff. I feel like you and the folks at Keen are being a little too humble about the water seeing as, far as I’m aware, you’re the first to attempt soemthing like this. I wouldn’t exactly call Minecraft’s water system dynamically simulated and even games that put more focus into the water like No Man’s Sky did recently, its still not simulated and dynamic. My poor city on a lake is inundated by clipping waves. The dream I had was to build levees that actually work but I knew that function did not exist. But it will soon for SE2. Even if it ends up just being a “physics gimmick” I am eager to try it out along with all the other new additions. Good to see all the money I spent on those SE1 addons went to good use!
I have spent most of my time thinking about water and how it will work. I’m curious about what kind of fluid dynamics will be in the game. Obviously, the more that is modeled the more demanding it will be, so there have to be limits. You did show a video of water flowing through a block channel, so there is that much, but this made me wonder if the model will allow something like a gravity fountain. I’m not expecting this, mind you, just curious about how far you intend to go with it.
What about flowing water on planets? Will Verdure have any bodies of water at higher elevations that flow into rivers? If so, can the water run out, or is there a “water source” mechanic? If there, could removing too much voxel around the source destroy it? Again, not expectations, just curiosity about the intended scope.
Will air pressure hold water at bay, if, say, I have a leveled submarine or ship and open a bottom hangar door in a pressurized space (if voxels still don’t help maintain air pressure I assume this one is a no).
Could submarines function with one direction of thrust so long as I have a gyro? Any plans to have control surfaces work in water?
As for what I’d like, if appears that we can pump water, so even without naturally occuring rivers, we could still make dams. I would love to be able to have hydroelectric power as an option. Any plans for a water turbine?
water adjacent features I would like to see water falls /streams maybe pouring out from one of the caves on the side of a mountain. Pirats cove where you have a cave like in the movie goonies 🙂 maybe some bubbling hydrogen vents to farm, glaciers, other then that maybe some lawn chairs a few umbrellas beach towls maybe some flooties pink flamingos barrels you know astetic stuff which is one place SE 1 lacks I mean its a sandbox where people are supposed to make their own story they just need the props to do so! Oh and a radio that can play the music from the music competition we can listen to because those were epic! Side note: so far what i have seen is all the water area seems to be palm trees will there be areas that is water adjacent that have pine trees to get that cabin in the woods on the lake kinda vibe?
So many story characters! I’m really glad that you are developing proper gameplay elements for water. To me it is very important that there is an incentive to spend more than just a few minuntes under water. Maybe underwater contracts, or underwater ore boulders that are more rewarding than the ones above water.
The ability to automate boats is my dream. I’ve spent hours driving friends around the island or ragnorok in Ark, I’d love to be able to sit back and enjoy the view.
The story line is interesting and a good addition, but please don’t let the core physics suffer for it. We can have all the NPCs in the world, but if the physics remains bad, it won’t be SE.
Simple Apps for vanilla LCD’s bbboth SE1 and SE2
I enjoy playing with the HUD completely off for added immersion, but I don’t like having to resort to complex scripts to play smoothly, and I understand that console players don’t have this option either in SE1. I’d like to suggest that LCDs have a Toolbar app, so you can view the toolbar settings on an LCD with the HUD off, creating a more immersive dashboard. Another suggestion is a digital speedometer app that has the same progressive speed animation as the HUD. both in SE1 and SE2.
Smart Cockpits: Physical and Visual Control Integration
Core Idea: Integrate physical buttons and switches directly into the cockpit dashboard, with the crucial addition of the corresponding keyboard shortcut visually projected onto each one.
The Key Differentiator:
Physical & Static Base: Fundamental buttons and switches are a permanent part of the dashboard, providing solidity and realism.
Immediate Visual Feedback: Each physical button dynamically displays the key bound by the player (e.g., “[P] Parking”, “[Y] Power”), but in the dashboard
Fluid Interaction: The player can either press the key on their keyboard (using the visual prompt as a guide) or aim and click directly on the 3D button for the same action.
LCDs as a Complement: LCDs remain for dynamic information, forming a complete and intuitive cockpit.
Outcome: A diegetic interface that is beautifully integrated, visually clear, and incredibly functional.
We need pressure, crush depth, and for things like projectiles, light, and vehicles to behave the way they should in water.
I.e. bullets and missiles will not be able to go far in water, vehicles will be affected by water resistance, and the depths of the oceans will be dark below 50 or so meters, and crushing.
Water related game mechanics I’d like to see:
– Great audio effects (walking on a beach splashes, and that “going under water” sound if you know what I mean where you can still hear stuff on the surface but it is muffled, waves crashing, water falling/splashing, etc)
– Added to survival, drinking required, need water
– Used for planting
– A little off topic but I’d really like to be able to grow/regrow trees and maybe water plays into that somehow
– visual water dripping off a ship that just took off after being submerged
– water displacement (if you land a huge ship in a small lake the water level will rise drastically)
– Would prefer water to not be “infinite” everywhere, meaning you could eventually use it up if it isn’t connected to a “source”. Would be cool to have to redirect a mountain river by digging a trench so the water feeds into your private lake/reservoir.
Ship rudders would be a great block to include with water if its no already planned. It could probably just be a re-skinned gyro with some limitations set?
What water-adjacent features would you like to see?
I would personally like to see types of blocks that add or remove bouyancy, such as inflated rubber, ballasts, etc. It would be really neat to try to use these to counteract weight on larger vessals.
Imagine your take your small submersible craft out and start mining some ore on the sea bed, and as your cargo weight increases you manually adjust your ballasts to displace more water to keep your bouyancy neutral 🙂
Bouyancy physics would be a really nice feature with VS3, as it would add depth (no pun intended) to aquatic exploration outside of simple propulsion/airtightness
Wildlife is at the top of my wishlist. It would be nice to have at least small creatures without collisions or player interaction, like small fish/zooplankton for underwater environments and small birds/insects for above water.
All of the models are very good and the fracturing can be satisfying but i feel like not everything should shatter as if its made of crystal, im not sure how difficult or if its even possible but i think it would be cool if some parts deformed while some shatter.
I’d like to see efficiencies go up when production devices are connected to a water source or have a water tank on hand. Modern earth industry uses so much water in production, I can’t imagine that having a pipe to a nearby lake wouldn’t relieve some of the burden the space engineer nanites or whatever have to pull off.
With the renewed finess that the 25cm build grid supplies, I hope Keen is experimenting with more nuanced solutions to piping things around than the catch all conveyor. Routing water pipes to my smelter and separate gas pipes to my h2 and o2 tanks would make for some fun engineering challenges, optimizing paths for resources in separate or partially tubes. Then again, without experimenting I don’t know if adding water pipes would be a fun engineering challenge or just add to overall busywork.
> What water-adjacent features would you like to see?
I can’t get the ideas of ocean exploration and engineering out of my head.
In terms of ocean exploration, I see two possibilities. Retrieval (not necessarily mining) is a big part of diving. Wishing I had a reason to make something like the 2025 Lego Deep-Sea Research Submarine comes to mind- pick up valuable resources from the bottom of the ocean, maybe ships crash on land and blow up, but if they crash in the ocean they get crushed by the pressure (yet remain intact enough to extract materials).
Subnautica really nailed it with sea fauna and megafauna, vessels built for different depths, and base building as waypoints for further exploration.
I look forward to building some of the most amazing marvels of modern man: deep sea drilling rigs.
I also look forward to a Ghengis Khan style burial of my enemies: Kill everyone, lay waste to their base, and then divert a river to pass over the remains.
Just throwing out ideas. Not sure what sort of game you want to make, but after putting some thought into it, there’s a lot of room for you to work with.