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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
This week on the regular playtest, we reviewed a bunch of smaller but important things.
We did some animation changes on weapons and tools. Right now the motion is a bit too pronounced when you look around – it feels like the weapon or tool is lagging behind the crosshair. So that’s something we’ll be addressing and tuning down.
Asteroid rings are already in our internal build of the game. From a distance, you see them as a kind of foggy ring. As you get closer, the fog disappears and you start seeing individual asteroids. There’s one big ring around Verdure, and it’s also visible directly from the planet’s surface, which adds a nice large-scale geographic element to the world.
The loot system is already in. During FTUE, contracts, or encounters, you’ll be able to find loot here and there. Datapads are in as well – you can find them and read short snippets of background lore.
The killing field around Delfos is in too. When you get too close, you start seeing dust and fire-like cloudy particles all around you – even inside interiors. This danger goes through obstacles, so if you don’t escape in time, it will kill you and destroy your ship. It’s meant to feel unavoidable and hostile.
Speed particles are being improved. They look like a star field that fades in once you cross the safe speed (72 km/h), and they really help with the sense of speed and motion.
Customizable controls are in – you can rebind keys. I’m not 100% sure yet whether this covers absolutely all use cases players care about, or more like 90%, but we’ll ship it and then collect the feedback. We are also adding a separate Tools Volume settings – so you can make your mining experience as quiet (or as loud) as you wish.
Automated turrets are in. If you set them up correctly, they start shooting enemy grids, and suddenly it already feels much more like a real game. One thing that’s not done yet: the collision shape for the turret. Right now you can place them extremely close to each other, and it looks… funny. That will be fixed.
Trading blocks are in, so you can buy and sell items. Block actions via the toolbar are in progress. We already saw programmers demo it – pressing numeric keys to turn on lights, open doors, etc. Still being wired up properly, but it’s clearly coming together.
We’re also improving mission scripting in the FTUE (first-time user experience, roughly the first 1–2 hours). The goal is to avoid situations where the game tells you to do something you can’t actually progress – for example, “bring 1000 iron to a cargo container” when the container already has it, but the mission logic doesn’t register it. These kinds of dead-ends should not happen anymore.
Mission scripting in a sandbox game with a fully destructible environment is… hard 😃
One last edge case we’re trying to avoid is when a player visits a mission area early, unknowingly messes it up, and later comes back when the mission actually needs it – but now it’s impossible to complete because key grids are missing. One possible solution is to spawn almost invisible safe zones around such areas, which you’d only notice when very close, and which would prevent changes. That’s our last-resort, nuclear option. We’ll try everything else first.
I’ve also been looking at our planned GPS expansion, which is a good example of how VS2 really served as a foundation. VS2 gave us the base systems, and now we’re going back and making each of them deeper and more feature complete. GPS is one of those systems that you don’t always notice at first, but once you rely on it, every small improvement matters.
Right now, the team is working on new GPS features. I really like how practical these changes are. You can for example add a GPS marker directly from your current position, paste markers from the clipboard, and organize everything into GPS groups.
We’re also working on a WIP indication for newly unlocked blocks. The idea is simple – when you get access to a new block, the game should clearly tell you that something new is available. I personally find this important for feedback and progression. You immediately know that your actions unlocked something, instead of discovering it much later by accident. The visuals for this are still work in progress, but the underlying logic is already there.
You might remember that some time ago I mentioned our early cloud experiments. Since then, we’ve been pushing this area further, especially while working on new planetary visuals. As we add more worlds to the game, it becomes clear that clouds are not just decoration – they are a powerful tool for shaping mood, scale, and overall atmosphere.
Lately, we’ve been experimenting with a different approach to planet visuals, including the idea of permanent fog. I find this especially interesting for planets that are meant to feel hostile, mysterious, or oppressive. A constant layer of fog changes how you navigate, how far you can see, and how safe you feel at any given moment.
Our cloud system gives the team a lot of control. We can tweak cloud height, density, color, and layering, and combine them in ways that dramatically change the character of a planet. Subtle adjustments already make a big difference. A low, dense fog can make the surface feel claustrophobic and dangerous, while higher, broken cloud layers can emphasize scale and openness. I really enjoy seeing how the same terrain can feel completely different just by changing the atmosphere around it.
This is still very much an experimental area, but it’s exciting to see how far we can push planet identity using clouds and fog alone.
Question to you: What visuals are most important to you for creating a strong planet atmosphere and mood?
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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Automated Turrets need setting up? What could this mean 👀
When is it planned to support iGPUs?
Amazing amazing amazing progress Keen! Especially around those atmospheric conditions – that could be amazing to see a battle wait for stormy conditions and then swoop in, explosions and munitions fiing back and forth into the cloud and from teh cloud to the base below, it would be a spectacle! Keep it up!
It’s great to hear about so many new features. I can’t wait to visit the asteroid ring.
By the way, what is the ship-penetrating hazard? Is it an abstract symbol for an “unknown phenomenon,” or is it a concrete event (fictional or known)? Is there anything we can engineer beyond simply fleeing? I’m also curious to see if there’s any energy available that can destroy the ship!
Based on how the current graphic looks, Id wager that it is the solar wind of the brown dwarf. Otherwise you could call it a neutrino field as for why it slowly kills you. neutrinos barely interact with matter but if its extremely dense swarms of them: they could interact more often causing damage.
Final potential reason this time for ship damage is the overwhelming power of a stellar magnetic field. they can channel literal tons of plasma on the sun, so a failed star would likely still be able to direct a large electromagnetic field. therefore with our ships made of ferrous metal it could be damaged by the extreme strength of the star once too close.
Looking forward to seeing how the turrets look and work. Also just wondering how you are planning on keeping them separate. I really like how the building is going and hope there won’t be a weird void area around the turret where we can’t build. I want to be able to put details around it.
I’m not the kind of player who cares that much about visuals, but a planet’s atmosphere definitely plays a big part in the overall feel. That’s why I’m all for experiments with denser atmospheres. I also think Verdure’s atmosphere could use a touch more of that. The landscape looks stunning. But viewed from space, something’s missing. Even SE1 looks better in some parts. Maybe it’s just my PC. I’d be interested to hear what other players think.
Visuals – The rays of the sun coming through the clouds after a storm. The twinkling of the stars at night. The changing of the seasons. A smile that grows on a face. The hypnotic flicker of an open fire. The shadows cast from light of the moon. Fields of wheat bowing in the wind on a hot summers day. The way the forest looks back at you for cracking a twig underfoot. Climbing across scree to get to a mountain top.
For atmosphere sound is a must to compliment the view.
Sound can be used to imply tension, material, and spacial awareness.
Wind creates sound on objects, things that move pad, flutter, claw or brush. Plants can rustle or creak, water bubbles, pitter patters or roars, animals call out, fire crackles and pops, vocanoes and clouds may rumble, boats stir.
People make many noises.
And then there is music and all of its colours.
Thanks Marek and SE team for all you do and the possibility to provide feedback!
I don’t mind beautiful planets, I think water is a great addition and for those who like it, a colonization system will be great. But I am seeing a lot about visuals currently and I am worried about the time devoted to the less “sexy” things that should be addressed in my opinion and that have always taken away from the experience in SE1: the wonky physics of subgrids (CLANG!!), subgrids not being part of blueprints and event controllers and set actions coming to the game only after many years.
I am quite a big fan of SE with more than 1200 hours in and I love constructing complex things with moving parts like in the real world – I’d rather have the old problems fixed for a solid foundation of SE2 and focus on the visuals later. Of course, I am not a developer – but I really hope you will focus on improving these things. Making the game pretty is optional for me.
thanks as always for the update Marek.
how close is the team to realising VS2.2 and those impirtant bug fixes?
id like to see Flora and Fauna. introduce additional survival elements like hunger and thirst 👍
I really want to see thunderclouds, lightning, rainstorms
To avoid the negative effects of lightning strikes on the grid, you can only make lightning far away from the player as a visual effect.
or make sure that when lightning hits the grid, it does not cause damage to the grid, but briefly overloads the systems, turning off control for a couple of seconds, unless there is some special lightning rod unit on the grid.
This will make the risk of exploring such planets acceptable, really dangerous in some situations, but not so fatal.
about controls, what i would like isnt just a rebind. i would love a controñ scheme that follows SE 1’s. using the mouse wheel to change the blocks of a group and pressing the toolbar aga9n to switch sizes (0’25,0’5,2’5) instead of having all the sizes in the same stack. SE 2’s building seems messed
it would also be interesting to see hurricanes that can demolish light small grids if they are not attached to the ground in any way, or maybe they will tear off some ordinary cheap antennas (or other blocks) from the grids, and in order not to tear them off, you will need to craft more expensive, heavy and reinforced versions, in general, this It was only a problem of separate planets, which would also give them uniqueness and interesting game challenges.
It would be interesting to see a planet where there will be a lot of water and land space, but the surface will be too aggressive for permanent life there, and players will need to build underwater bases for permanent residence on the planet, and special reinforced rovers to explore the surface and extract unique ores or complete quests.
In my opinion, this sounds interesting gameplay, and technically possible if you properly build all the gameplay features and features.
about visuals for planets:
stuff like weather is great and i love in SE 1 but there are visual elements of it that i didnt like that much:
-when applying weathers like rain or fog during the night, the area felt like if it where iluminated.
– theres also the fact that it doesnt feel to agfect the player: would be cool to hae drops of water to appear on our visor and even slide down when it is raining or even characters suits and blooks to get a weet texture.
– in SE 1, the particles feel too uniform, is like if u were seeing a filter (green, grey or brown) instead of literal dust of rain, having those particles to havw different densities and even to move around as if there were wind pushing them would make em feel more alive.
– finally, and this is for Delfos’ killer field, some lines going around the screen and through grids feel a bit to cheap, a sort of radiation effect that starts to bluur the edges of the screen until it gets to the center of the screen and then turs red/orange (like if u were burt/microwaved), killing u would feel more natural and ominous than random lines
oke… writing with phone keyboard is awful. mistakes corrected:
about visuals for planets:
stuff like weather is great and i love it in SE 1 but there are visual elements of it that felt off:
– when applying weathers like rain or fog during the night, the area felt like if it where illuminated, which kind of killed the dark ambient of the nights.
– theres also the fact that it doesnt feel to affect the player: it would be cool to have drops of water to appear on our visor and even slide down when it is raining or even characters suits and blocks to get a wet texture when on contact with water.
– in SE 1, the particles feel too uniform, it is like if you were seeing a filter (green, grey or brown) instead of literal dust or rain. Having those particles to have different densities and even to move around as if there were wind pushing them would make em feel far more alive.
– finally, and this is for Delfos’ killer field, some lines going around the screen and through grids feel a bit to cheap, a sort of radiation effect that starts to blur the edges of the screen and progress on our field of view until it gets to the center of the screen and then fades into red or orange (like if u were burnt/microwaved), and then killing u would feel more natural and ominous than just a few random lines.
The customisable controls are an awesome addition.
Do you have any plans to allow mapping user input to control functional blocks?
Similar to how you can use Custom Turret Controller in SE1 to map mouse/controller axis to rotor or hinge rotation, but more generic.
For example, extend a piston while the player holds a key, or increase wheel group speed.
There is a suggestion about it on the support site:
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/52218-user-input-controller-automation-mapping-block
Clouds are already beyond what I expected, I can see some improvement necessary regarding collisions with terrain (volumetric physic with collision should happen but I think they are just clipping for now), and also transition/LOD from space maybe? But very good work. I hope you will expand from there and give us weather that is tied to the clouds, that would be amazing.
I hope we can get news about the water soon, I would dream of having actual waves, weather interactions one day…
Thank you for sharing the progress regularly, it inspires trust.
Have a nice day!
I’m not a fan of particles being visible inside the ships, better use audio feedback, it’s just too weird otherwise.
Good news on the dead ends. My first playthrough was riddled with markers of mission objectives I couldn’t complete.. “Repair ship” when that grid was destroyed etc. To some degree it helped me navigate, but still I was affraid I’m missing something because multiple missions steps were not progressing.
Group markers are good, I’d like to have a bit more manual solution, Enter /gps name to create a GPS at current position. That was the way many people got used to, it’s working well, not hidden under menus, just pop it when you need it and move on.
For the “new blocks” indication please add a “mark all as read” button somewhere.. I assume after the 20th playthrough I don’t care that much about new blocks unlocked that I’d want a bright marker that I manually click on to get removed..
The fog representation video looked good, but that planet looks painfully empty. I’d consider adding some larger rock formations and debris around in medium sizes to break up the barren look.
It’s weird that this field kills you so far away from the brown dwarf and I don’t think there’s any physical explanation for these particles. It might be better to simpy highlight the screen orange-red and ramp it up the closer we are to the border of that “killing field”. More pronounced bloom effect on Delfos would better sell the idea about it being extremely hot.
By the way, would it be reasonable to have a gravity field around Delfos just like a normal planet and the killing field inside it, placed around the point gravity rises to extreme numbers? Rising gravity would both work as a trap and a warning to stay away.
awesome, i playes when the last mahor update came out goving planets. sounds like its a good time to test a new game from the start to compare the experience again. Thanks so much for keeping us up to date this granular, it helps alot!
please don’t add a primary collision to the block that prevents it from being hidden like for example, thrusters
Please add a secondary collision that only collides with other turrets field of view that way you can artificially limit the amount of turrets in a particular area, but they can also be hidden with hull blocks
Are you thinking of the (fairly wide) zone around SE1 gatling guns where you are not allowed to build anything?
If so, I agree but there should also be built-in limitations for the guns so they cannot shoot through the hull.
For unknowingly messing up a quest area early, have you considered only spawning them in once the quest step is activated? Maybe with a backup location or two in case the area is occupied with player made blocks, to avoid overwriting them.
Also I’m loving all the looks at the progress, the game is shaping into something very beautiful indeed!
As to the above question: Creating a planet atmoshere and a visual mood is a combination of things fog in of its self is fog but if a waterfall is falling through the fog disapearing through a sea of clouds or falling from above add large trees a stream some mossey rocks and fireflys and players will be waiting for something magical to happen in that moment. This same enviroment set at night with craggy trees will give the oppertunity for a errie vibe. Add a thunderstorm where lightning is dancing across the sky and it becomes more errie. Add a metorshower to either one of these and it can make it more errie or magical dependant upon the surrounding enviroment and enviromental props/ trees mosses rocks etc. on the edge of volcanic regions craggy trees forboading marshes steam vents volcanic ash cloud with lightning creates an errie vibe. Large caves with fog and their own biom. Glaciers with their crags and ice caves etc. Under water can be the same way it can be beautiful and then the player comes to a barren area and look over the edge of an abyss which then creates the errie mood.
A few toughts about mission scripting:
1) Make the completion dependent on the end result, not on how the player proceeds to achieve it. In the “bring 1000 iron to a cargo container” example the mission could be fulfilled once the 1000 iron are in the container, no matter how it happened.
2) Bring some flexibility into the end result as well. As in “repair facility X or rebuild it, when completed functionality Y must be given.”
You could eventually expand this into “construct a new outpost, given these specs.”
Also, the Delfos killing field could eventually be replaced by heating/cooling mechanics where you have to keep your grid from running too hot. Getting close to Delfos woul obviously make it difficult to avoid overheating, but you might be able to get closer with a ship optimized for heat management.
Next step, add some small planet in the Delfos sector with rich ore reserves. Getting there will be a bit of a challenge…
Loving the visuals like the fog. Frankly those are the little things. Those and the bioms. Having diversity and such attention to detail just helps the game feel truely immersive.
When is it planned to support iGPUs?
I play Flight sim alot. So i think good rain effects particially on window shields would be good idea, also natural fog and natural distance blurring, wind effects on grass/trees, grass/tree movement from thrusters when they are close to that. Multi layered clouds.
i agree. i would also make the rain effects on visor when at 1st person view. if it could also be done for raindrops to splash on the grounds and grids as well as doing waves on the water, it would be amazing
I would like to see us be able to (in adddition to grouping in Grid Item List) but be able to toggle on and off that group.. and also be able to tie it to another group and add a boolean option. also make groups of groups. So you could have a group called propulsion with 2 or 3 sub groups, named Atmo, Ion, Hydro,ect. and each one of those you could add all those blocks. then on the group item, have it toggle on and off. also have a check box that if turned on it auto turns off other groups (you specify in a dropdown list of all groups on that grid) you could then add the other thruster types. When the number menu items are available in cockpit you can have those groups toggle on and off for each on seperate number buttons, but it would work this way, lets say #1 is Ion & #2 is Hydro. Both are off to start, you hit 1, Ion group is on. now you can hit 1 to turn Ion off or you can hit 2 to turn on Hydro and turn off Ion at the same time (seemless swaping) so you hit 2, now Ion is off and Hydro is on. hit 2 again to turn off Hydro, or hit 1 to swap back to Ion and turn off Hydro.
This would also work for groups like Lighting, you could have Low power running lights, and a seperate Full High beam with extra detail lighting, and be able to toggle between those 2 groups.
Things I would like to see added…
Single wheel block (motorcycle style) and a wheel with suspension in line with wheel not on side for items like railways, elevators, etc.
Block attachment point on outside of wheels (so we could add lights, etc.)
Landing gear with shocks, also with height options, and be able to group them so that you cant “park” till x number of landing gear are on ground. that makes us work a bit more to do proper landings, and shocks help make sure those points are made. it also allows for areas (if we decide) that we cant land because the terrain is too rough.
Cockpit with moving canopy, clicking on the outside with mouse toggles open close, when seated it auto closes.
Cockpits (working screens will be coming I know) but I would love to see some dashboard buttons that we could map to keys for more interaction, i know this is unlikely though as our mouse is tied to movement. But perhaps an option to toggle the mouse between movement and button selection. if not perhaps have buttons that mirror the number buttons and have them light up if on, in SE1 it just says on or a number but if there was a 3d button on the dash that lit up when thrusters were on and one for gyros, you would not even need to tie it to actual buttons, just general info button lights, one for gyros, wether its 1 or 50, if there is a gyro on the grid thats on, then that button lights up. you could have a general one for thruster that shows at least 1 thruster of any type is on. you could have it blink if more than one type is on or blink red if the thrusers are on but there is less than 6 directions available.
25cm Pistons .5,1,2.5,5 meter lengths that are round like shocks. this adds the ability to make ramps, custom landing gear, hatches and such witout being hugely blocky.
Full size piston (round or square with last note) with a ballscrew type plunger that rotates as it extends or contracts. Way cooler than just box in box in box extensions. and you could have it set to plunger type, chrome piston/Ballscrew/Box Extension.
Conveyor adaptor Large to Many smalls (1x5x5 block, sides have 3 smalls each side, face 1 large, face 2 5 smalls in x shape)
Pipes (official not mod) for large and small that act just like conveyors. Also add 25cm scale pipes that convey gas and liquids only, no ores/items
Domed Glass window (not have sphere just bubbled ~25%?) in a square frame circular window, size 1,2.5,5,10,20 This allows for some round porthole style options all the way up to a domed clear roof for a building. this will be awesome when we get water working as well. You could also add options for reinforced versions that have steel straps placed over the dome for extra protection (hitpoints) so may scifi referances for this.
25cm Thrusters (this would work if we had those 25cm pipes for hydro) Also need to add adapters for small to 25cm scale for pipes
I think perpetual fog is definitely not always a bad thing – as long as it actually feels like a fog rather than just a view-distance limiter y’know?
Beyond that, with the volumetric cloud stuff instead of a permanent view-distance limiting fog you can make it so that the crazy weather planet has small 30s-120s breaks in between 60-300s flurries of whatever the weather is, this way every once in a while you get a glimpse and can be safe. Think “Ah-ha! there’s that valuable resource over there” glimpses, or GPS is temporarily disabled while your view is blocked too sort of thing.
If permanent view blocking patterns were in it would require a whole different navigation methodology, which I would love but doubt is in scope.
What I find really immersive about planets, whether there’s life there or not, is that they DO have environmental changes that you can see like the moist morning dew, the fall and cold seasons, the rain and the storms, the sounds…
However it looks is probably going to be wonderful art-wise but the most important aspect for space engineers is a REASON to be there and a gameplay loop that isnt just “the same as on earth but now on a rocky moon/asteroids/alien planet/water planet missing the convenient stuff on earth.”
Kind of like how factorio changes the gameplay loop per-planet in spaceage, without a similar system for each area verdure, water planet, moon, dusty each requiring totally different build setups and such, it’s going to feel empty and not have a reason to go there unless you’re a traditional SE1 tryhard like myself. Please consider this, along with my feedback on making minecraft ftb-mekanism-style processing and upgrade loops it is suuuuch a huge opportunity for awesomesauce.
The game loops, i think, are what keep players in the game for dozens of hours from their first moment on and they cant be too simple, too hard, too repetitive or too hard, it is a delicate balance, and they need things like funny experiences in between while grinding (hence my old ingame radio idea, have xocliw sing 40s tunes to us).
But if it’s a dead rocky planet, the options are limited maybe some ideas for atmosphere and mood is to have things to discover on it – be it creepy, enriching or nostalgic – from still having tectonic plate activity and seasonal pattern challenges, life deep underground, super super creepy things perhaps underground or crashed, etc.. I would investigate empyrion for more ideas on adventure-style POIs, these would enrich this game dramatically.
Now for something unsolicited: please give us the tools to transform space engineers 2 into completely unexpected game modes with our own join-UIs and team-slot UIs, so we can eventually mod in our favorite game modes like attack & defend, capture and hold, team deathmatch, capital ship deathmatch, capital ship and fighters deathmatch, a life-sim like fivem/armalife, castle war, gmod, zombine invasion, chill-hangout worlds, etc.. When you give us the tools to wildly change the game we will bring it to the masses with these things you never intended the game to be used for. With the unified grid system and mod support already you have an insane opportunity to bring the worlds’ creatives in, lets enable the mod community to bring in all of those who aren’t necessarily interested in scifi space ship building in the future – if you built it they will come.
Just the best dev stream out there. Constant, amazing progress. I’ve never enjoyed playing an unfinished game this much! XD It’s always exciting to see what your team does, and the thought processes behind it all!
Fog looks nice, but I worry about a players ability to fly safely while in it. Jimmy Doolittle developed flight instruments for airplanes for just this reason, as clouds and fog were the number one killers with airplanes. They get into a cloud, get disorientated, and crash. Or trying to land, and the ground is covered in fog, so they slowly decend… praying as they go down. This was VFR and IFR, respectively.
I think logically it would be a good idea to have instrumentation on screen to safely operate your ship as if the windows outside were completely dark. This would enable full operations at night, in fog, clouds, underwater, deep underground, in shadows in space, or if damaged.
Some sort of Attitude Indicator, vision enhancement(thermal, nightvision, radar/synthetic vision, etc), speed, altitude (mean sea level, radar altitude, Sphere of Influence height, fanthoms(?)), prograde/retrograde indicators, fuel, and some sort of current thrust to weight ratio indicator.
Now for combat, also, if you can’t see outside…well, F/M/A-poles(missiles?), MAR, ATA, Aspect angles(or instead where the target is pointing would be better for space), DLZ min/max, closure speeds, lead indicators, gun ranges, target’s attitude/prograde/retrograde/speed/range/tonnage/energy-output, and then maybe some others that would apply more to space, as well. A setting for my anteanna to broadcast that stuff for scanning by others, a way to ‘edit’ what is broadcasted to others untill I get interrogated by an IFF, and an ability to encrypt so only others that have that key can see my ships information(friends or faction only setting).
They are testing a quantum IRS(internal reference system) over in Britian, right now, that has zero drift. No Magnometer, AHRS, ADC, GPS, or VOR/ILS needed in the future now!
Also, KSP had a mechanic of scanning for ores by putting sattelites into orbit, and they would slowly map out a planet.
Could SE2 have a ‘directional’ scanner block, with increased range as it is focused…? To build little drones that sit just outside of orbit, and have a circle of land they scan for you. You could tie that into all sorts of gameplay loops, in scouting for ores, mapping land (synthetic vision), or recon for other players. Would add some tatics as for control points and denying other players or npcs their recon abilities, too.
Anyways, thanks again for ya’lls hard work, it is looking amazing!
Fog looks nice, but I worry about my ability to fly safely while in it. Jimmy Doolittle developed flight instruments for airplanes for just this reason, as clouds and fog were the number one killers with airplanes. They get into a cloud, get disorientated, and crash. Or trying to land, and the ground is covered in fog, so they slowly decend… praying as they go down. This was VFR and IFR, respectively.
I think’s a good idea to have a minimum amount of instrumentation on screen to safely operate your ship as if the windows outside were completely dark. This would enable full operations at night, in fog, clouds, underwater, deep underground, in shadows in space, or if damaged. Some sort of Attitude Indicator, vision enhancement(thermal, nightvision, radar/synthetic vision, etc), speed, altitude (mean sea level, radar altitude, Sphere of Influence height, fanthoms(?)), prograde/retrograde indicators, fuel, and some sort of current thrust to weight ratio indicator.
Now for combat, also, if you can’t see outside…well, F/M/A-poles(missiles?), MAR, ATA, Aspect angles(or instead where the target is pointing would be better for space), DLZ min/max, closure speeds, lead indicators, gun ranges, target’s attitude/prograde/retrograde/speed/range/tonnage/energy-output, and then maybe some others that would apply more to space, as well. A setting for my anteanna to broadcast that stuff for scanning by others, a way to ‘edit’ what is broadcasted to others untill I get interrogated by an IFF, and an ability to encrypt so only others that have that key can see my ships information(friends or faction only setting).
Also, KSP had a mechanic of scanning for ores by putting sattelites into orbit, and they would slowly map out a planet. Could SE2 have a ‘directional’ scanner block, with increased range as it is focused…? To build little drones that sit parked just outside of orbit, and have a circle of land they scan for you. Or mapping asteriods. You could tie that into all sorts of gameplay loops, in scouting for ores, mapping land (synthetic vision), or recon for other player’s activities. Would add some tatics as for control points and denying other players or npcs their recon abilities, too.
Anyways, thanks again for ya’lls hard work, it is looking amazing!