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 This is my unfiltered dev journal, so please keep in mind that what I write here are my thoughts and will be outdated by the time you read this, as so many things change quickly.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
Did you know planet Verdure has a moon? Its name is Palatine.
The strange similarities between our Earth in the Solar System and Verdure in the Almagest system continue even here. Palatine looks surprisingly close to our own Moon, with its barren surface, crater patterns, and quiet, airless horizon. Maybe that is just a coincidence. The universe is full of circular rocky bodies without an atmosphere, shaped by billions of years of impacts and erosion. But still… the resemblance is hard to ignore.
Seeing Verdure and Palatine together will add another layer of familiarity to the Almagest system, almost like looking at a distant echo of home. And at the same time, it opens up new possibilities for exploration, contracts, and storytelling.
Our Art team is constantly refining our voxel textures – here is the improvement of detailing on volcanic rock.
One of the smaller concepts we have been exploring is Cable Trim detailing for use in our blocks. Right now we are experimenting with different shapes, thicknesses, and attachment styles to see what fits best into the SE2 block family. The goal is to keep the trims modular, lightweight, and easy to combine so players can use them to build their own visual language on ships and stations.
We are also testing face rigging and lip sync for our future cutscenes. This is one of those areas where I feel that even small improvements make a huge difference (the whole uncanny valley thing). When a character blinks at the right moment, or their mouth shapes the words naturally, the whole scene suddenly feels alive. Right now we are experimenting with the basic rigs, checking how well the deformations hold up, and how to sync the mouth movements with spoken lines.
It is still early work, and everything looks a bit strange and raw at this stage, but that is exactly why it is so exciting. These first tests are where characters begin to emerge from static models into someone I can actually talk to.
Bit by bit, this will help us bring more personality and clarity into the SE2 story moments.
What can I show you that you haven’t seen before? Camera and capacitors!
Question to you: What will you build on the Palatine moon?
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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The camera seems to be not centred. It might be a problem when you try to use it for some kind of alignment of precise screenshots. And what are capacitors? Are they like batteries with very high input/output and no modules?
Fair, but then again, I LOVE the off-center look compared to the SE1 camera block.
in direct current A capacitor is a bit like a battery, but one that discharges very quickly (and therefore also charges very quickly). The only use I can see for it is in jump drive motors.
However, if we’re talking about alternating current, the uses are completely different, and it can no longer really be considered a battery, (but I have trouble imagining alternating current in SE2)
I’ve been trying to get into se2 but the story line and tutorial is way too drawn out. hard to keep going to these new places just to weld up some random new block. the full tutorial for how things work like gronding should be much shorter and contracts should be more open ended….like leave it upbtonis to engineer something to complete the contract. Its boring to just weld up a couple blocks on the tug say to move contsiners….in the spirit of engineering this is backwards. i find sonfsr there really isnt a need to actually engineer or build anything in the game. i reslly want to get into it but seeing things like working on character lip motions is seriously the bottom of the list for me. i want to build and create and the way it is currently its designed to steer us awaybfrom that
You could probably counteract that by moving the block itself off-center in relation to the grid, so that the center of the lens would be exactly in the center of the bounding box.
What a tease with the capacitors! I can hear the rumor mill already churning. Consider me curious! 🤔
Could capacitors be useful for quickly charging blocks like jump drives or rail guns?
Not just quickly charging blocks, but also for load balancing. Imagine not having to add more generators than you actually need, and instead going with right-sizing. Capacitors, in the real world, are one of the many tools used to offload power surges without affecting the rest of the power circuits that draw from the same source grid.
When I see the camera, the following question comes to mind. Will it be possible to control a ship’s hotbar from a subgrid (e.g., a turret or the searchlight)?
Probably easier to say what we won’t build on there. Much smaller list haha
Why not make the camera only 25cm wide to make proper use of the grid system for once ?
I would love cable trim detailing. I feel like the 25cm grid system in general allows for so much more great detailing options we can have in the future.
pto answer the question, what will you build on Palatine?
personally I think Palatine is a large asteroid, like thousands of others in space. But it differs from the others in one way: it is close to Verdure and easily identifiable. Since I enjoy playing on the land, I’ll use it as a supply station. And why not a mining station too.
I hope Voicechat will also get facerig integration, so other players mouthes move when they talk.
Happy New Year Marek! I hope you and the rest of the Dev Team had a restful festive period and are ready to get stuck in once more.
When can we expect some much needed bug fixes?
I might build a race track on the moon when we get some wheels!
I would love to rebuild the Moon landing of 1969, if there is a NPC dummy mod, I would use it to make Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Based on the current “skeleton”version of survival, probably nothing. So far it was way easier to go forward hoping to grind ships we find and doing contracts than actually mining /building from 0 (Until the first mining ship we receive, at least).
Especially fighting the gravity won’t help. Actually…. A huuuuge ass ICE extractor changing it into liquid to serve as ad-hoc fuel.
IRL we will have the moon orbit used as a refueling station, in SE2, we don’t have to worry about orbits. So that space base can be anywhere. Especially with engines attached to it, then it’s literally anywhere.
Another great Thursday.
My three favorite biomes are the Moon, Mars, and the ocean.
I remember and still have the trailer for SE1 with the rover hopping on the Moon. I loved it.
I use the Moon as my space center. Going to space is cheaper, and the views are spectacular, with the Earth and the Sun in the background against a black and white landscape. Today I was thrilled to learn that we might have a moon.
I’ve been trying to get into se2 but the story line and tutorial is way too drawn out. hard to keep going to these new places just to weld up some random new block. the full tutorial for how things work like gronding should be much shorter and contracts should be more open ended….like leave it upbtonis to engineer something to complete the contract. Its boring to just weld up a couple blocks on the tug say to move contsiners….in the spirit of engineering this is backwards. i find sonfsr there really isnt a need to actually engineer or build anything in the game. i reslly want to get into it but seeing things like working on character lip motions is seriously the bottom of the list for me. i want to build and create and the way it is currently its designed to steer us awaybfrom that