About This Dev Diary
Every Thursday, I share some of what we’ve been working on – the challenges, solutions, and ideas that caught my attention. This is my unfiltered dev journal, so my thoughts and plans may change quickly, and nothing here is set in stone. And if you don’t like spoilers, don’t read further!
Space Engineers 1
Since our Warfare 3 reveal, we’ve received a lot of questions, many along the same lines: How will all of this actually work?
We sat down with Space Engineers Lead Designer Ryan Keel to pick his brain – this week, we’re talking Jump Detection!
How will Jump Detection in Warfare work?
Jump Detection is an optional world setting that can reveal where large, heavy grids emerge after using a Jump Drive. The heavier the grid and the farther it travels, the stronger its jump signature becomes – allowing nearby players to pick up a temporary GPS marker at its destination.
This opens up new opportunities to hunt down and intercept other players. The feature can be disabled in the world settings, and its thresholds and values are easily accessible and customizable through modding.
We’re excited about the gameplay opportunities and interactions this new feature can bring to multiplayer and PvP servers.
Warfare 3 Pack
Fighter Cockpit Type II (1x S)
Take control of a next-generation fighter from this sleek, sci-fi-inspired cockpit.
Can’t wait? Wishlist the Warfare 3 Pack on Steam right now!
And follow us for more detailed reveals every week as we take a closer look at what’s coming.
Space Engineers 2
Boatmen
The Renegades are not coming alone. Meet the Boatmen – a heavier enemy type that currently serves as leaders within Renegade encounters.
They are built to stand out from regular Renegades, both visually and in the role they play during combat, giving you a much more dangerous target to deal with when a group attacks.
We are still developing and tuning how these encounters come together, but the idea is simple: not every enemy should feel the same, and some should immediately change how you approach a fight. If you see a group of Renegades, you can think about fighting them. If you see a Boatman, run!
NPC Color Masks
We recently added the second color mask to our NPCs, which gives the art team much more freedom to create visual variation without having to make a completely separate material for every character.
We are now experimenting with different color combinations, starting with the Boatmen and Renegades to make individual NPCs feel less repetitive.
Ores Visual Overhaul
I checked in with our art team again, and this time I can show you two more ore reworks: Ice and Gold. The team has been going through the ores one by one, looking at how they read in the world and where their visual identity can be improved.
These are the latest two examples. I like showing this kind of work because even familiar materials can still benefit from another pass. Ice and Gold are next, with the art team giving both a clearer and more distinct look.
Ice
Gold
Question to you: How do you like the Boatmen Suit?
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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Everything is really great, but please finally add differently sized windows to the second game — small, medium, various angles and geometries — so we can create glazing of different shapes and sizes. Also, please finally add the small vehicle control seat that you showed at some point during the concerts for the second game. We are all really looking forward to it, so we can get around the limitations of the large control seat and the single cockpit.
The suit looks cool! Very menacing.
I mentioned before, but I *really* think that jump detection is a golden opportunity to introduce a new physical subsystem. A dedicated “jump detector” block, so that the ability to detect jumps becomes an active choice with a cost (resources, grid power, physical space) and a risk (jump detection can be disabled by cutting off power or damaging/destroying the block). Physical subsystems are so mucb more engaging and lead to so many more memorable moments.
Overlall looks good, a bit too skeleton-y on the helmet. Color variations would be trickly I’d suggest to use additional armor pieces rather than different colors. The amount of shiny metal can represent rank. I’d not do all the rainbow colors within 1 faction. It’s a general design principle that more than 2 colors in a group is distracting and against the harmony. I’d keep it maxm 2 main colors one per rank and variations. newby have brighter default colors, rank up have more metal and attachments and darker of the same color.
The new cockpit looks great! Very sleek 🙂
The Boatmen are great too, though every time I see the helmet I think “how do they see anything??” 😄
Are the ModAPI actions going to be accessible through the jump drive directly or are they world/session variables?
Also will there be a way to calculate the broadcast sphere given a mass and distance without a jump drive – like a standalone function or formula we can implement?
HEI shipyards
It would be really cool to see this color masking done for the basic suits of the characters get to allow us to have a little bit more and less freedom on the way that we look
Personally, I would also like to see as a skin maker the default skins that you guys use to block these things out
Would be really cool for the modern community
On top of that, I would love to see local skins, be a thing, even if you’re in a server being able to load up my own personal skin that I use even if other people can’t see it would be really, really cool
I am a little concerned at the moment – everything is about fighting, NPCs, weapons and armor. warfare has added so much stuff that players had to build previously.
Meanwhile SE2 still lacks a lot of stuff that is needed for creativity, not only the programmable block. No news about blueprints for subgrids.
SE has won me over due the “need to create”. It is not a first person shooter, there are lots of other games for that.
I hope you don’t forget players that want creativity rather than “fire and forget missiles” and shiny armor.
I couldn’t agree more. The new grid system in SE2 is great. visually as well, but… somehow, the whole point of being an engineer seems to have been lost. 🙁
Are you going to build an FPS shooter with optional engineering, or an engineering game with optional FPS elements?
Right now, in SE2, it’s easier to build a thruster than a hinge or a piston. Why?
Fingers crossed for a better balance. 🙂
You mentioned a few times that you struggled with giving rovers a place in the game and I can’t help but wonder how to prevent infantry combat from becoming obsolete the moment you build a turret.
what happened to multiplayer? i thought you guys were working on that according to the roadmap?
Weird and sus you still didnt mention multiplayer for SE2 when its supposedly still the next update…
Hi, the boatmen are really cool. but i am wondering, is wildlife a planned feature? I would love to see wildlife in SE2.
The boatmen look fantastic! its exciting to have varied npc’s for combat vs SE1. The universe will feel a lot more alive and it creates another goal to hit: Personal defence
I cant wait for more
What immediately caught my attention was the ore patches. They are extremely important and you’ll be staring at them a lot if it’s anything like SE1.
The ice is lovely, very nice, but the gold is … too much gold. The deposit is oversaturated with gold. I’d reduce the gold to rock ratio by at least half. I’m well aware you want to be able to spot it at range, but it shouldn’t be a golden wall. Perhaps more shiny veins within the rocks instead of giant nuggets. Sorry to whoever modelled and textured it. Just nitpicking.