This ONE CHANGE would FIX Space Engineers

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I love Space Engineers and because I love it, I want it to get better! So in this video, we look at several similar games to compare to Space Engineers to see what Space Engineers can learn from them to become the best version of itself!
0:00 Start
0:05 The Premise
0:21 What is the problem
0:53 Why is it a problem?
3:07 Comparison 1: Minecraft
5:14 Comparison 2: Ark: Survival Evolved
6:52 On the Subject of Progression
7:07 What can Space Engineers learn from these games?
12:25 Will this get changed?
13:39 Call to action
14:02 Zer0 - MINECRAFT GOD
Grids used in the video (not mine):
Borg Transwarp Conduit: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Borge Cube: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
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Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game set in space and on planets, developed and published by Czech independent developer Keen Software House. In 2013, the initial developmental release of the game joined the Steam early access program. During the following years of active development, Space Engineers sold over one million units. In total as of 2019 the game has sold over 3.5 million copies In May 2015, for approximately a year and a half, the game's source code was officially available and maintained by KSH to assist the modding community. On December 15, 2016, the game entered Beta and was later officially released on February 28, 2019.
The game is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive.
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Title: This ONE CHANGE would FIX Space Engineers
My Last Video: Can you build a rover WITHOUT using wheels? - Space Engineers
#SpaceEngineers #Warfare #Update

[@Zer0sLegion]

What changes do you want made to Space Engineers? Let me know!

[@ShyYuri.]

I know it seems impossible, but make it easy to run, its pretty hard to play it on old computers

[@Zer0sLegion]

@@ShyYuri. they've done a lot of optimisations over the years so it's likely it will run better in the future. Only a few years ago, the game way unplayable in multiplayer with more than 4 people.

[@Siinwu]

i find it impressive you mentioned other games but 1 space survival game that funny enough got all this hehe. anyways. have you tried subnautica? it could be an idea on how to unlock new blocks/blueprints like in that game it gives you a purpose to explore. but ya, the game could use more NPCs factions and less empty in space, though i hope with the new AI that comes soonish maybe we get that part at least.

[@DovaDude]

Higher technology tiers, like matter reformers (turn stone in to magnesium or something else) faster thrusters, and ion thrusters that are powerful enough to work in atmosphere, energy shielding, and automatic railgun turrets. I know this is very likely to never happen at it's supposed to be very science reality instead of fiction with only a few exceptions, but I really like games where you start at a low tech level and then advance to really high technology, like stellaris and especially modded stellaris where you can sometime literally change the laws of physics.

[@Fredo-md7sw]

I want keen to do something with monoliths cause there in that starter scenario thing and it looks like a jump drive maybe you need to unlock some sort of super grinder and then you get resources from the monolith for a better jump drive so you need to find it so you attack some base with the location for it?

[@Scottx125Productions]

I view it like this. If you give a kid a sandbox, they're gonna enjoy the sandpit for awhile but eventually they'll get bored as there's nothing to do with the sand. But you give them a few tools and suddenly they've got tons of things to do. With a sand bucket they can make a castle, with figurines they can play war with them. Then when these systems interact you can have figurines storming/defending a sand castle. My point is an open sandbox is pointless without progression and without tools for players to make their own fun with. Imagine if SE had AI factions that fought each other over planets/moons, you could freelance for one faction, or even join one. Or start your own as a trading faction mining and selling resources. Or act as a hired escort for AI resource transports etc..etc.. Adding that kind of stuff would make SE feel so much more alive and give the player plenty of tools. In regards to making planets more useful and giving you a reason to go to them.. Make initial tech really inefficient, utilising home world resources. Then you need to go to more exotic planets to gather other resources that allow you to make more efficient and powerful things. Also maybe add a kind of research system requiring you to visit planets and do research like analysing new ore to allow you to build a new type of component (which needs to be researched by consuming resources for prototyping or whatever).

[@Zer0sLegion]

I use that sandbox analogy all the time as a common excuse by people of why they shouldn't add these things is because it is a sandbox.

[@drbleblo]

I like that idea about the more efficient parts as you progress I'd like to see a significant change in the level of tech available to you as you progress. I love the near future aesthetic with space engineers as much as anyone but I think that it holds the game back. One big thing that I would change for instance is the mining progression specifically it honestly feels like once you have a drillship the only thing you can do to make it better is make it bigger and also the mining itself should be more entertaining. To me it feels like all the work was done on what happens once you get the ore which in all honesty is mostly just a bunch of ui elements and making sure you pipe things correctly not exactly the easiest thing to be creative with. I suggest a simple mining gameplay loop that is already sort of there when it comes to hand drilling. Destruction and Collection make both of these thing necessary in all levels of mining. Imagine having your standard drill but somewhere on it there is a magnet that attracts ores then moving on to bombing asteroids and using that same magnet to eventually vaporizing it into a dust and sucking it all up with a tractor beam all in a matter of seconds. Going through a process like this would be exciting every time you unlock a new way of mining it could be a spectacle as well as an achievement you'd end up just playing with it for a while and in doing that play you'd collect plenty of resources to move onto the next tier of mining and the loop would continue. Couple this with a few other increases in tech throw in some bosses as gatekeepers and boom there is your gameplay curve.

[@haveyoueverbeenstrangledto5548]

Wouldn't it be very laggy though?

[@deeznuttes9340]

as long as they're fully optional in multiplayer and server owners can completely axe them, sure. otherwise, dog ass idea

[@Nezul]

Let's keep using the sandbox analogy; currently the Space Engineers Sandbox has sand, a shovel, and a bucket. The shovel lets you dig up more sand faster, and the bucket lets you shape the sand into castles. This is fine for a while, and fine if you are a certain type of person. However most people will get bored which causes the sandbox to not make as much money when they sell a new shaped bucket. If they overhauled factions to make a living world of sorts this would be like adding cars and lego people to the sandbox. This would make your sandcastle feel more alive and let you give it a more functional shape as you have a reason to. Let's go further, resources on other planets you cannot get elsewhere is like adding sticks, grasses, leaves, and what have you. They give you pops of colour and ways to reinforce your sand castle construction. Lets take it another further, adding planet bosses, or faction bosses, or whatever. This is like a godzilla toy or something similar, you can add it to your sandbox to play out a war against your sand castle, or you don't because you don't want to. However it remains an option to use. The option for more star systems at once, this would be like having another sandbox nearby where you could build two sandcastles and have them go to war with eachother. Adding lego pieces would lets you build more fone tuned furniture and such things in your sand castles. And a lot of these could be fully optional to make modding and scenario construction more meaningful. What would this all do, this would give people more reasons to play in the sandbox and to keep buying new bucket shapes. This is why Survival matters and why it severely needs to be fixed.

[@cmdrvernondingo1540]

The factions seem to be a bit pointless at the moment . Maybe the new AI will do something to improve this . I would like the endgame to be that you defeat or take command of all the factions - this would include faction capital ships and HQs which would effectivly be boss's . Each faction could have specific blue-prints you gain on victory

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I think having 3 main factions with different tech would be a good idea.

[@vinnyv8448]

I agree this idea Sounds really good. As at the moment I have built a destroyer and all the encounters I come across just don't measure up ! I would also like a way to have the encounters set more hostile and attack more as I progress as it seems a bit weak at the moment

[@stelfer]

ohh like from the depths, now that would be cool af

[@cupman7326]

I really like the idea of using the existing faction system, combined with a more lucrative economy system I think it could make the game very interesting

[@warfightersanonymous7760]

Personally, the idea of NPC factions never made much sense. If you're supposedly shipwrecked in the system, why wouldn't they help you get home instead of buying/selling ores and components and selling ships; it's kind of immersion-breaking, not a lot of reason to invest in them. The faction system is better served on multiplayer servers.

[@notime2583]

I was once thinking about something like a story mode for SE without ruining the open world sandbox gameplay, something like similiar to Zelda Breath of The Wild, in SE case you have a villain enemy faction that you need to destroy their mother ship (final boss), but first you need to destroy a number of bosses ships and bases scalling in difficult (you start on earthlike) Where this bosses ships or base would spawn random places in the universe and you need to destroy them to get part of the coordenates that will lead to the FInal boss, you could make something like the first and easist boss is a base on earth-like, then you go to space and there is ship boss there, you can put one boss is each planet or moon, and when you kill all thoses bosses you get to complete de coordenates for the final mother-ship boss, but like BOTW you don't need to kill these bosses on sequence, you can just fight them the order you like, maybe you can even found the final boss at random exploring space. To help finding theses bosses in the giant universe of SE you could kill small ships enemies and they maybe drop coordenates for these bosses, or you can help a friendly faction and they lead you to fight one of these bosses, some way to lead the player in a sequense of scalling difficult, ( earth-lie to space, to mars to alien etc) or like i said you can just explore and find and destroy theese bosses the way you like, i think something like this base on zelda BOTW is the best way to make a campaing or story in scalling difficult without limiting the sandbox experience intended for the game. ( sorry if my english is bad, not my first language)

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, multiple bosses to progress would be good, that's basically what Ark does

[@566gg4]

Avorion has the Galactic Centre boss but in order to get to it you need to find multiple items by doing quests beating bosses. I think something like that could work for SE. Espessially since to get better ores you need to go further into the galactic centre. Past a certain point you need a special ore to even progress even further to modify your jump drive.

[@derpypotato677]

People who say, "Sorry for my English. It's not my first language," always have better English than most of rural America.

[@thenickshark1]

I would love for this to be a game mode. Maybe have a few different variations that have you starting off on different planets or in an asteroid field for different starting difficulties.

[@tadferd4340]

Yeah, the game really needs something to drive the progression of the sandbox as well as incentives for the player to create more capable ships.

[@johnhermann7498]

That is one thing I've always missed in Space Engineers. As much as I love the game, it lacks Stress... Stress in motivation for innovation. I have high hopes for the new AI they are coming out and I would like to see that add stress to the game. For now, I'll just stick with mods.

[@Garvey64LIVE64]

To be fair, it doesnt need to be stressful. Minecraft is a pretty low stress game and it still has a lot to offer in terms of progression and interesting things you can do.

[@MajorJon]

I would like to see some progression in terms of items like suit upgrades, tool upgrades that actually change something and new stuff like a grappling tool, voxel tool and so on. Perhaps you'd need to loot some of them from enemies, that would finally give combat a reward aswell. Right now it's just handguns that are effectively useless and tool upgrades that do exactly the same thing, just a few percent faster.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I feel like hand weapons will get a rework in a "Warfare 3" update and having more tools would definitely be a good way to upgrade the player. Would love a grappling hook!

[@smokecrash2147]

I agree with the grappling hook. The jetpack is so OP, and if KSH were to nerf it we would need something like a grappling hook

[@tassiedevil3]

I would love a voxel tool... The amount of holes I would like to dehole.... Plus it would make having hidden bases a lot easier.

[@chris_0725]

Maybe increase progession by posing different challenges, for example Acid rain, dealing with being underwater -> new thrusters and different ship design to handle pressure or dealing with radiation that is so high that you only survive in a specially designed ship.

[@Matthew-sz5uh]

I like that idea. Favorite thing is building a unique ship for a unique challenge, however the game just lacks unique challenges almost completly.

[@moosche]

That would be awesome but would also require the sun to be an actual in game object to approach... Another one of SE problems

[@ChadZLumenarcus]

Yes to all of this. One of my biggest problems with space engineers in regards to its progression system is how cheap it feels. You Cobalt and magnesium are both the first things you need to get if you want to fly and defend yourself otherwise you're basically defenseless and you can't go into space. If different types of ores and resources were used to either upgrade and improve whatever it is you built already that seems better.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I don't know whether or not more ores are the solution but we definitely need something to extend it.

[@ghjuyt101]

I think the three main things are: 1) progression - there is no real chalange or sense to it (needs to be both actual blocks and resources) 2) npcs - currently there are pasive npcs, the main type of mod most people start with is npc mods. This would tie into progression by having ores and blueprints near more hostile npcs. 3) areas - currently there are 2 areas, space and not space, the planets need to be more diversified.

[@onyxrin1946]

I honestly would love a factorio styled research and tech tree that allows for things to open up and unfold over time combined with this

[@Xenosplitter]

I could really see a research/tech tree act as a solution for the progression problem. Hiding resources that you need for higher-level research on other planets would encourage players to explore new areas, while the new tools to unlock gives the motivation to work towards something new

[@Gitimus01]

Adding different types of planets and space anomalies would be beneficial. Gas giants need a certain material to enhance the hull, crystals to improve engines. Nebulas that can kill the player if you don't have suit protection. Improved ai and remote systems (although I am sure they are working it).

[@tassiedevil3]

A stationary sun, and orbiting planets, where solar pnales could improve output depending on the distance but too close they burn up, but you could grt an item to effectively "cool" the panels and blocks whether this is using ice itself or an immense amount of energy. Although moving planetary bodies may not really work well in the current game engine, so it might work better in SE2 with water.

[@ethanbunch3274]

I definitely love the idea about blueprints being sold by dealers aboard stations! And perhaps a bit more story to the game would improve the experience! For instance all starts are some form of escape pod except for the space pod and maybe there is a story quest based around which one you choose and the difficulty is different with each one. And perhaps a good upgrade for ion thrusters would be the ability to go faster than the speed limit in-game and not during gravity. They really aren't that much of an upgrade from hydrogen and adding something like this with make a legitimate benefit to ships equipped with these and make them much more of a progression rather than an extra form of thruster that isn't really that superior.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I want to do a video on giving the game a story at some point, i've spent a lot of time things about it... Probably too much lol.

[@ethanbunch3274]

@@Zer0sLegion It's actually a really good idea! You start off in an escape pod of sorts and there's bits of story spread throughout the universe It just has no cohesiveness to it as far as how it all relates. Another idea I had was perhaps the idea of stations coming under attack or derelict economy stations similar to what you would find in no man's sky. If a station came under attack then you could have the option to repel the attackers and maybe you would get a discount with that faction instead of having to work your reputation up by completing contracts

[@killianmiller6107]

Concerning story mode, I guess for the time being we have Lost Colony, The First Jump, and Frostbite scenarios, plus the ones on the workshop.

[@xantishayde-walker4593]

@@killianmiller6107 Those seem like just a teaser for me. I'm sure a lot of other people would agree with me.

[@Tsathogguah]

Agreed. The building is second to none in SE survival mode and I dearly love it. But the actual survival / exploration / adventure / progression aspect is lacking immensely. It's rewarding to build a cool ship or structure, but you eventually realize it's kind of useless because the world around you is just dead. Engineering is about designing things to overcome challenges, and when there are no challenges to engineer your way out of, it kind of kills the point. None of this is a big ask even from a small team. Imagine if, say on Pertram groups of desert raider would come attack you from their base every now and then. Imagine if space traders would periodically land and ask you if you have items to trade. Imagine NPC factions that fought each other rather than just random spawns. Imagine very hostile environments where it's hard to stay alive, that have very compelling reasons to go there. None of these are that hard to add to the base game.

[@Aetrion]

I think the biggest thing that breaks progression in Space Engineers is that there is never any limit to how many blocks you're allowed to glomp together outside of block or tri limits for the server. The progression from using a small ship with a single drill in the front to a large ship that is literally a wall of drills that can erase an entire asteroid is nothing other than whether or not you're willing to just keep doing what you're doing to make progressively bigger ships. Same with your refining capabilities. Getting your first full scale refinery is awesome, but beyond that point how many you have is really only down to when you get bored with making more of them. Even combat suffers from this issue, because you can just keep building more guns. Every single form of getting "more powerful" in the game, aka. improving your capabilities, snowballs out of control and gets easier and easier rather than harder. Once you have a hundred refineries making 200 refineries is easy. So, the only way to make Space Engineers into a game that "has stuff to do" is to actually severely limit the number of functional blocks a player can maintain. That may sound stupid, but think about it. When you can't have all that many function blocks your capabilities as a player are suddenly very much determined by how you spend that limit. A static installation that doesn't need engines and gyroscopes is suddenly infinitely more block efficient than a giant ship that does it all. A ship that doesn't have a huge amount of thrusters in every direction but relies on flip and burn maneuvers is suddenly an efficient design. The first thing any PvP tournament or RP server does is limit how big people can build, because it's essential to actually get a variety of designs. So once you have done this you get a number of benefits. You'll actually have an economy because if you can't do it all it actually becomes beneficial to farm some of the work out to people who are specialized in it. Right now everyone can do everything, and the most active players who theoretically should have the most resources to spend to hire help actually have the least need to get anyone's help. You also have a path to meaningful progression, because increasing your block limit, or making the blocks you have more efficient is suddenly extremely desirable. If exploring planets etc. gives me something like research points that I can spend to make some devices on my ship require fewer maintenance points that's suddenly a big win. Also instead of investing a giant heap of resources into building a thousand of something it's now beneficial to invest all those resources into building a really high end single version o something. An engine that costs 1000% more resources for 10% more thrust is actually a desirable endgame goal of you can't just always slap more engines on your ship. A good progression system has diminishing returns. It's more and more work for less and less gain. You could introduce rare resources like special isotopes of materials or something like that which you have to produce by refining huge quantities of the base material into the rarified form, or earning it from trade with certain planets by taking on missions etc. These could be the basis for high grade equipment. Enemies also stay threatening when you're more limited, because defense capability now competes with production capability. You never snowball in production capacity and firepower to the point where you'd need to be up against a whole fleet to be threatened. This could go as far as having to increase your maintenance limit by recruiting NPC crew for your ships and installations that require housing and facilities in turn. The biggest problem with space engineers is that your capabilities always allow you to easily access even greater capabilities. The speed at which your power increases only ever increases. The only limit to this is "I'm bored", or maybe a block limit on the server which you may bump up against if you're a very dedicated player. So the biggest thing Space Engineers needs is a hard limit on the amount of blocks your character can maintain, and then from there you can actually build a sensible progression system around increasing your capabilities by researching blocks or building high grade versions of blocks from rare resources etc.

[@StickerWyck]

The most important aspect of progression is GAMEPLAY. When you unlock a new "level", the new mechanics you unlock should feel refreshing after the getting-stale familiarity of the previous level. Think about how tedious it is to mine and build things at the very start with hand tools and a severely limited inventory space, then you build small-grid welders and miners and everything feels so much better. Building those vehicles was such a compelling motivator beforehand too and it kept you going. We so desperately need more of that throughout every stage of the tech tree.

[@mindmachinepsy]

Well since they are already planning to add AI, i think that will pretty much solve this issue for the most part. It opens up the opportunity to have real, named enemies and bosses. Factions you can fight or join. Economy can become way more important, maybe they can add some unique items you can only trade with NPCs. There's a lot that can be done just with NPCs only, stuff that wouldn't really work otherwise.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, that was basically my take away, with AI coming, a lot of this stuff is getting added. Progression still needs a rework but having stuff to do in space will be fun.

[@XxShadow101xX]

I would LOVE harsh environments. Its a game about ENGINEERING, so having actual environments that pose challenges would be exactly what I needed. Deep core mining? You need high-pressure ship parts! Deep space flying/station? You need anti-radiation and proper oxygenation! Alien planet? Like you said, a corrosive environment with a special coating or armor needed to fly around safely would be awesome!

[@Xenotric]

My suggestion: Earth start: start from scratch, build up your base and get basic space faring. Moon Phase: Getting used to space and building your first proper space ship, gathering rare resources from the moon to build jump drive and stellar beacon allowing you to set up your own faction, making your earth base your HQ. Mars Phase: First major combat, ai raiders attacking you and sending assaults towards earth and the moon, Europa mining for resources to create proper weaponry and armour to set up automated defences and equipment for assaulting raider megabases on mars to gather components for improved jump drive, faction expansion and diplomacy increases. Triton + Pertram Phase: Two major goals, first forming a fleet/alliance of ships with diplomacy/economy (befriend or hire), core diplomacy and factions spread across tritan. Second goal is to defeat an alien boss deep within pertram requiring establishing base and developing machines that can survive the pertram environment (make pertram much more hostile) rare resources needed from triton factions or pertram mining requiring mining outpost bases that need defending with resources from your established bases. Defeating pertam core boss gives coordinates for final jump. End Game: First stop Titan, establish a base, keep it defended from constant alien assault, using resources to set up a base that can support a sizable fleet, power consumption used by fleet coordination machines which require rare hard to find resources from mining and hostile outposts on titan. Once established you can call in your fleet to assault a massive alien fleet surrounding alien planet, your base needs to be good enough to support a fleet strong enough (better base, more blocks allowed in fleet or such) Beat the alien fleet, land on planet, establish outpost where you can assault final boss using a combination of vehicular assault and on foot puzzles/fights. Defeat alien queen, gain resource to make uber space stations (solar core that allows for new giant grid type station and control over the only source by taking over the final alien base for your own) Alien queen dies, credits roll, after credits you can now create uber bases/ships using a new grid type to stomp out any resistance left in the galaxy. Requires more resources and new equipment to use them, ai to fight and new grid types and more environmental hazards. In multiplayer it becomes somewhat of a race to establish the strongest alliance to take the final base for the resources for the best gear and then an ongoing war to keep them. In single player you could have constructing the control device to take control of the alien planet base cause every npc faction to go to war against you and start assaulting every base across the system until you either stomp them out or do contracts that are incredibly difficult without the giant grid type vehicles built to regain their friendship. A consistent progression with increasing difficulty and constant goals to work towards with a pay off that allows you to continue playing either alone or with others but also never any limitation on what you can really do at each phase, nothing preventing you from spending a year on earth turning the planet into a giant planetary fortress with basic gear and mars tier gear you buy from npc factions. Only multiplayer really has a "time limit" but access to each phase could be locked by admins etc. Not only does each phase of the game get harder due to enemies with high tech weapons that outmatch your own at first but each phase gets more complex also, going from a peaceful base and ship build and ending up with full blown galactic diplomacy, fleet and resource management, ship and base designing, personal combat skills and securing enough resources to keep old defences functioning while gathering new resources for assaults. Would make a base game super interesting and imagine starting new scenarios or servers where you start on mars while the game is in pertram phase and having to deal with all that while setting up a base in a hostile environment etc, would open up a lot before mods and multiplayer rp stuff!

[@the15minutegamer]

I thought you would have mentioned empryion as progression and story there is pretty good to be fair. I think you had some very good point, space engineers I love but it's all about making your own fun and inventing things. Once the early game is over there is kinda nothing to do.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I've never played Empryion so I wouldn't know any comparisons. As far as I've heard, if you merged Empyrion and Space Engineers, you'd basically have a perfect game.

[@festiverespecttrackingfanc6644]

I think you're absolutely right. I played vanilla Space Engineers with a friend a long time ago, other than trying to defend our isolated earth base from a second attack by other players in a very populated server, there was no goal but getting a launcher base to space. Despite having a blast, the game ended for us like the first time I played, got to space, did a few things and that's all, never bumped into another player which is also a problem. That first time it took me longer only because I was a noob playing modded, and blocks had tiers so I wanted to get the best ones. Mods and server "events" are great but without a goal they can only expand the play time so much. Finally, there is no real incentive other than efficiency and effort savings to experiment with weapons, wheels, thrusters, turret controllers, remote controls, cameras, hinges, artificial mass, ship welders and grinders, etc...

[@Kehvan]

What I think would make it perfect is if SE had a "jump gate" that links dedicated servers which have the exact same set of mods or lack thereof... Basically a gateway you can fly up to with your ship, then when you interact with it, you'll get a list of compatible systems you can visit. After you select the system, you can fly into the gate, and arrive in the system at the location where the destination gate was constructed... And if the server for that system goes down you're kicked back to your home server. I envision peer to peer server networks creating a constellation of star systems we can defend or raid.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I don't think i'd want that, the world of SE is already massive, I don't think i'd want it to be even bigger.

[@Kehvan]

@@Zer0sLegion I want to visit other star systems.

[@iplaygames8090]

So like ark obelisks?

[@Kehvan]

@@Zer0sLegion Yeah... No... I have over 4,000 hours in Space Engineers... I want a bloody galaxy to explore... I want to raid someone else's system and defend my own with my 1 to 1 scale USS Enterprise.

[@IAmNoggin]

This might be done with a mod, but it would be brilliant to have an ore that is only found on one planet, but once combined together with ores unique to other planets, would create an engineer-only (no ships) teleport gate. So jumping around the system and establishing small bases on each planet would be necessary, but once all the jumping is done, an engineer (only person and inventory) can walk through a gate and go to another planet and build their empires on other planets. These gates might also be prioritized for destruction by NPCs, necessitating a healthy base to maintain the link. Thoughts?

[@Garvey64LIVE64]

Takes away the point of space part of space engineers, it feels like.

[@IAmNoggin]

@@Garvey64LIVE64 It would give my engineer a challenge to build and maintain thriving bases on multiple planets. It doesn't change things that there is mineral scarcity on some of these planets (requiring some time in space). Plus it requires tons of travel to get them in place, essentially "paying your dues" in that regard. I play sometimes on skunk works and I think the ability to fast travel to all the planets is great. I appreciate your perspective though.

[@halfcirclehranch6877]

You mentioned about adding abandoned stations and such. Well, that was an old feature of Space Engineers. There used to be exploration ships, which were just randomly placed ships, and sometimes stations, off in space. Modder Midspace had an exploration ship radar mod, which would inform you of unpowered grids within range of your antenna, and give you range and bearing to them. You could find anything from a tiny mining drone, up to a massive space station, just floating out there in space. You could try to take control of them and make them your own. They always had no power when you found them. I really wish they would have made these things possible on planets. The idea of abandoned structures and wrecked ships on planets brings up a really cool idea for an alternative start. You start on the earth-like planet. You have basic tools. You get a starting GPS coordinate for a nearby structure, which could be a wrecked ship, an abandoned house, or any number of other things. The one thing it gives you is the ability to recharge and respawn. From there you could explore the planet. Maybe you'll find ruins of settlements, crashed spacecraft, and so on. This kind of start would be even better if they added buildings made from stone. The idea of things made of stone comes up with some interesting options. Stone blocks break down into gravel. Stone blocks are static only. If they are unsupported, they'll fall, which can cause them to shatter into gravel. There could even be a system where a vehicle could be attached to dynamic stone structures so that they could be lifted and moved. But to stop the rambling... the player would start with no kind of production capacity. Everything you get is by salvage. Even put limits on grinders. Your basic grinder only works on small grids and stone structures, for example. I guess that's enough for now.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I haven't seen any for ages though. They are still in the game but think they've just made them so rare now that you never see them.

[@Zer0sLegion]

It's not really telegraphed anywhere though. I played the tutorial recently and it's not even mentioned...

[@mathdantastav2496]

maybe u don't have a suit at the start of the game, since u r in the earth like planet, the normal space suit, wich would be the first one you would build should reduce your mobility (as it does IRL), reducing player movement, tool use speed, everything would be slower, but eventually you would be able to develop a suit that allows close to full movement in space, this would give a bit more of an incentive to airlock your ship, rn I don't even bother with that, its not worth it. The diferent planets and moons would require diferent suits to walk on it, the moon might need a rougher suit, because of moon dust wich has glass shards on it, the alien planet might make good use of a diferent suit that allows much more mobility, and uses the little oxygen in the surface, but its much more expensive than the normal suit to make. Mars might have a diferent suit for some other reason. Also flying with jetpeck on planets is really weird, I think it should always keep you with your head facing up, and just allow you to hover in the air, instead of allowing full 360º movement as it does rn (but keep the current system for space)

[@net343]

Improvements for the engineer could be those blocks you mentioned, to level lock some blocks

[@sovahc]

My hard mode: 1. You have only one life and get into space with a grinder and a welder only (mod: superhardcore) 2. You know nothing (mod: grind to learn 2) 3. There are aggressive debris around you. (mods: EEM and MES wreckage) 4. Your task is to build a ship (your blueprint)

[@Zer0sLegion]

Grind to learn would be fun, it would require a lot of stuff in the game to achieve that though. Like you'd need to make sure you had a regular supple of AI ships with new blocks for you to unlock.

[@hoveringgoat8061]

ooooooh.

[@jonumine6250]

The problem with 1 life is that life isn't fair. The chances I *off myself flying at 20mps against a wall, or walking into a drill/grinder/welder are way higher than AI killing you and that... isn't that fun at all.

[@sovahc]

@@jonumine6250 Yes, I know it's not fair. But for an experienced player, death in most cases is not an accident, but the result of a wrong decision.

[@jonumine6250]

@@sovahc Maybe I had different game experiences... like internet/electricity shutting down while outside your cabin, glitches (making klang angry) and "wtf how did that killed me!?" moments. On the other hand, there's people face pushing bare naked, tier 1 grinder against enemy ships knowing you'll just respawn. With 1 life mode, I would be ultra paranoid, use drones for EVERYTHING. Even without 1 life mode, I always try to stay alive. Two "hardcore like" mods I like are: -Eat, drink, sleep, repeat. -LW's ship tiered systems (i think) The first you may know, the second has better ship components, the higher the tier the better it is but more expensive or difficult materials (last tiers are only found in small amounts in containers inside boss-like random spawn ships equipped with high tier stuff, not "last" tier as to scavenge them but defeating it is a REAL deal.) At the end you'll have a beast of a ship, but in multiplayer, everyone would have it... don't you think?

[@Celestial_Wing]

I noticed that game has REP for "NPC" factions. How about whenever your REP gets low enough with a faction, that faction declares war on you and will actively send out infantry, vehicles and ships to come get you. And at the start of the game three factions will automatically be hostile towards you and any other NPCs they encounter, these factions being a Space Pirate faction, an Intelligent Alien faction, and a Hive Mind Alien faction, but these factions will only start to come after you the moment you leave Earth, that way you have some time to prepare and the difficulty of these faction depend on how much preparation you take. A player like a Speedrunner would have a harder time since they're rushing, while a player taking their to get the best possible ship and weapons would have a easier time since they took the time to plan and prepare. In addition to that each of those races would have a part or artifact that helps you complete the super hyper space gate or access the final boss. The Space Pirates would also having kinetic weapons and missiles the Intelligent Aliens having plasma and laser based weapons and the Hive mind Aliens having strength in overwhelming numbers giving them each their own difficulty strengths and weaknesses and strategies to beat them.

[@Drakuba]

9:00 before i forget what i wanted before continue with the video: Kerbal Space Program have good parts progression that SE devs could take inspiration from. You need science points to unlock new parts, and you get science points by discovering other celestial bodies. I can imagine you could find for example research crystals on other planets that you use in research station to research new parts. Hell you could have like 2 or 3 types, and to unlock specific parts you need specific amount of those. Rocky planets - green crystals Gas giants - blue and lava/hot words- red crystal. Mining each type would requie special equipment as well so more stuff to unlock

[@owenedmonds736]

I want the a.i. factions to evolve difficulty wise as you progress, maybe fight against you reaching the end goal?

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, definitely.

[@Living1tUpAllday]

I agree with most of the points. I'd love for the economy to play a bigger role since it's one of my favorite parts of the game. Like maybe to get cobalt, you need to do a quest or something from the traders. But I think you missed two other key competitors to look at in your analysis. Empyrion Galatic Survival and Avorion. Empyrion is a more gamified version of space engineers while avorion is more space exploration focused. I love all 3 but space engineers is my number 1. There's just some other things I'd like to take from the other two and add to SE

[@Zer0sLegion]

I've never played Empyrion but Avorion I have. Aside from the fleet controlling and AI in Avorion, I don't know if there's anything else I'd want from that game, it was pretty basic when I last played.

[@Living1tUpAllday]

@@Zer0sLegion for me, I'd like to see randomly added quests. Like if you run into and AI ship they ask like, can you collect xxxx gold and deliver to space station xxxx. Or like boss encounters. Like you discussed, with SE, once you hit space you've pretty much beaten the game. You need to have some kind of end game or goal of some sort. Sometimes it's hard to make your own challenges

[@driver694]

I like the idea of having unique resources on different Planets that allow you to build certain advaned technologies like laser weapons or stuff like that

[@ZEOCMF]

Great video! I do hope to see the game updated with better progression in the future instead of relying on the community to fill in the gaps, which is exactly why I made that Transwarp Gate! 11:41 for the modded Star Trek Continuum server, it's used as the marker for being sent to other quadrants of the galaxy (multiple linked servers)

[@Zer0sLegion]

Dude, I love your builds on the workshop, I'm subscribed to pretty much all of them.

[@crossdimensions3808]

Amazing Video. You definitly state a good point and I do wish it was added!

[@Zer0sLegion]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@techforge-Nate]

I think expand the block range with some interesting additions, like harpoon gun, or tractor beam (but with short ranges like 100m maybe). Add in some tiering for vanilla blocks (like Lord Wiaders LWTS mod) and new ores in far away reaches to build them. Give people something to work towards. Maybe even do away with turrets as a distinct block and have a turret assembler to make parts so players can mix and match base, target computer, gun type etc to make customised turrets that have a trade of for materials used. Maybe even some sort of research system where you can break down minerals and ice into chemicals where you can research advanced resources like a new engine propellant that makes Hydrogen thrusters more powerful or more economical, or to discover new rounds for weapons. There was a game called Life is Feudal that did Alchemy really well where you combined shit randomly to learn all sorts of handy little buffs/debuffs/ingredients.

[@Eidako]

The Space Exploration mod for Factorio (ironically also "SE") is a good starting point for inspiration. * The planet you start out on has all of the basic ores needed to bootstrap a modern space program. Each of the other planets has an abundance of one ore, including the exotic ores not found on the starting planet and needed for the upgrades to get past the logistically difficult "disposable rocket phase" and into the "reusable spaceship phase". Refining most of the exotic ores requires one or two intermediate ores, rarely found on the same planet, so you're forced to figure out some difficult interplanetary logistics before you even have real spaceships. * Your range gradually increases as your technology improves. Initially you're stuck with just taking trips into the starting planet's orbit. With time you gain access to the planet's moons, then planets and asteroid belts that are further away, and with considerable difficulty, adjacent star systems. Longer trips become easier and faster with progression. * There are a couple of late game resources only found in the dark interstellar medium between stars, requiring mastery of the mid-tier technologies to reach and needed to unlock the final tier of technologies, vastly improving your interstellar travel time and survivability. Deep space asteroid fields are also insanely resource-rich, but completely dark, so solar power is useless. * The mod has two endings. The premise is you crash-landed on the initial planet and are trying to get back home, to somewhere far away from the local stellar cluster. The easier ending involves building a ship large and fast enough to power an experimental jump drive for ten minutes. The hard ending (which few players complete) involves finding a secret alien stargate and reverse-engineering how it works, a task which requires visiting archeological sites on dozens of planets scattered across the stellar cluster, in addition to building some very hefty infrastructure to power, stabilize and cool the thing, and solving a difficult math problem.

[@4rtanx]

The bread and butter of SE is the engineering part. Seeing emphasis on that in a quest form would be my go-to. Having jobs to build fully conveyed ships with a certain number of functional blocks. Like having an engine and a survival kit for example. Maybe a pressurised space of X blocks volume. And so on. Those jobs unlock blueprints for blocktypes while others give you recources to build said jobs. Then on later stages upgrades for collected blueprints. I mean, why can we upgrade our handtorch to be faster than a large grid welder? Upgrades to Blocktools are necessary. But tier 2 and 3 blocks for reactors, engines, solar panels, medical facilities and even vents do make sense. Hell, why not having shitty spotlights from the start and if you want to see what you're doing you have to buy the tier upgrade for it. The list can go on and on. But then an option for simply upgrading a placed block to its new tier and upgrading a whole projection with my best blueprints or even better a checklist in the projection interface would be lovely. I don't want to crawl in my ships intestines to upgrade all conveyer sorters for the better throughput. Item upgrades enhancing the tools are already there. Now we could upgrade weapons with uranium ammunition to get a little damage buff and using the ore for something more than just energy. A goal to be exploring could be a special shipyard station on a planet where one can buy thruster blocks or a ship capable of exiting to space. Then could cobalt be reduced to space as well and the progression is forced to find such a shipyard. That station should have a service where I can put my own ship blueprint for production and they build it for me. And for the endgame I am envisioning the equivalent of best in slot items in RPGs. You can grind a faction to a good standing to get the opportunity to buy the strongest thruster, the most efficient reactor, the sturdiest cockpit, the best jump drive, the most powerful weapons and so on. With the downside of being ONLY purchasable, or lootable\harvestable from ships of the fitting faction if you're a pirate. And the shipyard stations can print (or spawn) your ship blueprints with all obtained best in slot options. That way we have a reason to gather credits in the endgame Thanks for reading! o7

[@Zer0sLegion]

Engineering the best best part of the game, I hope whatever the devs add they make more fun ways for us to do it!

[@WhiteLocust]

I'm really amazed to see how quickly this channel has grown. You're great at these and not many people make these types of videos. You bring up a ton of good points, love these types of vids. Keep it up man.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Thanks!

[@lego_is_cool8687]

i got a idea its like what you said in the video with ai stations, they should make it were you get attacked from ground or in the air, so you would get a warning and it gives you a timer when they arrive to attack so you got to prep your base/ship. and having it were a enemy station is making the ships/rovers, will make it were you have to destroy the station to get less attacks, but the ones that are in space you would have to get a ship. when you progress more. the ships get harder so take down and there will be more of them and if you make a alliance with a ai faction and can say lets take out are enemy and you could say how many ships you need and the ai faction your teamed up with will supply the ship's while you give the necessary cost for the ships and the ships are controlled by themselves all the do is follow you and you can push buttons to do either attack formation, a defense formation or random. i think that would give more life to space engineers.

[@Zer0sLegion]

As long as the first AI you fact is more of a nuance than a threat, this would be fine. The last thing you want is for a base to appear and you have no chance to prepare for it.

[@neldunak5743]

I think there should be weather on the planets that can effect flight. Thunderstorms that can shock and disable your ship, hurricanes that blow you around, sandstorms that weaken thrusters. Ya know, dangerous weather!

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I would like this but I think they'd need to add a degree of aerodynamics to achieve this.

[@jlinkous05]

@@Zer0sLegion Decrease air thruster effectiveness by 50% when in a sandstorm, decrease hydrogen thruster effectiveness in a thundrstorm, and ion thruster effectiveness when in a space storm

[@Marzelmusik]

Satisfactory is also a very good example for progression. I think the solar system needs to be more alive, with factions actually controlling certain areas and trading with each other. (A system similar to the X-series by Egosoft) And then you could choose if you start as part of a faction (e.g. Erath-faction) and benefit from being a member, or if you start as a loner, but have to deal with gatekeeping from the factions and earning a reputation first.

[@redpug5042]

i think a food and water system would add a lot of gameplay. Instead of just building a base to make vehicles, you need to find a way to make food and water you would need large areas with air to grow crops in, which means surviving on planets other than earth will be much harder oxygen tanks should be nerfed to encourage pressurized habitats acid in the alien planet's atmosphere could deteriorate your suit, making it more important to pressurize your vehicles and hangars and stuff maybe more harsh weather on other planets, too. something to actually do maybe enemy AI that will come to your base later in the game, requiring you to build up defenses

[@dakaodo]

Re: survival need mechanics, I've seen people lightly complain that they want more than just more meters to fill. To make these matter, I would want each survival need meter to be at least lightly tied to engineer character performance. i.e. if you keep your needs above a certain threshold, you get certain bonuses. If you let them fall below a certain level, you get penalties. My personal choice would be a fatigue meter. With high needs met, you can run and jump farther and more often. If low on food, drink, and sleep, your fatigue tanks. Obviously, just as with all other Keen mechanics like airtightness, thruster damage, etc., these could be dis/abled in advanced settings. With so many "jetpack nerf" mods on the workshop, this seems like a topic a lot of people have been looking for.

[@redpug5042]

@@dakaodo yeah, i think that fatigue system might be beneficial over just food and water food and water would really just be something to hog up space in your limited inventory, but it would be nice to have a need to make a safe environment in your bases

[@Spoon80085]

I think Space Engineer's main problem is that the world feels empty. Sure, you can build a different ship for every function, but besides RP they serve no practical purpose; one ship could do all of those roles, basically. If they somehow forced the player to design a separate ship (cargo, warship etc.) that would add variation. Above all else, there needs to be *way* more interaction with the AI factions. Contracts, wars, bounties, missions. The more the better.

[@yammoyammamoto8323]

Kerbal Space Program is empty as well... But I drool at the thought of playing a "Kerbal Space Program" mod for Space Engineers.

[@DovaDude]

6:34 is possibly the best "describe something by putting a bunch of images on screen" segment i've ever seen

[@Zer0sLegion]

May or may not be the reason this video way 2 days late 😅

[@anihopkins6788]

I haven’t played SE but i’ve watched videos on it for years and I’m a game design nerd - You’ve hit on something that I think afflicts a lot of the current sandbox-y generation of games. The lesson a lot of devs seem to have taken away from Minecraft is “players will enjoy doing whatever they like in a big procedural open world,” which is true, to a point. But they missed the part where some of the seminal 2010s’ sandbox games (looking at you, Minecraft and KSP) also include really intriguing, visually and thematically compelling progression points. I don’t know how many times I’ve run around a nether fortress in MC or landed on Minmus in KSP, but the challenge inherent to getting there and the incrementally scaling rewards of doing so make it always, always, always feel worth doing - and it encourages me to keep playing and using what I discover and unlock to do cool open world sandbox stuff.

[@wesleyrichardson3023]

We need new resources, abandoned bases/space stations/ explorable areas/ more ai ships. I love this game and I literally caught my first computer I had on fire because of this game. This is the game that got me into PC gaming and it will always have a special place in my heart. I hate that I can play this game now and I keep getting bored. The game could do so much more, it has such a great foundation and has so much potential for new things. I want to land on an alien planet and Instantly get attacked my spiders or some weird mutant enemy ai to where I actually have a reason to build a base on the planet and to survive. I pray keen in looking at these videos like this and reading comments because I love this game but I know they'res so much that they can do with such a talented team. I'm ranting at the moment but this game is the reason I got into PC and met so many awesome people so I want SE to do great and be the game it was meant to be.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Keen is probably aware of what people want, the main issue is time. Keen is ultimately a very small team, as I said in the video, so development on these things will take time.

[@willow036]

I would love to see more on planets. Like different types of structures. Stations are kinda bland.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I'm surprised they don't reuse the base from the easy earth like planet, seems like an easy win to have a couple of those dotted around the solar system.

[@KaffiRawr]

More identical planets are not interesting. It's better if planets are unique, with unique resources. Then make block variations where these unique resources are a requirement. Add to that by making factions stem from these different resource pools. That promotes atleast some exploration, trading and expansion. Even wars for capturing factions specific blocks.

[@Gfafu]

Astroneer for me is the best example of a game that holds your hand very well but at the same time gives you gives you reachable and enjoyable roadblocks and freedom. My gf doesn't like sandbox so much, when the game lets her free she doesn't know what to do and lose the motivation, and I'm in the middleground between full sandboxing and enjoying a ride, and the progression of Astroneer managed to engage with both our playstyles on the same session. The missions are enterteining and have unique rewards that you can't craft, the research system based on bits you farm gives you motivation to not rush all the content and make systems to facilitate the grinding of early game resources, and the way you obtain those bits is flexible, you can search big artifacts and bring them to base to analyze in exhange of your time and power (and also you can optimize how you bring them), or go scavenging on the surface and mines for fast chunks of bits. Doesn't have quite a threat that forces you to play strategically, but the different aggresive plants gives a little variety, and you can plant them. You can have pets that kinda buffs you. And you have an actually motive to go into every planet of the system (activating their cores) the reward for doing so isn't as worth after the 2nd planet but it is really enjoyable and trully a visual spectacle. And all those things, integrated in a space engineers friendly approach would pretty much make the game a lot better, but it is a more complex game that adding even a little thing could take a lot of time and expertise. Still, I've come into this game some days ago and the only thing that I think needs a reimagine is adding a research station and locking progress for the player (obviously with the option to disable it). Having content locked via objectives or some materials (the second one can get tedious) would be a true motivator. Satisfactory locks the progress via asking a lot of specific items that are very complicated to make. Oxygen not included locks it behind a timed research that locks one worker away and asks you to build the specific research station needed. Astroneer locks it behind a research station that is integrated in your UI and asks you a currency. Kerbal space program, Rimworld, Prison Architect, all the same. Hydroneer locks it behind a price and the manual crafting. Etc

[@a1ver47]

what i'd love to see is certain requirements for progression, like a production block that only works in space(like a special centrifuge or sth like that) or blocks that can only be welded by ship welders! ^^

[@magnusberner]

I would add a "warp to hyperspace" thing to the jump drive. You would be teleported to a giga spaceship. So aften you get to space you would need a big enough ship with enough guns to take it on.

[@engineer1178]

I definitely think the next 1 or 2 updates will greatly improve this part of the game because I’m guessing the ai blocks with be expensive and also at some point they will probably do something like Lucas mods but official and it will give them another thing for them to change

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I'm very excited for what's coming next. Warfare 2 was massive, if they keep going with updates like this, it's going to be a great time to be a Space Engineers fan.

[@godw1ll99]

yes, the ai update looks extremely promising for the future of the game.

[@truesnakegod]

I think something that would make the economy more fulfilling and would add to the story of the game is some stations have a one time trade when you first go there for one of a few rare resource that either don't spawn in the system or only spawn in asteroids beyond 20,000 kilometers from the earth like planet. One of if not all of these resources could be used for advanced versions of some preexisting blocks, advanced weapons, or even for shields. For instance having the resource could unlock a scanner that does a quick long range pulse scan for resources you select. It'll cost a ton of power (maybe as much as 2 or 3 large grid batteries worth) at the benefit of having up to the 5 (depending on resource and max range of the scanner) closest deposits of that resource revealed on your HUD for 5-10 minutes. I also think they should add a rare resource that only spawns deep underground and can't be seen or scanned from the surface of the planet unless you have that scanner. Lastly if they do add shields and they do use these rare resources for them then maybe that could balance out the use of them. Make it to where powering them has an overtime cost for these rare resources and taking damage to the shield has a burst cost to the resources depending on how much damage was blocked. I could go on and on about new blocks they could add or resources, but my biggest points here are that they just add some resources that are needed for high end stuff that is only available deep underground or WAY deep in space because otherwise there's not much reason to dig deep or to fly super far. I also don't want these resources obtainable from pirate drones/ships or hostile stations.

[@Norblivion]

I like the idea of having Dreadnoughts out in deep space. Pirate strongholds. And the benefit of attacking them is that they have unique thrusters/weapons/upgrades that you can get once you grind those particular components.

[@wedgedmouse5020]

Optional bosses would be cool… I think it’s tough because a lot of people play space engineers differently.. I thought the jump gate or a economy end goal would be cool as options

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, by no means do you need to fight the bosses, if you still want to build you can still build. The game just needs more things for you to do.

[@mockingburns3202]

I think something like Subnautica progression would be good, where gear is unlocked by exploring, and going further out from where you land would get progressively harder, but you need to go further out to get gear and blocks you need, where they're locked behind going deep underground, or behind powerful bases or ships. So, to get more powerful, build better and bigger things, you need to explore, and to explore, you need to be more powerful, and build bigger and better things.

[@DomInARK]

Ark has three bosses, a dragon, a spider and a gorilla, the final boss switches between the three and uses their attacks, once they’re dead, you can attack it’s true form

[@laggindragon7166]

They were talking about AI and what I'd like to see is a space blockade over planets that whole purpose is block u from coming and going freely on planets Say on earth sure u could leave the planet and return but at the risk of taking damage every time u do so and the only way to stop the spawning enemy's is to take out the "boss". So earth would be a stationary station that once killed would also grant access to new weapon systems taking advantage of the much more powerful warfare 2 weapons or other components and bosses would get harder for each planet to were the last boss would be a massive warship on the power and scale of say a exicuder SD that can also move and chase u similar the man-o-wars in assasins creed blackflag

[@cypobos]

a very simple progression model for pretty much any aspect of a game that always work well enough is: unable to do the thing -> do the thing in a super inefficient way -> doing the thing give access to a more efficient way to do the thing, and start attempting to do the next thing in a very inefficient way. it's very common in action games, you access a new area were ennemies are too strong for you, you grasp at straw to kill a single one of them, thanks to that one kill you buy/loot/smith better gears, fighting the mob gets easier, you farm them until you improved your gear as well as you can with what you have on hand, you go to next area best prepared to fight the newer tougher ennemies. that's a simple gameplay loop, but you have to make the cut clear within the progression. a cut between rovers and surface flying vehicle, a cut between different scales of base, a cut between just reaching space and doing actual things in space. and every part has to be meaningful and bring something. and you can even make a back tracking progression, like going to space in small ships, then making big ships in space because it's easier in zero G, then putting together the tech and planning to make a big ship that is able to land on planets. a really great way to gatekeep the progression that you find often in minecraft industrial mods is scale of ressources, you got the right ressource to make a thing, but it takes so much of that ressource that it's absolutely impossible to do it directly, you have to optimize and upscale your production of that ressource first or it's simply out of reach. so i could easily imagine that you go to space for new ressources, then you build big ships to shred asteroids whole to gather huge amounts of ressources, then you make planetary capable giant ships to go back on the surface and mine extremely deep for some new ressources that are too deep to reach with early games capabilities. another one could be extracting a ressource in trace amounts from rocks or specific ores, so that you have to go through a shit load of rock munching to get the amount you need. i feel like space engineers is exactly the kind of game that should incentivize you to make a giant planet shredder. industrial capitalism for the win!

[@Sirax123]

Mod devs/game dev add "Science Projects" and "Anomalies". Some are built for single player and others built for multi player. Example, players have to find enough uranium to power a doomsday device, now you have a possible war effort. Example 2, you found a gas cloud that messes with your equipment, so you throw ores into it to find out what insulates and what conducts this strange phenomenon.

[@imofage3947]

I'm probably massively biased here, but I like the progression system used in Factorio. When you start out, you have a limited number of simple parts and machines you can build. In order to unlock more advanced tools and parts, you have to research them in the science lab. The science lab has to be fueled with science packs of various types. Early options require only 1 or 2 types of packs, but the end game technologies require 6 or 7 of increasing complexity. There's an entire technology tree that has to be unlocked. At first you can only mine basic materials: iron, copper, coal, and stone by hand. Eventually you add water, crude oil, uranium, and various derivatives.

[@DOOM891]

dude, adding stuff to other planets that allow you to craft advanced tech like energy weapons or energy shields or just upgrade existing blocks would be awesome.

[@KuppyleGrand]

I totally agree. SE is a fantastic game that I've played for a long time. But you tend to get bored once you get to space. Some suggestions - Yes, a core, main quest. Maybe to achieve a way to break out of the solar system entirely. ALIENS. Include aliens. With ruined bases/settlements etc. Some kind of mystery/discovery. Maybe a well-defined, rival faction who's trying to screw you throughout the game. Stellar events, like solar flares, sudden asteroid showers, radiation etc.

[@snark894]

I know this type of game generally isn't SUPPOSED to have lore, but I'm the type of person who absolutely LOVES exploring lore. Noita, Barotrauma, Project Zomboid, Boneworks, Unturned, all sandbox/survival sandbox games with very interesting and engaging lore. The exact type of thing I love to explore. Something Outer Wilds-esque in Space Engineers I think would work wonders. Maybe something like Subnautica even. The Jump Gate idea sounds really cool from a lore standpoint and a progression and incentive standpoint, and I have some ideas to expand upon that. Imagine in the beginning you go into the world blind, make a rover and travel to your nearest economy station like normal, however this station has a scripted event that kicks off the main story. An attack or a quest an engineer gives you, multiple options for ways to progress, buying and selling and doing contracts in the economy system could net you ways to escape the planet and move on to the rest of the story, or you could explore and gather resources to progress. Additional lore structures or main story events that are mostly optional could be on the planet and/or in space. With the scarcity of resources and some story or progression standpoint as an incentive, you move along a guided but not linear path through different story and progression points, building a jump drive could start a timer which makes a ticking clock to incentivize you to arm your ship and equip it with shields (A feature the base game should have, btw) to fight an early game boss. Skipping past all of that, going through the Jump Gate could jump you to a different star system, with a whole new set of things to do and more story to complete, while still being partly optional. A space inbetween systems that could be accessible by an option in the jump gate could put you in a "no man's land" full of ship graveyards and hostile scrap prowlers and a military trying to keep it all under control, being able to scavenge broken ships and/or defeat enemy ships to gain resources and/or parts. Eventually the story would come to a close but you would still encounter lore components in the different systems and planets, allowing for a great incentive for exploration and community discussion. Optional things like starting a faction or allying with one and starting wars or battles to weaken or take over other factions, an endgame option to start systematically taking over the entire cluster. Mod support would be great for this kind of thing so your 5-10 systems could be expanded to an Eve-like scale. Well, there you go, internet. Enjoy reading this wall of text. TL;DR - lore, story, progression

[@samuels1123]

Maybe similar to netherite there can be planet specific resources that can improve specific blocks, like a hidden extra component for building assemblers that boosts speed Maybe pirate ships can reveal base locations when captured and eliminating the base removes local pirate spawns and yielding pirate loot You slowly decrypt the location of the headquarters for some AI thing like a giant drone facility with externally powered shields and stuff, faction launches many attacks during decrypt The fight has phases based on shields being destroyed and then destroying the facility core while it uses from bomb drones to automated destroyers in attempt to protect

[@Leffrey]

Regarding the warp gate idea: I think the warpgate shouldn't be the endgame, but rather a stage of progression. As you've said before, gold and silver can't be locked behind reaching a certain planet, since a jump drive is essential for interplanetary travel. Instead, what if warpgates existed between each of the planets and moons, but they're occupied by various factions (maybe multiple gates per planet so you don't fly far, then also differnt factions controlling them) and using them comes with different costs. Either you befriend the faction by doing various missions for them or join forces with another faction to take over the gate (soloing them if you have powerful ships) or simply paying a per-use fee while on neutral standing making it easy but only short-term (good rep makes it free, bad rep denies use). With the warpgate system, jump drives aren't necesary for reaching other planets, but still offer the greatest convenience by being fully controled by the player. This way restricting gold and silver isn't so difficult. Warpgates would then have advantages and disadvantages such as lack of energy cost, instant charge but limited size, maybe weak factions have cheaper, small, easier-to-access warpgates whereas larger factions can teleport much bigger ships for an apropriately higher fee. Maybe on the surface of planets there could be space elevators which allow you to get to space quickly with a small ship, rather than spend several minutes just traversing the 40km atmosphere. Again these would have similar faction related limitations. While it's not as easy to tie this to progression, it would still be a good point of interest where players naturally gravitate towards and NPCs could be more common. After that it's just a whole bunch of NPC related improvements, namely making them worth caring for and investing time/resources in.

[@Leffrey]

Obviously this'd be a lot, but it ties a lot of things together: progression, NPCs and an interactable world.

[@Zer0sLegion]

This is a great idea, having the ability to get to other planets without a jump drive would be great. Reminds me of the Pulsar: The Lost Colony does it

[@jasonlincoln7863]

I personally think that space hulks, like massive colony ships, could serve as as “”final boss””. One could either board them and fight the “crew” or engage them at a distance and destroy them by ship. They might only be found in the spaces between planets, having long ago set off for distant worlds out of reach of the mortal man, and their crew gone max in the abyss of space. Different kinds could be found; cannibals, cyborgs, ultra-ultilitarians, or AI dominated superstructure’s. All would have separate techniques to fight them, and varying designs.

[@musikSkool]

Maybe a remote controlled human-like drone that you can send on missions from a large-grid VR control booth. That way your character doesn't have to die and lose his inventory. Or you can send out cheap drones for exploration that land and open a solar panel when they run low on energy.

[@paulomr445]

One idea I've came up with is to have a crashed alien ship encounter. You'd then have to take the components from said ship and place it in a analysis block or area so you can then reverse enginner it into a working block. I've compiled a list when I made a post sbout things I'd like to see in in SE. Here are some examples "Alien tech - With existence of alien life in some planets and the monolith I think this opens the possibility of finding ancient alien tech and reverse engineering it through some new mechanic. These would be blocks that are considerably harder to produce find a supply, with the benefit of unique features. Some ideas are: 1. Plasma canon - a weapon that uses power and gas as ammunition, either hydrogen or some other that needs to be mined. The unique capabilities of this weapon would be the ability to charge shots to make them more powerful, with an overchaged shot blowing up the weapon. As a balancing factor, it would also have very high damage at point blank but get progressively weaker the further it goes. The level of charge would affect this of course. 2. Plasma artillery - works similarly to the canon but with a longer reload and the charge instead defines how long the bolt will go before exploding. Think of it as plasma flak gun. 3. Focused laser - basically a high powered laser for long range attacks. Can't decide if it best for it to have a specific, charge, fire and recharge time for a specific output, or essentially overheating the longer it's fired. 4. Tractor beam - a turret or block that you to manipulate other smaller grids. Useful for capturing ships or just moving stuff around. 5. Repulsor/anti gravity lift - a block that essentially keeps a ship stationary when affected by gravity. Unlike thrusters , it accelerates very poorly when moving in any direction, requiring additional forms of thrust for movement, but allowing a ship to stay airborne in planets gravity for very little power and not requiring it to be mounted outside of the ship. 6. Fusion engine - An engine that essentially behaves like the hydrogen engine and using another form of fuel. Can't think of any much to make it more unique or balanced, maybe using it gives an additional 50 m/s to the top speed but it requires uranium to fuction. 7. Small ship jump drive - a compacted jump drive for small ships, simply that. Requires a lot of power but allows smaller grids to be more independent. 8. Alien tools - plasma pistols/ rifles, laser rifle, gravity manipulator (lets you pick stuff up and move it), repair beam, etc. 9. Mining laser - a high power laser that breaks rock apart and then (Maybe, it might be more interesting to have gravity generators do this) drags it in for collection. 10. Legs block - this could be a singular block or a similar ordeal to the new custom turret. Something to make mechs easier. I put it here because it's something weirder but it could have nothing to do with the alien tech and just be a normal block. 11. Alien reactor (?) - a new reactor that uses other types of fuel, maybe another rare gas like mentioned in the plasma section. It could have different abilities from the current generators in game, maybe somehow charging other subgrids a lot faster than they normally would. 12. Alien shield(?) - as evidenced by the question mark I'm not sure about this one but if it came I think this would be the way to do it. Simply a shield bubble or coat that covers your ship for a set output. Something interesting that could be done is, too much damage in one hit could overload the shield to the point it the block itself is damaged and won't recharge unless repaired. 13. Teleporter (?) - the way I think this would work is you'd have a teleporter station and could use it to hope between other stations controlled by you and your faction. Not useful in boarding actions, more for managing all your bases if your operations are system wide. Also not sure about this one. 14. Repair drones or beams (?) - a a beam or drone that repairs whatever it's pointed at. Can be really unbalanced so again, no sure." The idea is something that'd have play either be more convenient or simply different. Alien tech wouldn't necessarily break the game as much as just make menial tasks more convenient and require a completely different supply chain to operate. Another thing I think would be better is different suits, explorer, cargo, pilot, combat, even just role-playing suits like civilian clothes, but most importantly a starter suit. One that already has all the tools built in, is mostly self sufficient, has no jetpack and lets the player make basic components. One thing I believe may put off a lot of casual players is the time to set up. In minecraft you can get a decent mudhud, some essential tools and blocks and start mining in the first 5 minutes. SE can easily take a few hours to get set up with even a basic outpost and I believe the ability to start from literal scratch but still be able to make basic facilities is something that would help players get set up while still encouraging them to progress for convince.

[@Mr.Schnaps]

One cool idea too add stuff to do is create space stations around planets and then either make it so the space station creates a shield around the planet so if you wanna get to the planet you have to defeat the station first or the station regularly sends out ships to attack you if you are close to or on the planet so if wanna explore the planet without being attacked you have to fight the station first. And then you can add reasons to want to explore to begin with like each planet has a special resource or each planet has objectives like bases to attack. And as you progress the space stations get larger and harder to fight. A new metal special to a planet could be used to make better armor( as strong as heavy but as light as light armor) and for upgraded parts. Bases on other planets could also contain blueprints like upgraded engines to run more efficiently and more powerful, or blueprints for better weapons.

[@syeblaize]

You've hit the nail on the head with the problem that SE faces. Being a sandbox is not enough. I remember creating a number of creations in this game, (gravity launcher, massive asteroid erasing miner, fighter craft) and once I got done with that... I felt like I'd done it all. And that was before planets game out. Once planets came out, I was excited to get back into it. And I found out that all planets did, was make it harder to play the game. A challenge, sure, but not so much of one that its enough to get me back into it. If I played online, I'm sure I'd be able to get involved and have fun... but I'm a solo player at heart. If I'm in a group, its with close friends. If I had enough folks into PVP, I might bring this up, but really... I'd rather play other stuff where PVE is fun. Like Empyrion, the bastard child of Ark and SE. Empyrion basically does the things you have suggested, have enemies that come after your base, have ores across multiple different planets to fully improve your ship, even lifting the engram system from Ark. Unfortunately, the simulation and ship building is nowhere near as good as SE. But I'd still prefer a crappier base game with actual content than a great base game with no content, at least over an extended period of time. Once the sandbox elements of SE wears off, there's really not much more for someone like me to do. At least in Empyrion, I can blow up enemy bases and gun down dinosaurs.

[@oatmealman1586]

My best idea for space engineers comes in two parts. The first off is to add a sense of life to other planets. Imagine if there were unique species that could appear on planets ranging from primitive to advanced, with some even being found across several planets if they're advanced enough. And such species could be hostile or friendly, with the planter's characteristics being the deciding factor. The next part of the idea is to make certain planets more physically hostile with environments that require specialized equipment to even set foot on. And to actually give people the motivation to even set foot on such planets, there could be certain rewards such as scavenging crashed ships for new tech, establishing science bases to unlock technology that matches the planet, such as an ice planet unlocking insulation, or a lava planet unlocking thermal energy generators, with more risky planets contributing higher to such science. These three changes, in my opinion would help bring life to the game, as well as posing challenges that the player must overcome by establishing themselves among the stars. Now that I have proposed these ideas, let's take a look at the prerequisites for them. First off, in a game like space engineers, there would need to be hundreds of unique species in the game for the first idea to work, which is a massive undertaking, but can be done. The next is that the planets would need to come with their own unique characteristics that influence the harshness of it, which shouldn't be too hard with a simple bit of math, not much said there. And the last, is that for the unlocking technology thing to work, you would need to create more options for technology, which can be a lot of work, but can be done in a very simple way. If we look at KSP, the way they influence advancement is by giving you very basic technology and telling you to go wild with it, which gives you science points, and with these science points, you are given the ability to specialize your technology into certain areas such as getting better scientific instruments, better power generation, communication, and flight capabilities. I feel this would be a perfect concept to add to the game as it would allow for players to create their own specific niche as they are restricted in how much technology they can advance. And a great way to improve upon the idea of niches would be to add several different options for technology that all have their own advantages and disadvantages that can be improved upon, such as two types of warp drives, one slower with farther range, and one faster with lower range and lower accuracy, that branch off into their own tech trees that end up vastly different than their original selves and their just as advanced counterparts. I feel this would add more variety and fun to the game as now you can find unique space ship types that all take advantage of certain technology. Now, as a last concept to add, I would suggest sort of a supply and industrialization concept. I feel that the game has no real weight to it, I.e. it isn't really that impactful to hear that you're low on fuel since you know how to easily get more. But what if players had to create their own refineries and mining operations to support their space endeavors in a way that is very unforgiving. I feel like this, if applied in the satisfactory (the game) method, can really improve the game by encouraging players to establish industry on and around planets to allow them to expand even further. And this would also give incentive to be careful with your actions since no one wants to be low on fuel far from their homeworld with no refueling stations nearby. Another add on would be to encourage players to build bases on other planets for means such as communication and location. Imagine if you needed a few communication bases to provide you with mapping. My whole thought process over these changes is that people want to establish themselves, so there needs to be a way to establish themselves in a way that is unique from other players, such as unique tech trees, play styles, and economy such as manufacturing and trade, which I feel the game lacks as of recent.

[@dgwingnut8052]

Just wanted to add onto the random encounters thing. If you wanted to actually find them, you have to actively search for them as the chances of just finding them randomly when exploring and not searching for them is almost impossible. Random encounters can be wrecks, abandoned stations, or still functioning pirate stations or ships. So they do half work, but they're really only good for parts or to be fixed for a big boost in the early game. Random Encounter Fact: There's actually three random encounters in the files of the game that went unused.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I think they've made random encounters too rare, I haven't see any for ages,

[@EricAero]

The biggest stress I put myself in space engineers is to start a custom game lost in space suit. until then, you have around 5 to 10 minutes to find something to get electricity in your suit then O2. But once you locate such a thing (like abandoned places, hostile ships, stations etc...) the second thing is to find a god source of ice... once it's done, you won.

[@swampcooler8332]

I have a few ideas. One: conquering ai ships or bases rewards you with a unique resource that allows you to upgrade your ship in specific ways. Like you take out this pirate station, and are rewarded with generic example space rock 37 but you only get one of them. And that one but can depending on which resource you got could build a block or module that upgrades the whole of the grid, but only that grid, or a single refinery, like ion thruster output is increased 5%, or speed limit is increased by 10 m/s but also have an extra 50% power drain or fuel use from engines, or refineries are better at extracting iron from stone and iron ore, but the same or less from other resources from other ores, or you can get more nickel ect. Defeating a powerful foe grants you a one time unstackable permanent minor (but also potentially game changing at the same time) upgrade to one grid, but if you loose that block or grid you have to get a new one. And in order to reliably get the upgrade you want, you have to travel to different planets and defeat enemies that have that item as either an upgrade block already or stashed in a hidden storage, or find a specific station that will only spawn on this planet that would have a small chance of selling that item for a small fortune. Two: certain blocks needed to progress could have alternate recipes that require easier to come by resources. On earth like you can find copper, which is needed to an antenna for some reason, but without it you can still make an antenna but the range is reduced by 10-20%. And on alien you can find palladium that is is needed make a reactor, but without it the reactor just eats more to make power. Progression would just be getting all your equipment at 100% efficiency by getting ores from different planets. Three: you can salvage technology from different parts of the system but can't build it. You can dock it to your ship, merge it, or just build a ship around it, but you can't make it from scratch, limiting you to the grid type you found it as. This technology could be a new weapon, a shield generator, new power source, or something like that.

[@CreatureOfTheVoid]

There has always been plenty of random stations spawned in SE, the problem is you have no way to find them other then accidently running into them, adding sensors and or radars for better detection of space objects would be a great improvement, im currently using a radar mod for that, but AI crews on ships so you have to fight more then just gun turrets would also be a big improvement

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeap, I hate the beacon clutter on my hud as well so I turn it off, meaning I miss a lot of stuff as well. We need a better way to see stuff around us that isn't with beacons and gps.

[@magnagazoo4863]

Splitsie is working on a mod with Lucas, Modular Encounters system that should spice things up. You get ships and bases that ignore you at first if you leave them alone. And then get spicy later on. There is a jump gate to another server system that some have used to add this "end game" thing you want. You jump out of the "system" you started in sort of.

[@rremnar]

I have some idea about your idea of using a gate at end game. They should have it where you find a direlect base near it and the gate is broken. You then use that base for operations in finding and retrieving the resources and tech blue prints to make the parts to fix the gate. So you may have to fight some pirates or a faction or trade for the things you need; making the game feel much more alive.

[@Garvey64LIVE64]

Random encounters! There's mods that do this, and they make space feel much more alive! Better NPC quests! Like bounty jobs, or story oriented questing! Actual NPC crews and stuff? People you can hire? NPC faction wars and basic politics. I also really enjoyed the thought of building a space cooperation where you mine resources or provide a specific good that NPCs need and will buy. Bosses would also be cool. Honestly, it would be really interesting if an RP element were added to the game, sort of like the Bethesda games. Maybe the stories don't have to be in depth and complex, or even well written, but it could be something to occupy yourself with or do. Space engineers is not a singleplayer oriented game it seems, and the fun really comes in when you find a populated server of 10+ people that really add some tension and excitement into the game because you really have no clue what will happen. Especially two player factions fighting for control over resources and such. I remember played a very heavily modded server when an pirate battleship found me, and started to attack my station. I had to run because my station wasn't very well protected against large threats like battleships, and my Stampede class destroyer was under construction by the nanobots, so I had no choice but to flee. This thing followed me for a long time, like a long time. I honestly think if those sorts of encounters were added into vanilla, it could make some things interesting.

[@YEAHKINDAGAMES]

I'd say, honestly, they should add a research system. A close example would be maybe Oxygen Not Included. In that game, to build new machines or blocks to tackle problems, you need to research through a progression tree to get to them. As an idea, I'll explain one possible way to go about this. Add a few new blocks, the Research Terminal (T1), The Material Studies Controller (T2), the Vacuum Testing Terminal (T3), and the Antimatter Testing Chamber (T4) Each will have inputs for resources, and each research tier will be nearly identical to crafting an item in the game, but with a bit more interaction/limitations. The Research Terminal, while not costing power, requires the player to MANUALLY "research" an item group by doing some small tasks in the terminal. This is for basic progression to unlock hydrogen thrust and power. It can be a small grid 3x3x1 or a large grid 1x1x1. The starting pod has one small grid Research Terminal. Researching tiers will require basic resources and components made with iron, nickel, silicon, and stone. The next tier, Material Studies Controller, is automated, but requires large amounts of power (Base necessary.) , and more advanced parts and ores. Can only be placed on large grid stations and contains advanced materials for better weapons, thrusters, and blocks, as well as the current reactors. The third tier, Vacuum Testing Terminal, is automated, needs to be placed on a ship, and needs to be in space. It can be either a 5x5x3 small grid or a 2x1x1 large grid. It unlocks things like an advanced reactor that takes less fuel, outputs more power, or even both, as well as even better thrusters, blocks, and weapons. The last tier is the same as the vacuum testing terminal, but it needs to be on a large grid station in atmosphere, and unlocks even better equipment, the most powerful of weapons, and, most importantly, Jump drives and wireless cargo teleporters. All planets will have their own specific resource advantages and disadvantages, and it will encourage the player to build on each and every planet to ensure they're getting peak resource efficiency. Also, all planets will have their own mob types which makes defending each location you build both challenging and unique. An example is that on the Earthlike, you'll have to fight ground-based enemies and possibly ground vehicles. The enemies will negate the terrain advantage you'd have over a normal vehicle, and would be able to tunnel/climb vertical surfaces. However, on the Alien planet, the creatures you face are airborne with ranged attacks, but still with a looming threat of a ground assault. They could also take some notes from the Rust mod's coding, and make exposed blocks on certain planet take damage from the toxic atmosphere, making maintenance and pressurization mandatory as it bypasses the default suit, an advanced protected version of which is available for research in the T2 station.

[@Tony-nt5zd]

I really like the idea that each planet has unique resources that can be used for new parts or to upgrade existing ones. Bosses/more active hostile factions would also be really cool. As for my own ideas aside from things people have talked about before (orbital mechanics/physics, fluid physics, etc), I mostly want to be able to use small and large blocks on the same grid without having to basically trick the game in order to do it.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah, I 100% want a merger of the small and large grids. That's probably for a sequel though and it's a massive amount to rework both in and out of game.

[@pineberry212]

I was thinking, encounters like From the Depths. Where the ships don't physically spawn in until you get near, or engage in battle. For that matter, they could add some RTS elements in a similar way, but more like homeworld, as it has 3d space RTS. Maybe able to command your ai controlled ships with your laser antenna. (Risk getting systems hacked on open broadcasting channels? Heck, in-game voice/message chat over signal) Adding a gui to existing thrusters to add upgrades, or adding a block to better manage subsystems and upgrades, like in many other games that have spaceships. It's a pain to setup anything fancy on space engineers. As for warp, add the Minecraft nether feature of subspace warping, where 1 nether block is 8 overworld blocks traveled. Entering via singularity, or by subspace engine. And just like Warhammer 40k, fill it with horror and deamons. I'd say make that a separate warp style, and make it accessable by on map singularity, with deamons popping out occasionally. (And make exploding jump drives make temporary singularities) Some sort of 3d map gui, like in Kerbal space program. Asking for orbiting planets would be too big an ask. I'm the kind of person who is fascinated by real orbital space mechanics. I'd love to see mega structures like O'Neil cylinders. Or any large structures covered by the KZbinr Issac arthur. ALSO WISH THEY'D APPLY THE MORE THINGS IN ONE BLOCK SPACE LIKE THEY DID IN MEDIEVAL ENGINEERS. Including the way walls are built in medieval engineers. Id enjoy the extra space and saved weight.

[@jakzotak]

I Don't know what they could add to incentivize going to other planets but a definite way to make difficulty increase that I think would work would be making bigger and more heavily armed enemy ships that only spawn in space so traveling in space is way more dangerous, maybe make stuff like uranium much more common in asteroids too?

[@leezaard3944]

I think they could make it similar to science mode in kerbal space program, where going to each planet for the first time gives you science points, depending on the difficulty, which are used to unlock the tech tree, or even technologies specific to each planet.

[@darthtempest4722]

If the pirates would have like a planet base or a station to attack also if they attack you first instead of you attacking them

[@exidrial431]

Satisfactory is an absolutely perfect example of progression in a sandbox. Satisfactory makes you basically do one simple thing - Connect one machine to another via conveyor belts. But those connections slowly increase in complexity, first it's just one input into a machine, then two, then four. First you manually load materials into a power generator, then it's automatically liquids and materials, then they create waste materials... The game slowly creeps up in complexity but it also gives you new tools to solve these problems all the time. Faster conveyor belts, splitters, mergers, smart splitters. Exploration rewards you with hard drives that teach you alternate recipes that make production potentially much less complex in certain use cases. There's nothing like that in Space Engineers. Once you've built your first space ship that's it. You've "beaten" the game. Sure, Space Engineers is about engineering and building ships but... There is nothing for those ships to do. You could build printers, you could create automatic miners. But what for? What is the point? What am I doing any of this for? Nothing. There is nothing for my ships to fight and nothing to find in the universe. To me, a Sandbox is pointless without tools and goals. That is why my Space Engineers is modded to the brim with weapon overhauls, exploration overhauls and so on. I got tons of NPCs in my game with factions that fight each other. Each planet has different resources and getting to them is difficult thanks to deep scarce resources. Ores are very deep in the ground but deposits are large. This makes it actually useful to build mining outposts with mining machines / drills. Ores are spread around the planets making it important for me to get around and not just sit on Mars all day. NPCs roam the planets and space, both friendly and unfriendly. I have pirates attack my spacestations, enemy factions that hate me because I killed their ships to take them over and salvage them seek me out. Requiring proper defenses and combat ships. There's wrecks floating around space that I can capture and either salvage or rebuild. This requires ships that have the power to tow other large ships. The game now throws challenges at me, challenges that I need to solve.

[@samos343guiltyspark]

Minecraft: it's about conquering new worlds and taming their new dangers. Space engineers: empty planet, no reason to even set foot there.

[@DonnaPinciot]

I may be biased, but I really like the progression given by the Scarce Resources mod. Gold is removed from planets, and only available on moons. Ice is removed from asteroids, making it necessary to do return trips, store lots of fuel, and manage it well, along with making Ion Thrusters more appealing. Asteroids are also the only places you can get Silver, most notably for Medical Components, so they're not entirely useless. Mars is the only place you can get Platinum for Ion Thrusters and the next tier of personal tools. Until that point, you are required to use Hydrogen Thrusters in space, which could be helped out by building refuelling stations that just have a massive stockpile of hydrogen, and refining stations on the surface. Maybe drones to automatically transport Hydrogen up? The Alien Planet has Uranium, allowing you to better power those Ion Thrusters. Before then, you rely on renewables, which are infinite, but have low power production and aren't really compact, which makes it borderline necessary to have recharging stations which just collect energy while you're doing whatever in order to quickly recharge ships. Maybe even have battery hot-swap stations? I've realize you could also use Hydrogen Engines, but that just gives another use for the refining platform, and you wouldn't really want to use all your precious fuel on energy, though it could certainly be a boost. There are reasons to go to each planet, and challenges to overcome for them. I've had a bit of time to think about offering better progression and more engineering challenges, as well. From things like inverted gravity planets with toxic surfaces forcing you to constantly use thrusters, to an incredibly distant planet which _practially_ requires a large Jump Drive array (Though it would be technically possible to reach with hours upon hours of drifting, unless it was in a magic 'separate space' only reachable with Jump Drives?*). Another thing I'd like to see improved upon is Upgrade Modules. They have so much potential for specialization and getting away from the design of just building more blocks (Also the lag. 1 upgraded block vs 10 base-level blocks). If the resources to build some of them were located exclusively in places with interesting challenges to overcome, such as a very durable, massive cave system (So you can't reasonably just dig your way through it), or a place with combustible gas making you require exclusively wheeled vehicles. Maybe if blocks were also rebalanced, somewhat. If thrusters were harder to build and/or power, then you'd have to rely on wheeled vehicles for longer and make them a more core part of your arsenal, instead of basically just being the early-game hauling stepping stone to a ship. Expensive, power-hungry thrusters (Atmospheric included), perhaps reducing their weight capacity, combined with the limited power production capabilities until Uranium, would make ships better for transportation, and quick bursts of hauling, while there's still incentive to build cars simply because they can carry so much more weight for so much less power. I do agree that improving the player would detract from building better ships and infrastructure. I personally like playing on 'Realistic' settings, which give just enough inventory space to not be too annoying, but little enough so that building things like Batteries is painful, and it's much better to create at least a welder block hooked up to a conveyor to do it, if not make an entire welding drone. To make Earthlike more interesting specifically, perhaps the planet can be divided in to regions? Maybe there's a quagmire/swamp which contains some special resource you need, but it would bog down wheeled vehicles and players on foot, making aerial transport a necessity, probably with a remote base. It would also need to be pretty big to justify not building a path there to begin with (Though that could certainly be a goal later on). To go back to an earlier idea of mine, a massive cave system with thick, crusty walls you can't easily dig through. The caves are big enough for wheeled vehicles, and stalactites make it dangerous for flying craft. There could be hostile life in there, making turrets a necessity, and possibly a permanent base to avoid having your precious ammo wittled away forever. If Heavy Armor could be immune to these attacks, but too heavy to use too much of, that would introduce strategic armoring, and make a base much more costly to produce initially. I guess this was mostly just a stream of consciousness as I watched the video, but hopefully some of that was interesting. *This is a tangent, but it could be pretty neat if Jump Drives allowed you to access personal 'pockets' of space which only existed for you, allowing a perfect defense.

[@Zer0sLegion]

I can agree with most of this, especially the bit around upgrade modules and removing hydrogen from space, I just feel like scare resources just oviscapes the issue. It's a good start but we need more like it, the only ores not available on the planet are gold, silver, platinum and uranium. Silver is barely ever needed, you only need a little bit throughout your entire playthrough, Gold is mainly needed for Jump Drives so you only need it to get to other planets, platinum being on mars is fine but you now no longer need to fly around space as all the resources are now on planets which is a bit of an oversite and uranium, whilst very useful, is ultimately useless by the time you get to it in the game.

[@LyraLyraPantsOnFyra]

Subnautica is a good example of a game where progression is not reliant on an increased ability to kill things, but measured in how deep you can go (amd how brave you the player feel about going there)

[@yellitdud7468]

I made a mod pack from a steam workshop just for this where its just a straight up challenge all the time just to survive and actually thrive and build. Mainly making it harder on the player with basic things and adding encounters and also new structures for the player to explore. But some of the things you mention they do have. You also do have options for how you want to play. But overall I do agree that vanilla SE needs some attention. Hopefully with combat being much more intense as there more weapons and systems you could face that survival and progression can get some spotlight work done to catch up.

[@imprudentpilot9524]

I love Space Engineers, and I’ve been playing it on and off essentially since it came out. Usually my worlds last just a day or two before my friends and I get bored. I think that the main issue really stems from the lack of progression. I like that SE doesn’t have an end goal, but it would be nice to have something to work towards like an end boss or conquering a hazardous planet. From what I remember, there are contracts that you can do, but the ones I remember aren’t that challenging and are just simple hide and seek or fetch quests. I also remember a game mode where you had to build up defenses around a space station starting from scratch like regular survival, but every time I played that mode either my ship was deleted or, at worst, my entire save. I also am not a very good builder and tend to not put very much armor on my vehicles as the ones I try on just end up looking like sausages with a hanger in the middle. The game on its own is a lot of fun, but it definitely needs some other sort of progression other than “build this block to unlock these blocks.” Hopefully SE2 (which I have heard may be in development, not saying it is or isn’t I’m just saying I’ve heard rumors) fixes this and gives the player some sort of quest line like a lot of Minecraft mod packs have nowadays or just some final goal to work towards. Edit: I forgot to mention the campaigns that Keen has put in, but those, while cool, have little replay value. Thankfully community mods exist to spice things up and I have played a couple of community made campaigns that I would 100% play again (not to mention the plethora of part mods that are on the workshop), but those are separate from the base game and someone who is just getting into the game / returning players who haven’t played in a long time would likely want to play vanilla to get (re)adjusted to the vanilla game (at least those are my thoughts).

[@Exoreya]

there are two things i want so see added/changed: 1: one of my favorite things to do in this game is mining/building underground, but i wish there would be a reason for it. you can dig so damn deep but there is just no reason for it with all the ores spawning just a few meters underground scattert randomly over the planets surface. maybe add some caves, deeper ores or if you want to go bonkers add some kind of metal or crystal extremely deep underground that is used in high tech weapon, thruster etc. add npc transportes that are guarded by other ships carrying those rare materials for players dont want to mine them and are more focused on space and combat 2: pls overhaul the ui, its so messy if you have larger ships/bases, just theres giant scroll list with every block and inventoy. why not make a button so show every item on a ship in a big inventory or the ability to make folders so that you can sort block better i know that these a things that need much brainjuice to reworlk in a way to make it better but damn these are the two main reasons why i cant play the game for longer periods of time

[@jimthesoundman8641]

My number one ask for Space Engineers is a way to organize GPS points into folders, and also be able to turn the GPS points in those folders on and off as a batch.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Gonna be honest, I just turn off GPSs. I think we need need a better way of finding things.

[@jimthesoundman8641]

@@Zer0sLegion So when you need more of something, like iron, how do you find it if you have GPS turned off?

[@asherreaper9484]

The jump drive idea and the abandoned bases would make it a bit tricky. U could say "spawn on earth" and there is an abandoned near by that has "cobalt or random ship part" but to get them u notice it still has power making it hard to enter (Just a lil difficult to make the player be a lil smart) and have if not 1 or a few enemies watching the gate would mean u cant get build a small ship u have to put time and effort into a ship to break thro it. AND yes that "random" part is tricky to code in games, bec besides the preset generator. to make it "lively" U might have to make 10-100 Different presets so it doesnt seem repetitive. The only issue with ark and minecraft for examples, many if not over 80 of the community have found ways to break/"one shot" both game's bosses, and once ppl see how "easy" it is no one will really branch out. What i love about space engineers is the many/unique ways of building. Minecraft building isnt focused on its traveling just building in places u wanna settle down (Even tho we found ways to travel with building) its nothing like This. Ark its mainly focused around the dinos and creatures, not to mention all the pve/pvp u can have we can build nearly everywhere but if we wanna travel to different lands/"planets" we cant bring everything from the old area jsut what we need and a few tames.

[@spoon1710]

The game Starsector does this fantastically. Even though the game is no where near finished, it has probably the best progression. Ignoring the need for money and blueprints in it, there are solar systems filled with enemies and enemy factions. When you start out there is no way of beating to enemies realistically but as you progress you can beat them, get resources from doing that and even capture them and so on until you go to the for now final boss called the Guardians. You kill them and they are difficult as all hell they grant you some cool stuff. But the game doesn't end it just keeps going you still keep fighting enemies with ever growing fleets and make colonies for more resources and so on. In SE if you wanted to go to Petran you can, but what if there were fleets of ships or even a massive ship guarding it and so on. And then the planet its self has hostile weather. Not every planet would need new resources if it had richer ore veins and such. In this version you could even start on Petran but getting out would be a lot more difficult as there would be ships guarding the outer atmosphere etc.

[@UndulatingOlive]

Making the physics more challenging, aerodynamics, atmosphere re-entry, some orbital mechanics maybe

[@felipeaugusto2600]

I think SE can learn from Highfleet's survival onion, however, that can be quite specific, and by itself the game isn't as strategic as Highfleet, and it also has focus on stealth, however i think it would make sense to have more electronic warfare related equipment.

[@MonkeySquasher]

Good video, Zer0. I’ve felt the same. SE is in a unique position to pull from a *lot* of good games. Not just Minecraft or Ark (which I didn’t even think of), but games like 7 Days to Die, and Mass Effect, among others. 1) There needs to be a loose story so as to guide the player, and tie progression in. Like the tutorials, but have you going between the factions, or choosing one to work for, or something. Tie progression into that using points. For example, similar to 7DTD, a simple checklist of starting things to do, and they get you points. Say, for instance, you start with a drill on the ship, and a goal to mine some stone. It’ll teach you how to get and equip items. This also teaches you to mine. You mine the stone, you get progression points, and it unlocks building a welder. Now you have a task to build a welder.. this teaches you to build using the survival kit, gives you more points. Then you have to place a small something and build it up using the welder, boom, more points and unlocks something else. This walks you through building something, but you have no power so you have to build a turbine, etc etc etc. As you go you’re unlocking things, following a progression that helps the learning curve. Maybe make it so you can’t unlock and build ship parts until you’ve built parts of a base, etc. Eventually you’re meant to make contact with a faction, giving those GPS coords a purpose, and starts you on your way through a story. 2) There needs to be an ability in game to automate things easier. There are good mods/scripts for it, and some really promising ones, but then there’s an update that breaks them. The idea of being able to create a whole thriving industry within the game via the economy system is there… automating miner, with a cargo drone moving it to a refining base, then another cargo drone either bringing it to a planet-based faction to sell/trade, or up to an orbiting space platform to be moved to another platform for usage or sold/traded. I’m envisioning a trade system similar to the ANNO series, where you can automate a drone to go between ports to automatically drop off cargo and the credits added to your account. (Also, the ability to have a faction account, not just individual). The ability to set up that on a planet, with drones fining certain ores and automating it all then going to space, could be huge within the game. Being able to have more active NPC faction interaction especially for trading/warfare would be amazing. The possibilities with this game are endless, and could really bring back old players and bring in new ones, and it’s frustrating they aren’t seizing the opportunity.

[@Zer0sLegion]

100% the game needs a better tutorial, something like this would be great!

[@jackprochaska7278]

I was thinking maybe having tiers for tech, so like on earth you only have resources for a like tier 1 thruster, and on farther and farther planets you find new materials for like tier 2 tier 3 and so on, and this would work for most techs in the game.

[@Zer0sLegion]

Yeah something like this but I wouldn't want them to be direct upgrades, that doesn't seem very interesting. I'd prefer they'd each have their own different quirks at each tier.

[@Dswank]

A good game to look at for an example of progression that could work for SE is From the Depths. Factions that have claimed the space around each planet. As you progress through the planets each faction gets harder, and each faction has two or three bases in space and maybe one or two on the planets. Each faction has would have some unique blocks that you unlock by taking out the bases.

[@vilcarius540]

I think youre completely correct that SE needs some sort of goal or actual opposition in the game. In my experience if I'm not playing on some role-play faction server with my friends, I get to the point of, "Sweet I have finally completed my big ship... now what?". That's why I enjoy playing with the Orcs mod since it spawns in enemies that seek you out (opposition), and scales it relatively to where you are at in the game PCU wise (scalable progression). Kinda mini-bosses every now and then to keep me on my toes. Really becomes a rush when I'm playing Never Surrender and have moved my big ship to the beacon and between waves the large orc sips start showing up as well.

[@William0271]

I would love character upgrades like Arc. Additionally, I would love to see them switch to Factorio's research system. Produce different science packs that contribute to the tech tree you want to go down and then 'consume' them in a research lab block. Additionally, we need block programming. I learned C++ or C# (It's been 2 years and they're so similar I don't remember tbh, was easy enough since I know JS) to program an "AI Core" for my Andromeda replica but it would have been so much quicker and noob friendlier to just allow block programming (or make an external tool for it) as that would really open it up to a lot more people that don't have the time. Also, they really should make Defense Shields mod base game with tweakable settings. I'd like to see more efficient parts that are locked behind rare resources scattered about other planets and asteroids of increasing difficulty (or parts you must steal from other factions). Wishful thinking but let's get some proper missile guidance systems for player-made missiles.