Current Sad State of Affairs With Space Engineers

It has been hard to watch the decline of Space Engineers over the past 18 months or so. The developers have completely caved to the uber players who spend their entire existence playing video games. Forgotten has been the vast majority of the rest of us who actually have a life, a job and PAY real cash for these games. We don't have ridiculous gaming rigs nor do we relish the opportunity to spend many hours searching for rare resources.
Right now, the game is unplayable for newer AMD hardware as it freezes, stutters and crashes. The solution, for a year now, has been for each user to modify the games local files through a detailed process which needs to be repeated after every update. This is something which should have been addressed many months ago, and would have, by any responsible developer who even remotely monitors its customers experience.
Even if the game would run, the decision to reduce and/or eliminate uranium content requires a massive increase in time requirement to achieve even the slightest progress. This is a complete cop to the small hardcore gamer community who have nothing better to do than spend dozens of hours tediously seeking out uranium.
It is truly disappointing to see the developers lose interest in the product that defines them; but that has happened so often in this industry as to become almost axiomatic. Still, sad to lose Space Engineers.

 

A simple mod puts uranium back. So what's the problem?

 

Nothing could make my point more clear than the absurdity of that comment.

 

Although I'm dancing, I'm also crying. I'm crying because KSH didn't consult you at the onset of this game's design and create it exactly the way you through it should be. Do you see my tears? Seriously...I've got tears as big as horse turds falling from my eyes.

 

Here is probably another absurd comment, if you are in dire need of Uranium you can use the Admin tool to spawn you some...just saying there are work-arounds.
The absurdity may lie on the one not willing to budge.

 

That's poetry in motion, Mojo. Poetry in motion.

 

I'm no fan of uranium removal either - I think it's a failed attempt at making solar / hydrogen more attractive, instead of just making them viable in their own right.

However, said removal also doesn't slow you down that much if you absolutely must have uranium - it's not like you need to put in any significant effort to just build a cheap hydrogen ship and go look for asteroids with uranium deposits. Bring along some platinum too while you're at it. And of course, if you start in space you're just fine anyway.

It's more of a nuisance than an actual problem.

 

I haven't found Uranium naturally since the change, had it not been for someone sharing GPS locations I would still be looking.

 

It's not THAT hard to find, and they had to do something as once you find a deposit and refine up 50-100 kilograms of ingots, you're pretty much set for a long long time. It made any other form of power generation pointless. Any while it can be a bit of a pain finding it in asteroids sometimes, once you find a single deposit it's again usually enough to keep you powered for, well, forever. On planets/moons wind turbines are fantastic, strong constant power output. Build yourself a turbine-tree and once and you'll have plenty of power.

In my opinion now the issue is solar panels. They deliver quite low amounts of intermittent power, which just makes them virtually pointless.

 

[SOAPBOX]
Remember awhile back when a lot of people whined to Keen about upping the survival game? So they did, and thereafter came out with a new survival update...new spawn pods...higher suit power burn rate depending on ambient conditions...progression...uranium not on planets...etc.. Some people loved it, some people hated it. Sure, the beginning is a lot of grinding to get started, but isn't a survival game about figuring out the best path forward to...dare I say...survive? Before that update when SE survival was easy, I would intentionally plop myself on a planet (usually Mars or Alien), jetpack disabled, only with a limited supply of oxygen, and try to survive. Most of the time I did, but sometimes I didn't, usually because I ran out of air (suit power back then was a non-issue). I would run around like a chicken chasing and looting drop pods until I got enough components to build something. Then I would progress very quickly to having everything. But the survival update changed everything, and this new paradigm required new thinking. I realized that to get sustainable power I needed to get off-planet and harvest uranium. So I build a ship just for that purpose...Uranium Express (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1805379684)...and it allowed me to carry enough components to space to build an offworld refining station where I could mine and refine the harder-to-get ores such as uranium, platinum, and even gold, and then carry the ingots back to my planetary base for further building and expansion. I got comfortable with the new survival process, and even got to where I skipped going to space because I could build a really powerful wind turbine array to meet all my power needs. Now, with weather, it's all changed again. My first playthough with a new survival game made me realize that wind turbine power is transient, and sometimes dies altogether when the wind essentially stops. I depleted my batteries faster than a cat could lick its ass, and realized once again I needed to head for the stars to supplement my power needs (or build a much bigger wind turbine array; I'm still debating which way to go). And that's the fun of the game, you see. Solve the problems like good little space engineers. If you want everything exactly the way you want the game to be (and everybody has their own idea of the "perfect" game), then SE probably isn't for you. Learn to play with what you've got, or add some mods to make it closer to your expectations. As a real-life mechanical engineer, I solve difficult problems all the time. And if I've learned anything in my rather long career as an engineer, there are countless ways to solve the same problem. That's what I love about this game. I get to do it many different ways and observe the outcome. Let the fun continue! And kudos, Keen, for such an awesome addition to the game.
[/SOAPBOX]

 

I think a piece of editing software would a great bit of DLC for people playing the game. Most players aren't comfortable modding. Even if those mods are just changing of static values in the game. An editor that can handle the grudges of modding variables in the game might be agreeable... like tinkering with block recipes, part recipes, thruster values, etc... you get the picture. This could also include rules about asteroids and planets including resource placement, distribution etc.

The in-game set-up seems to just touch the surface of possibilities. But adding more options to that might be a bit clunky. So an "editor" might be a bridge... not a game save editor like SEToolbox. But an editor for all (or most) things stored as XML data.

 

Uranium removal has zero to do with "hardcore" players, that's nonsense. In fact, if you actually listened to what the developers directly said, it's the complete opposite.

Keen wanted the game to have a survival progression system. Not "welcome, you have everything you could possibly have instantly accessible to you, enjoy no challenges!"
The point is to give players a sense of progression and accomplishment. You start on a planet, with limited knowledge and resources, then work your way to space where you finally unlock the "endgame." Endgame being mostly uranium, reactors, and jump drives.
This has the additional effect of introducing new players into the game and mechanics slowly, without being overwhelmed by options.

If you don't agree with that, that's fine, but don't falsely state Keen is doing this "for hardcore players [that want to grind]."
That's why this game is so moddable, if you don't like it, just change it.

 

Can we put aside Uranium for a while? It makes the game harder, but not unplayable. What makes it unplayable is that on a Rhyzen sytem like mine which I consider a gaming rig with 32Gig ram and 2 Gen4 NVME ssd in raid 0 I have regular game freezes that take up to two minutes, mostly during autosaves. The game becomes jumpy in between, and I fall through Mars surface (yet again with the current release) This should not happen any more.

 

I will be upgrading to ryzen soonish. It's sad to hear SE won't be playable. Oh well, I don't really play around with SE anymore

 

It was mentioned that they have bought some new Ryzen based systems to figure out this issue.

 

The uranium concern is nonsense and has been jumped on already....

The Not AMD friendly thing however!!! I would assume it has more to do with Windows amd how it handles Ryzen and the newer Radeon GPUs, because last I checked, the XBone is an AMD box.... unless Xbox players will atest to the game literally being unplayable!

Windows' tentacles or not, I can certainly agreed this seems to be something that the devs should have looked into. Considering the latest update I'm under the impression they actually learned some hard tricks and optimizations from the Xbone version that they slipped through to the PC finally. I have an all red update build on the horizon so this certainly need some investigation

 

Funny the person who started the thread hasn't made another comment, we went off on our own tangents.

Maybe he was trolling.

 

Maybe he mined some rocks and got stoned.

 

Until they sort things out...I'll be stuck with frequent crashes even in Vanilla worlds.
--- Automerge ---

I thought Keen had stopped that

 

Well, I understand the tangents. OP really didn't say anything that hasn't already been said enough times here and/or the Steam forums. OP also made post #3 in this thread, just sayin.

 

@ShadedMJ I meant they have not posted in this thread since they made this remark.
I wasn't being anal on the amount of posts they made.
Just sayin.

 

The big problem is simply that they are making it harder to get to mid/end game, at which point there is nothing to do. They should have added some actual end-game content.

 

End Game? What do those words even mean?¿?¿?¿?

 

jesus guys just help the guy if you think you know something that could remedy his problem that he don't. you don't have to be condescending everytime.

its like whenever someone express disappointment in any section of the game, fanatics who are hurt by negative feedback comes from every corner to burn the guy on the stakes.

so he feels like Uranium is now more difficult to search, if you know the coordinates for Uranium ( since it doesn't change anyway ) .. give it to him.

good and bad publicity is a TREASURE to behold and its something that a developer should be thankful for. a free QA analyst.

 

@Capt.SkuLL if you look closer there were several attempts to help the OP with his issue. The first one to offer assistance was @Spaceman Spiff who the OP basically called absurd. So apparently the OP really did not want help.

 

@Capt.SkuLL
yea - he need clearly no help - as the only suitable solution have he called "absurd" - no one can help him ...
Keen have decided to remove uranium from the earth planet - an silly move imho, but it is now no uranium on earth if you play "vanilla" - this cant be changed ... (without mods)

 

i feel like the ores were not implemented equally. the MAIN ORE that we needed the most is IRON ORE ... i barely use Cobalt.
i think that there should be more uses for cobalt and other resources to balance the need for each one.

the rarity of PLATINUM and URANIUM is pointless since the ORE LOCATIONS don't change on each game. once you know where they are, its just a matter of moving.
i like the rarity mechanics, its like hunting, BUT for it to work, the ores must be placed in random.

 

@Capt.SkuLL

on "my" server i use an (self modifyd) mod where place the ores full random - so not an "i know where i found ore x" - and placed uranium on earth too (this have build-in from keen without much work - it is a simply java applet)
(and rebelance the needing of cobalt/silver , or simply overhaul the whole ore placement/finding/gathering/needing system to an more "real survival game like" behavor ..)

 

If I've observed anything at all on this forum an in the Steam discussions, it's that many of the people who are bitching about SE believe that KSH should have known that the game is poorly built because it doesn't conform to the bitcher's ideal. Get real. It is what it is. The player is supposed to be a space engineer. Figure out the need, understand the tools available, and solve the problem with the available resources. Make suggestions if you see a good way to make something better, but for the love of God stop bitching! It's juvenile. And, above all, go play something else if SE pisses you off that much. Maybe something with SpongeBob in it.

 

If you do decide to go play something else, like I did... make sure you continue to stop by the forums and surgically annoy those that take anything here too seriously. It's been a great way to occupy myself at work. I read the comments section of every update Keen launches, not because I have any shred of any hope that the game will turn into something I could appreciate again, but because I simply never get sick of watching people trash talk KSH. Whether it's founded critiques, baseless accusations, pointless rants, or pointed criticism, it just never gets old. Honestly, in this sense, this game has continued to amuse me even after I abandoned it.

How do you nerf ore yields in a major patch and not notice? Oh Keen. [Cue sitcom laugh track]