My Suggestions for Space Engineers, by a very experienced Videogame Player

Hey everyone,

I'm starting this Thread because I was once amazed by Space Engineers and its new Features... while I'm today more then disappointed about the last changes because I think there should/need to be added very basic functions in the Game.

And that's the reason why I start this Thread, I know that I often write much more then the usual reader is willing to read so I split this thread in several Headlines, please just read the parts which are interesting for you.

1. Why I bought the Game and which imagination I had about it

2. What basic features are still missing and should be added
2.1. Space Fights Mode (skirmish)
2.2. The Universe Mode (Complexity AND Performance)
2.3. Linux Server Software
2.4. Advanced Server Settings
2.5. KI and Automatism (Optional not very Important)


1. Why I bought the Game and which Imagination I had about it.
First I have to say: I don't feel cheated by Keen Software... I have played SE hundreds/thousands of Hours and so I have no reason to flame here and don't want that this is understood as a flame.... but it makes me a bit sad that this title has really so much potencial and it just didn't got used till now, while the changes that are needed should really not be that hard to be made.

When I bought the Game, it was because I loved to play Minecraft... to be creative and to be happy when I just builded something I liked after hours of work.
In Space Engineers I've seen a Space alternative to it... and first it was it.... I started with this little base with the small mining ship and so on... and started to build my Mothership which first was just a plattform with all the stuff I needed... but then it felt extremely slow..... so what did I do ? exactly... I builded a bigger mining ship and a bigger building ship and at some point point I was very happy with it.... like in Minecraft... and everything was fine.

Then came the Annoucement for Planets and I thought "wow.... that will be amazing" and my imagination of the Game raised from "just a minecraft in space" to "Can be better then Star Citizen"
Star Citizen with all it's anounced features was something that raised my heartbeat.... a full Universe with Players.... lot of ships and stuff... later I found out how much pay to win will be behind it... and so I focused on SE.. which maybe isn't so realistic because of the "blocks" and hasn't so much details.... but a lot more creativity... and well.. that was for me the great Deal.

I continued playing SE... and at some point my Computer wasn't good enough to have more then 1 fps ... so I saved parts of my progress as blueprints and just continued with parts of my stuff... I mean... it was called that there is still a lot coming in the future and I knew that I will have a new Computer someday in the future.

And last Year I got a "new" Computer (i7 with 3.4ghz and a Nvidia GTX 1660 TI) and so I loaded my Space Station back into the Game... and well the performance was a bit better... but still not playable with my Station in it.
Sure... the Recommended Hardware raised over the time and is now at i7 with 4.5 ghz... but when I imagine that I could (and I want to) play SE in Multiplayer... where I would expect to have MUCH MUUUUCH bigger stations maybe different Teams that all have this size of Space Station... I can't really believe that it would be playable there.. what really makes me sad.
And I don't understand why it makes a big difference if I have 1 10 100 1000 Refinerys running at the same Time.... there must be a better way to calculate in the Game then simulating every refinery/assembler on it's own... every Browsergame/Handygame can calculate massive ammounts of crafting buildings of thousands of players.... and even when it's not 100% realistic... It should be possible to connect this buildings in unlimited ammount without bringing every Computer to Crash... even Humans can do it easily:

When one Assembler creates 10 Steel Plates in a minute.... how many Steel Plates you can create in a minute if you 10 000 Assemblers ?

That shouldn't be so hard to realize to make such things work how they should or am I wrong ?

Well... but back to Topic:
My Imagination was also to have some real nice Space Fights... to have persons that maybe destroy parts of my Space Station in a nice battle.... but in this case I imagine 1fpmonth
And the reality is, that Space Engineers and the way how it works today in gameplay... is just interesting for a little Community... but all the Players that just want to build for some hours but then hundreds of hours of space fights (and that should be much more then the creators that really play this game a lot) just don't get targeted ... and that's really sad in my Opinion.

And now let me say something to the last real major updates I remember:
Jump Drive - Good Idea... and it works well... probably the last real nice change
Economy - Didn't tried it till now tbh.... but I've seen the videos of it and readed the DLC Texts... and under Economy... I would understand a real good trading system.... maybe a new KI which makes it possible to let Mining ships fully automatic run.... hireable KI Space Engineers for it.. that maybe need to be paid.... Trading Ships that come from time to time but also player created playerships that trade their stuff to other space stations.
Style and decoration Packs - Well.. I understand that Keen Software wants/needs to earn Money.... but all this Stuff isn't new... this are really Contents that could be easily made by the Community for the Workshop... but on the Workshop is the only real Solution for fully automated ships with the limitations that modders just have.... so I'm ok with this packs... but it can't be the whole economy model of Keen Software to replace the Community... Sure... bring the DLC's out with this stuff... but please add other stuff aswell that can't be done by the Community.... and tbh. all the DLC's could have been modder made, atleast if some restrictions would be removed.

2. What basic features are still missing and should be added

2.1. Space Fights Mode (skirmish)
Even when a small Community is reached with the actual set of features... it would be a big Deal for Keen Software and also for the Players (for real... wouldn't you like when much more of your friends would play Space Engineers too ?) if it would be possible to have much much more Space Fights or maybe Planetfights in Space Engineer... and for this a relative simple Gamemode is required:
The Gamemode should be chooseable on Server Hosting in some way, when you join on a Server, you can paste Blueprints in your corner of the World, in the Server Settings the Admin should can ban some parts and define how big/weightful platforms/ships can be and a maximum of total Blocks for every Person/Team
After a short period of pasting Stuff into the Server, the Fightphase begins and the Players/Teams can fight each other till Time ends or till some Team got totaly destroyed (maybe no more generator or respawn point is available)
After the Fight Phase you see a Stats Scoreboard and maybe you can change Teams or things like that till the Server resets everything and starts with Phase 1
Result: A Gamemode that is much more interesting for MUCH MUCH more Players so the sales would raise and everyone who likes Scifi Scenarios would love the Game.

2.2. The Universe Mode (Complexity AND Performance)
I want to refer in this Part to Second Life... which has the same Problem then Space Engineers.... the Complexity is just without limits.... and so they just connected more and more Servers and over Teleports you can change to another Server.
And I'm sure that would even a good solution for Space Engineers.... just give Servers the Possibility to get connected to each other with a different/new Version of Jump Drives, to Jump with your Ship to other Servers on the Fly.... so if you add Coordinates(servernumber/adress) of another Sun System (Server) and automatically get connected with your Stuff to the new Server for Raiding, Trading or just meeting Friends.
Beside this, Server Hosters could create their own Networks to take care that noone just builded something in creative/cheat mode while others really builded their stuff by Hand.... that would result in a lot of fun in my Opinion especially over the long run.
This Gamemode would make Space Engineers to a real alternative to Star Citizen.. and look how much people preordered this pay to win title... and now imagine how nice it would be if they all would order and play Space Engineers

2.3. Linux Server Software
Well... I know Linux isn't Supported by Space Engineers.. and hey... I understand this.... just 1% of the Users are playing on Linux Machines... so it's really not needed to support this Community.
But the most Dedicated Servers are Linux Servers.... so on the Serverside it's completly different.
Linux Servers are much much cheaper to rent and are much better for Performance... that also means, that they're better for the Nature because less Power is needed to run all this background Tasks that are really not needed for a root Server on which is just a Space Engineers Server running.... Older Hardware can be used, less Power needed... especially in ages like today where our Planet is close to colapse there is no way to say that it's not needed.... and beside more Online Servers would be online because people wouldn't need to spend so much Money for it.

2.4. Advanced Server Settings
There should be a Script/ini solution to change things about Blocks in the Game.... maybe someone wants to create a Server where you can super fast build up a great ship from 0 to make it possible that a Server resets after a week.
Or maybe someone doesn't like the Jump drive and just wants to ban it from the Server... or to make them much more expensive
Or maybe they want Oxygen or Hydrogen to be just unlimited.... or the Sun Collectors to be 100 times more efficient... this are things that shouldn't need a lot of work by a modder... things like this should be setable in a configfile.

2.5. KI and Automatism (Optional not very Important)
Well... hireable KI Engineers or Soldiers... or maybe just a CPU Core... there are different ways to make this possible... in Result it would be a nice Solution for all the Guys that want to change from being a Engineer to a Manager... a very popular Game Title with this kind of Features were X3 Years ago.... and I had a lot of fun with it.... and I would love to sit on my Space Stations Bridge... and just look out of the Window how the Mining Ship from far away arrives and brings me new Resources... or finishing a Spaceship in the Space Yard.... or seeing 10 fighting ships start.... killing some pirates and come back and then engineers come to repair the broken ships...
I know this Idea would really be a lot of work... and even when I love the Idea of it... I marked it as optional because it's really hard to handle + would raise the complexity problem of Space Engineers even more.

Well, I hope you liked this Thread... and once again: This are suggestions.... and I don't want to offend someone.... I got more then enough fun in Space Engineers for the money i've invested.... but I'm sure that I could have a lot more fun in the next decade.... if this Game would go the right Way especially with the gamemode suggestions.

I'm looking forward to your feedback and sorry for my partly bad english... it's not my natural Language.

Hill of C T

 

In your post your comparing this to Star Citizen multiple times. This will never be an alternative to Star Citizen in any way nor does it try to be.

How large is your station if it doesn't run on that hardware? I mean, are you building a Death Star to 1:1 scale or what?

 

Some interesting thoughts there..

Firstly Star Citizen and Space Engineers are far too different to be comparable. One is a sandbox the other is a tech demo.

Secondly you compared the calculations of actions of SE to mobile games, to clarify for you, your comparing client side calculations to server side calculations. Now this may seem like a simple solution, just run the calculations client side then send the information to the server.
Yes this would work but it would also introduce it's own issues.
This method is not secure which means your wide-open to abuse and cheats, secondly it's lag inducing which means bugs... Lots of bugs.

For your idea of using average build times for assemblers, do not forget that each assembler can have different upgrade modules making them run at different speeds and each interaction happens on its own timer. It's just a limitation on how computers work.

I'm not going to go into the other suggestions here as I feel like I'm rattling on and I don't want to appear to be being negative, just wanted to give you some info to think about.

 

But which one is which? Hmm...

 

Would love to know what is considered "a very experienced video game player"..

I kind of wish there was a mode where I could select one of my creations, and then select a creation for a NPC to pilot and then spawn in and fight against the npc, kind of like a test scenario where you can test out your creation against a npc.

Keen could even use this to test npc ai code "shrugs*

 

Can't you already do this in creative mode? Just change the grid owner to SPRT and they'll attack anything you have close by.

 

I have no idea... I just want a game mode that does it.

That's the problem here with SE, a lot of people just go, well you can do that with mods, or well you can do that in creative mode, or well you could learn a programing language and program it yourself... that's not the point, people want game modes that they can just click and play.

 

You aren't wrong, that would probably be a good scenario/gamemode idea for the devs to implement.

But if you want to try it out now it isn't complicated. In Creative Mode you can just change ownership of all blocks to SPRT and they will attack you.