Space engineer

[Gormador]

Do any of you know of a good let's player for this game? Single or multi player, don't care, as long as it is good (meaning: no sandbox, only "survival" ; preferably no goofing around, at least not as a main goal).

And I know Vioki got a series going on since a few days. This is what made me look for more ;-)

[FlowerChild]

The problem is there's just not really any survival play or progression in the game that would make the above kind of LP possible.

Like it's cool watching Vioki and Charlie muck about and learn the basics cold (I've been watching that too), but I suspect they're going to hit a wall after a few episodes once they realize that there isn't really any depth to the underlying survival mechanics, and really that they spawned with absolutely everything they needed to stay alive (random asteroid impact aside ;) ).

[Gormador]

Yeah, that's what I feared (hence the double quote around survival)... Oh well, I'll probably stick with them then, hoping to see some nice additions in the future :-)

[Stormweaver]

Coestar and some mindcrack guys are doing a bit of a playthrough; it's not the most thrilling content in the world, but if you like thier humour it's a good watch.

I've been messing around with it on and off - it's not terrible. It actually feels like it has a certain degree of gameplay if you stick it on the highest difficulty settings (bar the high asteriod settings - that just gets irritating after a while without really adding much), with stuff like putting your drill away if you're not using it, stockpiling construction components when you're not making everything else, the inside/outside debate for where you build your base with respect to asteriods.

Now to hope that once it's done, it's modding scene has an outlier who makes good gameplay without requiring a hundred mods.

[DaveYanakov]

Oh damn, hadn't even thought of running a mining operation without ever leaving the control room of your barge. That's the dream right there.

For LPs, SAGE and LastStandGamers seem to be the go to channels. They've been doing a modular construction ship colabaration recently

[Gilberreke]

I just saw this today, looks interesting. It's the first balancing mod I came across for this game:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/scarcity-mod

Seems to go the exploration route, with less reliance on space pirating

[Gilberreke]

I made my own balance mod for this game. It's based partly upon this thread, partly upon the scarcity mod, partly upon the challenge ship and partly on conversations with DaveYanakov.

It follow a similar kind of principle as BTW or BTSM. No more large drills, small grinders, small ship solars or reactors, etc... Space Piracy is now a necessity to progress.

The first release is just the first testing round, balance might not be there yet. I'm interested in everybody's opinions. You can give your opinion here.
Don't give extended opinions on the mod on this thread, it's not my intention to hijack this thread or forum, I'm just notifying you guys this exists :)

You can find the mod here:
Mod download page

[FlowerChild]

Oh wow Gil, that's awesome man. While the scarcity mod didn't really do enough to get me excited, this thing of yours looks like it might just become my standard way of playing Space Engineers.

Feel free to create a thread for it here if you like, and aren't quite ready for doing the whole public release thing.

[Gilberreke]

New version is out. Pistons are of course a logical development, complimenting rotors and they have a sister block that can slide through one wide gaps. In terms of gameplay, they added semi-auto batteries, which is certainly a good thing as it makes battery use more straightforward.

[devak]

I wish they would make these things easier to use. Like how weapons and tools are used

[Katalliaan]

One of my friends was complaining about batteries a little while before the patch dropped, and how they work. It's a step forwards, but still not quite there yet. In my opinion, we need something like what several tech mods for Minecraft have - conduits for power, rather than have it magically distribute itself through the hull (at least for large ships; small ships can get away with a bit of handwaving due to the fact that they don't have interiors).

[FlowerChild]

Same for item distribution IMO. This magical "your items could be anywhere in this system" thing just doesn't work well.

[Katalliaan]

Yep. I'd kill for a toggle switch for "inventories connected to this one". Oh, I have a few missiles ready for my launchers? That's nice, but where's the big cargo container I hooked up to this one for my medical supplies?

Assuming that's how they conveyor system works, anyway. I haven't messed around with it that much, but I assume that it means things like refineries feeding uranium to reactors and materials to assemblers, or being able to move items from one end of a big ship to another by connecting cargo containers with tubes.

[FlowerChild]

I played around a fair amount with conveyors when they were first released, and frankly, they're a mess.

Items can be drawn from basically anywhere in the system they're connected to but there's no real way to direct output say from an assembler into a specific inventory space (like a cargo container) because everything exists as very nebulous data. There's no real concept of item flow or anything. If a machine needs something, like a refinery needing ore, it checks the entire system for it and moves it to its own inventory. If its own inventory is full when it finishes processing it, then it transfers it elsewhere in the system that has inventory space.

You wind up with a big mess of stuff as a result with no way to really sort it or even direct the output of specific machines to specific cargo containers, nevermind stuff like prioritizing say refining iron over gravel.. This is also particularly annoying if you then want to eject stuff out of the system for say transport elsewhere in another ship, but is also annoying for just manual collection of the stuff you've made. Even if blocks like assemblers had specific input and output ports it would help a heck of a lot, cause right now they both draw and eject stuff from the same orifices.

I get the overall impression they're making everything as abstract as they can in an attempt to make it "easy" to understand, but are just kinda winding up with a very difficult to predict mess as a result. Same with the power system.

Of course it may all be very first pass WIP stuff, but still, I haven't been very impressed with the automation potential yet.

[Gilberreke]

Yeah, I agree, and as I said in my mod thread, it limits the game design potential of the title. Having to work around systems and make complex routings is a game in itself that you can then start designing.

With the current state of the assembler and how it losslessly converts anything to anything, combined with the conveyors being so fluffy about everything, this feels more like "dicking around in space" than "space engineers".

The few parts were I've seen them apply game design do give me hope. It's clear they have some people with the talent for game design, but they'll need to cultivate that talent and give them reign. It's clear they don't right now.

[FlowerChild]

One of the things that really bugs me about the assembler at present is how all tech progression is based on it. Really limits things as far as scenario design goes IMO when you need this huge high-tech piece of equipment (and power generation for it) to make any progress whatsoever.

Would be really nice if some of the basic components, eventually leading up to an assembler, were craftable by hand or what have you, maybe with a series of machines that allowed for greater crafting flexibility building up to it.

Actually, more specialized crafting machines that maybe only handled an item or two might make automation more interesting as well, like having an industrial press to make steel plates, some kind of etching machine to make circuit boards, etc.

[Gilberreke]

The game design in this title seems really confused, battling between stuff like the assembler and conveyors, that are of the "magic box" type of utterly simplistic to use and stuff like the blocks making heavy use of GUI sliders being complicated to control and capable of doing a multitude of things.

I don't have high hopes for this title, but at the infancy of this genre, we'll have to take what we get and it's certainly not a BAD game. There's certainly enough fun to be had for the price-point it sits at right now.

[FlowerChild]

Oh, there's certainly a lot of fun to be had here. I don't think it would really be worth discussing in depth otherwise :)

[Gilberreke]

Oh, there's certainly a lot of fun to be had here. I don't think it would really be worth discussing in depth otherwise :)

Of course. It wouldn't be realistic of me to expect every game made to fall in the category of games I end up playing for more than 1000 hours. There's maybe a handful of games over 2 decades that managed to do that for me.

[Gilberreke]

I came across some cool mods, while hanging around the mod scene a bit:

Fix for cargo ships not attacking you:
http://forums.keenswh.com/post/7010864

Space virus (WIP):
http://forums.keenswh.com/post/7008802

Radiation (WIP):
http://forums.keenswh.com/post/7012685

The two WIP mods are not really there yet, but certainly the kind of stuff I'd love to see Keen do

[devak]

I came across some cool mods, while hanging around the mod scene a bit:
[..]
Radiation (WIP):
http://forums.keenswh.com/post/7012685

i like the radiation idea.



I do feel like Space Engineers is a box of lego, but nobody figured out what to build with it. It contains all sorts of pieces but nothing as a structured whole. It's a game, like Factorio that i boot up, play a couple of hours and then dont touch for months.

Most of all, though, i'd wish they cut the current inventory implementation and made it possible to actually create assembly lines. It annoys me to no end that Rock is almost impossible to filter out and that i'm refining aluminium when all my assembly's are dead because they need iron.

[Gunnerman21]

New space engineers update is out Here

Mainly adds block control through the toolbar, including the ability to have multiple toolbars for lots of commands and possibly blocks. Also adds more control through rotors and pistons.

[FlowerChild]

That's actually a huge usability update. Lack of hotkey controls for doing stuff was a big problem.

[Gilberreke]

That's actually a huge usability update. Lack of hotkey controls for doing stuff was a big problem.

I agree, can't wait to try that stuff out, sounds interesting. This is what I meant by there being at least someone in their office with game design talent. They should put him in charge.

[FlowerChild]

I agree, can't wait to try that stuff out, sounds interesting. This is what I meant by there being at least someone in their office with game design talent. They should put him in charge.

Well, I don't dispute there may be such a person there, but I don't think this feature is a good indication of that. It's pretty low hanging fruit and was just something the game desperately needed that was more noticeable through its omission.

Even without design talent the constant bitching from the community about it likely would have tipped someone off ;)