Space Engineers

I honestly had given up hope on getting a "complete game" experience from this title.

Consider me genuinely surprised that Keen is still progressing towards that end:



Keen apparently has been working hard on multiplayer stability and getting the "sandbox" part of the experience right. According to the video, they are close to locking that down and next will be developing a proper gaming experience.

I know a lot of us bought this game with high hopes of something great coming from it. I can't be certain the game will meet all our expectations, but I take comfort in the fact that Keen seems committed to doing their best to not let us down.

 

I know almost all of us (including myself) have moved on from Space Engineers, but if Avorion's release date gets pushed back from Q2 this year, I'm considering relaunching a Space Engineers to keep us busy in the meantime. I will appreciate your feedback in this endeavor.

Apparently, Keen has been working hard to make SE a "proper game" with goals, progression, and new scenarios that can be played as a group. According to the most recent dev blog, SE will finally be coming out of "Early Access" on Feb 28th! Here is an excerpt about the announcment:

You can find out all the juicy details here: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2019/02/space-engineers-release-date.html

 

Just a neat video comparison of the game and how far its come visually:

Old and busted (Early Access trailer from 2013):


New hotness (from last year):

 

The in-game scripting has gotten a lot better.


And someone finally made a working Imperial Knight from WH40k:

 

"How To" Mod
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1247517839

List of mechs used in video:
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=835796923

 

Extrapolated from Marek's blog (CEO of Keen Software House)
https://blog.marekrosa.org/2019/01/year-2018-in-review-plans-for-2019.html

I may be reading too much into this, but based on the AGI presentations done by Marek on "GoodAI", I believe Keen's long term plans are to implement NPCs into Space Engineers. It's super old, but I know for sure I've seen at least one video showcasing bot pathfinding across a randomly generated obstacle course:


What's special about this is that, usually, programmers have to predetermine pathways for bots to follow. This programming has the bot analyze a structure and then plot the best path in real time.

 

They finally did it! SE hits full release!

 

Yeah, with a few notable exceptions, I definitely agree. I really want to like the OKI collection that has been balanced for vanilla play, but there's just too many damn guns in that pack. You only need about half of them.

 

If I recall correctly last time we played, there were only neutral ships that would randomly spawn and fly in a straight line before disappearing. They would attack only if you got in range, but that was it.

Now I don't want to mischaracterize SE in its current form. To be fair, it is still a very "sandbox" experience. If you are looking for a experience similar to Freelancer or Wingcommander with a focus on missions and story, this is not that... not yet anyway (there are "story campaigns", but I will get to that in a minute). However, a lot has changed since we last looked at this as a community. I think this is a good summary:

Source: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2019/02/space-engineers-release-date.html

Now while the main event is still multiplayer survival, they've also added a short campaign that is a good showcase of some of the mission scripting they can do. There are also a couple of community made campaigns that are pretty good as well (all fully scripted missions). With the most recent patch, they have also added a new mode which is basically just wave defense, but it's really fun building/repairing your own base as waves of enemies descend upon you.

Basically, the foundation is now laid with a greatly improved experience across the board... but that's all just "out of the box" vanilla stuff.

What is important to keep in mind is that SE is one of those weird games where the modding community and devs work far more closely than what you typically see in game development. There are at least a dozen cases of community mods being directly incorporated into the vanilla game. Keen Software (the devs) have even hired certain prominent modders from the community. There has truly been some inspired work coming out of the Steam Workshop. I haven't really seen anything like it this side of Skyrim.

Now when you start considering the best the modding community has to offer, the game content available becomes much more comprehensive. There is just a ton of content out there that really brings the game to life. Here's a collection I have of some of the most popular ones out there:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1666322410

The best part is the game is finally at a point where the foundation is built. Everything that comes after is going to enrich that experience. In the CEO's words:

Source: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2019/01/year-2018-in-review-plans-for-2019.html

In summary:
The sandbox experience is only one facet to the game, but it is still (for now) a "big facet". If sandboxes aren't really your thing, is Space Engineers worth it for you to pay full price right now? Probably not.

Is it worth it when it goes on sale and you have people to play with? There is definitely enough varied content to make it worth it.

Is it worth it when playing with friends and using some of the most popular community-led mods. Most definitely.

If you are on the fence, my best advice is to wait for a sale, but I can say with absolute confidence that the game is a great opportunity for us to come together as a community and play together as a single large group. There are very few modern games that offer that free of ridiculous grind or paywalls.