Anyone find that Space Engineers is just... boring?

[Burger McFries]

Even with planets, the game isn't very fun as a sandbox for me. Maybe it's because of the terrible building system that forces me to make "stations" instead of allowing me to build anywhere. Maybe it's because digging into the ground is an inaccurate pain in the ass. But it's just not fun.

I love sandbox games, but this one has the same problem with the lack of spark. I see a mountain, and I embark in my spaceshuttle to go to it. I land, and there's five ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ robot dogs shredding my ship to pieces. I then had to make a new world without robot dogs (why were these enabled by default again?) and go to a different mountain. Well, I have to make a "space" station. It'd be pretty helpful if placing it wasn't so damn disorientating, but it is what it is.

Then I realize that "thin walls" are a foreign concept in this game and that I have to make my base quite a bit bigger than it should. Then I realize that, hey, this is really monotonous. There's no "click" feeling like there is in other building games, where you have the inspiration to go and make things and brilliantly alter the game world. No, instead I'm limited to a few types of structural blocks and a bunch of other blocks meant for survival mode.

Survival mode would be fun if it wasn't a chore, too bad it is. I'm not looking for a cakewalk, but there's a line between challenging and fun to not being challenging at all and just being repetitive and mind-numbing to play.


There's something missing in this game, and it's hard to put my finger on it. Maybe because of the strange mashing of voxel terrain and then awkwardly slapping a bunch of oversized Minecraft blocks on it? Or perhaps it's because the planets are less interesting than space, with half assed enemies.

Anyone else feel like this, or am I alone here?

[LastPint508]

Yes, its a broken, troll infested piece of ♥♥♥♥.

[mmille14]

SE is primary a game like that super Lego set with all the gears, motors, and such. Once you build the stock vehicle(s) it is a toy of imagination for those who like to build things. In that sense is does not get boring at all. If you are more interested in the "content" aspect of SE, then yep, you will get burned out quickly.

While survival is very weak in content, that is where the physical limitations kick in and that adds a great deal to the designing/creating aspect. I play survival for the physical limitations. I mine and land on planets, etc, just to test how well my builds work. As for needed resources to build I just spawn those in.

I would have preferred Keen focused on the engineering content and forgo the whole scenario/story content. Make that available via the moding tools and let the player community develop the immersion/experience content.

[lPaladinl]

I'm going to try explaining my position on Space Engineers again, even though I know I either fail to do so accurately enough, or end up getting flak for it regardless. I know some people understand what I mean in most cases, such as CasualSailor, and I know Vangogh has more understanding of my issues even if we rarely see eye-to-eye.

Space Engineers lacks anything that bring it above being just another Sandbox. Sandbox games are a dime a dozen these days, even AAA Developers are trying to get in on the Sandbox game market and copying games like Minecraft.

So what does Space Engineers offer me that other Sandbox games don't? The answer is a much more empty, and to me, pointless, experience.

Progression in Space Engineers, for me, ends after I get a Mining Ship. The only objectives the game naturally hands me when I start up a new game is that I need resources to do things. Specifically in the beginning, the one thing I need most is a ship capable of mining. Then I startup a small base or ship with basic logistics to dump ores and smelt them. Now what? What else do I need to build after I have my resource production started up?

The answer to me is nothing. There is nothing more I need to do. I get resources, and i can now make things. However I struggle to find a need or use for anything I make from that point forward. I already have a Mining Ship, I no longer need anything to further resource gathering beyond making things bigger and better. The only reason I would expand my bases or ships is so that I can do the same closed loop of progression over and over and over and over again.

There's not much depth in progression for resources. Any mining tip can mine any ore. Any smelter can smelt every ore. Any simple ship is enough to get you started AND finished on the one and only progression loop in the game.

There's also very little challenge in the game. Logistics is mostly extremely simple unless you are making larger, uneccessarily complex designs to do things that don't allow you to progress or accomplish anything beyond "I made a cool thing" and possibly blow things up. Space Pirates suck as an enemy to combat in a video game. They are both extremely stupid and somewhat unfair unless you build an overkill ship and then you've won the entire game once you figure out strategies or just get a large enough ship. I can win any fight just by steering the drones into Asteroids because of their unintelligent A.I. Cyber Dogs are horrible enemies that have horrible spawn conditions, horrible A.I., and being in a game with horrible FPS/combat mechanics, have a horrible punishment for when you don't have turrets absolutely gunning down every single one of them as they spawn AROUND A PLAYER at random. Spiders are literally the same thing but at least they don't explode.

So, the progression sucks. The Shooter Mechanics suck. The enemies and their A.I. all suck. The Physics suck if we were going for realism in any capacity (not that you have to, but they don't allow for interesting aerodynamics if this were to be a flight sim.), not to mention that we're stuck at 100 m/s and everything breaks if you go near that limit. Most of the mechanically interesting blocks tend to break the game in various ways.

All in all, there just really isn't anything in Space Engineers that makes it stand out over other games for me, because there's nothing that makes it stand above being yat another creative sandbox game where I place legos and smash things or blow them up, as if I haven't done that enough times in the past 20 years I've been gaming.

[LastPint508]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

I'm going to try explaining my position on Space Engineers again, even though I know I either fail to do so accurately enough, or end up getting flak for it regardless. I know some people understand what I mean in most cases, such as CasualSailor, and I know Vangogh has more understanding of my issues even if we rarely see eye-to-eye.

Space Engineers lacks anything that bring it above being just another Sandbox. Sandbox games are a dime a dozen these days, even AAA Developers are trying to get in on the Sandbox game market and copying games like Minecraft.

So what does Space Engineers offer me that other Sandbox games don't? The answer is a much more empty, and to me, pointless, experience.

Progression in Space Engineers, for me, ends after I get a Mining Ship. The only objectives the game naturally hands me when I start up a new game is that I need resources to do things. Specifically in the beginning, the one thing I need most is a ship capable of mining. Then I startup a small base or ship with basic logistics to dump ores and smelt them. Now what? What else do I need to build after I have my resource production started up?

The answer to me is nothing. There is nothing more I need to do. I get resources, and i can now make things. However I struggle to find a need or use for anything I make from that point forward. I already have a Mining Ship, I no longer need anything to further resource gathering beyond making things bigger and better. The only reason I would expand my bases or ships is so that I can do the same closed loop of progression over and over and over and over again.

There's not much depth in progression for resources. Any mining tip can mine any ore. Any smelter can smelt every ore. Any simple ship is enough to get you started AND finished on the one and only progression loop in the game.

There's also very little challenge in the game. Logistics is mostly extremely simple unless you are making larger, uneccessarily complex designs to do things that don't allow you to progress or accomplish anything beyond "I made a cool thing" and possibly blow things up. Space Pirates suck as an enemy to combat in a video game. They are both extremely stupid and somewhat unfair unless you build an overkill ship and then you've won the entire game once you figure out strategies or just get a large enough ship. I can win any fight just by steering the drones into Asteroids because of their unintelligent A.I. Cyber Dogs are horrible enemies that have horrible spawn conditions, horrible A.I., and being in a game with horrible FPS/combat mechanics, have a horrible punishment for when you don't have turrets absolutely gunning down every single one of them as they spawn AROUND A PLAYER at random. Spiders are literally the same thing but at least they don't explode.

So, the progression sucks. The Shooter Mechanics suck. The enemies and their A.I. all suck. The Physics suck if we were going for realism in any capacity (not that you have to, but they don't allow for interesting aerodynamics if this were to be a flight sim.), not to mention that we're stuck at 100 m/s and everything breaks if you go near that limit. Most of the mechanically interesting blocks tend to break the game in various ways.

All in all, there just really isn't anything in Space Engineers that makes it stand out over other games for me, because there's nothing that makes it stand above being yat another creative sandbox game where I place legos and smash things or blow them up, as if I haven't done that enough times in the past 20 years I've been gaming.

+1 and the multiplayer is broken.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by LastPint508:

+1 and the multiplayer is broken.

Yeah I didn't even touch on Multiplayer being broken either. I admit that I did have more fun with the game when I had a friend to share the experience with, but it quickly met an end when performance craps the bed from bad optimization on certain things (Other players mining out of render distance anyone? What's that, your PC has to use resources to process physics from a player who is nowhere near you? Oh well!)

Besides, I find Multiplayer to be a very cheap, lazy thing for Developers to add to games to make them "better". Literally any horrible game can be "fun" if you have friends to share it with, because you as a group are providing your own content, and it makes up for the lack of content in bad games.

Unfortunately for me, I buy games to have content to experience and play through, not to make up my own content for literally every aspect of the game. If I wanted to play a purely creative "game", I would just be working on my own games or off doing something artistic in a medium that isn't so restricted or sloppy as a video game relying on the "creative sandbox" market.

[Quattro]

whenever i play SE i always play in creative because i simply enjoy to build my hearts desire. To me the game is just about building to the limits of your imagination (also hardware and the game engine) and it's basically just a giant sandbox for me.


"There's something missing in this game, and it's hard to put my finger on it. Maybe because of the strange mashing of voxel terrain and then awkwardly slapping a bunch of oversized Minecraft blocks on it? Or perhaps it's because the planets are less interesting than space, with half ♥♥♥♥♥ enemies."
this i can agree with the game needs something but just like you i just can't put my finger on it

(note: currently have 965 hours and have had the game before ladders were removed so I've had it and play it a long time)

[LastPint508]

Absolutely, coming up on 400 hours and there is just simply no reason to go on anymore.

I loved the multiplayer. Building and swapping ideas in creative was the best part of the game since survival was an unbelievable drag. Instead a player hosted creative server can't run for more than an hour since anyone can simply join and spam the same workshop ship over and over until it crashes.

I get it, Alt F10 and then babysit the game removing the ships MUCH slower than they can spawn them. So then you turn off creative punishing everyone for just being in the room. Dont worry, its just to kick who spamming the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Unfortunately the game doesn't seem to care to keep track of who spawned what in the game so its difficult to determine who is spamming the shoebox with 30 antennas, spotlights and beacons attached. All you can do is try to guess by player location and chat.

Sometimes you get the troll, sometimes you dont, either way, people get fed up quick and leave. Even if they stay and the person kicked was in fact the troll, all you can do is keep kicking them as they keep rejoining over and over. Instead of playing, its now just clicking through menus.

So join someone elses room. Of course, this is what I do now when I need a fix for something empty, but alas, different server, same ♥♥♥♥. Rubber banding, massive ships from the steam store, idiot AI enemies, and the same trolls joining to crash the game. Best part?

When the host just says ♥♥♥♥ it and leaves so if you were working on anything, its gone. Copying your ship every minute is pretty much mandatory.

It's in alpha, and it has been for years, and its just limping to release. Whatever good idea they had in the beginning is gone. What spark or charm it had before is now just frustration.

Can I get a refund? Of course not, that's absurd with the time I have put it. Am I happy I bought it? Not really.

[Burger McFries]

Originally posted by › The Cool Side of the Pillow:

It's only boring if:

1. You never play online

2. Want to do something other than building when offline.

All it needs are a few key things to be more than just a Lego set. Things like:

1. More variety of ground-based life. Not all of it has to be hostile, either.

2. The ability to start with absolutely nothing and progress to star ships. Right now, if you don't give yourself at least a drill, a refinery and an assembler (along with power for them), you can't do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

3. Low-tech equipment and structures. Ideally, everything in Medieval Engineers (including the large-to-small block placement stuff) should be in Space Engineers, but with all the high-tech stuff too. Put the trees on planets to work by making them a useful resource. The only "issues" with this are political and have nothing to do with what is possible/feasible. It just wouldn't be "fair" to people who only own Medieval Engineers if Space Engineers was the same game + more.

4. NPCs. Not just "AI" like we have with the drone pirate ships. I mean actual astronauts controlled by the AI that fly ships and run stations. They could even form their own factions (or be set in creative mode by players), join players as crew, and sell components and materials. Maybe even build stuff.

You deal with those 4 things and this game could be serious fun to *play* instead of only to *create.*

Well, since online is a broken, buggy mess with no signs of improvement, I'll pass on multiplayer.

I agree with your suggestions, though.

Originally posted by k.mitch.gh:

Originally posted by Ayelike:

Nooooo starmade sucks

So true.

Btw OP mechanical and terrain textures should not coralate very well Nature and Space tech should have a different feel not feel like they are corelated. I look at a space shuttle i see science and tech. If i look at terrain i see the earth its natural beauty. Mechanical textures and terrain textures in my openion should be slightly oposing.

I mean that the art style feels disjointed. Everything block-wise is, well, blocky and chunky as hell. Not only that, but because of the voxel terrain, it's a pain in the ass to dig anything out. So much as digging a small underground space-ship-garage would take a looot of minutes trying to manipulate the terrain.

I hate to use Minecraft as an example here, but if there's one thing it does right, it's making player-made blocks fit in perfectly with natural blocks.
I do NOT want Space Engineers to be a Minecraft clone. I just want it to have a better building system for terrain, because as it stands it's VERY awkward and nearly impossible to use. It's no coincidence that most player-made structures and maps for Medieval Engineers and Space Engineers keep in-ground constructions at a minimum - it's a pain in the ass to do.

I agree that they should be slightly opposing, but not to the point where they have entirely different construction systems that makes the transition look awkward and weird.

Originally posted by LastPint508:

snip

Originally posted by Stratos Tigra:

whenever i play SE i always play in creative because i simply enjoy to build my hearts desire. To me the game is just about building to the limits of your imagination (also hardware and the game engine) and it's basically just a giant sandbox for me.


"There's something missing in this game, and it's hard to put my finger on it. Maybe because of the strange mashing of voxel terrain and then awkwardly slapping a bunch of oversized Minecraft blocks on it? Or perhaps it's because the planets are less interesting than space, with half ♥♥♥♥♥ enemies."
this i can agree with the game needs something but just like you i just can't put my finger on it

(note: currently have 965 hours and have had the game before ladders were removed so I've had it and play it a long time)

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Originally posted by LastPint508:

+1 and the multiplayer is broken.

Yeah I didn't even touch on Multiplayer being broken either. I admit that I did have more fun with the game when I had a friend to share the experience with, but it quickly met an end when performance craps the bed from bad optimization on certain things (Other players mining out of render distance anyone? What's that, your PC has to use resources to process physics from a player who is nowhere near you? Oh well!)

Besides, I find Multiplayer to be a very cheap, lazy thing for Developers to add to games to make them "better". Literally any horrible game can be "fun" if you have friends to share it with, because you as a group are providing your own content, and it makes up for the lack of content in bad games.

Unfortunately for me, I buy games to have content to experience and play through, not to make up my own content for literally every aspect of the game. If I wanted to play a purely creative "game", I would just be working on my own games or off doing something artistic in a medium that isn't so restricted or sloppy as a video game relying on the "creative sandbox" market.

Honestly, it feels like the developers bit off more than they can chew and gave up halfway. I've had this game for a few years and the largest feature I've seen added so far was planets. They may have had an excuse for the small, petty updates before planets were released because planets were a huge task and they were focusing on it, but now it has been 5 months since they were released and the weekly updates are still pathetic.


Some very minor bugfixes, maybe a neat little animation tool to play with, or a different type of glass. These sound good in practice, but the bugfixes are so small that I don't even noitice they were fixed as the major ones are still there.
They're working on two games, both with a ridiculously ambitious scope and both still in early access, on the same engine, and the big advancements in one aren't felt in the other.
There are so many improvements in SE that would go great in ME, and vice versa. Hell, ME is purely land-based and they haven't even figured out how to make said land fit in well with the rest of the building mechanics. It's just kind of there.

I mean, it's better than no updates, but there's two products here that have barely any momentum.


Speaking of Keen taking on too much of a workload, didn't they donate $100,000 dollars to modders and also fund an AI research company?

http://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/05/space-engineers-full-source-code-access_40.html
http://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/04/introducing-our-general-artificial_8.html

Yeah, they did. I'm guessing that Keen is swimming in money, so I don't think that funds are a concern. I honestly don't know what else to type, development has slowed down drastically and the company appears to be doing well financially.

[lPaladinl]

As well as began development on yet another unfinished game that has similar issues. Go figure.

[bean]

Please, package and send your tears to Keen HQ. Your complaints are the complaints made by 7 second attention span teenagers. If you don't like the sandbox aspects of the game, why the hell did you buy the game?

If you're frustrated that there isn't anything to do - make something to do. Seriously, christ. Build a hardened military base. Have it go rogue by setting it to pirate ownership. Develop new technology to defeat and eliminate it. There's tons of stuff to do if you have an actual imagination and don't need to have your hand held through your whole life.

AI mods expand the content, block mods open more opportunities for engineering. Multiplayer doesn't work - so what? This game is perfectly playable in the single player aspect. Oh, and did I mention it was still not released and is still early access? Cause..it is.

[Burger McFries]

Originally posted by orannj:

Please, package and send your tears to Keen HQ. Your complaints are the complaints made by 7 second attention span teenagers. If you don't like the sandbox aspects of the game, why the hell did you buy the game?

If you're frustrated that there isn't anything to do - make something to do. Seriously, christ. Build a hardened military base. Have it go rogue by setting it to pirate ownership. Develop new technology to defeat and eliminate it. There's tons of stuff to do if you have an actual imagination and don't need to have your hand held through your whole life.

AI mods expand the content, block mods open more opportunities for engineering. Multiplayer doesn't work - so what? This game is perfectly playable in the single player aspect. Oh, and did I mention it was still not released and is still early access? Cause..it is.

Yes, we should all completely forget about 4 pages of discussion JUST because you want to feel like you're a special snowflake.


The development has slowed down to a crawl. Saying that imagination and mods make everything all better, that's like saying you can finish a lego structure with duct tape and dreams because the company didn't feel like actually finish the set.


As much as you would like to believe that "Early Access" is a magical term that excuses a game from all critiques and judgement, you are wrong. These developers stopped trying completely, branched off into more half-arsed projects to earn money, and then watched the cash flow in while people look the other way because it's Early Access.

Early Access is now a term that actually makes games get MORE negative attention, because of people like you who think it's an end-all be-all excuse for laziness. So thank you, you special little thing, for reinforcing the stereotype that most Early Access games are either mediocre (like SE) or just terrible, terrible things (Pixel Piracy) recieve positive reviews just because they're in Early Access. This attitude results in a resentment towards indie-games and decreased sales from the GOOD Early Access games because they're blanketed under the same term.


Also, as for your "7 second attention span teenagers" argument, I've played Dwarf Fortress for several hundred hours. If you're going to try to prove a point, do it without a strawman argument, and don't try to slug around insults as an excuse for not having much of any substance in your argument.

[Dragon Crisis Core]

Originally posted by ethanwdp:

Originally posted by k.mitch.gh:

So true.

Btw OP mechanical and terrain textures should not coralate very well Nature and Space tech should have a different feel not feel like they are corelated. I look at a space shuttle i see science and tech. If i look at terrain i see the earth its natural beauty. Mechanical textures and terrain textures in my openion should be slightly oposing.

I mean that the art style feels disjointed. Everything block-wise is, well, blocky and chunky as hell. Not only that, but because of the voxel terrain, it's a pain in the ass to dig anything out. So much as digging a small underground space-ship-garage would take a looot of minutes trying to manipulate the terrain.

I hate to use Minecraft as an example here, but if there's one thing it does right, it's making player-made blocks fit in perfectly with natural blocks.
I do NOT want Space Engineers to be a Minecraft clone. I just want it to have a better building system for terrain, because as it stands it's VERY awkward and nearly impossible to use. It's no coincidence that most player-made structures and maps for Medieval Engineers and Space Engineers keep in-ground constructions at a minimum - it's a pain in the ass to do.

I agree that they should be slightly opposing, but not to the point where they have entirely different construction systems that makes the transition look awkward and weird.

That is because irl they are, voxel terain cant move at least not yet. Technicly ships/stations are not moving either the blocks we build with are placed upon a grid which the grid moves but the blocks do not. If we were to create smooth transitions between terain and blocks, we would have texture fusion issues to deal with and the station would no longer be a station grid and it would be a terrain placement with block textures. (your talking some huge rewrite of the game code to permit complex voxel sculpting tools like landmark beta to be brought into this game)

The reason minecraft works so well is because everything in minecraft is technicly terrain and everything is the same shape, a sqaure.

[Bdeslaurs]

with some skills you can do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiuh2xTctPg

[MechaDraco]

Originally posted by ethanwdp:

The development has slowed down to a crawl. Saying that imagination and mods make everything all better, that's like saying you can finish a lego structure with duct tape and dreams because the company didn't feel like actually finish the set.

Just wanna say I love this analogy

Originally posted by ethanwdp:

As much as you would like to believe that "Early Access" is a magical term that excuses a game from all critiques and judgement, you are wrong. These developers stopped trying completely, branched off into more half-arsed projects to earn money, and then watched the cash flow in while people look the other way because it's Early Access.

I have to say that I dont completely agree with this statement, Yes Keen has branched off to do some other things, but they are infact still working rather consistantly with the game to get it running, one of their biggest issues was their need to release new content every week, which was all well in good, but after 2 years of releasing almost nothing but content, now they have to work on the bugs and the optimization, Would I agree they are handling it incorrectly? yes I would, but I feel the argument to say they just DONT care at all is a little much.

Originally posted by ethanwdp:

Early Access is now a term that actually makes games get MORE negative attention, because of people like you who think it's an end-all be-all excuse for laziness. So thank you, you special little thing, for reinforcing the stereotype that most Early Access games are either mediocre (like SE) or just terrible, terrible things (Pixel Piracy) recieve positive reviews just because they're in Early Access. This attitude results in a resentment towards indie-games and decreased sales from the GOOD Early Access games because they're blanketed under the same term.

Whats worse in my opinion is that most early access games do suck, and space engineers at least at its start, was certinaly one of the better, I think that things have come to a stand still with SE, but that doesn't mean the game can't still be good, I simply think Keen needs to change up their strategy's a bit, as the game progresses, so should their methods, as I am sure you will agree. (also I happen to like Pixel Piracy, though its been a bit since I played it.)


In the end I jsut feel as several have said, and I have said, the issue is simply that the game itself has no built in experience, tossing the game over to modders to do your work for you, is not how these games should be, and though I do have high hopes for the game still, I just dont know how long its gonna take them to get there, and I do worry that it never will.

[Maddo]

My play-styles...

Survival: I usually play 1x everything and stall out after getting a couple refineries up. Building bigger ships is just a huge hassle (at least until you have a wall of welders and can just print them). Also, there's little point because by now survival is a trivial challenge.

Creative Building: I do this occasionally, but I'm generally not happy with how they look once I'm done. Usually spend as much time testing the designs as I do building them.

Workshop pasting: Browsing workshop, pasting in various ships and watching as they shoot each other to pieces is fun, but does get old fairly quickly.

Posting on the forums is fairly fun as well.

I'd like them to improve the gameplay of ship welders and grinders. IMO they are just a major pain to use. (The exception is a wall of welders in a ship printer, which is conversely too easy to use)

I'm also looking forward to improvements to the scenario features, I had a lot of fun with Minecraft crashlanding/skyblock/challenge maps and hope this game eventually has something similar. (will need the game to settle down some before people are willing to put hundreds of hours coding that stuff though)

Edit: The explosion radius on missiles against small ships is pretty brutal as well. Maybe reduce missile speed or accuracy significantly so they are ineffective against small ships.