Steel Plates - Realism doesn't always make for a fun game

[AstronautPug]

(maybe I should title this post: So this is why it takes hours to build a damn ship!)

I've got to praise Keen on one thing - They designed the volume, density, and weight of iron ingots and steel plates to be almost exactly the same as real life!

...But seriously Keen, this is a game. It shouldn't take you hours to set up basic machines in the beginning of the game, nor should you have to have a massive logistics chain to build a medium-sized ship in less than a day. Games are supposed to be entertaining, and basing key mechanics entirely off of realism will just make the game boring and grind-ey.

You can't even make a point against this by saying Keen is trying to go for total realism for Space Engineers, because there are obvious flaws in the realism of space engineers. For example:

Ion engines run entirely on electricity. Not only is this completely false (Ion engines in real life use Noble Gases for fuel, usually Xenon), but it is physically impossible to propel yourself using only electricity in a vacuum.

Making these types of things overly realistic doesn't make for a good game - it makes for a tedious game. Please, do something about this, it's just ridiculous.

[Unome Koi]

It takes you hours to build a ship? I play on realistic settings, and it doesn't take me that long.

The first ship I built was a miner followed by a welder. Took maybe an hour and a half for both. After that, minutes to construct any project once I've came up with a design.

The object of the game is to engineer your way around the limitations. Not play it like Minecraft.

If you're having that much problem with everything. Then I suggest: play a different game, or subscribe to the Build and Repair mod.

[AstronautPug]

I was talking about a large grid ship, not a small grid utility ship.
And technically you can build a large grid ship in about an hour if you have all of the resources at the ready, and a team of 3-4 people.

"The object of the game is to engineer your way around the limitations."

I'd love to play the game like it's "supposed to be played" but I can't engineer my way around problems because it's practically impossible to automate these things in most servers and or in vanilla, and I don't have a team of 400 people to gather resources and build ships - Oh wait, I can't even get a team of 10 people because the game implodes when you connect 2 people to a server.

The entire point of the post was explaining how games should be entertaining, and how holding left click and f for 30 minutes to gather the materials to build a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ box is not entertaining

Sure, I'll play another game! Let's try medieval engineers, that's a lot more fun than SE - OH WAIT, Keen abandoned that game because fun is illegal.

[Burstar]

You've been watching Xocliw play to long. If you're hand bombing ore into your refiners and hand welding blocks after 30 minutes of play you're doing it wrong.

[Unome Koi]

Originally posted by AstronautPug:

I was talking about a large grid ship, not a small grid utility ship.
And technically you can build a large grid ship in about an hour if you have all of the resources at the ready, and a team of 3-4 people.

"The object of the game is to engineer your way around the limitations."

I'd love to play the game like it's "supposed to be played" but I can't engineer my way around problems because it's practically impossible to automate these things in most servers and or in vanilla, and I don't have a team of 400 people to gather resources and build ships - Oh wait, I can't even get a team of 10 people because the game implodes when you connect 2 people to a server.

The entire point of the post was explaining how games should be entertaining, and how holding left click and f for 30 minutes to build a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ box is not entertaining

Sure, I'll play another game! Let's try medieval engineers, that's a lot more fun than SE - OH WAIT, Keen abandoned that game because fun is illegal.

"I was talking about a large grid ship, not a small grid utility ship.
And technically you can build a large grid ship in about an hour if you have all of the resources at the ready, and a team of 3-4 people."

I don't really play with others, mostly because of griefing. I've heard of the game not really liking a lot of people on. Which is why I avoid servers. You might be able to play with some friends via inviting them to your game. I have done that a couple of times, but the lag is real.

"I'd love to play the game like it's "supposed to be played" but I can't engineer my way around problems because it's practically impossible to automate these things in most servers and or in vanilla, and I don't have a team of 400 people to gather resources and build ships - Oh wait, I can't even get a team of 10 people because the game implodes when you connect 2 people to a server."

I rather like the grind. I'm medically retired from the USAF, so anything I can do to occupy my time is welcoming to me.

"Sure, I'll play another game! Let's try medieval engineers, that's a lot more fun than SE - OH WAIT, Keen abandoned that game because fun is illegal."

Lol!!!! It does suck! I've watched a few people play that game. They enjoyed it for a little while. Then they just complained. I stopped following it and decided not to get it because of that.

[Unome Koi]

I've heard of tutorials that help with changing the files to go over even the 10x's inventory space. Not to mention there are a ton of mods that drastically change the way the game works. I avoid them because of that. Might work for you though. More mods means more problems though.

If that is something that you do, be careful no to go overboard with it.

[mid endian]

I think I understand what you mean. There's another space Survival game out there that does away with connected conveyors. It gives you more freedom to design the ship the way you'd like, for Aesthetics and whatnot, rather than be slave to the conveyor system to make all of your functional blocks work together.

But fun is very subjective after all, some people like going through the grind, others would like to skip it entirely. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle to greater or lesser degrees. I've been asked to edit someone's save, and place ores in strategic locations, with NPC bases or ships nearby. All depends on what that person wanted. One time I shoved platinum in the middle of a mountain that was located in the poles, and it had a very wide base. Another had Cobalt put right underneath a pirate base.

The reason I was asked to edit the safe, is so they don't know all the details of what happened, and might get surprised a little bit.

[Buzzard]

Quite frankly, if your server implodes on 2 people connecting, you're doing something wrong. Either the hardware isn't up to spec, there's a problem with configs, or there's some problem with mods.

As to hardware specs, there's a few providers who claim that their stuff will work, despite being below the listed requirements. The minimum specs are there for a reason. The more people and mods that get added only raise the necessary system specs.

Configs, there are others who know more about the subject, so I'll pass on commenting there.

Mods... some mods don't play well with others. Some do really nasty things to servers. Some are completely fine and don't conflict with hardly anything. What they all have in common is the fact that each one takes extra resources, and has the potential to do strange things when combined with other mods. Some testing may be needed, starting with a fresh, mod-free, world, then adding in mods, one by one, and checking server performance each time.

[eightiesboi]

@AstronautPug, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I have a question: if you don't like certain elements, like the grind, then why not play in creative mode? Personally, I grew up building LEGO spaceships from my own imagination, and SE scratches that itch for me. I don't mind at all having to grind for resources and slowly set up my own base until I have enough automation in progress to head for my next arbitrary milestone. I've already gotten about 60 hours of enjoyment out of SE, so even if I tire of it tomorrow I will have had my money's worth. My frustrations are from some of the restrictions of the game itself, but I am also playing vanilla at the moment and may be able to ameliorate some of the issues via mods.

I noticed from your profile you are also a fellow KSP'er . Do you play in career mode or sandbox there?

[Pembroke]

The nitty gritty details, linked conveyors, and the need to actually engineer solutions is what I like in this game. Seriously, the build mechanics and how freely you can build all kinds of contraptions is an aspect where Space Engieers leaves the competition far beyond. It's actually really surprising considering this game is, what, six years old?

Now, in other things, like exploration content and NPC opponents, "that other game" beats Space Engineers. No arguing there. But its block building system is seriously lacking. Everything connects and works by pure magic. Stuff teleports at will. No collisions. And the death sentence to all engineering: No internally moving blocks in a grid and no connecting of grids to make things that have freely moving parts.

I'm not bashing "that other game". It's *also* good. But in its own way and because of its own strengths. Explore, combat NPC enemies, creatures to fight or flee, etc. However, building and engineering things is *not* among those strenghts. There Space Engineers reigns supreme.

Which is a bad thing also, because I'd very much want to have a game that combined the good things of both games.

Plus the orbital mechanics and physics from KSP. Yeah, that would be my dream game.

[Prometheus_Unbound]

Got to admit, the semi-realism is one aspect i like. Though i am one of those people who adds mods that adds more 'realism' to it, such as needs, and jetpacks that are less than useful. The grind is part of the fun. And as Unome said, you engineer your way around certain limitations or problems. the reason i can play this for hours and hours is because there is a grind aspect to it and because i have to engage my brain planning and engineering.

However, as to the grind, i can see how many could find that a pain in the backside. I dont want to gatekeep, but if grind is not your thing, even with all the settings at 10x, survival, at least, is perhaps not for you. At least not without mods.

On the other hand, as eightiesboi mentioned, you could just treat this like digital Lego. I do, sometimes. Whenever i have an idea for a ship but dont intend to do anything more with it than make it look nice.

At the end of the day, sandbox games are whatever you make of them. Dont feel constrained. No one can tell you to play one way or another. And there is certainly no 'right' way of playing. Want to play survival? get yourself a large container with a ton of resources in and make it a blueprint. Paste it in when you start a new survival world, maybe. I am doing a survival scenario i made for myself that uses something like that (the idea being that mining and such is not the point. But i still need to tend to my needs and my bases needs.)

[humanoid.mp4]

R e a l i s m you say? Well, I have noticed recently something interesting about steel plates. They weight more than the amount of iron needed to produce them. Tested this on default settings after I noticed that my ship was gaining mass from nowhere in survival.

[Hewlett Craphard]

Dear OP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by Alex_kneze:

They weight more than the amount of iron needed to produce them.

Maybe they make very high-carbon alloy steel in the future?

[Prometheus_Unbound]

Originally posted by Pembroke:

Originally posted by Alex_kneze:

They weight more than the amount of iron needed to produce them.

Maybe they make very high-carbon alloy steel in the future?

that shreds like tissue paper at the slightest thing... :P

[FreshHighVoultageGandalf]

In early games it all comes to - you not having enough inventory space to mine enough ore-
and if you did so you dont have enough refineries to melt all the ore.
After spending prolly 100 hours of building 56 refineries of which half are for platin only, and now finally you can start to build things in survival just like you can in creative with the small but weighty twist that you have to weld a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of blocks. And once you have halfway finished your projekt you happen to find out that you have used too many thrusters and everything was totally unnessesary because the game lags now.
( maybe the block limit is there for a reason but hey, i can turn it off and then complain about a laggy space engineers)
But it certainly feels ( like all building games with creative and survival) that the start is grindy and once you get there you dont know what to do.
Combat is not that satisfying because you literally destroy everything in a minute.
And the realism- in space engineers ? HUm. Give me a giggle there. It is whether you can " Uh i will build everything with the slowest progession possible (everything x1) , and will suffer through the slow grindy realism because i am such good at suffering through slow grindy realism and ignore the fact that the refinery speed is a total mess at x1. Or you will set everything at x10 and be in creative mode 10 times faster than in x1 mode- But you havent done it in x1 mode so your opinion doesnt matter anyways -

(Now the big butt
Lets see what the future brings- the new upcoming update looks very interesting in terms of overall gameplay with the trading thingy)

Jeez Rick just set the inventory, tech research, whatever option you like to turn off or higher to your liking, and boom there you go - still grindy early game but hey - you are the mister man of your game - slippery slide in admin mode - give yourself a refinery or two . some solar panels, maybe a smoll mining ship, and make your way out there as a lonely outpost builder.

And dont try multiplayer if you want to set up bigger ships and bases.

Just dont.