Empyrion - Galactic Survival vs space engineers?

[clop1000]

What are the main differences?
Does Empyrion - Galactic Survival have better multiplayer?

[Rockatansky]

SE is better thanks to modding. Same as minecraft.
Empyrion is easier. I guess.

[HurtfulPlayer97]

SE is more of a Engineering Simulation. EGS is much more casual. Nothing has to be connected in any specific way. Build stuff any way you want. And there is lots of stuff to shoot with the stuff you build in EGS. It has been discussed before:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/383120/discussions/0/2264691117422389181/

[Digstar]

Space engineers if you want a more "mechanical" type game in terms of attach a to b to make c work where as with EGS thrusters etc will work regardless of block/part placement in relation to fuel tanks etc as with most parts. The physics feel more realistic too and crashing in SE causes vehicle/ship damage.

Despite the above, imo EGS wins hands down in terms of game play. You have a vast universe with enemy allied factions, a storyline (though somewhat lame imo), varied planet types and a sense that there is danger out there. SE on the contrary feels empty. The planets in SE have no wildlife either with the exception of some badly implemented wolves and spider type creatures. No water either.

My opinions are from a single player perspective though. Never played SE in multiplayer. SE feels more like a science project imo where as EGS has more fun factor with arcady space ship mechanics.

[`KokoJacK_^]

SE is mainly a sandbox building game, very realistic. It's almost like a simulator. It has some very light survival element but the core gameplay is to build to solve problems.

EGS is a survival and a building game, like Minecraft (or 7 Days to die). It has story, shooting elements, npcs, factions, mobs etc.

I find EGS better to solo play because grinding isn't that hard whereas SE might be better in multiplayer because the game feels very lonely and has a lot of grinding

[clop1000]

Btw does EGS has a story or missions? Can the game even be completed?

[ravien_ff]

Yes it has a story and missions. There is no true end, since it is an open world sandbox survival game with about 15,000 star systems.

[Pembroke]

Well, the campaign story probably will have an ending. After all, it's intended to be a campaign story...

Current status, though, is that it's "work in progress". What is good from the playability point-of-view is that the devs are implementing it in a chronological order instead of doing bits and pieces here and there. Meaning that all the chapters of the story that are there now are fully playable and complete up to the last one there is. The rest of the chapters will come in later updates i.e. the story as a whole is not yet complete, so no ending in that sense.

Outside the campaign story you can also play it as a full open world survival game without the story line. Then you are essentially creating the story yourself.

As for the differences between Space Engineers and Empyrion it's mostly what others have already said. I think the main points are these:

Space Engineers has the best building system. Of any game I have seen, not just Empyrion. That's its greatest strength. Specifically, the engineering aspects of it and the freedom to create grids that can have sub-grids that can move in relation to each other and the support for scripts that can go really deep in their coding.

The greatest weakness of Space Engineers is its lack of exploration and survival content. The vanilla game is basically a sandbox where you have to create all the content. Mods somewhat cure this by providing enemies and other stuff but as with mods always, they have their limits.

In Empyrion it's basically the opposite. The building system is not actually bad but it's nothing special, either. It's "ordinary", let's say. What you would expect in your standard game. It's also more oriented towards cosmetics and how things look as opposed to how things function. You can make pretty sleek and cool looking ships in Empyrion but you don't have to actually engineer anything. Everything just works "by magic". If you are not interested in the engineering aspects then this drawback probably isn't a drawback and the sheer number of the available block shapes will blow you away. OTOH if you did want the engineering problems, then you will curse it.

The greatest strength in Empyrion is its survival and exploration content. You have life on the planets. Animals, NPCs, interacting factions, all the works. Really, as far as survival and exploration are concerned it has everything Space Engineers is lacking. If this is your gripe with Space Engineers, you'll love Empyrion.

So, yes, engineering or survival play? That's the choice, really.

If only someone would make a game that combined Space Engineers and Empyrion...

[`KokoJacK_^]

As a side note; if you're into multiplayer game, do PVP (there is no PVE) and want to build ship in a realistic way (more than SE, with an editor like Unreal/Blender) Starbase could be your thing

[DCBenton]

SE has more detailed physics but there isn't much to do other than build cool vehicles, it's just an empty Universe so it's boring if you play single player. EGS has more simple physics but has more to explore and do game play wise, especially with the Project Eden mod, so I much prefer it for solo play.

[OnlyZuul]

SE is the big brother of EGS. It's core mechanics are more realistic and fleshed out, it's modding community is bigger and better, it's game-play is more advanced in terms of what the player is capable of building with real-world physics in play.

If you're a fan of real-world physics then you will enjoy SE. It's unforgiving, and has a steep learning curve, but it plays in a way you would logically expect to a large degree.

EGS, at it's core, is more sci-fi than SE and far more forgiving and easier to learn.

[RoY]

SE more restrictive about game play style options. Empyrion gives you a lot more freedom to play however you choose.

[Tunsafun]

SE is a sci-fi simulator, EGS is sci-fi fantasy

[Kryzzk]

SE is a space engineering primarily is about building. Unlike EGS you will build each block piece by piece, the assembler will make all the parts you need and you will take them, place the primary "frame" of what you are building then use a welder to add the rest of the parts.

SE has drones, spiders and dogs to fight in SP if you want them, and people to fight in MP where EGS has NPC's to fight and PVE/PVP options per playfield.

Like EGS there is trading and currency in SP and MP if you want it.

Block hit points are way lower in SE the slightest contact with another object or a fight with another ship will ruin your day if your not very careful.

The universe is vast and can be traveled with or without jump/warp drive, however, there are usually only a few planets right where you start and no where else unless placed by you or the sysop if it's a server.

SE can be set to have meteor showers every so often forcing you to build a base/ship that can defend it from the falling rocks so it isn't ripped apart whereas EGS has different environments on planets that can kill you.

SE has modded blocks and items that you can add via the workshop, EGS does not as far as I know.

There is a lot of differences between the games, SE is an Si-Fi engineering game with a few survival elements and EGS is a Si-Fi fantasy-survival game with a few engendering elements.

And as far as who has better multiplayer, that will depend on what game you prefer. In my opinion, I prefer the MP on EGS, but only because I'm not a fan of how fast my builds can be ripped apart by another player in SE.

[Sprocket66]

SE is for building. EGS is for playing.

SE doesn't have much to do after you've built your creation though. EGS doesn't have the cool crash physics and pistons/rotors/hinges/scripting but has so much to do, especially the PE and RE scenarios.

SE has a number of underlying glitches that the dev's haven't bothered to fix. They just gave it a name and even put posters and Clang Cola in the game as a joke. Then they went down the dlc hoe road instead of expanding and fixing the base game. The dlc's were so buggy (other than the pretty new skins/blocks) that it was very hard to complete the included scenario's because of glitches, especially Frostbite. After ~1300 hours in SE I permanently uninstalled and deleted all my blueprints when they went down the mod.io rabbit hole last January.

That's when they held all your private blueprints on your computer (not just the uploaded ones) hostage and disabled dlc content that you paid for unless you gave a 3rd party data collection company full access to your system. I hear that they have adjusted that a bit but any company that pulls crap like that doesn't deserve my business. Add fact the Medieval Engineers abandonment fiasco weeks after promising to finish it and I'll never have anything to do with Keen dev's again.

SE was a great idea for a game, poorly executed by a horrible, amoral company.

[piddlefoot]

One is a game, one is a space sim.