Static Editor

Hello Keen,

I've been a Space Engineer for about 12 years now, and I thank you guys for igniting my passion for engineering and building games. After nearly 4,000 hours in SE, I branched out into other building games, and spent another 10,000 hours not just designing and building, but paying attention to the character of each game's building mechanics.

I bought Space Engineers 2 the moment it was announced, and have patiently watched its progress. Recently another creator launched a racing series and this inspired me to jump in and really see what could be built with the new smaller scale blocks. First, let me say I am so excited that you've included such small-scale detailing blocks, and I hope you'll expand them to include all the slopes and corners of regular armor blocks. I love the inclusion of all the block scales on a single grid, and I really like the core mechanics of the little grid ui and how blocks are placed. I think some polish could be applied to the 'r' to cycle through block variants especially as it applies to different scales of those blocks, but I understand the need to keep the G menu from exploding into a million different options.

What I noticed when building my racing ship is that working at this scale with the traditional Space Engineers build process is a real pain. I loved the process of designing a ship in creative mode and then building it in survival or even building a giant printer to build it for me in SE1. However, even then, it could be a bit tiresome accidentally bumping your ship and having it float off into space (not to mention trying to design anything in atmosphere, or having to delete blocks to make changes to hard-to-access spaces.

I had taken a break from building games for over a year, so it was really nice to approach this with a fresh perspective and the hard-earned wisdom of my past experiences. I think the 'components covered in a box of armor' build style that is so common on the workshop is a symptom of this. To build precise, detailed, or delicate things like fairings comes with a lot of risk. So, so many times I found myself unable to place blocks because I had inadvertently disconnected a chunk of my ship from the rest. This caused issues with mirroring as well, and meant that I had to cut and paste constantly (a pretty well-done feature I might add, despite its current mirroring issues). I was also copying and pasting the entire build constantly just in case I accidentally ruined it. By the end of a couple days of building I was left with a veritable scrapyard of half built ship variants.

I propose a static editor without physics that allows you to move a camera without collision instead of a Space Engineer. Disconnected blocks would no longer be 'lost', they could be reconnected with a merge function. Blocks and components deep in your ship could now be modified or replaced without risk of breaking your entire design. Players would be encouraged to explore negative space in their designs without risk of breaking them or facing a tedious process of finding all the blocks that didn't mirror properly because of the disconnected grid floating next to them. I found myself constantly taken out of my flow by these pains, where in a game like Stormworks I might be in the zone for hours at a time designing away.

I don't suggest any of this to take away from Space Engineer's signature feel of actually building something massive with all the physics challenges that might entail, and I love that process. I'm talking about the design process - the big step in creative mode before a ship is brought into being a block at a time on a survival server. I implore you to look at Stormworks' vehicle editor. Open it up, set the camera to 'free mode', and pretend you're building a space ship at whatever scale you like. Pay attention to the selection grid tool as well. I like how you've implemented pasting, but I think a little more precision with copying would go a long way towards making the design process buttery smooth.

I am proud of your studio for keeping its independence while continuously supporting and updating its game for so many years. It's clear you guys love what you do, and I doubt you will let that well-earned pride stop you from gleaning a bit from one of your contemporaries. Stormworks has plenty of flaws, but its vehicle editor is the gold standard of all the many creative games I've played. I hope this hasn't been too long winded, so let me say it has been a real pleasure watching Space Engineers develop from where it was when I first found it back in 2014, and I wish you all the very best.