Arguments for adding back volume

In my opinion, volume is a fundamental part of Space Engineers, and removing it would significantly reduce the depth that makes SE so interesting. Now as I see it there are three possible reasons why you (Keen) have removed volume, so instead of just saying "please please please" I would like to address specifically the arguments in favour of removing volume.

1. You can always know the maximum weight of your ship just by adding up the maximum weight of each storage container.

Part of the engineering challenge is designing ships for specific uses, instead of just saying "well this is the maximum amount of weight I'll ever have to deal with so I'll just put enough thrusters on for that", you instead think "what is this ship meant for, what is its role", if it's meant to carry very dense materials, you have less storage and more thrusters (putting a lot of work in to carry very little), if it's carrying less dense materials you put lots of storage but very few thrusters. This fundamentally does not work without volume, when the amount of storage determines the weight, not what you're carrying. The engineering aspect of it is being able to build a ship with few thrusters but lots of storage because you're carrying something less dense. Or knowing you're carrying something incredibly dense to where you have to build a ship with more thrusters and less storage containers. Instead all of that is removed and you trend towards all cargo ships having very similar thrust-storage ratios, regardless of what they're built to carry.

2. It can be abstracted into quantity and weight.

While true that volume does technically exist, and will always exist, a 1.5m cargo container takes up 3.375m3, or 3,375L, and thus every component has a volume, you can fit 480 steel plates in a 1.5m container, thus its volume is ~7L, or construction component is about 1L.

Using ammo as an example, not having volume doesn't change the amount of ammo you can store, or how that ammo works. But say down the line in a warfare update you decide to add a penetrator round for any gun, this penetrator round is heavier, but does more damage, so if you decide to use it, in SE1 that would lead to the question of "do I want to store the same amount of ammo as I normally would and weigh myself down, or do I want to take less ammo and be able to fly faster?", a pretty major decision, and an interesting one at that, which is answered for you without volume, the answer? You're taking less ammo, you're not allowed to weigh yourself down more to take more ammo. You might say there's no such heavy ammo planned, but what about modders? A modder wants to make a simple combat mod, maybe adding a couple extra guns, maybe just rebalancing current guns, adding new ammo types, adding volume for them is far beyond the scope of their mod, they don't want to add a volume mod as a dependency because then their mod is stuck as a "volume dependant mod" and cannot really be used with other mods that aren't volume dependant. And ammo is not the only area where these types of decisions are taken away from players. By abstracting it you're saying every item in the game has the same density, and removing any interesting gameplay involving the concept of density, the entire concept of density is axed from a game called "Space Engineers".

The fundamental point is; volume exists, it always will, hiding it from players just takes interesting engineering decisions away. Engineering is born from constraints; the more (meaningful) constraints you give players, the more interesting the engineering challenge is. And again, it exists, don't take the decisions it provides away from us, let us play with it, or failing that, at least let modders play with it (without needing significant skill to add volume themselves, thus inevitably adding dependencies and incompatibility with other mods).

3. Space Engineers is too complicated and not very beginner friendly and thus needs to remove/simplify/abstract systems to make the game easier to understand.

The first part isn't wrong, SE is complicated, and not particularly beginner friendly, however the solution is not to remove/simplify/abstract systems, that is, in my opinion, attempting to treat a symptom. Because the fact is, SE is not complex, it may be complicated, but not complex. When it comes to game design, I split those two terms up, simply from the difference in use in the following phrases "that's complicated" or "that's complex". Complex is meant to imply depth, hard to understand but rewarding to do so, it's overall more positive. Complicated is more negative in its connotation, it's more exhausting to understand.

From a practical game design standpoint, how I see it being defined is how steep the learning curve is, a complicated game starts high and rises (either barely or a lot) as you progress, a complex game starts low, but rises significantly as you progress, allowing you to learn as you go, never a step too high that it overwhelms you, the end result may be a game as hard to understand as the complicated game, but it doesn't feel that way since you were drip fed the systems, slowly learning things as you go.

That's where SE falters, it's complicated, but not complex, the learning curve starts high, but barely rises throughout the game, the systems you need to understand at the start of the game, are the same systems you're using throughout the game, just on a slightly bigger scale, there's nothing new introduced, no new depth added as you go on. When in reality, those systems are not even that hard to understand, it's just overwhelming when they're all thrown at you at the same time, so many people quit.

The solution is not removing/simplifying/abstracting systems, by doing that you're just lowering the entire curve, not the start, the same large step exists, you're just removing depth later for the sake of reducing how complicated it is at the start. Volume isn't the only area SE2 makes this mistake.

People often say it's a mistake to confuse complexity for depth, but it's arguably an even bigger mistake to confuse complicated with complex.

You're taking toys out of the sandbox to make it easier to get into the sandbox, but don't be surprised when there's not enough toys to keep players interested for long.

You might say to any individual argument that it's not enough, but together these arguments have significant effects on the depth of the game, the effects of volume are greater than the sum of its arguments. And the fact that any individual argument might not be enough is why you should add it, because that affects the modding scene more than anything, no mod individually will have the scope or justification to add volume, the added depth, however interesting or important to the mod, will not be enough to justify it. What you risk having is a large fragmentation of the modding space, similar to what happened with weaponcore in SE1, only not just affecting weapon mods. And as I said, it might not be large enough to justify any individual mod, which means most mods will hedge on the side of not having volume. Thus making volume niche enough to where players who really want volume, will be forced to choose to not have volume. The reason is simply because if there are 10 mods they want to play with, and 8 of them are incompatible with volume, and the other two are only compatible with volume, which do you think they'll choose? Make volume hidden, give each item a volume assigned to it, each container a volume assigned to it, if you uncheck the "volume" box, then none of that will matter, if you check it, you get more SE1 style gameplay. Thus every mod and it's items will also have volume, so they will all natively support volume, it becomes a choice the player can always make, not you (Keen), not the modders, the player.

An additional point that may be the reason why volume was not added, would be the UI complication, and that having a singular value per item is easier for players to understand. For this point I would argue that UI improvements would ease a lot of that, and it's better to improve the UI and/or tutorial than to remove a whole system.

My solution in the end is not for you to change your vision for the game, if you want to keep volume out, that's fine, but I would ask three things, first is think about why you're really removing it, is it just to make the game easier to pick up? Second, are you sure you cannot achieve the same results while maintaining the depth that volume gives? Third is, if you're sure, and you don't want volume, make it something we can enable if we want it, or at the very minimum something modders can use without someone (or many someones) having to make a "volume mod" that every mod needs to add as a dependency, which will inevitably lead to lack of compatibility with other mods.