Actual decent gameplay

Yeah, Space Engineers is a dead horse not worth beating and SE2 is going to down a similar path, it's so mind-bogglingly empty, that you can't even begin to come up with something it should have. It should have fucking everything you can imagine basically. Your entire imagination is not even enough to fill that void of a game up. Look at Star Citizen, they tried. It sort of has stuff. Guess what? It's still a triple fucking nothing burger. A bunch of hot air. It's *almost* empty instead of just proper empty like SE. Not so much better. Yeah. Prepare to add blocks until the index craps out or something and it wouldn't be enough. Of course sub systems, of course tangible progression, of course features that, **naturally**, come along with that. Duh! It should have all the systems! That would be fucking boring! But at least it would be something goddammit!!!

Like, the skybox, scenery and stuff, planet systems, even npcs. That's not core gameplay. Those are extras. That's like, the cookie you get with your coffee and throw in the trash or not even bother touching, leave it for the friggin birds. They relatively take up no time to develop. Not because they don't take time but because the rest takes way longer. You put em in once and you're done. Blocks? Blocks are a journey. Weapons are the friends you make along the way. Weapon systems. Progression systems. Complex processing systems? Scientific research systems? Those, those are core. That is the Building, the *engineering* part in Space Engineers. That's what, *should* be focused on. But you know? They've decided to give you a head start and add, nothing! Up to you youngster! Get cracking cracker! Modders will fix it! LOL. All your shit sucks! LOL.

And like, at that point you can start try laying the groundwork for a base game design, plan concept. Because after all that, guess what, you literally got yourself an empty ole sandbox with a bunch of fancy legos. At this point you can *start working on* "a game", *maybe*.

Building, gathering resources and using builds is core gameplay. Right now, in SE2 and SE1, and for the last 12 years, people are making predominantly "fancy" builds, in creative mode, and posting it on the workshop. That's like 95%+ of the game. Gathering resources / building efficient is like 5% which includes actually using your fancy builds. Personally I believe this is where the game becomes too complex for most people and this results in it not being given attention by Keen because of its community driven game design. Basically what should be engaging gameplay elements are kind of neglected half-assed afterthoughts in here. They're basically there to simulate "what if" you would be in situation X, with no real purpose or constraints to it. The most popular mods add new armor block shapes, fancy thrusters, cool looking weapons with cool animations and other stuff for exclusively aesthetic purposes with no intent of function behind them. After that? On to the next build. There is no "after that" at the moment. Gathering resources has not been explored enough by Keen for people to actually try it, unlike other games (see my other ticket for ideas: Alternate Resource Gathering Methods | Space Engineers 2 Support). Building a factory and processing resources is nothing more here than dumping some ore in a general "refinery"-ish type block and waiting X hours. After that there is 1 more step in which parts can be assembled in an assembler, full auto, and you are ready to build with it. That's all there is to the production gameplay which can't really be called gameplay at the moment. It's not interactive at all. It sadly appears to be a niche in the game with no real game design around it either.

It seems Keen is designing in a very reactive way towards an unmotivated community that is supposed to decide where to take the game next, which is nowhere, because they're already here playing the game, unlike new players. Obviously no one in the community cares enough to genuinely determine a new direction for the game, which is something you expect Keen might have learned by now, but actually hasn't.