SE2: The Space RPG

Space Engineers 2 has the opportunity to compete hard with other big names in the space game space.

However, to get there, a number of systems are needed!

This post is me brainstorming what those systems might be, and how to implement them...

THE TRADER

The fundamentals of grid-to-grid trade here. The trader buys low and sells high. This means any two connected grids must be able to trade. There are three modes of trade:

• Automated to Automated: Trade is resolved based on what item stacks are set to sell/buy at what price - no player activity needed beyond setting up the pricing
• Player to Automated: Player has UI to buy/sell with money based on what item stacks the automated grid has for buy/sell
• Player to Player: Bartering system, no money necessary. Both make their offer and trade is executed when both agree.

Automated is either a grid of a nonpresent player, or an AI grid.

Money is required - stored in player character Pocket, or in a Wallet Block, or in a Stack of Coin in cargo.

The trader must be able to Travel between stations and Profit off price differences.

For this to be fun, Travel between stations must not be instant and must not be free. If you can just teleport back and forth, thats not fun.

I suggest fast travel has cost by mass, to make slow travel preferable for traders.

The trader must face challenges as well. There must be random encounters with hostile agents. Pirates and such. The trader has to choose based on situation:

• Do I Fight?
• Do I Flee?
• Do I Negotiate?
• Do I Hide?

Each option must be supported - Player Weapons to fight, Thrusters/Warp drive to flee, NPC Communications to Negotiate, Cloaking devices to hide. Each option should have pros and cons. So the answer varies based on what enemy you face, where, and what you are carrying.

The trader must take advantage of dynamic markets to profit. This can be player driven partially.

There should be:

• Shortages (temporary high demand)
• Abundances (temporary high supply)

To react to these, Rumors must exist. These can be radio transmissions trader receives through antenna by trader to begin with. Later, maybe you need NPC contacts or other more advanced systems to receive rumors.

To create shortages and abundances, stations should have a balance of supply and demand. Randomly generated disturbances would shift supply/demand balance to create shortages and abundances. Player actions can be factored in - if you sell a ton of gold to a station, their offered price shall drop.

The station balance would be things like high flow of tech, low flow of food, medium flow of ammunition. This determines what kind of shortages and abundances can occur! You cant have a shortage of ammunition in a station that uses zero!

So Each station deals in different resources, and only those resources can have shortages/abundances!

THE BOUNTYHUNTER

The bountyhunter makes money by shooting at pirates. They will use the money to buy better ships and weapons. They will operate on information of expected pirate activity, received from NPC.

Unlike a trader, the bountyhunter does not want to spend time traveling. Fast travel should be cheap enough for the less massive bountyhunter ships to move about! Alternatiely, bounties must pay well enough to allow fast travel. Third alternative is for bountyhunting to be a local operation - no travel required.

Stations need NPC who give information about pirate locations.

Pirate locations may also be received without NPC, by decrypting their communications with appropriate equipment.

To receive money from kills, destroying a ship or killing a pirate NPC should give you Proof of Destruction. This proof can be traded in at a station for a reward! Think of it like a video recording of the destruction.

The bountyhunter wont just use a ship! They will board pirate stations/bases and disabled vessels and shoot at enemies FPS style!

So, game needs Weapon Upgrade System! Lots of weapon types with pros/cons. Upgrades or attachments. I wont go into detail, just look at other games for ideas.

THE EXPLORER

The explorer seeks untouched random encounters. To encourage exploring far, random encounters should be better the further you go (to a point). They would explore wrecks for hard drives and other curiosities. They would take samples off distant asteroids.

NPC must buy their findings!

Some kind of peaceful space aliens for study would be cool for explorers, if realism doesnt prevent it.

Every time the explorer approaches an asteroid, they receive a map to said asteroid, with information about its ore deposits. Maps can be sold to NPC or players. Could also apply to found large wrecks, sell to NPC or Salvager role.

THE SALVAGER

Seeks random encounters, not to explore, but to consume them for components!

NPC should sell maps to salvageable structures, at low price. Alternatively, salvager will just hunt for random encounters to find them themselves.

The salvager will then sell the salvages resources, or use them themselves.

Sometimes the process can be challenging, if dangerous items are present (mines, reactors, still active defense systems)

THE INDUSTRIALIST

Will buy resources and process them into better ones for sale.

Resource production must require enough energy and space to justify industrial specialization!

Industrialist operate off somewhat stationary ships/stations.

They are almost like a trader, but instead of traveling from A to B, they process from X to Y.

THE MINER

Buys maps for resource rich asteroid clusters (none of this individual asteroids stuff), or randomly searches for them. Mine, sell, repeat.

Gathers gas from gas clouds.

Lands on planets to obtain resources missing from space.

THE BUILDER

You use blueprintes to build ships! Or just build from pure creativity! Buy resources, build the ship, sell ship to NPC or player.

There must be a wide selection of blueprints for ships.

NPC must be able to buy any ship - price calculated off its properties and composition.

The challenge is in obtaining the right resources for low price. Not so much in the construction itself. Set up your construction yard near a central station that has low prices for most things!

THE ENGINEER

Buys wrecked ships and figures out how to make them functional again, then sells them.

Receives colonization effort contracts to repair things (like the game is now).

SATELLITE / STATION OPERATOR

Must be able to set up stations and satellites where NPC and players can Trade (which includes charging, filling tanks). Imagine a giant solar field for charging ion ships. Or a hydrogen hub to fuel ships.

Game must simulate NPC ships traveling to and from stations. They would buy things, they would sell things. Could be physical, or just simulated transactions. Whatever performance allows for. Player can then get their money once in a while, passive income! Could be balanced by needing repairs now and then, consuming ammo to protect against pirates, stuff like that.

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FOR ALL ROLES

Game will need a shipyard for both selling and buying ships.

THE SHIPYARD

A region of empty space where you can either bring a ship to sell it, or buy a ship.

There are Complete Ships, there are Wrecked Ships.

You can sell your own built ships here for profit.

You can buy wrecked ships, drag them to your base, repair them, and sell them back, for profit.

For every role, there should be complete ships to buy, tailored for the activity! Each ship should be designed to be Extendable and open to Improvement. Add more thrust, more cargo, some extra drills, betteer weaponry!

Ships with no room for improvement (call them "Optimized"), should be very expensive!

So you have Multiple Paths to Owning Ships:

• Buy a complete ship
• Buy a basic ship and Improve it
• Buy a wreck and Repair it
• Build a ship from scratch

A shipyard UI is needed, to browse various ships in their various forms at their varying costs. It needs specialized info on ship capabilities and stats.

Player sold ships should appear in the shipyard! If I sell my own designed ship, or repair one and sell it, I should be able to give it a description and have it appear in the shipyard. This is mostly for flavor. If in multiplayer, someone can buy it. You can also buy a ship back, it wont go anywhere if nobody buys it.

Ships in the shipyard dont physically exist in the world, they will spawn in when bought. The UI should still show images from several angles. Maybe even allow loading a Simulation where you can inspect the ship in detail in 3D.

SHIP IMPROVEMENTS

Beyond better blocks, or more blocks, each ship should have Upgrades that apply to the whole grid and subgrids, not any individual block!

Because each role must have a path forward, even if they like a specific ship and dont want to switch to a "better" one.

So you can upgrade your favorite ship without changing it structurally!

• Hull upgrades
• Thrust upgrades
• Cargo upgrades
• Weapon upgrades
• Cloaking device upgrades
• Shield upgrades

Upgrades would be done at stations, in exchange for resources or money or reputation. I suppose upgrades could also be uninstalled if youre about to switch ships.

Upgrades could be Looted as well, or provided as rewards!

Think "Hull upgrade Tier 4" you receive if you perform a particular mission, or a "Kinetic Damage Upgrade Tier 2" you discovered looting a random encounter.

REPUTATION

Each role should accrue reputation when performing missions relating to their role. This would lead to better and better missions! It would also unlock more tech, possibly. There could be general reputation, or it could be per-faction or per-NPC, whatever works.

MONEY

In addition to reputation, a lot of the activity revolves around money. Money would be stored in character, in a Wallet Block, or as a stack of coin in cargo.

NO ROLE SHOULD LOCK YOU IN

Every player should be able to play every role for VARIETY. Have a base with a few specialized ships, and just play whatever activity you like. Find synergies between activities. Like a Trader can make even more profit if they also perform Industry activities while flying over the place.

LEVELS

Game should track everything you do, and let you level up in various skills.

• Merchant level
• Fighter level
• Engineering level
• ...

Levels would be a lot like reputation. Levels shouldnt gate content, thats not fun. Instead, I suggest you get rewards for reaching particular levels - could be a ship, could be resources, could be money, anything. Or just achivements to show off!

RUNNING YOUR OWN STATION

Marking landing pads, hiring NPC, somehow determining the economy for trading to work, participating in the fast travel network... Lots of little details to work out!

MISSION CHAINS

For all roles, mission chains! These help you get started for one, but also unlock as you gain reputation, to make sure game stays exciting! Ideally youd be performing your role 50% of the time, and progressing a relevant missions the other 50% of time! Again, rewards for completion - money, rep, upgrades, maps and rumors, anything you could loot.

This probably requires Factions to be interesting.

Missions need NPC, and a good Mission Tracker.

Theres a lot of activity here, since theres multiple roles, and each role has their own missions, in addition to general non-role-based missions. Just accept mission (chains) you have the equipment and will for!

Lots of interesting stories should be told through these mission chains!

BOSSES

Big pirate stations. Truly challenging contracts. Random encounters that need a lot of preparation to even approach. Some could be tailored for multiplayer/co-op! Though then the rewards should be available in alternative single player missions as well.

PERSONAL UPGRADES

Cosmetic and Functional upgrades to your engineer! Modules, upgrades. Yet another direction to progress in over many many hours.

RESERVING SPACE

Especially for multiplayer. Players should be able to Officially buy or rent:

• Asteroids (or whole asteroid fields)
• Regions of space (even entire sectors at outer section of delfos system)
• Regions on planet

It would feel so good buying your first asteroid field, all for yourself!

If server is in PvE mode, these reservations would be like Vallation station, you cant damage anything as a visiting player, just use the services. Of course NPC may still attack, pirates and lifeforms...

PvP could occur in specific PvP sectors where keeping and defending space/stations is incentivized somehow - perhaps these could be where gas clouds occur, and theres not enough gas for everyone.

TECH TREE

To progress in the actual construction part of the game, you would receive Tech Points.

You can then freely spend these in a Tech Tree!

Some tech would have multiple ways of unlocking - Tech Points, Missions, Money, Reputation, Resources... So everyone can play how they want.

Other tech would be gated behind specific missions, whatever makes sense.

Anyways, the tech tree shows what you need to do to progress toward the block you want.

Dont hide the tech tree, that will just force players to look it up online, not fun.

LOOT AND REWARDS

• Money
• Reputation
• Upgrades for ship/suit/tools/weapons
• Maps and Keys
• Ships
• Rare Components
• Tools and Weapons
• Cosmetics
• Consumables for Ship (energy, fuel...)
• Consumables for Character
• Tech Points

END GOAL

First, colonization. Each role should play a part in the effort.

Second, a space monument. Dyson sphere around Delfos? Provide resources to NPC station responsible for construction. Or perhaps a massive space station that just needs to be welded!

NUMBER GO UP

As you play, you build and buy better and better ships. You get more and more money. You obtain better and better upgrade modules for ship, suit, weapons. You level up. You gain reputation. You progress deeper and deeper into Tech Tree. You progress Colonization and Space Monument. You buy areas of space all for yourself. You build up your personal Stations and Satellites. You complete mission chains for multiple roles. You complete hard encounters and boss missions. You do all of this while juggling several roles depending on situation or feels.

I think that is enough activity for a while!

Comment on Roles I missed and what core systems they need from SE2 to play well!.