Let's list things which are improved compared to SE1 (except visuals).... I'll start:

...and that would be it.

To be honest for me it is so disappointing what is presented so far. I have over 12K hours spent in SE1 and I bought SE2 as soon as it was available almost a year ago to support development of better, improved and performant Space Engineers which I hoped would use 10+ years of experience and legacy of game development. The opportunity to create great game which will take all good and improve all bad.

Instead it feels like nothing of this experience is used. Moreover all wheels are reinvented in poor way. The game presented so far feels like cheap copy of itself targeted to completely different audience (but what is that audience?) and does not take anything good from SE1 while not promising to solve bad things.

And this is not because SE2 s not finished yet, I fully understand this and expect things can be missing here and there, but because after a year of hype I expect solid foundations of new generation of Space Engineers.

Instead almost everything is changed since SE1 - but nothing seems to be done better (except visuals!) and everything feels like steps backward and far behind from SE1. Like someone new decided "let's make a game like Space Engineers but much easier".

- all I have to do in game so far is just mine some ore and weld projections, without even thinking what I'm actually doing,

- my backpack magically converts ore to welder sparks, I don't even need to try remember what types of components are existing, what is required for which block, well I did not even need to learn what types of ores are in the game,

- I move from location to location where stuff is ready and waiting, with huge markers covering half of screen telling me exactly what I'm supposed to do next - feels like tutorial? demo? but hey this is survival/colonization gameplay, isn't it?

- after few minutes I'm done with a game, sitting in space, in my own platform at asteroid with hydrogen ship full of fuel and random stuff, I can go to dead empty space station nearby to talk with contract block and learn that I need to repeat this flying and welding in order to colonize a star system alone?)

Honestly I did not build any single new block, and I did not learn anything about the game except that I can mine ores with hand drill, fly everywhere with jetpack carrying more than my ship and weld projections by touching it with welder.... and also I learned that I hate changes to block rotation keys and ship control. Actually even the 'I' key was not saved from "let's change everything", even if many other games use this key as inventory access.

On the other hand, no engineering and basics of physics at all:

- I fly around with tons of cargo in my backpack using jetpack without need for any fuel (it uses ion thrusters? so they work in atmo or not?), no walking needed, no ship needed,

- I mine rock but it does not give any output because there is no stone mining?

- I mine ores but I have no clue which ore is used to build which component because this knowledge is not needed anymore?

- I don't need any machinery - no assemblers, no refineries, no survival kits, I can fly to space by just mining rocks and welding from my backpack?

- actually I don't need a station at all, because what would be a benefit of it?

- even ship is not needed....

- maybe I should complain that game is too complicated that I need O2/H2 generator and backpack should handle this trivial task of splitting H2O as well?

- I can just grind stuff around me to progress to next tasks because why not?

- all numbers are meaningless, no physics applied at all, I mine tons of rock to do few steel plates, my character can carry 3.2 TONS of stuff but can't take one spare medkit over assigned slots?

- items and containers have no volume, just mass?

- ships fly just bad and unrealistic (inertia dampeners!)

- terminal UI is a joke and ugly, no toolbar actions after year+ of development?

- building is nightmare so far, block rotation keys, blocks losing orientation, selecting block sizes, welding or grinding small blocks over large areas.... sorry, but this is basics and should be finished and delivered first in "builder" type game.

SE1 was niche game, but it fit perfectly in that niche, on the edge of creativity/building/education.

There were numbers involved - simplified but still... energy, thrust, forces, mass, volume, atmosphere density, center of mass, inertia etc. Some things were simplified but it felt about right.

Mechanical blocks, automation, scripts (C#!), mods, plugins, entire ecosystem built over years. All is gone so far and does not look it will arrive quickly looking at the progress so far.

After 10 years of collecting feedback and experience I would expect SE2 will build on this legacy something great with modern graphics engine, improved performance, proper multiplayer and community support.

Instead it looks like "lets change everything and rewrite everything from scratch".