Meaningful ore deposits in SE2 - Extended

This is an extension of my previous feedback post, which I highly recommend reading first before continuing. This piece builds directly on top of it with greater detail and broader context. You can read it here

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Part 1: The Ore Detector Problem

Before diving deeper into the ore system itself, there is a critical issue in SE2's current implementation that needs to be addressed: the player character should not have any ore-detecting capability.

Right now, when you pull out your drill in SE2, it essentially functions as a built-in ore detector, with GPS markers for nearby ores appearing directly on your HUD. This creates a jarring disconnect between the player and the game world. Instead of scanning the landscape, reading terrain features, or investing in detection infrastructure, the player simply follows a floating marker. For a game called Space Engineers, this is a deeply uninspiring interaction. It flattens what should be a moment of discovery into a mundane errand, and worse, it pulls your attention away from the genuinely stunning scenery SE2 has to offer.

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"These deposits are completely invisible without detection blocks"

When I said deposits should be invisible without detection blocks, what I meant is that they should be extremely difficult to locate without the right gear. Not literally invisible, but practically so without proper tools.

Rethinking the Ore Detector Block

The current ore detector block functions in a rudimentary way: it marks ores with GPS icons within a spherical radius around itself and nothing more. For a game with as much potential as SE2, this is a missed opportunity.

A far more engaging alternative would be a forward-facing scanner, a tractor-beam style detection block that actively sweeps terrain ahead of it:

Source1: here

When ore is detected, rather than producing a static GPS ping, it would illuminate and highlight the deposit within the world itself:

Source2: here

This distinction matters more than it might seem. Every small interaction in a game either adds to or subtracts from the overall feeling of engagement. A directional scanner that rewards the player for physically pointing it at the right terrain is inherently more satisfying and engaging than a passive GPS radius. It demands thought, it creates moments, and it makes the act of finding ore feel like an achievement rather than a chore. Features like this accumulate, and collectively they are what make a game genuinely fun to play.

Part 2: The Rush to Space and the Cost of Over-Simplification

It has been stated, by Keen Software House or by Marek Rosa himself, that the goal is to get players off the planet and into space/air quickly, to hook them with the spectacle of space content/flying a ship early. The intent is understandable, but the execution risks gutting the very thing that makes Space Engineers worth playing. You can find the source here and in the image:

note: in this case, the ftue redesign comment at the bottom of the image is suggesting introducing players to water too. following the current trend, then perhaps it is by giving them a free water-faring ship as well. Not a great idea... players need to discover this stuff on their own rather than have to be spoon fed and forced. as well as having their joy of construction taken away,

The core gameplay loop of Space Engineers has always been survival, building, and mining. That loop does not live in space, air, or in a scenario where you get a ship for free and thoughtlessly. It lives on the ground, in the tension of having just barely enough materials to construct the next thing, in the decision of whether to dig deeper or venture further. Space is the destination, but the journey is the game, and right now SE2 is doing everything it can to skip the journey entirely.

In se1, the start of your gameplay is your drop pod landing down, then you grinding it down for resources or retrofitting it into something of your own creation. This is good. You get nothing else.

Meanwhile in se2, the player is handed a ship early on and funnelled toward a nearby space station to complete contracts. Those contracts, in their current form, are among the least compelling gameplay the series has ever produced. Making them individually interesting, dynamically generated, and meaningfully varied would require enormous development investment, and that effort would be fighting against the grain of what Space Engineers actually is. Marek Rosa himself has spoken about wanting low effort, big wins: small, easy-to-implement features that deliver outsized improvements to the experience. A rich, layered survival progression on the planet surface is precisely that kind of win. It does not require new systems from scratch. It requires taking what already exists, specifically mining, building, and survival, and making those systems deeper, more rewarding, and more purposeful than they were in SE1. The contracts system, by contrast, is a high-effort feature chasing a form of engagement that simply is not what this game's audience came for.

This tendency to rush players toward space is symptomatic of a broader issue in SE2's current design: the game is being simplified in ways that actively harm engagement. Nowhere is this clearer than in the production pipeline.

SE1 had a clear and satisfying production pathway involving specific blocks where ores were refined into ingots, and ingots were then crafted into components. SE2 removes the ingot stage entirely, going straight from ores to components and also adds backpack crafting for simple components. On its own, this is actually a reasonable call. It reduces friction and cognitive load for both newer and so-called "veteran" players, and the ingot stage in SE1 was not always meaningful. That change is defensible. Having backpack crafting is a great feature.

What is harder to defend is what Keen Software House has added on top of that simplification. There is currently an auto-conversion system that automatically turns ores in your inventory into components the moment you weld a block, with no input from the player required. Removing the ingot step reduced burden on the player, which was the right instinct, but auto-conversion goes further and removes the player's agency and thought entirely. The player is no longer making a decision; the game is making it for them. A new player would have no way of understanding what the heck is happening in that moment. This is the same fundamental problem as the drill acting as an ore detector. In both cases, the game is doing the thinking so the player does not have to, and the result is a session that feels less like playing a game and more like watching things happen.

The better solution is straightforward: remove auto-conversion, and instead let players copy a block's recipe, add it to their build planner, and queue the required components for crafting in their backpack. This keeps the streamlined one-stage production pipeline that SE2 has introduced while restoring the player's role as the one making deliberate choices. The reduction in steps is preserved and the sense of engagement is restored. Each individual simplification in SE2 might seem minor in isolation, but together they add up to a game that holds the player's hand at every turn, and that is the opposite of what Space Engineers should feel like.

Note 2: the current inventory crafting speed is way too fast and needs to be slowed down similar to the speeds in arc if this is implemented. which is a good thing btw.

Part 3: A Planned Progression

What follows is a proposed progression arc that uses the ore system as its backbone and gives the player a genuine sense of earning each stage of development.

Stage 1 - Grounded on Verdure

The player arrives on the surface of Verdure with nothing: no vehicle, no jetpack, or at most a jetpack with heavily limited fuel that is not suited for combat or extended use. They are ground-locked.

This is where the surface deposit system from my original post comes in. Small, visible ore traces in geologically logical locations like cliff faces, rocky outcroppings, and crater rims give the player just enough to start building: a small shelter, a basic refinery, the first real structure. The world around them is alive, with roaming creatures providing ambient danger and incentive to build defences, and cave systems offering both risk and resource.

This stage is unhurried. It is meant to feel like genuine survival and it is meant to be enjoyed, running around through nature and finding a location you like the look of.

Stage 2 - Settlement and Infrastructure

With surface resources beginning to thin, the player invests in their first mining vehicle. Ground rovers become the primary means of exploring and extracting mid-depth deposits between 100 and 500 metres down, which as outlined in my original proposal contain 10 to 50 times more ore than surface nodes and are undetectable without proper equipment.

This is also where a research and progression tree becomes essential. Currently, new blocks are unlocked through contracts, a system that as noted above delivers very little in terms of genuine engagement. A far better model exists in games like Ark: Survival Evolved, which uses a skill tree where players spend earned research points to unlock new crafting recipes and block types.

Source3: here

Research points could be earned through a range of natural gameplay activities: constructing blocks, mining ores, discovering new ores, crafting components, defeating creatures, finding new creatures, completing optional missions, exploration, finding landmarks or simply surviving over time. This ties progression organically to the act of playing, rather than routing it through a separate contract system that feels external to the rest of the game. Unlockable milestones might include suspension systems, ore detector blocks of the forward-facing scanner type described earlier, better drills, conveyor types, basic weaponry for surface and underground threats, and atmospheric thrusters unlocked toward the later portion of this stage.

Stage 2 is the heart of the game. It should be long, layered, and deeply satisfying.

Stage 3 - Breaking Atmosphere

The goal of Stage 3 is to achieve flight and eventually reach space. There are two meaningful routes to get there.

The unconventional route involves players who have unlocked low-tech weaponry using surface-available materials shooting down passing aircraft and salvaging thruster components from the wreckage. This would be an irrational approach for most players but a valid and interesting path for those who know exactly what they are doing, and perhaps particularly appealing for speedrunners.

The intended route sees the player, deep enough into Stage 2, having mined the mid-depth deposits and gained access to materials required for atmospheric or hydrogen thrusters. They build their first proper aircraft, break atmosphere, and make the transition from ground-locked engineer to aerial explorer. That transition is earned and felt in a way that simply is not possible when the game hands you a ship in the first ten minutes.

Stage 4 - The Space Saga Begins

With atmospheric flight achieved, the full scope of SE2's universe opens up. The colonisation system etc; everything else become accessible, and all of it carries weight because the player arrived here through genuine progression rather than a shortcut.

One thing worth reconsidering is the space station positioned directly outside Verdure's orbit. Its presence feels jarring and undermines the sense of discovery that should accompany reaching space for the first time. It raises questions the game does not answer and makes the universe feel smaller than it should. I do not have a definitive alternative to propose at this time, but it is worth the developers thinking carefully about. I believe it should not exist and rather you should get transported to kemik through a wormhole that pops up in a 'final verdure mission' of sorts but i digress.

Part 4: Additional Ideas

Underground creatures would add a great deal to the cave experience. Whether hostile fauna or something stranger, inhabitants in cave systems create inherent danger for deep mining operations and reward players who invest in combat-capable infrastructure or vehicles.

Explosive underground materials are another idea worth exploring. Scattered through cave systems and deep deposits, unstable materials could function as environmental hazards: weakly explosive on contact and capable of damaging unshielded vehicles or collapsing tunnels. If they visually resemble ore nodes, they introduce a small but meaningful element of risk into every mining operation and keep players attentive rather than complacent.