[AUDIO] The soundtrack needs way more ambient/atmospheric tracks.

I love Space Engineers. I've been playing since SE1's early access days. But the soundtrack has had the same problem since the first game, and it's getting worse in SE2.

About 90% of your time is spent welding, planning, scripting (programmable block my beloved), mining, or just flying through empty space. It's slow, methodical, meditative even. That's the appeal. But the music is scored like you're in the middle of fight in a live-action movie. There's a massive disconnect between what you're doing and what you're hearing.

The early SE1 alpha tracks got this right: https://archive.org/details/space-engineers-original-sound-track/

Tracks like the Intro theme, The Red Ship, Plans of a Genius - had this calm, slightly eerie feel that actually matched being alone in space doing space engineer things. They felt like space - big and indifferent. It was perfect. But even in the alpha soundtrack the tracks keep escalating — bigger, more orchestral, more "epic" tracks take most of the screentime. I think every player had some annoying, boring experiences and then the game throws 3 orchestral epic bossfight tracks at you. That's when you mute the music, for many of us - forever.

And now in SE2 it's cranked up even further. Some of these tracks genuinely sound like outro of a Bond movie or a Nolan film. Cool music on its own, sure. But when it kicks in while I'm trying to figure out how to place something or sitting in a cockpit staring at the void, it's almost comical.

I'm not saying get rid of the intense stuff entirely. It will work greatly during combat or when something dramatic is happening. But the game needs way more quiet, atmospheric tracks for the 90% of gameplay that isn't combat, liftoffs or rapid unscheduled disassemblies. Think about how EVE Online handles this — a lot of SE1 players (myself included) are putting on EVE's soundtrack instead, because it actually fits the mood of hanging out in space.

Some suggestions:

• Add more ambient/atmospheric tracks that complement the building and exploration loop.
• Weight the music system so the calmer tracks play during non-combat gameplay and save the big orchestral stuff for when things are actually happening. For example: of all things that didn't go well in Kerbal Space Program 2, this part they got right. When the music matches what's actually happening: it feels magical, and more importantly - doesn't get old.
• Give ability to skip tracks. Obviously would greatly decrease the annoying situations that lead to mutes.

More ambient music means that the epic stuff is reserved for when it's something you'll actually remember. You'll hear that track in 5 years and go like: holy shit that was such a good time, I should reinstall the game and hop on that server with my friends again. That's the vision I bet would resonate with many.

This is early access, so now's the time to get this right. The composer team clearly knows how to make good music. It's just that it has correspond to what the gameplay is actually about.