Survival Feedback Thread

Ladies and gentlemen, you have 383 people asking for a return of the ingots, not counting the discussions on Steam.

This mod you propose: "Balancing Iteration Mod".

Why do the "things half" and not respect this particular request from the community and propose us a mod that goes in this direction.

We: - "We would like a trailer"

You: -"Here is a larger trunk with an automatic opening."

Ok, but that’s not what we’re asking.

So it will take work but take this direction, propose us a SE1 style version and see for yourself the feedback of the people

"BRING BACK INGOTS"

Thank you for your attention to this important matter - T88

I tried installing this mod and beginning a new scenario but I honestly have no idea if it was even the right one. Messed around in the world start mod section and MAYBE I started the right one, but again, no idea if it was even the right one.

No indication when I started the save that it was the one asking for feedback, I tried digging sand and got nothing so maybe it wasn't even the right one. It said it was added, but yah. I'm no slouch and still have no clue if I was running the right thing or how to even do it. Just make it a 'classic' difficulty setting and call it a day.

or make it a game type to click on in "worlds" (select world > iterating in early game) in new game worlds, cuz making it a mod with such poor mod management options is not going to help at all. I cant even tell what mods are on or off or an easy way to see what workshop items I have. I "installed" the given mod, then had no clue if it was on by default on a new game or if it opened another world file option somewhere.

Balancing Iteration mod, I like the digging changes, the backpack welding changes sort of soft lock the start of the game, for Metal Grids, not sure if we need the welder to be more awful, at this point what is the idea of the backpack welder?

I think we need smaller 'smelter' if we're going to nerf the welders in this way.

(Or maybe let us upgrade our backpack welders ability to 'make' things)

Good luck sifting through actual feedback with dumb comments like the ones before this (^. ^) (not the one right before!)

Tested planetary start, no Tutorial + balancing Iteration. For background, love SE1, 100's of hours spent, my ideal style of play would be similar to what Ares at War mod managed to improve - Survival, expanding and securing territory, finding/exploiting/transporting resources, building up autonomous army and PvE'ing to spend the accumulated resources.

With this is mind, feedback:

- ok on the "Planetary Start, No Tutorial", always thought this was going to be a standard option for a start, kinda weird y'all need to put out feelers for this one. Also feel like you should try to decouple the tutorial from the story - some people might not want the story at all but still need the tutorial. unrelated to these test mods, you've heard this 100x before already, but missions ATM are boring after the first couple, hoping y'all are already planning for variety in the future.

- Balancing Iteration feels more aligned with that SE (1 or 2) should be (a sandbox):

re backpack building, this is a very contested topic and for good reason, personally i feel like it over-simplifies too much something that isn't that complicated - there's a reason the Industrial Overhaul and -esque mods are so popular, not saying SE should be factorio (that should be on the mod-side), but also it shouldn't be "mine 3 ores, press left click, super-complex machine built". From the little i tested, backpack building now feels much more "jumpstart-y", so definitely a step in the right direction

re welder speed, ore yields and block cost, welder speed might need some more adjustments but feels more "correct" now. Big and complex things should take longer, small and simple things should be quicker, that way we can plan for "should i build something else to help me build X, or should i just try to hand/area weld it like a chump?" - or in other words "do i spent 20 mins designing a support vehicle to help me do this welding task or do i spent 5 minutes left-clicking". This to me has always been the strongest thing in SE - making me want to do the complex, lengthy and fun thing rather than the quick, simple and boring one.

re Fe,Ni and Si in normal voxels - might need a bit of tweaking, also completely a step in the right direction. i shouldn't be able to build everything i need without looking for ore deposits, and i shouldn't have to spend time just looking for ore deposits to get something done. Mining stone was a good middle ground, where you could easily (albeit with infrastructure needed, which is a plus, a small challenge and gameplay by itself) gather enough to get something started, put some scaffolding up, and plan, and also something to leave in the background while you do other tasks, for example, looking for ore deposits. 10 mins in an couldn't find cobalt? it's ok, at least i have a good amount of basics at home. This is something that was missing in SE2, good on y'all to bring it back.

keep up the good work, and please filter the feedback (not just from this, from reviews/posts/etc). Not everyone knows what they want, or why they want it, and ya got something really special here that is getting some valid criticisms and some completely nonsensical ones.

Oh, and let me use the buttons again! waiting for this more than i was for rotors and pistons!

i appreciate the engagement. Here is my feedback on iteration mod. Gravity feels smoother, ship controls feel better and more responsive. blocks seem sturdier, no more exploding at the slightest touch. instructions seem more specific. However got stuck at trying to create metal grids for the hydrogen ship. we need a smelter and cant lay a blueprint for it. we need backpack welding improved not restricted especially if its vital for game progression. these kinds of elementary oversights is really going to frustrate an already frustrated player base. this seems to be a recurring theme. you keep trying to redo things you already have gotten past, and you waste so much time with these little things. well its the little things that kill. Stop worrying about these little fine tunings when the core gameplay functions still need massive work. You still have no NPCs. no Mission system. No storyline. no focus. you need to give us something to do besides build ships and mine ore. we need multi player, enemy ships. the ability to place npcs and create purpose for them. we need to be able to automate the ships we create and create a faction and a fleet we can give orders to. we need to be able to create storylines and scenarios. send our ships to mine resources. You guys did this to us in SE1. 12 years later and we still dont have a finished product. over a hundred dollars in DLCs and still not finished........

Not sure what you want me to test to be honest. I tried both worlds and I modded a new survival game to see what it does.

I didn't notice a difference between the two worlds. I tried mining the floor for resources and it didn't give me any. I had to go to nodes and mine those. I only really knew what to do because I've played SE1 from scratch before and watched Splitsie's Tutorials.

For the modded survival game, I wasn't a fan of the movement of the ship. It felt too lively. Especially going down! I too got stuck when I needed metal grids for the hydrogen thrusters. As there isn't a smelter nearby, I gave up.

Honestly, I'm a big fan of SE2. I don't want SE2 to become SE1. I'm not interested in Stone and Pay Dirt, I couldn't care about ingots. I think if I was a new player and I started a new world on SE1, I'd just give up. I like the tutorial missions because it moves you along at pace. Before you know it you're in a ship and flying off in to space to an orbital station. The new player experience needs momentum like that. I get that some people prefer how it was in SE1, but SE1 is still there, you can go play that.

SE2 has started along it's own path and I'm on board with the roadmap and development plan. Please don't derail that.

Thank you for asking for our feedback by the way: One polite request: Please give clear instructions to people for how to test the mods. I didn't know they were worlds for example and was scratching my head when I could only see one mod. Also, be specific about what you want testing. It's not apparent to me what you wanted me to experience. If I had clear testing objectives for each scenario, I would be able to give more feedback :)

Balancing Iteration Mod

The World of Iron

I landed safely in nice Earthlike landscape which looks like made of various materials but it is all fake!

Everything here is made of iron. Whatever I touch with a drill yields iron. No matter if this is grass, flowers, soil, boulders or rocks. I have backpack full of iron and nothing else can be found here.

Classic Survival Start - An excellent start. I have about 3,300 hrs in SE1, ~90% in survival mode. I enjoyed the feeling of having accomplished something from next to nothing. When life got too easy, I hampered myself with weak jetpack, limited resources. The FTUE is a really good idea for new players or those wanting to be directed through the changes. I enjoyed VS2.2 version more that VS1), but I felt there was too much hand-holding and too many "McGuffins" (finding what you need when you want it). Enjoyable but ... too much hand-holding (for me).

This early Classic Survival mod brings some of the excellent SE1 "Try it - But you may die doing so...." to SE2. I played 30 minutes before writing this and enjoyed every minute. Yes, I ground down the drop pod batteries to power my smelter. Yes, I forgot to create a way point. Yes, I then flew 5KM away and lost where the drop pod was (because I powered down the antenna). Yes.... It was bl**dy enjoyable trying to find it again (swearing all the while). Minerals I needed were around me, albeit in small quantities, which I happily jetpacked around and drilled out. I tried upgrading the drill - Hmm Lead must be further afield (hence the 5km flight. I admit I got lost in the scenery near the future sea beds.).

To be honest - More of this survival element will suit me (just no food dependencies yet please - Takes focus away from Dig, Weld, Break cycle.)

Reading earlier comments I see that it is not everyones cup-of-tea. Everyone plays differently and have different wants and needs. You are building a game and system that tries to find a good starting base. I know that this "classic start" may not last or make the final game - If so, I may just create an ini file or mode that does what you have delivered here.

Classic Survival Start- Two things we NEED before 2.3 is more input from ship welders, specifically what they're requesting but cannot find. Welders have it, the new area welder has it, but ship welders are lacking and it feels more like an oversight than anything intentional.

And lastly, the large and small unified grid system has been amazing but when filling gaps you encounter issues like filling in a blank space with a million small cubes. The large half blocks are good, but it's clear with any frigate that isn't Red Ship that a quarter block is needed to not make survival a headache

I've just reached Vallation Station in Planetary Start, No Tutorial. The first thing I noticed is that mineral deposits get exhausted very quickly. I think it's actually nice that I'm forced to keep exploring, but the amount of resources that I need to create a ship is quite a lot, which means that for a long time, the only thing that I can do is run around with a drill. I feel the game could use an intermediary goal, like building a rover to carry me around the place. Overall, I think the experience was more enjoyable than regular FTUE, it allowed me to appreciate the planet a lot more and even taught me some new things that I didn't know before (for example, the fact that atmospheric thrusters take up only 2 blocks instead of 3). In the perfect world, I think the FTUE would tread somewhere between the two -- tutorialize new players but don't give away everything and let them earn their fun bit by bit.

I played 3 hours of Planetary start, no tutorial + Balance iteration mod. Thumps up for more starting options.

-Clear instructions how to use starter worlds and mod and what are the changes you have made you want us to test. (Not a problem for me as I saw couple of previews and I know how mods work)

-mk1 hand drill voxel removal radius is too small or there is something wrong with voxels. I clipped inside voxels while crouch drilling.

-I like that you can get some trace amounts of ores from certain voxels. I wish same for asteroids for possible classic space start.

-There is still problem with ore deposit sizes in Verdure. I spend 2 hours going back and forth to search ores for my base and scout ship. I think drill block should be unlocked at the start for this planet start without tutorial. You could build miner and/or drill setup to speed up the start.

-It could be my SE1 way of building habits but building base from armor blocks ate way too much iron compared what was available near me. Structural blocks seemed more efficient for early base building. Atmo Scout ship in other hand was quick to build without much mining.

-2.5m cargo should in my opinion be litlle harder to build. Smelter component requirement. With unified grid you could use small cargo (1m?) at the start for you base.

-Mk2 Tool upgrades where little hard to ger as I could not find any lead. Hand grinding small armors for metal plates takes forever with MK1 hand grinder. (I was raiding signal bases for faster resources as all ore veins were small tiny ones)

-I would like to get ores from those non voxel rocks too at some day.

Direction is good in my opinion and I like this way of testing balance tweeks via mods. I liked the classic SE1 feeling of building your own base and flier. Normal survival tutorial does not capture this element of the space engineer. I think there is not even mention or need of the g-menu in tutorial.

-Jaakko

The proposed fix feels premature, as several foundational features are still missing. First and foremost, we need a configuration menu. This would allow players to manually adjust settings like mining speed, yield, and other parameters to suit their playstyle or hardware.

I haven’t tested everything yet, but my impression is that the game should stay closer to the 'Classic' style or follow the 'SE1' approach. Currently, there’s a lack of vision for new mechanics. For example, in 'Hard Mode', backpack capacity should be very limited, requiring players to smelt ore directly in the mines. We could use ropes or other primitive engineering methods to haul large containers out of shafts.

Introducing small-scale rail systems early on would be a great addition, eventually leading to larger trains for automated production. This would add a much-needed layer of engineering to ore extraction. Furthermore, gravity currently feels too cheap—both for engines and jetpacks. Fuel consumption in the atmosphere should be significantly higher. Finally, the progression system or the way we learn new crafting recipes needs a complete overhaul to feel more rewarding.

Thanks for giving us a place to discuss specific survival feedback!

First some meta stuff: I think packaging balance changes into mods and letting players test them could be a phenomenal way to get the most out of the alpha period. Having a monthly or quarterly set of changes that you want to test could help you iterate very quickly on your core survival or gameplay loop without changing the experience for someone who just bought the game and has no idea what they're dealing with yet. That is to say, you should feel free to get pretty crazy with your prototyping if this becomes a regular practice.

A quick side note about me: I have 1,725 hours in Space Engineers 1, more than half of which are in survival. Everything that follows are my opinions only, and I won't pretend to speak for anyone else. I'll initially respond to the bullet points on the balancing iteration mod page 1-6:

1: You're engaging in premature optimization by tweaking block recipes and the capabilities of backpack building now. I would strongly argue that until you have some equivalent to Build Planner (like in SE1) at a bare minimum, it would be a mistake to commit to any changes to backpack building. The core complaint from a lot of people is that it's too powerful, but I think that's a misdiagnosis. I think the core problem is that building with components is too "weak" because its inconvenient and time consuming to manually count out the resources you need to complete a given block, while it is easy to just pile a bunch of ores into your inventory and hold down the mouse button until the block finishes. You can tweak welding speeds all you'd like, but until that core problem is solved any changes you make to backpack building won't resolve the core issues, and can't be fairly compared to the alternative (and intended past early-game) solutions. I probably played 100+ hours of survival SE1 before learning about the build planner; nobody who buys SE2 should have to suffer the same fate.

That isn't to say that backpack building should remain exactly how it is, but I think any conclusions you draw from testing right now are going to be flawed.

2: I'll admit I didn't explore the crafting recipe balance changes in much depth.

3: I think that generally this is the right path, but again, I would caution against drawing too many conclusions about how backpack building should fit into the progression tree until Build Planner is added.

4: Again, not sure how the ore yield balance changes affect the overall experience, because I ran out of steam in the survival experience when I had to start counting steel plates again.

5: I definitely agree with this one; the mk1 welder is too slow without the mod *especially* when compared to the area welder.

6: In theory, I like this change quite a bit. In practice, I think it can be pretty confusing for new players. I warn you, I have a lot to say about mining and ores in SE1 and it's part of the game that I frequently install mods to change in whole or in part:

Addenda (these are quite long, but I think there are valuable and relevant ideas in here): The way ores are distributed in SE2 right now is bad, with or without the balance changes in this mod (though I think the mod makes it marginally better) and you should evaluate what you want your progression system to accomplish from first principles. To make a comparison to SE1, the biggest problem with vanilla SE1 is that there are few problems requiring engineering to solve. If I want to build something, to take a core example, I have ~4 problems I should have to solve. Each one of those problems has the potential to create hours of emergent gameplay in the solution if appropriately balanced, and an equal potential to become boring chores if my options for addressing the problem are too limited.

- First, I need to find ores.

- Then I need to extract the ores.

- Then, I need to refine ores into components.

+ Ingots can either make sense, or not, depending on half a dozen other things. The question should be, "does processing ingots create incentives to engineer solutions, or is it just busywork?" I lean towards the former, but executing on that depends on a bunch of other game systems being in place. See below.

- Then I need to efficiently combine my components into my build.

In vanilla Space Engineers 1, only half of those steps require reliably interesting solutions:

- Most egregiously, finding ores is basically random, with the only real (and still tedious) solution being to duct-tape a large ore detector to a vehicle and drive/fly in circles for hours until you find the resource you're looking for. Until you find *all* the critical resources, you are effectively soft-locked. Try building a base or ship without cobalt, for example, nevermind that you may have found literally every other ore.

- Once you've found an ore deposit, extracting it can be somewhat interesting: you may initially just build a rover with cargo capacity to load by hand. Later you may need to build a dedicated mining ship with adequate cargo, thrusters, provisions for a long journey, etc. Planetside, you may need to build a drill on a mobile subgrid so that you can easily harvest the ore in a given location. A critical problem here, however, is that static infrastructure (loading docks, pipelines, tunnel bores, all the stuff that accompanies real world resource extraction) is disadvantaged because ore deposits are *too small* (I cannot emphasize this enough). Stone providing ores when refined mitigates this problem somewhat, because even if you never find any deposits which justify building static infrastructure on their own, you may still want to build a stone miner because in large enough quantities, even stone is worth harvesting. (This also makes asteroid eaters really fun to build, and practical too!)

- Refining/crafting is somewhat boring on its own, but when you've overcome some of the prior logistics problems you can find yourself with a steady stream of ores that require sorting, storage, and logic to prevent them from overflowing your storage or clogging your carefully sorted cargo crates. This is true of ice as well, with flows that may need to be diverted specifically for farming versus H2 and O2. The sorter, timer, and event blocks enable a lot of clever conveyor network logic that can help to enhance this gameplay element quite a bit. Most players don't have a steady stream of resources though, other than perhaps stone & its derivatives.

- Efficiently combining your components, i.e. building, does have some engineering involved. Building an efficient (low PCU, and as little risk of clang as possible) speedy, thorough, or just *cool* looking printer can be a large endeavor that provides a lot of fun in its own right. Combined with carefully sorted cargo from the previous step, this is handled fairly well in SE1.

I'll leave it to you to evaluate where your current roadmap for SE2 scores. Distributing ores in space by sector/planet and having asteroid clusters is a big step in the right direction. More tiers of production blocks also has potential, so long as it inspires me to keep expanding my base as new production blocks require more power, space, and conveyor pipes. Some games have fifteen crafting stations only to directly incentivize players to put them immediately beside one another in a row for optimal gameplay. Don't do that; you can be so much more than Minecraft without becoming Factorio. I like the upgrade modules in SE1, maybe you can expand on that idea more by having modular production blocks, power generation (hydroelectric power seems promising on this front), etc?

Every step of gameplay and progression should be carefully evaluated from the perspective of "how can I create interesting engineering challenges without straying into pointless busywork?" My biggest fear for SE2 right now, which has been allayed somewhat by your willingness to experiment and engage with feedback, is that the engineering that I have grown to love in SE1 will be de-emphasized in SE2, and that core deficiencies in the survival gameplay loop in SE1 will go unaddressed, or be worsened in the name of accessibility. Be bold in your prototypes! Don't stay in the comfort zone of merely tweaking the ore distribution model or the recipe balance from SE1. You're in the stage of the project where you can truly get wild with the whole progression system, and this kind of modded gameplay test is exactly the place to do that so Space Engineers 2 becomes the best game it can possibly be, not merely an impressive game engine without a game.

P.S. As my hours in SE1 suggest, a "game engine without a game" can still be a magnet for freaks like me, but only because of a robust community of modders. Your work to spotlight mods and scripts on the Steam Workshop is one of the reasons I have such high hopes for what you will be able to build in the sequel.

Hopefully someone reads this whole thing.

I really enjoy the game so far! Keep up the good work!

Classic Survival Start

Welding Projection Blueprints & The MK1 Area Welder

An already known issue is that when placing a projection blueprint in game, it is very difficult to use the survival welder to create the ship, as other projected blocks will get in the way making it nearly impossible to build the ship's internals.

The area welder is meant to help, however the survival crafting recipe for the MK1 Area Welder requires resources that are not found in the starting sector. (Platinum Electrodes)

Because the MK1 Area Welder is required for basic aspects of ship building, the resource requirements for crafting the tool should be available in the early game. At least until a better solution is found for building obstructed projection blocks in blueprints using the regular survival welding tool.

More Tutorials

Ship building tutorials or easy to access guides on how to build a ship for new players

Adjust Ore Vane Resource Quantities

Early game ore vanes feel super small, and it feels like a grind to build even a small base

Map Markers

The ability to set custom markers on the main map

Adjust Ore Detection Radius

The ore scanner block feels like like the detection radius is too small to really be worth building. It doesn't really tell me anything I don't already know when holding the drill.

Mining The Ground

Mining the normal ground should still give a small quantity of resources based on the type of material. For example, you might have one asteroid which gives Iron, but another gives Silicon.

Adjust Lead Rarity

I have not been able to find Lead anywhere :(

HUD Flight Direction Indicators

UI elements for the ship's prograde and retrograde directions of travel

I think the new system of providing basic ores from voxels is a good one. Seemed that I got a lot of nickel and iron was still hard to find but this is most likely due to where I was digging. The backpack building seems more balanced although perhaps still a shade overpowered - I would like to see if cost more than the smelter, maybe with an option to toggle it on and off. This was it could be used in an emergency only. I think fully balancing this out might not be desirable until we have build ques.

Overall I think this is a great compromise from rock processing and I can see how the new production system will fall into place. It does still seem like there are maybe 1 too many crafting machines. Just feels like some of the higher tear stations should be almost able to replace the smelter.

The release of a mod was a great way to let some of us test this out. This might be something you consider doing for various other new features. Wheels? Water?

Obtaining small amounts of ore from dirt and stone makes the very start of the game much less boring. Flying around with a drill isn't particularly fun, so I'm glad I have to do less of that.

Planetary Start, No Tutorial

Having done the tutorial once, this was good QoL. Harder but enjoyable.

Balancing Iteration Mod

Just the perception change of having resources all around was a positive: Seeing all the stone as potential instead of hindrance, the first shelter as home/long term stone mine instead of a temporary mining node once the ore dried up and more importantly excursions for startup minerals offers a choice instead of forcing to prospect. Not a good choice, but that freedom is felt and appreciated.

Once spawned in, I immediately chose a mountain peak and started settling in/transforming it into an underground shelter. Scooped up enough resources for a door, floor and battery to close said door on my way up. Got enough for a survival kit on the second sortie and could secure the shelter from hostiles. Very quick and snappy!

Ended the session with an enclosed and floored cave, starting work on an atmo scavenging craft. Stopped because the only way to get blocs unlocked was to do the contracts and I had no other alternatives. So my engagement fell flat at that point.

Notes on ore-from-voxel:

1. Had a positive reason to scout for other Biomes for Sand (silicone) and more topsoil (iron) instead of digging into the mountain early and ruining the exterior voxel (I hate random holes in my "home"). This was enjoyment and a big upgrade over SE1.
2. Ore yields from voxel biomes should give more than one type, but be weighted towards one. (I.e.: Igneous Stone 88% nickel, 8% silicates 3%iron 1% copper/aluminium). This would make digging enjoyable and usefull for accumulating small amounts of ressources for when you need that one last computer component or screen to finish your build before bedtime. Less frustration when quitting, feeling lucky/unexpected windfall at the end of a session works long term on positive perception.
3. A backpack craftable 25cm grid OR an inventory deployable all-in-one furnace/assembler expansion for the backpack/handheld 3D printer with built-in solar panel or battery slot. To craft the missing links to bootstrap production and, lategame, for a quick repair on site when you are on a recon mission far from home and you forgot to pack the one component type you need to fix up the onbord assembler.
   Overall it was a good experience!

I appreciate the reach out to the community for their feedback and the changes! After playing this modded version, I must say it’s an awaited general improvement over the previous game start, before it was way too easy and the whole progression grind to get into space was missing, which gravely disappointed me! Now it’s closer to a SE1 start which I love as a player with over 1200 hours in the SE1 game.

I think the improvements in ore amounts is great, maybe slightly over-powered but rather this way than the way before. Additionally, how rock gives you low amounts of ores again is great, the sand, rock, dirt giving different ores is an awesome idea.

Now I just would like to add some thoughts towards further development, some I believe a lot of people would agree with me:

Backpack building is overall a good idea, however, I don't like building straight from ores, I would much rather have like a SE1 survival kit kind of backpack building, where basically ores refines (slower and higher cost of refinement than basic refinery) and you process them into basic components to get your basic base setup (basic refinery/assembler/o2 gen/...)

Another thought would be to have different size ore spawns depending on their depth, the deeper the larger maybe with some random exceptions. Now there is just ore everywhere in small quantities.

Also, PLEASE BY THE LOVE OF GOD I'm hoping that with the v2.4 update finally in Space Engineers, NPCs attack bases, even with mods in SE1 it still sucks and I love building and defending a base.

Thank you for your time in the matter.

Balancing Iteration Mod

No... Please don't make the same mistake again!

Don't add basic materials to environmental voxels.

Why?

- It's bad gameplay if you can just dig up the ground you're standing on and build your base from it.

- It feels wrong to build a base out of dirt.

- It makes basic ore deposits kinda superfluous because a big stone harvester is all you need. It doesn't matter if the ore deposits will yield more.

- It flattens the gameplay loop too much.

- It makes exploration less important.

- It spams the inventory.

What to do instead?

- Add easy to find natural objects (besides ores) that give the player basic resources (special plants, surface rocks, anomalies, ...)

- Use wrecks and abandoned installations with meaningful loot (old factories with ore-filled containers, transport wrecks loaded with ingots, etc...)

- Make many small ore deposits near the surface that are easy to find. Make deposits rarer but much richer the deeper you go.

- Add impure ore deposits, which are bigger and more common to find but yield less than pure ore deposits. (similar to the environmental voxels - idea, but more locally limited)

Please read your stream reviews rather than relying purely on feedback here, Space Engineers is one of my most beloved games playing it from Early Access to now, I love everything about 2 but the only thing that is ruining it for me is the backpack welding I feel like I'm playing something cartoony and easy like no mans sky, I enjoyed the annoying aspect of even using a survival kit to start, not that this is the only possible idea to do it there are other options like refining ores in a survival kit to get started at a smaller yield, Welding from ore has made the game go from feeling advanced to simplified, I get people might like this change and a lot of people like me might not like this change but at least put an option in for us that can't stand to play without Ingots. At this point I think I'll have to wait for the modding community to fix it before I start investing my time into SE2.

Planetary Start, No Tutorial with Balancing Iteration Mod

1 - I like it much better than the current tutorial and more what I imagined a survival mode would be like.

2 - Backpack Building - I hate it. I would immediately mod this out of the game and if this isn't able to be modded out (if you continue it) would be enough to make me stop playing the game. Why you might ask, to me this is simply 100% immersion breaking, just by mining some ore I can somehow use a magic machine to make 90% of a spaceship? I also believe this is actually harder for new players as they are introduced to backpack building and then later on hit a wall when they cannot make the items themselves. When going through the tutorial, this makes the user ignore the basic things like smelter, etc. why do I need this machine when I can just make it myself etc.

3 - Environment Voxels providing basic ores - 100% agree with this and view this as a must have in the game. The simple answer as to why this is needed is simple. What is the point of planets? you have all these different biomes and great planets and moons you are working on but if mining out dirt doesn't give me ore why the hell would I even go to any planet? it requires different thruster type to get there compared to Ion engines, it doesn't seem as efficient as asteroid mining or remaining in space. Entry is a chore and is somewhat annoying. Without this reward of a reason to mine out dirt and create a base on the planet I don't think I would ever return to one unless it's for a mission, this would mean a waste of all the wheel blocks and also remove the reason for water in the game. Without this it also removes the benefits of a non moveable base.

4 - At the moment ore deposits seem way to small and annoying. It takes longer to drill down to a deposit than to mine the deposit. It also feels unrewarding and changes the game from a building/designing game to a mining game (which you might want but I mine so I can build).

5 - Ingots - while lots of people tie this into backpack building I view it as a separate Item. I believe that you can remove Backpack Building without reinstating Ingots but I would prefer it if depth is added to the mechanic. For example instead of Iron Ore to Steel Plate to require Iron and Coal ore for steel. Or a furnace block etc. While some people have commented that they feel that the ingot was an additional unnecessary step (and it's fine if they feel this way) personally I believe that enhances the gameplay loop and increases my immersion and if done logically actually helps new players as this system should be enhanced to bring in the smelter, refinery etc.

6 - I like the idea of mods to test out ideas and get feedback however I was disappointed the feedback also wasn't able to be added into steam (could have been comments on the mod itself) and I had to register/login here.

Wider feedback - I think you can tell based on the comments so far and the much bigger discussion on Steam that you have a problem with the Backpack Building splitting the playerbase. Some people love it and find it speeds up early game and some people hate it. You need to decide to either keep it or ditch it and then let this decision be known. I think the middle ground you are trying to find/maintain doesn't exist and is doing more harm than good.

Classic Survival Start / Planetary Start

With backpack crafting and infinite jetpack the only two reasons to have Drop Pod are:

1) recharge a suit

2) provide a respawn point

There is no longer a survival feeling, where place of crash landing was initial "home" and survival pod was a key asset which allowed to stay alive.

Instead my suit is now the ultimate vehicle, cargo storage and a production facility. It is also super energy efficient.

The energy consumption for these functions is almost zero.

It can't recharge itself from the environment but all I have to do is to grind survival kit and battery from the Drop Pod (solar panel not needed - battery has always fresh modules), keep components in my inventory, and I can travel anywhere (even to space station) without need for setting up any base or building any kind of vehicle.

Just when my suit energy goes low I build a survival kit with battery, recharge suit, then grind both blocks and continue my journey.... there is no single moment when I feel as castaway in sense of a person who has been shipwrecked and stranded in an isolated place fighting for survival because I have infinite resources available around me, there are no hazards, and I wear a suit which provides everything I need.

Balancing Iteration Mod

This is definitely a step in the right direction.

When you are just starting, you can build some basic scaffolding for your base while also clearing voxels around you, like flattening the ground. You are basically doing two things at once, wasting less time and actually playing the game more. You don’t need to learn about or rely on the ore detector. Those small starting ore deposits are not realistic and just lead to tedious gameplay where you drill 100s of holes. It would be better to remove them entirely and make the search for larger deposits more meaningful instead of flying in circles with an ore detector.

I also like that different voxel materials yield different resources. This is already an improvement over the generic stone ore from SE1. It makes sense that sand-like voxels give silicon, and sand is not evenly distributed as much. But soil and rock are almost everywhere, and right now it feels a bit boring and arbitrary that all soil gives the same amount of iron and all rock gives nickel.

It would be much more interesting to have different types of soil and rock that yield different materials (mostly iron or nickel) and in different quantities. Common materials should give small amounts, while rarer variants give more and have a higher chance of large deposits underneath. Over time, players would learn where to search, so it becomes knowledge-based rather than random, while still tied to progression.

For example, beach sand could give trace silicon, while desert biomes might have richer sand and a higher chance of large pure silicon deposits below. But deserts could come with challenges like heat, requiring better suits or pressurized vehicles (A/C). Snowy biomes could expose more surface rocks, some rich in iron, others in nickel, but again, the low temperatures makes the extraction not as easy in early game.

Beyond basic resources, more valuable materials could also be tied to specific surface materials and environments. Instead of wandering randomly, you would go to certain locations. The rarer the resource, the more challenging it can be to find and extract. This could include underwater deposits, deep mountain layers, extreme weather, hostile fauna, or radiation zones. For example, uranium could be found in naturally high-radiation areas, but extracting it would require proper shielding (lead), and communication can be unstable for remote-controlled machines.

The key idea is that resources should be neither completely random nor fully predictable. Knowledge and engineering skill should matter. Exploration should matter. Finding a pure ore deposit should not be guaranteed just because you are in the “right” place. You might need to explore multiple biomes before finding a location worth turning into a permanent mining outpost.

And once you do, it should provide a real gameplay advantage over just placing drills anywhere and let them run for a while. If needed, block drills could simply stop yielding basic materials when concentration is too low, making common voxels useful only for early hand mining and jumpstarting progression.

I’ve played the mod / test worlds only a couple of hours but I’ll provide some early feedback and see if it changes after a few more hours.

First, kudos to whomever booby trapped reconfiguring the drop pod. Haha.

The classic survival start was interesting and I think it is a nice option to have available. I think it isn’t great for a new SE2 player that hasn’t played SE1 since it just dumps you in, but a great option for more experienced players.

The jetpack quickly runs out of boost and then it is slooooowwwww to get to an unknown signal and back. 6KM there and 6KM back definitely drags and you don’t want to do that more than once if you can help it. So it kind of steers me away from those signals as resources.

It is good the first signal let me rob an O2 generator and ice. 😇

Regarding harvesting voxel, it seems useful especially in a desperate situation. Combine that with 20m/s jet pack, until I can get a tank, it makes unknown signals even less interesting. From a balancing perspective I would give the bare minimum of ores via voxel so that it isn't the default way to get ores but more emergency, tedious, use.

Speaking of tedious… grinding a bunch of 0.5m blocks is not that much fun. It is hard to want to grind the parts down fully rather than just taking the big blocks and leaving scrap laying around. Then my inner OCD child feels obligated to grind it down and then I get to listen to the grinder cavitation as it tries to decide if I’m in range or not. Something’s gotta give or my worlds will be littered with 0.5m blocks.

Also I harvested enough stuff to not need to go to the mining camp for ores in the FTUE and then that marker was on my screen forever even while I was at Vallation Station. It would be nice to be able to abandon some parts of the mission or some mechanism to say it was done.

In summary I like the classic survival start as an option for more experienced players, though hydrogen kind of spoils the first bit of that.

I like the emergency ores from voxel but I wouldn’t like to see it as the main way to get resources.

Balancing iteration mod :

First i want to thanks all the team for the hard work.

I have played the mod and the start feal way better:

- with the limited components the bag can craft, you now need to understand what you are doing (and thats great) and crafting, before it was too easy and you never had to know what was needed(there was no reason to make components).

-You also need to create now pretty early a smelter (our first creation) and that is what SE is about "creating".

-All the voxels being farmable feel right too it's better and the quantity feel right too.

-Ingots could be a nice add.

Anyway keep going guys you ROCK. Space Engineers forever <3

Balancing iteration mod :

-The overall grindiness of the early base building (especially iron) was greatly reduced, which is a step in the right direction, the new component costs are convinient enough without being too cheap.

-I like how terrain voxels "reward" you with a small amount of ore, reminescent of the old mining system in SE1

-Backpack building nerf feels ok, but the processing speed of materials in production blocks is really slow, now more than ever since you are incentivized to build an early production line (especially for "bulk" materials like steel plates and such, which you need several 1000s to build a medium size ship)

Planetary Start, No Tutorial

-The whole tutorial system up until reaching Val Station is fine for new players, but becomes boring for already established engineers: having the option to skip it not only is nice, i would consider it as a requirement

-Contracts still offer very little reward for the amount of time they take (mostly spent travelling), they feel more like a chore to complete in order to unlock all the blocks and play the actual game

-Even more so, if an option for skipping block progression will eventually be added, contracts would feel even worse.

Not Specific

i would love thrusters to recive a buff: most ships require an insane amount of thrust (especially in planet gravity) to fly, even more if sligthly laden, this would allow more intresting ship design (less thruster spam) and reduce PCU per player

Thanks and keep up the great work!

This is my response, after roughly an hour with the standard one, not the balancing one, which seems better.

TLDR: Space Engineers is way faster, even with realistic settings.

So, I started by building the most basic of basics: smelter, some iron cubes for foundation (2,5 cube), gearforge and 2 solar panels. And I immediately ran into problem. This is based on the basic version of the mod you posted, with only player capacity increased.

First of all, multiple tiny deposits suck. You drill them out, get maybe a few tones of ore and bam. Drill another hole. At least in Space Engineers 1 when I found iron, silicon, etc I could just mark them come back with a ship or just manually drill 3 tones of ore, which gave me a ton of resources to build, which leads to the second problem.

Second problem? Everything is expensive. A single iron cube costs 1 ton of iron. I mined a whole deposit and got like 6 tones of it. It makes most ores weaker than Space Engineers 1 counterparts. When I came back with a ship full of iron, which I smelted I could make way more than in Space Engineers 2.

Three, ore types. In Space Engineers 1 I basically needed 3 ores to set up basic base. Here I need 5: cobalt, iron, nickel, copper, silicon. Variety is not bad, but in Space Engineers we could scout for ores. Space Engineers 2 does have bigger radius which is godsend, but still means you have to go hunting for many ores. Combine with some pathetic yield, building a basic base in Space Engineers 2 takes way longer.

Issue 4, skipping grind via smart engineering. Currently there is no way to do that, at the start. In Space Engineers 1 we start with rover, good one too. We can easily give it a drill at the front, mine stone and let it refine, until we can build basic. Space Engineers 2 is like the old drop pod from Space Engineers 1. Slow. You mine ores, you weld them, you barely feel any progress. You fixed it.

Issue 5, no real way to automate it or make it easier. Build a basic miner ship in Space Engineers 1 wasn't easy. Space Engineers 2? I would have to mine tons of resources for the basic one. I can't set up drill to gather resources from an area easily, because it also costs even more resources. No wrecks. No unknown signals. Hell, I couldn't even find lead anywhere near my drop pod to get mark 2 tools to make it easier.

And that's about an hour in. In Space Engineers 1 in one hour, I would have had basic assembler, basic refinery, power generation, big battery and would be thinking how to expand.

So, to sum up. Not impressed. I know it's early alpha and plenty left to do, but right now? Hard pass. It's just not fun. I also had issues with terrain and trees not rendering.

Planetary start, no tutorial (without Balancing iteration mod for now)

I think most experienced SE1 players would prefer this over the FTUE. Game play wise, this is close to a SE1 survival start, and most of us know what to do. The lack of Ivan is a bonus ;-)

The ore deposits feel too small though, I'd increase their size by a factor of five and halve their number. Where you have deposits already dug out for you in the FTUE, here you have to dig down and invest more effort in getting at the ore. Larger deposits would reduce the grind from digging down to the ore, because you don't have to do the tunneling so often. I've not started to build a ship yet, but without the Balancing iteration mod in this game, I expect a rather familiar experience. Instead of continuing this game, I'll restart with the balancing mod and review that. But not today.

I think it would be really cool if oil was added as a proper resource in Space Engineers 2, with actual extraction and processing instead of just another ore.

For example, it could generate underground on planets as deposits, and instead of just drilling it like normal, you’d have to set up pumps or some kind of drilling rig. It would be nice if you actually had to search for it too, maybe using scanners, and the extraction could work as a steady flow instead of instant mining.

Since it’s a liquid, it would make sense to move it through pipes or store it in tanks. You could build full systems from wells to pipelines to storage and then to refineries, or transport it using tanker trucks or ships. That alone would add a lot more to logistics and base design.

Processing could also be more involved, like turning oil into different products instead of just one output. Things like fuel for ships and vehicles, maybe a more efficient alternative to hydrogen, or materials for more advanced components. It would make the industrial side feel less basic.

It could also introduce some risks, like leaks, fires, or explosions if something gets damaged or handled badly. That would make bases feel more alive and give a reason to actually protect and maintain your infrastructure.

Right now the progression is pretty straightforward, you mine ore, refine it, and build stuff. With oil, there would be a whole extra layer to manage, and more reasons to build larger, more complex setups.

I also think it would work really well in multiplayer, since people could focus on different roles like extraction, transport, or refining. Overall it would just add more depth, realism, and things to do in survival.

Classic Survival: Blanaced Iteration Mod

This 'feels' like SE1 but to be frank I don't want a repeat of SE1 but an evolution. One of the problems you need to solve with Classic Survival SE1 is early game transportation. Wheeled vehicle > Stationary or Mobile Base > Launcher vehicle > Space. Currently SE2 'solves' that problem with the story mode providing vehicles and resources. Classic Survival doesn't or at least wont untill Wheels become available. That means access to basic resources is key.

1) Voxel Mining Errors: The voxel structure of the worlds is good and fun, but there are still too many glitches that let you fall through the world from torn/gapped meshes. In a classic survival start you are going to do a LOT of Drilling and this bug will only be more problematic going forwards. It might be possible to create 'aligned' or 'smoothing' drills or modes that allow you to soften the voxel texture to make more flat or less jagged surfaces when doing large-scale digging. Even when digging a small tunnel I often need to widen my drilling pattern to avoid breaking the mesh very often.

2) Early Transport/Resource finding: While the hunt for resource nodes is like the SE1 experience, the Sand/Soil/Rock breakdown of Silicon/Iron/Nickel is a little too 'even'. I want my humble strip mine to get me all the resources needed without having to make 3 or 4 strip mines. I would be more comfortable if the resource per-voxel had a percentage split between the three resources. Sand being 90% Silicon but you would get 5% trace ammounts of Iron and Nickel. Soil being maybe 80% Iron but maybe 10% Nickel and Silicon. Rock Could easily be 80% Nickel and 15% Iron and 5% Silicon. All spit-balled numbers. But the idea being that you would not need to travel to at least get basic amounts of a resource, but like nodes, if you want to emphasize a resource you'd travel or dig for a better biome of voxels. Either that or let us craft small travel craft (a bike/moped?) to allow us to make more energy/oxygen/hydrogen efficient runs to our resourse deposits before we craft our big mining vehicles.

3) Planetary Gases and Fluids: Ice is going to be a problem but a worthy exploration to get Hydrogen for space flight. But in aquatic environments Oxygen is going to be a major necesity which Hydrogen won't be a necesity. I would like to have an 'Oxygen Plant' that scrubs the air for Oxygen and passively generates and cans the air for use. This would align with the SE1 Oxygen Farms which, might be a fun alternative build path so that engineers can reserve Ice for Hydrogen production after geting their Oxygen situation managed. This might even allow for other planets to have non-oxygen gases in rich supply to be used for certain tech. Likewise with aquatic planets is it possible we will be using H20 for any production? In the lava-biomes perhaps molten lava being harvested for other trace-elements?

I know Digging and Drilling is kind of the SE1 experience but I also want to see more complex production chains for alternative tech down the line.

Balancing Iteration Mod and Classic Survival Start Feedback:

I just tried out the mod which increases the ore return and gives some other ores from rock and sand.

This is a HUGE improvement for survival and a big step in the right direction! Please make this the basic setting for survival.

The yield from a deposit feels way better with this mod. I do not care much for the other ore return, this can be removed as I now do not need to find nickel deposits anymore... I wish we still had stone waste. This will make building drill ships way more fun by needing to add sorters and ejectors.

Welding speed is still pretty slow, but that should be expected when using a MK1 welder, however the MK2 welder does not weld any faster at all! This needs to be changed. There should be a noticeable jump in welding speed between MK1 and MK2. Also, if building with components is faster than raw ore, this would also be great. This will push people to build components and not keep backpack building!

Also, welding detailing cubes takes just as long as welding larger cubes. There should be a speed difference between smaller and larger cubes. this will make it feel more natural.

Wishes:

I still hope Keen will add big huge ore deposits where we can build mining stations underground. These could be detected with large ore detectors and these should be like 200 - 300 meters down. The tiny little deposits we have now do not justify building atmospheric drill ships as a singe deposit can be cleared out in a couple of minutes by hand, and building mining stations is also useless now. By having humongous deposits deep under ground we can start building mining stations and transportation systems for these ores to our bases!

Can we get a preview of the block we are about to place (like in SE1) I find it hard sometimes to see which block I am placing and need to read the description carefully in stead of just looking at a graphic.

Please, bring back ingots?

Bugs:

Welding sounds drop in and out, drilling sound sometimes gets stuck and thruster flames and speed particles stopped working again. The display between component and raw ore keeps jumping. When I set it to components and I have components, it still jumps to raw. I was able to weld without plates being removed from my inventory and could weld infinite amount.

Shoutout:

Amazing work on the ring around Verdure! Love the graphics and the asteroid cluster!

This is a big big improvement over SE1! I can already imagine the battles in these fields and the bases we will build there defending our own little corner of this ring.

I very much enjoy these mods. Having access to all blocks without requiring completion of missions is particularly nice. Being able to get some amounts of nickel and iron from any stone found can be very helpful for rougher starts, such as a space start having all nearby asteroids devoid of ores. Is silicon on the table for this? I didn't happen to see any via stone. Speaking of, thank you for not making gravel. Sure, gravel can sometimes be fun to handle or toss around, but it's usually just a burden. Although, it's sometimes a bit funny to watch a drill ship "poop" gravel everywhere after giving it ejectors.

At first, I thought it would be troublesome to require gold (to gain access to compressors) in order to create ship drills, but it turned out to not really be a problem considering all the Unknown Signals and existing mission locations having loot. Plus, having a simple cargo ship is still helpful while manually drilling, and that can be made without compressors. And of course, after gaining a ship, other POIs are more accessible for more loot chances.

Overall, nicely done.

Hello, the most important thing I want to point out is that you should mine raw soil with a certain percentage of a particular resource, which you need to mine using a drill, but you should mine raw ore rather than immediately refined ore that is not ready for use, and then melt it into ingots. Different biomes should have different percentages of resources, for example, sand should have 20% silicon and 10% iron, while other biomes should have more resources! But the most important thing is that the soil is mined with the percentage of ore content indicated, and the backpack has a slow and inefficient purifier and smelter. Then it will make sense. Thank you.

Just realised you can self-tag your comments as "best answer"... :D

Thanks for the hard work KSH, and being more involved with these hard-hitting points so early in development!

A way to get around having a "limited" jetpack and backpack in early game, which will prevent players just to jetpack their way into space, is by having multiple tiers of suits and jetpacks. These can become available in later game with more exotic materials found later in game. We could also have specialized suits for different environments. Special for huge pressure (under water) or huge gravity (big planets) or extreme hot or cold environments. Needing to switch suits and/or backpacks to fit the environment will add to the immersion.

It will also give players more drive to seek out unknown signals as these could potentially hold a suit which could help you.

Balancing Iteration Mod

After reading this thread, I am really concerned that the survival mode of SE2 will become too easy and arcade-like.

Many people want to avoid every possible challenge and want things to be as easy as possible.

On the other hand, there are the simulation fans who are searching for challenging tasks and looking for as realistic a survival experience as possible in a game about space and engineering.

I think it is very hard, if not impossible, to make a survival mode that suits both player types.

My suggestion for this situation:

Add deeply integrated difficulty levels for the survival mode so that the player can choose what fits best. Don’t try to make one mode for both.

The two main difficulties could be:

Arcade:

- Basic materials added to environmental voxels

- Backpack building

- The jetpack as it is in SE1 or SE2

- Mostly friendly environment

Realistic:

- No basic materials from environmental voxels

- No backpack building

- Drastically nerfed jetpack (e.g., incapable of holding you in the air on planets)

- Dangerous weather with (really) life-threatening extremes.

... and so on. You get the idea.

It’s important that these difficulties are integrated into the vanilla game.

Things have to be balanced and interconnected. Mods often fail here.

So please, be aware of these different player types.

can you please explain a new player to SE2 how to add the mods to the game? I know how to do this in SE1 but this is different.

Regarding the "Survival Experience," I believe that the core immersion comes from designing and utilizing creative, multi-functional machinery to overcome early-game challenges. However, the current specifications are severely hindering this experience.

1. Impossibility of Reliable Early-game Machinery (Sub-grid Stability) In the early stages of survival, compact and versatile machines—often utilizing pistons and connectors—are essential for resource gathering and base building. However, because sub-grids (even with Inertia Tensor sharing) are currently too unstable, these "creative solutions" often lead to catastrophic failure. We are forced to build simple, static designs, which robs the survival mode of its depth and engineering joy.
2. Unmanageable Complexity (Renaming and Grouping) Even in a "Planetary Start," managing a multi-purpose survival craft is nearly impossible without the ability to rename blocks or create groups. Scrolling through a long, unorganized list of functional blocks to find a specific connector or thruster destroys the immersion. This is a fatal flaw for any player trying to build a sophisticated survival setup.

Conclusion: The 25cm grid system is a masterpiece that makes me want to spend hours in survival mode. However, I find myself spending more time "working around" technical limitations than actually enjoying the survival challenge. While I appreciate the work on "Classic Starts," please prioritize the stabilization of sub-grids and the implementation of basic UI management. Without these, the motivation to design innovative survival solutions—the very heart of Space Engineers—cannot be sustained.

Regarding ores and production:

=====================

Voxels producing ores:

=> This is a great addition to the game. Very much a fan. Yes. This IS MUCH BETTER than refining stone, and it is much better than all non-ore voxels producing stone.

The problem with no ingots:

=> I got some high tech components. They take up a lot of room. I want to store them in a smaller space. I can't.

=> I got some components. I need different components. I don't have ore. How do I do that? I can't un-process the components back into ore. The realism kill here is huge.

=> From a realism perspective. It's just super hard to swallow, and makes the game feel like a shell of SE1.

What I want to see in this regard:

Voxels produce ores. Those ores are things like Dirt. Sand. Rocks. (All the regular ore deposits.) Each of the non ore-deposit voxel materials produces a different ore type.

Ores must be refined into ingots.

Ingots can be made into components.

Components can be recycled back into ingots.(possibly at a small loss?)

Backpack building:

============

In my opinion, this is not really a game improvement. Not the way I like to play the game. This is a bring new people into the game quickly feature. It is super OP, and kills/destroys classic SE gameplay.

Because it is so OP, it needs to have custom settings.

For example:

I want to see the backpack convert the ores generated into ingots, and use those to make components.

Yes this involves waiting, and the yields should be lower. This is a last ditch survival tool, NOT the main way to build everything. The backpack should weld with components first.

If you give it custom settings, or a variety of modes that make sense, I think this issue will be dramatically improved.

Unlimited jetpack fuel:

=============

No. Do not like. KILLS realism. Maybe this is a game mode option?

Maybe boosting uses fuel more rapidly? The hydrogen for the jetpack needs to come from somewhere.

Maybe this should be a game mode option?

Consumeables:

=============

No. Do not like this.

Do not categorically limit the amount the character can carry it makes no sense. It's very gamey.

It's fine to have a built in slot or two for H2/O2 bottles, but it makes no sense that a high pressure bottle is a "consumeable" item.

Maybe this should be a game mode option?

Regarding game play

==============

Other people have mentioned this, and I think it is a good idea if you want to maximize community engagement in your game.

You have vastly different kinds of people interested in the game... for different reasons.

You need different game play modes.

Creative - we all need this.

Arcade - People that don't give a good god damn about survivaling, or realism, or actual engineering. Place blocks blow stuff up.

Colonization - Guided survival through a predefined set of steps to accomplish.

SurvivalSandbox - People who want a Realistic space survival experience. non-guided. Go out and be a Space Engineer. Play modder quests.

Each of these game modes can have settings to tweak the gameplay.

I think your long term players. People who will put thousands of hours in the game, are mostly in the SurvivalSandbox category. I imagine that as you go down the list of preferred game modes, the amount of retention time increases. (this is my opinion, if you spent 10000 hours in creative, rock on.)

Overall:

I think the dev team has been catering to the Arcade/Colonization people, at the expense of the survival people.

Even with water... I may not play SE2 if this continues to be the focus.

I personally like sandbox survival. I do not expect to colonize the Almagest system.

I do expect to spend 10,000 hours at a minimum playing SE2, but not until it's a more complete game, and not unless the sandbox survival experience is good.

I make mods, Ultimately, I still play SE after 6000 hours, because it allows me to play the game I want to play. The mods allow me to do that. Others, and my own. The core mechanics and systems implemented should be done so in a way that maximizes what modders can do, and so that it it less difficult to do. It appears you are already doing this with blocks. Rock on.

One of the reasons SE has been picked up by the community is because of the mods available. I think quite a lot of your total play time can be attributed to mods changing the gameplay, so folks can play a game they prefer.

Quests:

========

SurvivalSandbox, is where modder "quests" can come in , so that players can have an existing game. Add a quest mod to it, and go complete the quest. Then they can try another modders quest without starting a new game.

Final Note:

========

I understand SE needs to appeal to the widest audience possible to get more money, and just be more of a thing.

That's great, I'm all for that.

Please keep your long term audience in mind. SE1 players should be able to load up the game, tweak some settings, and get a basic non-modded experience that works for them. No I don't think every desire should be met. However you are changing basic gameplay in ways that make the game not-SE2 for a lot of people. It is dissapointing. That should not be the experience.

As a community member that follows the media you put out, this is the only time it actually appears that you actually care about what any of us actually think. This is the only time so far you've displayed any actual interest in acting on any of the feedback you're getting about actual gameplay.

[Accidentally sent this too early]

I completely agree with ILoveSpaceEngineers,

but I have a few more points of criticism.

- Groups: They can't be switched.

Keyboard shortcuts are not possible.

They are automatically expanded when the user interface is opened!

This is pointless and leads to chaos.

- Rotors: Settings for braking torque and actual angle display are missing.

- The German keyboard layout is faulty.

ILoveSpaceEngineers is right,

don't let it become too simplistic!

It's precisely these details that make spe1 so special.

(doh I just realized you wanted feedback on the mods)

Some general feedback:

1) I really like the new building system. I played SE1 for 100s (if not 1000s) of hours. The biggest pain was building all the equipment pieces, and having to gather/build/gather/build until you could build a welding ship. It was tedious and tiresome. I really like building basic blocks directly from ores. This eliminates much of the tedious work and makes things far more interesting, and entertaining. For those that don't like it, fine give them an option where you need to make ingots and mats to build anything. They can do it the hard way and perhaps get additional xp bonus doing so.

2) The missions are somewhat ok. Some are good, but many feel repetitive. I do not like how the missions are unrelated to each other at all. oooh a mysterious signal, go investigate this spot. you investigated - done, nothing special move on. This happens over and over. The repetitive "repair this, build that" missions are dull after a while as well.

I know NPCs aren't really there but I think PvE missions will be many times more interesting than what we have now for missions. You could add: (1) rescue X ship from pirates, (2) invade base, kill NPCs, steal information, (3) get through a minefield to deliver a secret envelope, (4) win a massive space battle. It goes on and on. It could be tremendous fun.

3) Planets are pretty, but massively laggy. I dislike missions that require planet travel because you get the jitter/lag traveling far distances. Some of the missions require you to go to the other side of a planet. it takes 20mins+ real+time through jitter/lag to do anything. Extremely frustrating. I also dont really understand planets, and what value they have. It seems you can get everything you need in space off the asteroids. There's a disconnect between what SE2 is doing as a sandbox vs. what actually is fun for users. I've also fallen through a planet somehow several times into this blank no texture land. Very weird.

4) I'm probably one of the few that think this, but I despise the new small blocks. They are a pain to place, and chop down on ships. It takes forever. A little 0.25m block should not take the same time to weld/disassemble as a 1m block. It also shouldn't require the same # of mats. Lastly, I may not be using the right tools but its quite annoying to place the 1m block, it somehow is offset by 0.25m and then you have to grind/replace it. I'd prefer an option to turn off the fine grid placement/building altogether.

5) There are bugs that continue to crop up that I remember from SE1. E.g., sound will go off on your drill and not come back. Conversely, the sound will stay on your drill (ship and person), and you have to press the drill button to turn off the sound. Alt camera view remap to another key doesn't work. Docking with the base sometimes there will be a weird jitter on the screen that won't go away until you undock.

First off, I would like to state that a lot more information about the difference between these two custom worlds, and even what was changed by the balancing iteration mod could have been made a thousand times clearer. When I switched to the planetary start, following the classic world, everything seemed exactly the same and I assumed I must have accidentally restarted the same world file. I had to swap back and forth between the two worlds to confirm and actually notice what the differences were, so having more clarity on what it was we were actually supposed to compare would have been appreciated.

Balancing Iteration

This feels more proper, but I don't know if its the best implementation just yet. I like being able to get small amounts of resources from basic voxel. This is similar to how SE1 treated stone as a compound ore yielding trace amounts of minerals when refined. But unlike SE1 it avoids the issue of having vast amounts of junk ore sitting in base storage or needing to be ejected and causing lag. At the very least I think its a good method for supporting the evolution of a player's progress, while ore deposits should remain the intended goal with largest yield. For instance, a new player could start, and use their hand drill to get enough components to build a cheap survival kit as early as possible. This is where I think backpack building thrives - being used only as an early game utility before switching to efficient dedicated machinery.

On the topic of machinery, I think the new limitations to backpack building are a good change. I noticed that certain components could not be fabricated in the backpack and instead required a smelter/assembler, such as the "turbine engine" component. Despite this success, having to go build a separate component in a new machine after having gotten so used to the automaticity of backpack building felt burdening and my motivation was quickly exhausted. This is the biggest issue that I feel automatic backpack building introduces: it is so simple that it is derived of intention and cognitive process that it threatens to prevent players from learning the resource production chain entirely. It misleads them to believe that fabrication is only about ore and then welding, when it has actually been about the fabrication of components between those steps the entire time. Ensuring that the correct principles for fabrication are being taught as early as possible is the most important thing for minimizing confusion, and attracting a player-base that is actually interested in continuing to play. Modifying the early-start backpack build mechanism to an interface within the tab-screen: where they actually have view, point, and click on components reintroduces intention. Putting just enough cognition into backpack building that it would allow players to actually learn the foundational concepts to survival gameplay.

Balancing Iteration: Classic Start

- More information should have been given for this. It was not clear that a FTUE was included in this world at all. It wasn't until i tried the Planetary Start - No Tutorial version that I realized that there were GPS markers for the ore deposits. Asides from that, it really didn't seem like much difference existed between the two.

- This world felt more enjoyable with the inclusion of the Transparent GPS Markers mod. As it reduced the visual clutter (as described in the next section) making the playthough feel more accommodating and natural. Regardless of Keen's direction for the world files, i think that visual clutter via GPS markers needs to be reduced, and this is a good way of doing it.

Balancing Iteration: Planetary Start - No Tutorial

- This felt the most familiar to me as an SE1 veteran, and I enjoyed it the most. Spawn in, receive no direction, and just go for it. I also feel like its the most consistent with what the intro cinematic seems to suggest about the game. Which is that we need to engineer our way back to the colonization vessel, instead of just repairing a tutorial ship and heading to space with it. It feels a thousand times more meaningful and exciting this way.

To clarify, I enjoy the idea of a tutorial or FTUE like the version from the VS2 Planets update. But I do agree the abundance of supplied ships made the game way too simplistic and felt detached or... inconsistent with the intro cinematic. To me it felt like the game was supposed to be challenging and in December it failed to do that. Trying the Planetary Start without a tutorial felt immersive because it was the most consistent in respect to the cinematic storytelling that has been shared so far.

I've seen some comments suggest a toggle-option at the beginning of world creation, such as "Easy Mode (with the caption "Recommended for New Players") and Hardcore (using the description from the planetary start). However, I fear that these options wouldn't be changeable once the world is generated and players would need to start a new save if they felt they choose the wrong option. The biggest issue I feel is that it would also make the campaign's canon more interpretable: does Ivan land on a planet that is sparse and need to gather resources as he suggested? or does he land at old colonization facilities and get back to space in an instant? If its the latter, I think I've been clear it wouldn't feel exciting to me... that "Planetfall" was just some meaningless stop used as a tutorial. Given these issues, why not just change the tutorial? The meaningfulness of the world start, campaign, and strange abundance of repairable ships, could be solved by changing the FTUE to take place onboard the colonization vessel or at one of the many refuelling stops on their 10,000 year journey. That way, the tutorial can be fully instructable (and skippable) without interfering in the survival sandbox's progression. This feels like the best solution to me, and minimizes the complexity of game support, while maximizing immersion for its players.

TL;DR

- Trace Ores from voxel feels better, but i'm uncertain compared to SE1's compound ores (i.e., stone). --> Room for expansion.

- Backpack building is too automatic. It removes cognition, and prevents players from learning the ropes.

- Backpack building is still misleading players to learn incorrect foundations. Need to shift focus from ores to components.

- GPS still being used to create Visual Clutter, consider marker transparency

- Planetary start - no tutorial feels appropriate and most consistent with the cinematic lore

- If an FTUE is kept, consider moving tutorial to a temporary prologue world, preceding Verdure and survival entirely.

Not exactly on-topic, but my feedback after looking at the remote control concept art from the 9 April update:

Whatever design you decide on, it needs to be clear and obvious which side is the front/top/left/right etc. I know these aren't final designs, but a tiny white arrow is not sufficient. Many directional SE1 blocks (like the remote control, camera, and projector) had such tiny and unclear markings showing which side "goes up," so to speak, that it was incredibly frustrating to place, then remove and replace. I don't think any immersion would be lost by having large arrows and markings on all of these blocks, and it would prevent a lot of frustration.

Some quick feedback:

I'm LOVING the "Classic Survival Start" mod!

I think it makes a lot more sense considering the story is around colonising a whole new star system. If the system is populated with NPC stations and ships and such, then that should be a (direct) response to the player's endeavours to colonise the Almagest system. Colonising a newly found star system should be almost entirely player-led, not the other way around.

If I start the game trying to get to an NPC station with a nearly on-rails tutorial then it doesn't feel as encouraging. However, crash landing on an alien earth-like planet in a drop pod from a starship in an emergency gives a lot of potential story-wise and also gives the player that really great sandbox feeling of "start the game by doing whatever you want and the game will respond accordingly, would you like a (UI-based) tutorial to help your first steps?"

Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to provide feedback.

Cheers.

Two quick comments after I played around with the Balance iteration mod:

1) Dirt mining being back is OK but the yields seem too high. With the lowly Mark 1 drill I get almost 20 iron per second, that makes it almost pointless to seek out iron ore deposits.

2) With the reduced material requirements, the produced components can now have more mass than the ore they came from. For instance, 13kg of iron ore will now produce a 35kg steel plate. Which is somewhat irritating. I hope that is only temporary and will be re-balanced.

I prefer the classic survival start, the balance iteration mod helps quite a bit. I'm especially pleased seeing all that rock being useful, although I think rock should yield a unique rock resource as in the first game, which should yield very small quantities of other common materials after processing. On Earth, not necessarily other planets, our crust has higher proportions of oxygen (which you could trap in your smelter when processing the rock), hydrogen (and thus water), silicon, aluminum, magnesium, and then iron, although exact concentrations vary, and this is ignoring elements you didn't implement at all. We don't have a huge proportion of nickel, but we do have some titanium.

And that gravel it used to produce; give us some concrete construction blocks that use that. Very simple, cheap construction materials, if heavy. You could also give us aluminum and silicon-based structural components; cheap, can pressurize a room, but not very durable.

One thing I didn't like was your "bulletproof glass" in SE1 was just simple silicon glass. You could implement armored glass (could use aluminum and silicon layers), or diamond glass (a near-future material as we're getting closer to manufacturing large artificial diamonds). Or graphene layered armor.

I do agree with Rabiator that the production of more material than was input is ridiculous. You could reduce the mass of components, for instance.

I did run into one additional issue; the default alignment speed on connectors is excessive and resulted in my (very small, 15000kg) craft tail-whipping the deck and destroying its thrusters when docking to the platform on the 'a place to call home' asteroid.

My biggest complaints have been that the story and method of "colonization" aren't very compelling/believable

"Colonization" doesn't really rhyme with doing lazy peoples' chores to me, and that's what the contracts currently feel like. More compelling missions, that would also give players the freedom to do it their way, would be to ask them to construct a station/ship in a sector with x, y and z components and gift it to the colonization authority faction (which should be rejected if it doesn't meet requirements). There's also the question of why other people should arrive ahead of you in the first place given how far Almaghest seems to be from Sol; everyone else would be colonizing nearer systems, not going after this little binary that took a 30k year journey (a bit absurd, also, but the game doesn't really do FTL or even anywhere near-lightspeed travel, does it?)

The colonization authority could instead be your ship (or more likely a fleet, of which you could be the vanguard) and your crew, and colonization would instead lead to humanity spreading out in the system as you colonize it, like Testudo suggested; NPCs appearing in the system is a direct consequence of you providing the groundwork. And the number of NPC stations and traffic to them would increase over time (to within some limit like only one major station within 40km of another, a limit of x minor stations associated with a major station.)

The system map would be more compelling if sector definitions matched orbits of objects, so spherical sectors around planets, and then ring-shaped orbital sectors along their orbital paths.

I suggest a great option to make mining more interesting and modern, namely, instead of ore deposit points, make a global heat map with percentages of ore in the soil, and add a new type of scanner - a visor, when using which the soil type changes in appearance, as with a thermal imager showing percentages of resources in a certain radius, in depending on the scanner level, and then there will be one resource for mining, namely soil with a different percentage of ore that needs to be cleaned or melted, of course, you can add several types of soils, such as regalite or magma, I think you understand the idea of continuous voxel mining, it's like in se1, but without accumulation points ores. I hope you understand me :)

Related to:

Environmental Voxels

I have already mentioned it several times,

Some environmental voxels (what a long name) can contain nickel but not all of them. Some of them can also contain iron or...

"Look at this light textured rock, what is it? I think I know, it is Calcite (calcium silicate)."

"What can I use it for? Ooh, don't tell me, I know. The CONCRETE."

Instated of relying exclusively on iron for like EVERYTHING, why can't I use the more abundant materials to build basic structures? Concrete blocks can be perfect for base building, things like base foundation, support columns, large landing pads, ramps, bridges, all those big structural elements that consume megatons of iron otherwise. Make it super heavy but brittle, so it is less effective than armor by taking more damage from weapon fire, but is much more resistant to grid impact.

Here is the poll that took place on the Official Keen Discord server.

I think that at least some rock-like voxels should give you calcite, while nickel can still be found in other kinds of rocks.

Also, different kinds of environmental voxels should yield different concentrations of basic materials. Soil A can yield 3% iron, while soil B can yield 5%. Beach sand can have 5% silicon, while desert sand can give you 10%. The less abundant environmental material is the better yield of basic resources it can have, or even a combination of those. In addition to that, big pure ore deposits can be found more likely under those more rare env vox (envox?), making the search for them less random.

Just a quick point about planetary voxels and size of ore deposits. Personally I don't like these micro ore deposits scattered everywhere that only yield a few hundred kg. I can foresee this being a real pain when rovers come about. Whether mining by hand or using a ship, one is going to end up with holes everywhere making a mess of the landscape and a hazard for driving.

It also takes away the fun of making mining outposts with static mining grids, then making trucks to transport the ore between them and your base. There's no point in setting up a static mining grid that depletes the ore deposit in just a few minutes.

Apart from that I think SE2 is coming along nicely, I'm looking forward to many more thousands of hours in this game.

Did a quick test of the balancing iteration mod, it felt 'about the same' having gone through the normal start recently. The adjustments were minor enough (I guess) that I didn't notice.

The only hiccup I saw was at the step where you had to fix the hydrogen ship. You can't weld the metal grids with the welder, so you need to make the metal grids separately in a smelter. You can't modify the existing bases to build one, so I had to craft a smelter on top of one of the grasshoppers (to reuse power) to make the metal grids needed to fix. Otherwise, I didn't notice anything dramatically different. Cheers,

Re: Survival Feedback Thread

I will start with my current "vanilla" survival experience and then move into the 3 mods.

Vanilla

I like the option to do the missions and get rewards, sandbox games thrive on having many options and things to do where you get to choose which activity you want to pursue, whether that be exploring, base building, material stockpiling, missions, or many others. With that being said I think the current "survival" mode should be renamed to "story" mode or something due to a few reasons, namely the missions system with the Vallation Station. The reason for this is because this system feels mandatory and I feel an urge to pursue missions simply to unlock more blocks before I can explore and build the things I want (the thing that makes Space Engineers so appealing.) I did this for a few hours and got frustrated enough to quit because it felt like I was grinding something I didn't want to do without a choice to go out and build the things I wanted as I didn't have the stuff unlocked. The system is nice to have, just like many sandbox games give you loads of options on things to do whether that be: fishing, hunting, exploring, building, crafting, upgrading gear, interacting with NPCs, fighting, etc. The thing that I dislike is that it doesn't feel like just another option, it feels mandatory. I'd love to keep receiving rewards from the missions, hell even locking the other sectors behind them would be more acceptable than locking the blocks and machines themselves behind it. I don't intend to rant about this subject, I just really don't like it and i'll end it here; however it ties into my experience with the other game modes (mods) as well.

Balancing Iteration Mod:

I dabbled with this a little, especially noticing how stone actually gives you something, which I enjoy a ton. What is the point of having the right-click function on the drill if you don't receive anything from the stone anyways?

Planetary Start, No Tutorial:

I played this a bit and really enjoyed it. It gave me some of the feelings that I love from the first Space Engineers. With that being said it didn't take long at all for me to fall into the gameplay loop I outlined above in the "vanilla" feedback. I could see myself starting every survival run with the goal of getting to Vallation Station as soon as possible, taking away any variety in gameplay and forcing me on a long track that i'd like a break from. I want to start and explore, find a base location or travel across the galaxy to build an awesome self sufficient base. Once multiplayer is out I could even see myself building starting structures or RP structures on a starting planet and moving my main base out to the stars, however with the current system I imagine everyone joining a server and immediately beginning with the same goal of: get to Vallation Station, grind missions asap as quick as you can, unlock building blocks, then begin your multiplayer survival run. Other points include: yes, this start feels clear, I enjoyed having a waypoint out of reach, it incites my creativity and gives me a clear goal that I want to go there, while leaving the path to the objective completely up to me. It felt playable for sure and I feel like it will be even more rewarding of reaching that destination compared to the "vanilla" start where I'm handed ships and just have to pilot them (after repairing them via the tutorial of course.) With that being said, I wouldn't take the original experience out by any means I am loving the story and interactions with the brother, I am genuinely excited to see what you guys are cooking up for us in the campaign.

Classic Survival Start:

Now this I loved, its late but when I come back to the game I will be enjoying this. I immediately checked my blocks and was astounded that I had them all, I just have to explore and find materials and then I can do the things I want. I still feel a little pull that says "come here and grind missions" but I feel like that's mostly due to the colonization UI, which is huge on your screen, but I finally feel like I can ignore that path and do what I want. Only coming back to it once I'm ready, established, and wanting to explore other sectors.

Also did a test run of the planetary start, no tutorial world. Aaaahhhhh, nice. That's the Space Engineers I know. More of this please. It took about 3x longer to get to space but not unreasonable, all the parts were right there. In this case, I just strapped rockets on the escape pod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3704324542

The process was pretty painless and straightforward (to someone familiar with SE1) and also a more enjoyable experience overall. Getting ice was the only major time sink, since the nearest ice was far outside the limited range I could go from the drop pod (portable power source). Easily overcome with a gearforge, but I was trying to take it from the perspective of someone who was trying to figure it out and may not know about such things (yet). Instead, I put atmost thrusters on the drop pod also and flew it closer to the mountains to find some underground ice. Probably not as much of a problem when you hit VS3.0 and we get water.

If you guys ever decided to do my suggestion to store/find/trade blueprints on datapads in game, then you could add a chance to find the blueprint for things like the grasshopper (or others like the sledge) in assorted unknown signals, which could be used as a one-shot blueprint placement to build some of the starter ships still, but in a searchable way that isn't handed to you.

I started in classic mode with all blocks unlocked, using a balancing mod. On top of that, I restricted myself from using the jetpack on planets, besides making screenshots. No jetpack starting option please :) I also deliberately avoided Unknown Signals to not alter my surviving progression.

Environmental voxels gave me enough to build a small transport ship, and I quickly found copper and cobalt to progress. After that, I flew to the nearest mountain to collect some ice, and at that point I was basically ready to build a spacecraft.

I scouted for some larger iron deposits and started building. I was still using my backpack to craft almost everything I could, and there is barely any reason to use the smelter right now, except for things you simply can’t craft yourself.

I tried using the smelter to make steel plates, but it quickly became inconvenient because of all the micromanagement.

I think the smelter would be much more useful if backpack crafting was slower and more energy intensive. In that case, I would naturally prefer using the smelter to produce ingots, instead of constantly managing plates, tubes, construction components, and so on.

Having ingots would simplify things a lot. Instead of juggling many small components or relying on the build planner for potentially hundreds of different blocks, you would mostly work with a good stockpile of iron ingots, and occasionally some silicon or nickel. That’s much easier to handle.

This would also make the smelter a valuable investment that you actually rely on, where power supply and setup start to matter much more.

I had Howard blueprint for a medium-sized hydrogen transport ship. I only built the essential parts of it since there is no pressurization yet, so fully closing it wasn’t necessary. I just added an oxygen tank so I could carry enough air with me.

I visited Vallation Station to see what it offers. You can buy almost everything there, which makes progression feel trivial, so I decided not to trade and instead headed to the asteroid ring.

The ring is full of resources. I was able to find everything I needed in bulk, and within about 30 minutes I had plenty of all kinds of materials. Modified the ship by adding some solar panels on the roof, added smelter and gearforge too to make better tools. After that, I moved on to the moon Palatine, landed, and started building a base.

The next step would be more automation, using mechanical blocks and all the usual survival gameplay I always enjoyed in Space Engineers.

I just wish I could pay for fast travel instead of being forced to do contracts for it.

I'm still missing a day/night indicator on the planet so you can see how much longer it is. A shovel or leveler would be helpful so I don't keep falling into the holes I've dug. Power lines sometimes don't fit with other structures if there are solar panels there. The tutorial should be able to be turned on or off in the options. The icons should be made more transparent; they obstruct the view. Otherwise, you're on the right track. Thanks, keep it up!

I started the Classic Survival Start and played about 30 minutes. I couldn't build my starter base because I couldn't find any Lead in any amount, nor Copper in sufficient quantities. The survival pod doesn't have hydrogen bottles or a cargo container, or any way to manufacture things so the starts are even slower than SE1. Too slow for me, and I like a slow start. Running around on foot for 30 minutes because the jetpack can't go anywhere on base storage alone is not a fun time.

Please add more to the survival kit, or make the landing pod have some stuff in it.

Testing the classic survival start a little more, in this case combined with the planetary start, no tutorial option.

I think I like the nerfed backpack building in general, if it's going to stick around and to still encourage people to want to build and use a smelter asap, then I'd suggest you make the backpack building less efficient. For example, one steel plate is 13kg of iron ore (both backpack builder and smelter), I would prefer to see the smelter have a better yield and (for example) the backpack takes 18kg to make one plate, while the smelter takes 13kg. So there is a tradeoff choice, convenience (backpack) vs. efficiency (smelter).

I do like seeing the small quantities of ore in random stone grinding. I would actually prefer to see smaller quantities of them in fact, like 1-2kg vs. 6-8kg and not every time. I would also prefer if those trace amounts were a little more random vs. each type of stone having specific outputs. Though the randomness should be still different based on the type of stone. i.e. stone should have the highest % chance of iron, smaller chance of nickel, smaller chance of silicon, very small chance of cobalt, and minuscule chance a unit of a rare like gold, or lead or or whatever. Not useful amount, but varied to keep it interesting. Similarly, sand would have its own list, etc. I might even suggest the randomness somehow be affected by nearby ore nodes. In this case, the closer to an iron ore deposit, the chance of finding iron slowly increases the closer you get to it, and the amount you find (at random) also slowly increases. I really like the smaller ore deposits on planets (with more frequency of finding them), to offset the feedback from people who want them to be bigger, add the above, meaning you start to find more ore in the stone around the nodes also to offset the smaller actual ore node size.

Jetpack feedback (based on the testing of the no tutorial start. A common 'problem' is that you could simply jetpack up to vallation station with minimal effort, you don't really need to build much apart from a gearforge to get a couple oxygen and power packs. In this case (and in general) I would like to see the default starting jetpack (for all starts) to essentially be an atmospheric (only) jetpack+ space (only) ion jetpack. Like the thrusters on ships, both run on battery and have a ceiling. Meaning, they can't boost you off a planet! You can get around in space with the ion thrusters, you can get around on the planet (slowly) with the atmos thrusters. The hydrogen boost for the suit, could still add higher speed at the consumption of hydrogen, though I'd prefer not to have the jetpack be a useful orbital interface device in any case.

My feedback from classic survival start, balancing iteration mod, after having gotten to space, built a decent sized hydrogen mining ship, and space base...

There is too little incentive to build an atmospheric ship. The ore deposits are far too numerous, and far too small, to reward exploring. I think that should be changed, and also the small ore detector should have a larger range. Also, I think the atmo thruster specifically (not the others) should be more powerful. Right now, building any sort of atmo mining vehicle is really difficult and unrewarding.

The backpack inventory is too large, and the fact that the jetpack doesn't require hydrogen, also makes ships unnecessary starting out.

I think the landing pod should have more resources on it to help get your first vehicle going, and should not have so many small armor blocks which are a pain to grind down. Also, grinding small armor blocks and detailing blocks needs to be faster. I'd suggest redesigning the landing pod into something that could more easily be transformed into a functional atmo vehicle.

I like having the option between the two flight modes, both have their place. The SE1 controls are much better for everyday tasks and mining. The SE2 controls are better at high speeds. I'd switch which ones are the default, since the new controls seem way more useful for the stuff you're doing when starting out.

I'm ambivalent about standard voxels providing resources. It could be a way to make automated drill rigs rewarding, but only if stone provides iron, not just nickel. I can't stress important this small change would be, since that way you could get the resources necessary to extend a drill rig as you dig down into the planets core.

Right now, the earthlike planet doesn't feel like a rewarding place to be compared to space. I guess soon we'll have rovers, and maybe if automation turns out to be less janky than SE1 automating the shipping of resources off planet or around the planet will make things better.

Next, can we get an ingots mod?

I have put some time In on these SE2 worlds and mods

Here are my 2 cents

1) I Like the original backpack building as apposed to the reduced backpack building.

2) I like the increased inventory size of 8.4T

3) I think the Stone Voxels yielding some resources is fun but maybe should only be limited to starting areas of the game to help noobs

4) I LOVE the astoroid belts as this allows for rapidly finding many different Ore types and feels like it greatly improves gameplay

5) I know Keen is cooking hard and the game will change a lot before we leave alpha and I am ok with that. I have faith that Keen is going to do a great job and even if the game takes on a form totally different form what I say above I know it will be for a good reason and I will likely love the game regardless.

6) THANK YOU KEEN FOR PUTTING SO MUCH LOVE INTO THIS GAME!!!

• "Stone" voxels should have a percentage of common minerals and metals you can acquire from them based on a procedurally generated heatmap, weighted towards areas that would realistically have those minerals and metals. Iron-rich voxels could have a 3:1:1 ratio of iron to nickel to silicates.
• Ores should be in much larger, more spaced out veins and deposits that are procedurally generated each time the a world is created. This makes building small mining outposts more interesting and worthwhile long term. Increases potential for npc interactions when traveling from the outposts to the main base.
• The idea behind the Seismic Surveying and Radio Spectrometry mods should be brought into SE2 with some enhancements to make Prospecting and Asteroid Surveying an actual gameplay loop with some kind of datapad you can use to record the location of an ore vein or asteroid and sell to other players or npc trade stations.
• Volume and mass both need to be used by containers and cargo. This would make a return of ingots from the smelter/furnace important for efficiently storing large amounts of unrefined materials. Ores bulky and heavy. Ingots heavy, but less bulk. Components, potentially lighter but taking up more space.
• Backpack "smelting/building" from ores/ingots should be inefficient, yielding fewer usable resources compared to using grid based options.
• Add a more "primitive" coal/wood fired furnace/smelter for a more low tech, no power required start. Slow speed, low efficiency (more impurities left behind).
• Add coal/wood as a gatherable resource.

I want to highlight something important about survival design, because I see this argument come up a lot.

Some people suggest:

• “just add different survival modes for different playstyles”
• or “keep the base game simple and let mods add depth”

But honestly, neither of these are great solutions.

If your ideal experience is something extremely easy and straightforward, at some point… you might as well just play creative.

And relying on mods to “fix” survival is not it either. Mods can be great — some get really close — but they will never fully match the quality, balance, and cohesion of a well-designed vanilla system.

For example:

• Adjust starting conditions
• Give players more credits
• Let them start with better ships or infrastructure

I actually really like the idea of starting from an NPC station with some credits.

From there, you choose your path:

• Want to be a pirate? → buy a small fighter
• Want classic progression? → get a starter miner/prospector
• Want an easier start? → just increase starting funds

This naturally creates difficulty scaling without breaking the core systems.

And it fits perfectly with the lore — we’re not random nobodies crashing alone anymore, we’re part of a colonization effort. Starting with some assets and interacting with NPCs from the beginning makes sense.

You should absolutely be able to start from nothing:

• crash landed
• limited tools
• forced to figure things out

That’s where survival really shines.

Every step forward should feel like an achievement you earned, not something handed to you.

Because right now, if you:

• have an overpowered suit
• can fly to space immediately
• and carry a portable factory in your backpack

…you’re not really surviving.

You’re thriving from minute one.

And when everything is easy, nothing feels valuable.

What is Space Engineers 2 actually trying to be?

A true survival sandbox?

Or a game with extra “busywork steps” supporting some unclear gameplay loop?

I understand that different systems are being developed in parallel — that’s normal.

But solid survival foundations should come first.

Because everything else depends on them.

If you build contracts and story systems before survival is properly defined, you’ll end up:

• constantly reworking them
• or leaving in exploits and inconsistencies
• or worse — designing survival around a fixed “intended path”

And that leads to the worst outcome:

• a weak sandbox
• and a weak story

It should be:

• flexible
• replayable
• driven by player decisions, not instructions

Then you build story, contracts, and missions on top of that.

Not the other way around.

Let survival be the foundation — not the side feature. 🚀

Hello!

English is not my main language, no tools were used for translation. Sorry if it feels a bit raw.

I played the Planetary Start, No Tutorial, with the Balancing Iteration Mod.

As a SE1 player, I'm on the "I like this better" side.

I really liked having to start from scratch, and getting to space on my own terms, not because I was handed a hydrogen ship.

The good :

Less powerful backpack : I finally had to create a small starting base, which is good. I never felt the Need to Create a base before.

Voxels ressources : I like the change. I think you nailed why the players wanted "stone back", and gave a very satisfying compromise. Having to scout different biomes for different resources was fun.

Drop pod design : I really like its design, more than SE1's. Also, with its solar panel and battery, coupled with the backpack building, we don't feel the urgency of SE1's battery draining, which was a relaxing change.

The bad :

Starting base power : Unless I missed it, we do not have any non-solar power generation at the start of this scenario. This means that when night falls, if your battery drains, you have to wait a long time for the sun to come back. Not fun. The FTUE doesn't have this problem, thanks to its bases with plenty of batteries and solar panels. SE1 doesn't have this issue thanks to its windmills. Building and grinding batteries to get the free 30% charge feels like cheating, so I don't want that.

User Interface : I have a 1920x1080 screen. I had to scroll down on every item in the build menu, to know if I could build it with the backpack or if it needed a machine. See atttached screenshot. Also, could we have more information ? In a game about engineering, not having any information about thrusters or solar panels output without building them feels a bit strange. See attached ugly mockup.

The meta :

Mods as updates : This is clever. I can't wait to try new things without waiting for a new "big" update.

Surrival Kit go down the hole!

Okay, I launched my second instance of Classic Survival to enable the balance mod so I could try it out in conjunction with the starting spawn. As the title says, I spawned in falling and just managed to prevent myself from dying. When I flew back up to my survival kit, it fell down into the hole and shattered away completely. The spawn was in empty space over the giant hole from the cavern generator. LOL

Check out the video to see the hole and a rough idea of where I spawned and how deep it was. Not enough to kill, but enough to destroy the landing pod.

Needless to say, I restarted this game.

Currently ran couple runs on the Classic Survival Start. I like the change where we can now get ores from the basic ground, but it feels very strange, especially how most of what you get is just Iron, and a huge amount of what you can build is just from your backpack. A lot of the current way things work and progress doesn't feel like you are trying to manage engineering tasks and more just exploring or scavenging. I had a few ideas and think there are some gaps that could be filled in for the starting progression.

1. Resources

The resources from the ground feel inconsistent in what you are looking at or with what is happening engineering wise. To me it feels disconnected going to sand or rock scooping it up and it immediately being able to be used to make a ship. There should be a drawback early on with using your backpack only and needing to create infrastructure to upgrade it or bypass it.

• Backpack “processor” Inventory

Have a separate processor inventory that handles only voxels, breaking them down into gravel and small percentages of iron, nickel, and silicon over time.

• Gravel/Concrete foundations

Concrete foundations would let players build early infrastructure without burning precious iron. This gives gravel a purpose and makes early‑game base building easier.

• Main inventory holds ores and components

This creates natural pressure to set up a base because your main inventory fills with ore quickly, once infrastructure is setup you can start processing it more efficiently.

2. Inventory, Ores, Components, and possibly Ingots/Prefabs.

Now I'm not an ingot purist and it doesn't have to be that way, but the current inventory system feels unbalanced. Having everything based off weight but both the ore and the component weigh the same amount doesn't give you a reason to make components or have an early production chain. The backpack magically producing the item when welding and taking the place of the refiner and assembler makes it seem like you don't have to make any early infrastructure.

• The Backpack should only create basic components at first

There should only be a few items that can be created from the backpack starting off, and there should be some sort of penalty whether it's the time for the backpack to create the components or a conversion penalty for the ore being used. Early on there should be a reason to create a basic base and the smelter.

• Ores

Ores currently weigh the same as the components they make so currently there is not much benefit to processing it down immediately into components. When processed down to components you should be able to store a lot more. That process of breaking it down into something that is easier to transport should be the main consideration for creating infrastructure.

• Prefabs instead of ingots.

Ingots were always the intermediary process between ore and components. With keen wanting to move away from ingots we could now have assemblers make prefabs. Have single packaged components that have everything needed for a specific block that have a lot less volume, but you need infrastructure to make them.

3. Progression and Dealing with Soft Locks

Overall, I would like to see a little earlier game need for infrastructure. While not making it as tedious or painful as starting out as Space Engineers 1. There shouldn't be major exploration bottlenecks in this game other than going to other sectors to find rarer materials. You should be able to engineer your way out of a situation in this game. Whether it's missing a material or needing more of it. I would like to see more early game opportunities for figuring out problems rather than flying around.

• Early Start.

Currently it's easy to get to space without building any infrastructure, some people have already mentioned you can fly there and build a battery and a survival kit. I think the ability to make just about everything from the backpack or scavenge from wrecks immediately needs major adjustments. Backpack should just make a Basic Frame, Construction Components, and Electrical Components. From those you should be able to make a survival kit, the smelter, and power generation.

• Upgradable Suit/Tools

Once your setup with a gear forge there should be options for upgrading your backpack to process what is made from smelter with an increase in power consumption. The Grinder and Welder should be tied to the tier of what they can weld and grind also, you should need to have higher tier welders and grinders to work with the more advanced components. It would also give variety to contract missions as some give you huge amounts of resources that you can grind for free with once again no infrastructure.

• Compound Ores in Planet Voxels

Give a way for people find traces of cobalt on planetary voxels. Since they have a lot more voxel variety give the drill the ability to show how much of a resource is in a voxel. There could be different amounts whether its sand, rock, dirt, or bedrock. Something like bedrock could have traces of things like Cobalt, Lead, and Gold that can be processed with grid drills and block refineries.

• Better Ore Detection

Once you have infrastructure setup you should be able to make larger ore detectors with larger reach or the ability to locate specific ores. They could be more effective on static grids and have reduced range on ships the faster you move to save on performance.

I’ve been testing a survival run (~25 hours so far) using the Balancing Iteration Mod and Classic Survival Start. While these mods move closer to the classic SE1 grit, the "survival" loop still feels bypassed by the game's current sector and station design.

The Early Game: A Good Start

Backpack Building: Reducing this is a huge win. It forces you to actually produce parts rather than magically assembling a ship in five minutes.

Surface Resources: Getting Fe, Ni, and Si from the ground is great for the start, but the yield is too high. It’s currently more rewarding to dig dirt than to scout for real ore deposits.

The "Rush to Space" Problem

It is far too easy to abandon planets. With just a smelter, a few turbine blades, and a handful of grids, you can hit a snowy peak for ice and leave. Verdure feels pointless because:

Ore Scarcity: Deposits (besides Iron) are too small to support a permanent planetary base.

Forced Progression: You can’t get advanced materials on planets or moons, forcing a rush to space just to get basic Tool Level 2 upgrades.

Mandatory Stations & Exploration

The reliance on Vallation Station and the Kemik Belt trivializes engineering.

No Incentive to Engineer: Instead of building a specialized grid to solve a distance or resource problem, the game funneling you toward pre-built stations.

Static Gameplay: Because you need the stations, you're forced to build nearby, which kills the drive to explore the rest of the world.

Conclusion

We need a reason to "conquer" a planet before leaving it. More ore variety in Verdure would be great, even if in rare locations. Increasing planetary ore sizes and reducing the mandatory reliance on pre-built stations would bring back the SE1 spirit of solving problems through engineering rather than just traveling to a shop.

How are others finding the balance? Is the "station-to-station" loop killing the survival vibe for you too?

It would be a good idea to add elements to the welder animation that show the process of installing components, such as a machine that installs chips on a board. Like tat https://youtube.com/shorts/c-zSY0e8xXU?si=Nly8cJVmV6BVeDXu

Using the balancing mod, and the classic survival start.

My opinions. In SE1 you had to be creative to get your survival kit moving. The kit had the necessary parts to get it flying if you wanted to. This survival pod was not thought out in the same way. It does not provide those parts.

Also. Cutting down a grid for parts. Like the survival pod. Now takes so much more time than:

1: dig up rocks,

2: magic backpack smelts rocks, into ingots, and makes components. That is faster than salvaging parts. Salvaging parts should be faster. The backpack should make sense. It kinda doesn't right now.

Also. The Ore to the steel plates should take up way more space an weigh a lot more than the ore it takes to make them.

Also, please. Ingots. It doesn't make much sense to smelt ore, directy into components. Now when I want to take materials somewhere to go build something.... my only option is raw ore. Bulky. Energy intensive. Raw ore.

Maybe that's a way for you to "fix" the backpack. In the real world, smelting is an energy intensive process. Here it's basically free. Along with hydrogen for you jetpack. It's just not fun in a creative way. Compared to SE1, the gameplay is SO gamefied, that all the thinking, all the solving, all the things that made you kinda proud of yourself when you got something sorted out... that stuff is all gone here.

Dig up dirt. Turn dirt directly into thrusters and gyros. Fly away.

facepalm.

Mods: Classic Survival Start with Balanced Iteration Mod

This feedback will primarily focus on the Classic Survival Start. However, I wanted to make a brief comment on the Balanced Iteration Mod, which I initially used with the Classic Survival Start.

I liked the small amounts of iron and nickel that the Balanced Iteration Mod was giving. This in combination with mining an Iron vein gave me the basic starting materials for a base, with roughly 1k Nickel ore and the rest in Iron. Unfortunately, I ran into an initial bug that had me falling through the planet, so I lost that batch. After respawning and re-mining, I was able to start a base platform and add a small storage container to store ores in. Unfortunately, in the middle of building the base, welding unexpectedly stopped working altogether so I was not able to continue testing that combination. I will have to start over again and retry this combination again, as that seems like a good combination for a Robinson Crusoe style of start (build everything from scratch). I opened the issues that I ran into as separate bug reports. For the lack of welding, I don't know if I accidentally triggered something when I was hunting for and through the debug menus, including going through the F11 diagnostic screens. I didn't change anything, but I also don't know if that threw me into a bad game state.

Mod: Classic Survival Start

I created a Classic Survival Start world without the Balanced Iteration Mod. I have been playing this world for the past several days.

I was able to mine sufficient resources to build a small base and an atmospheric ship. The ore deposits were all small, so the overall terrain around the base looks like it has been overrun by large groundhogs - lots of holes. While it involved a lot more running around, this starting world by itself also makes for a good Robinson Crusoe style of game play

The primary issues that I have run into at this point are:

1. A lack of gold, which is blocking me from building the assembler
2. A lack of compressors, which is blocking me from creating mining drills for the atmospheric ship

I checked out the nearby Supply Depot, but that turned out to be the one from the missions. I also checked out a wreck and several outposts, but no luck so far for either issue.

While I'm playing, I find that I'm missing the Basic Assembler and Basic Refinery from Space Engineers 1 (SE1). Those could process limited resources and produce a limited number of items based on those resources. I keep thinking if the Basic Assembler was available, I could produce the compressors for the mining drills and maybe try to mine deeper. As it is, I'm stuck with the hand drill and haven't detected any gold yet either with the hand drill or the ore detector.

This also reminds me of SE1, where once you had your first atmospheric ship, you had to fly around and check rocks and dark locations for the rarer ores. If you were lucky, you would find a rock with a gold deposit in it or an underground ore deposit.

I did manage to find ice deposits using the ore filter, so that was good.

Overall, I like the Classic Survival Start. I did like the concept of the unlock tree from SE1 for the blueprints, so that might be a good alternate if missions aren't available in this mode.

Otherwise, you might consider allowing the player to build a planetary contract module. Maybe if they do that, the planetary missions for that planet could be available to unlock the more advanced blueprints instead, like the hydrogen thrusters. To get the other missions and blueprints, you have to visit the station.

Not specific to the mods but an overall of SE2. For me SE2 does not give me the same feeling and enjoyment i do with SE1. Like the steps you have to take in the beginning in SE1 is good. Every step feels like an achievement.

Ok to be frank tho alot of the things with SE2 reminds me too much of a console game. UI/UX, gyro movement, inventory, menu. Skipping steps to simplify logic. Well its not logic. Being able to build out of your backpack feels like magic. Too much of the core essence of what makes SE actually SE is lost with SE2. Instant teleportation instead of jumpdrives or similar is also skipping a step. A typical thing to do on a console to save performance.

And second why the almagest system it does not seem very multiplayer server friendly. No matter how much you optimize the game it is still bound by player numbers and blocks. Unless you run the server on a quantum computer. Sure the almagest system is fine for solo and campaign. But not multiplayer. However if you are able to scale the almagest system with how many sectors and planets per sector then it should be fine.

And for gods sake dont make it contract bound. It becomes boring after a while. For me tho the current condition/layout/state/menu of SE2 makes it unplayable for me. Its called Space Engineers and not Simple Engineering. Like I understand trying to get more players to the game but removing or skipping the parts of Space Engineers essentially the core of what Space Engineers is. Now that is wrong.

Your are suppose to engineer a solution, figure it out, calculate travel distance to next planet. Do i have enough power or hydrogen. How much can i carry with me. Engineering and planning ahead. All of this is also one of the reasons i never started doing SE2 modding. I need to enjoy the game before I can mod it. Ive spent over 20000 hours in SE1 and I still enjoy SE1.

I would like to do the same in SE2 but not in its current state or the direction its going. Stop simplicity of game that is supposed to be a thinking engineering game and rather just make better tutorials then you made for SE1. Sincearly a long time player and modder.

Rethinking voxel mining once again:

I just had yet another idea for avoiding the "many many small ore nodes" problem, without voxel mining, but still keeping the start not too difficult. We have a lot of boulders lying around on the surface. What about making those into little ore nodes? Break one, get a handful of ore, perhaps 10-20 per boulder. That would be the easy to find but volume-limited ore source for new arrivals on the planet. For larger amounts of ore, find underground nodes (which should be much bigger but less numerous).

The small ore nodes is one of the reasons the balancing mod needed to be made, in conjunction with the huge amount needed to build blocks was killing it for me. With the balancing mod, the gem feels more like old space engineers comparing the amount of blocks you can weld with one single backpack full of recourses. If you balance out the amount of ore in your backpack needed vs steel plates, where you can weld way more using steel plates compared to ore, that will give people reason to actually start refining stuff. Now I don't bother because players will go for that which works faster. And if there is no difference, people will keep welding with ore. It is faster because it skips a step. Also refining (yes again) ingots with rows of refineries and upgrading them with speed modules or yield modules was big fun in SE1. Some of us are using SE basically as a factory building game like satisfactory. And building your own ships and tools to get the job done. Please consider bringing back ingots and raw stone as this was a lot of fun dealing with stone and needing to find a way to dump it. In real life you also do not get just ore, you need to separate it from the stone, make the raw material and then make it into parts.

Mod: Planetary Start, No Tutorial

I have completed reviewing the Planetary Start, No Tutorial mod. I also like this mod, though it has the same challenge as my earlier review - lack of compressors. Luckily, my spawn point was near the Excavation Site mission, so I was able to raid the containers for the compressors that I need. This allowed me to complete my basic atmospheric miner ship. This in turn made mining much easier, though I'll have to play around with the design more to make it an effective ship. (Tends to slide forward, left or right when not level especially under load.)

From this, I was able to rebuild the Sledge and reach Vallation Station. See the attached screenshots for my starter base, and the screenshot of reaching the station. The Sledge (named HydroHopper) isn't complete, as I had difficulty welding components inside the blueprint. I was not able to easily target the internal blocks by reaching through the hologram for the smaller armor blocks, and the area welder could not be completed from the resources on hand. But this can be easily fixed later.

Flying the atmospheric miner brings up another feedback point. Maybe I missed it in the options, but I'd like the ability to turn on or off the gravity level/horizon bar. This isn't as useful in space, but on bodies with gravity, it can help keep the ship level with the ground when I have no trees or other terrain close enough to help. Being able to turn it on or off allows me to enable it when I need to use it. This can also be useful for atmospheric re-entry and landing, when you're trying to get the ship down to the surface and land.

I also like the idea of continuing the missions from Vallation Station, though it might be nice if I could build a contract terminal on the surface and pick up the planetary missions early. Atmospheric ships can be used to complete those missions.

Eventually when I returned to the excavation site's mission, I'll either have to break down the drills on the atmospheric miner, or I'll have to use the Assembler located in the mission to recreate those components.

Another idea is a local contract terminal, one where if the mission location is discovered, I could pick up only that mission from that location only. This would have allowed me to complete the excavation site mission on its own, or the supply depot mission for moving the boxes around for that site. In this case, once the mission was completed, I could have used the on-site assembler to build the compressors needed for my atmospheric miner.

Bug Note: I did go to the contract terminal, and the video cutscene did kick off for the station, but the audio was not available for the video. I eventually exited the video to move on. Then the dialog from the brothers played.

Mission Feedback:

I did continue the missions to find out what would happen, and I was able to get back to the excavation site quickly. When I did, the terrain, mining and resources that I had raided had reset. Completing the mission later was not a problem. I also did confirm that had I repaired the batteries, I could have used the assembler on the site to build the compressors needed for the atmospheric mining ship.

I am of two minds with resetting the mission. First, it was nice that the mission reset so I was able to complete it without a problem, even though I had stripped the area of parts earlier. An argument could be made that since the mission wasn't accepted yet, the site still might have been active, and someone replaced the parts (though that doesn't explain the reset ore deposits). Plus it makes it easier to abandon and reset a mission or reset a failed mission so someone can retry completing it later.

On the other hand, leaving the parts gone would have forced me to mine and craft components to replace those that could not be created from the backpack (the compressors). This also might have led me to hunt around outside the mission for resources if I had depleted vital ores. While more realistic, this would also have made the mission more challenging and time consuming to complete.

I don't think I have a preference either way with the missions. Resetting them is probably easier to do from a game and player perspective, instead of potentially having people have to fly around on the surface and potentially back into space to recreate the parts needed to complete the mission.

Mission Sidenote:

While mining iron ore during Objective 3, I was looking up when I fell off the iron ore shelf and flew through the mission rock. Luckily, there was surface terrain under the excavation site stone, and I was able to run up and drill a hole from the backside of the stone to the surface and escape. I did not have to reload the game. When I tried to return to the spot where I escaped from, I was not able to easily find the hole. The voxels did seal up behind me.

Mod: Planetary Start, No Tutorial

I have completed reviewing the Planetary Start, No Tutorial mod. I also like this mod, though it has the same challenge as my earlier review - lack of compressors. Luckily, my spawn point was near the Excavation Site mission, so I was able to raid the containers for the compressors that I need. This allowed me to complete my basic atmospheric miner ship. This in turn made mining much easier, though I'll have to play around with the design more to make it an effective ship. (Tends to slide forward, left or right when not level especially under load.)

From this, I was able to rebuild the Sledge and reach Vallation Station. See the attached screenshots for my starter base, and the screenshot of reaching the station. The Sledge (named HydroHopper) isn't complete, as I had difficulty welding components inside the blueprint. I was not able to easily target the internal blocks by reaching through the hologram for the smaller armor blocks, and the area welder could not be completed from the resources on hand. But this can be easily fixed later.

Flying the atmospheric miner brings up another feedback point. Maybe I missed it in the options, but I'd like the ability to turn on or off the gravity level/horizon bar. This isn't as useful in space, but on bodies with gravity, it can help keep the ship level with the ground when I have no trees or other terrain close enough to help. Being able to turn it on or off allows me to enable it when I need to use it. This can also be useful for atmospheric re-entry and landing, when you're trying to get the ship down to the surface and land.

I also like the idea of continuing the missions from Vallation Station, though it might be nice if I could build a contract terminal on the surface and pick up the planetary missions early. Atmospheric ships can be used to complete those missions.

Eventually when I returned to the excavation site's mission, I'll either have to break down the drills on the atmospheric miner, or I'll have to use the Assembler located in the mission to recreate those components.

Another idea is a local contract terminal, one where if the mission location is discovered, I could pick up only that mission from that location only. This would have allowed me to complete the excavation site mission on its own, or the supply depot mission for moving the boxes around for that site. In this case, once the mission was completed, I could have used the on-site assembler to build the compressors needed for my atmospheric miner.

Bug Note: I did go to the contract terminal, and the video cutscene did kick off for the station, but the audio was not available for the video. I eventually exited the video to move on. Then the dialog from the brothers played.

Mission Feedback:

I did continue the missions to find out what would happen, and I was able to get back to the excavation site quickly. When I did, the terrain, mining and resources that I had raided had reset. Completing the mission later was not a problem. I also did confirm that had I repaired the batteries, I could have used the assembler on the site to build the compressors needed for the atmospheric mining ship.

I am of two minds with resetting the mission. First, it was nice that the mission reset so I was able to complete it without a problem, even though I had stripped the area of parts earlier. An argument could be made that since the mission wasn't accepted yet, the site still might have been active, and someone replaced the parts (though that doesn't explain the reset ore deposits). Plus it makes it easier to abandon and reset a mission or reset a failed mission so someone can retry completing it later.

On the other hand, leaving the parts gone would have forced me to mine and craft components to replace those that could not be created from the backpack (the compressors). This also might have led me to hunt around outside the mission for resources if I had depleted vital ores. While more realistic, this would also have made the mission more challenging and time consuming to complete.

I don't think I have a preference either way with the missions. Resetting them is probably easier to do from a game and player perspective, instead of potentially having people have to fly around on the surface and potentially back into space to recreate the parts needed to complete the mission.

Mission Sidenote:

While mining iron ore during Objective 3, I was looking up when I fell off the iron ore shelf and flew through the mission rock. Luckily, there was surface terrain under the excavation site stone, and I was able to run up and drill a hole from the backside of the stone to the surface and escape. I did not have to reload the game. When I tried to return to the spot where I escaped from, I was not able to easily find the hole. The voxels did seal up behind me.

Survival Mode with only the Balancing Iteration Mod for Ores

I only played Ten hours of the Itinerary mod. My expectations where the difficulty in gameplay would have been increased, or ores would have been more rare. I wanted to give a review as from the perspective of the player.

Needless to say, I used the opening area to my advantage and although the ores appeared either smaller or bigger, depending on its game rarity, and with grinding down the pod, I was able to make a new ship aside form the grasshopper. So more difficult? so and so.

One important thing to note is the consumption of the batteries made it worth picking up all the spare batteries and charging stations at the start of the game. I grinded down one of the station's solar panels and it did help maintain my ship's power consumption until the sun went down and I had to park it until dawn.

I meant to play more, but life got in the way. I wanted to take on a self-paced challenge to unlock the ship-mounted mining drills and test whether "flying" on and off the planet for resources like uranium would be practical for building a massive planetary base. However, I quickly discovered that even reaching space is a challenge long before I could start mining there.

Two bullet points are:

2. Distance: The distance at which terrain and detail load, combined with how the mod places new ores or interacts with vanilla ore deposits, makes the actual scale feel off. From the orbital station, looking down at the planet still fells like I am flying inside the atmosphere instead of being in space. The visual cues don't match the real distance so the transition from orbit to surfaces compressed and misleading, however, I remember the distance to fly into space was longer. turning down my textures and graphics until the clouds and mountains are blurred into clay putty seemed to fix this distance render issue. I thought maybe I needed to download the other two mods on steam that are available on Steam to rectify this, could be my own machine problems since messing with settings solved it.

2: Energy management was rough early on. Without an assembler or access to most tools until you unlock every block through the missions, keeping my batteries anywhere near 100% was a constant struggle. I actually enjoyed the challenge, but it has it's drawbacks, or at least needs a few tweaks. I have a clip where I tried to take of vertically, nose pointing up, in the hydrogen ship. I had already burned through a lot of battery and hydrogen from previous flights, and I added atmospheric thrusters pointing downward on the sides. The moment I lifted off the landing pad, the ship's power dropped out completely and I had a hard landing. In hindsight, I misunderstood how hydrogen thrusters draw power; I assumed they could run off both hydrogen and battery, but at around 12% battery, with added spotlights plus turning on the 02/H2 generator, that was apparently it's breaking point. And before anyone jumps in, yes, I did manage to keep my atmospheric ship's power alive by slapping a large solar panel on it. During the day it hovered around +/- 1% power discharge by end of day. In the night however, not so much.

Other than that, I love the Gold Mines! It feels like the Itinerary mod uses the planet's geography to make sense of resources, i.e. massive rock uplift or mountain valley is likely to have some gold deposits near the surface.

The spider-web pattern of the ore veins, the way they branch out further and almost organically move away from the main deposit, is a really nice touch. I noticed it most with silver, where a thin vein would snake two or three blocks deep in the stone wall. Felt different apart form vanilla during gameplay. Paired with the narrower or partially collapsed mine entrances, it creates a surreal sense of depth that makes using the hand drill feel more immersive, like you're tunneling into actual caves and abandoned shafts rather than just carving out ore pockets. It adds atmosphere and purpose to the digging in a way vanilla almost touches upon.

I enjoyed the Balancing Iteration Mod it didn't seem overall challenging, maybe more complicated and strategy. I would love to see a base or maybe something that would allow a sandbox player the choice to never leave the planet, as building shuttles is doable on planet before reaching the orbital station.

delete this

Balancing Iteration Mod:

i did not notice any meaningful difference in component costs, personally i think they were way too low to begin with, the game doesnt feel any faster or slower than before, and i am not even sure which blocks actually had their resource requirements changed.

about the ore volume rebalance, it hardly makes a difference for the game, its only really felt when mining iron because thats like 90% of what we will be mining. for the rest of the resources, we still just need to find 1 good node to get all the resources we need. so since iron is abundant anyways, the only real difference this change achieves is a little bit more time spent on the act of mining, but nothing else really.

as for environmental voxels, i think putting resources in them is unnecessary and annoying, i dont want to deal with random resources that i dont actively want to mine, thats why nobody liked stone either.

I spent a solid 20-ish hours messing around with the mod specifically and the standard survival start, and I feel like it's def a step in the right direction, there may be some overcorrecting on some areas but I can't offer that good of alternatives, I can say though I do feel like the intentions are def looking into the right things for what is in the game so far, I'm aware progression will naturally change as more stuff is added into the game but, just looking at it from the current state, this feels like a step in the right direction and just needs some fine tuning from here!