Thoughts on survival, and ideas for the future

(Written after the release if VS 2.2, the mechanical blocks and weapons update.)

By comparison, I would see myself as a relatively rookie player in Space Engineers overall, but I have taken the time to introduce myself to space engineers 1, and 2, and come up with my comprehensive thoughts on how I feel on Space Engineers 2 as it is now, and suggest changes with the communities opinions in mind, as well as I'm sure- KSH's desire to differentiate and innovate from Space Engineers 1.

Survival's setup, execution, and its muddy progression.

Comparisons and where SE2 falls short.

I've clocked in a few hours in the base-game survival mode, as well as the modded classic start. I'm a fan honestly of having an at-large goal to chase as a natural push to progress in survival games, instead of just playing to play- for example: Minecraft being a survival sandbox, but with the subtle goal of defeating the Ender Dragon. Subnautica- While being more of a story focused game, the player still is free to do as they please, but are guided with the story of the game to progress, or No Mans Sky, arguably the best comparison I can make. The player is completely and utterly free but are goals that give them the opportunity to progress in a more linear fashion.

Ideas for improving block progression.

This, I believe is where SE2 loses that. The looming goal of colonising The Almagest System is something I think has lots of potential, but is executed poorly.

The concept of guiding the player around the solar system is a very good, and natural incentive for the player to explore, and visit other planets and various POI's using the goal of colonisation as a motivator, but, where I think SE2 falls short in this regard is hard locking blueprints behind progression. This simple blockage I believe hurts the experience of survival. Instead of thinking 'Oh, I wonder what that could be?' I'm thinking 'Wait why is that blocked? That kinda sucks-'.

I think a much better approach would be a sort of hybrid between SE1's block progression, and SE2's. Blocks are shown as a mystery icon like normal in SE2, but the player is given a sort of hint of what to build, or material to refine in order to progress that block tree. It's a rudimentary idea, I know, it is one of my less thought-out suggestions in this posts, and I welcome any other ideas or improvements.

Backpack Building, and Building in general.

Personally, I dislike backpack building. But, I see the thought process behind trying to make building of blocks in bulk (ie; armor blocks, conveyers, etc). But it also think it cheapens the impact of building in general. Being able to zip back and forth between ore deposits and your build holograms I think lessens the impact of truly building something great. As a compromise, I think adding basic refining and assembling capabilities to the players backpack works well, essentially giving the backpack the production functionalities of the survival kit of SE1. This process would not remove the ability of building from raw resources, but rather make it take an immense amount of suit power to do on the go. Allowing the player to choose between building with raw resources, but having to either take extra suit power cells with them or making trips to a nearby survival kit (which wouldn't be that much of an issue considering this feature would most likely be used while the player is building onto, or near a base with one) or, the sort of classic SE1 method, adding what they need to (I'm assuming a build planner in the future), and letting their components create whilst they build, in more powerful, faster dedicated machinery.

I also think building in SE2 is almost, too easy? Granted, this could be a balancing thing due to the limited amount of blocks in the game at the moment, but building a fully functioning ship is astoundingly easy and cheap in my opinion, and I think this comes from the lack of variety of components in SE2 in comparison to SE1- things like computers, displays, interior plates, small and large varieties of steel tubes being completely absent to name a few. Like before, I think this extremely dampens the impact of the player say, crossing the milestone of being space capable. Once again though, this argument could simply be due to the limitations of where the game is content-wise.

Mining and resource gathering/processing

I actually do quite enjoy the shift from SE1's all rounder 'stone' resource into each type of terrain giving a unique dedicated resource. However, this system is not without it's flaws. With sand being the primary source of silicon, with an unlucky spawn, a player could be completely without silicon until they find a vein, which even then is an inconsistent supply. In fact, I only found out about each material having a dedicated resource through Youtube, not the game, where it is not presented as such. Instead, I think a much better system is separating materials into gatherable types that can be refined further- being 'Soil' 'Rock' and 'Sand' respectively. (Snow giving ice isn't necessary to be changed, that works fine.) Soil, rock, and sand would function similarly to rock in SE1, except with slight changes. Every resource would refine into iron, nickel, and silicon. Except each resource would yield a significant amount more of their respective resource. For example- Soil would refine into Iron, Nickel, and Silicon, except it would yield a large amount more iron then nickel and silica. Rock doing the same except it yields mor nickel, and Sand doing the same except yielding more silica. This would allow the player to be able to receive all the necessary resources easily, but rewarded for exploring their options.

I also much preferred having to build and link dedicated refiners and assemblers in SE1, rather then having SE2's 'do it all' smelter block. To me, it felt a lot more rewarding having to build these large dedicated machines into my base, it really solidified having proper industry in the game for me.

Conclusion

This is obviously just a personal wishlist of mine, and I'm sure my ideas have holes that I could have never have thought of, but I hope I was able to find a sort of equilibrium of opinion with these ideas, and I welcome further opinions and ideas.