MEIN COMBAT - A Combat Feedback Compilation
-- MEIN COMBAT --
I have been thinking about combat in SE a lot recently, and have been discussing with the community about various pain points that exist in SE that made combat unenjoyable for most players, as well as some general feedback and ideas, here is our results:
1) Where Combat Should Happen:
PvE:
- There should be combat encounters that we have to engage ourselves.
- There should be an option for random attacks on our base.
- Angering an AI faction should make them attack your base.
- NPC factions could fight wars with each other to claim sectors.
PvP:
- There needs to be some goals for people to fight over, else people will just hide in deep space forever and never come out to fight.
- Territory control for factions - have some building in every sector that we can capture to gain an sector-wide bonus for our faction.
2) Weapons Range:
Bigger is better.
One main problem in SE1 was that we could not reliably increase weapon ranges. It was much easier for modders to reduce a weapons range than to increase it, because of engine limitations. That is why weapons should be developed with highest possible ranges in mind, so people can customize it to their likings.
Personally i think a maximum combat range of 20 km should be possible, even if the game uses smaller ranges by default.
Furthermore, the increased ship speed requires longer weapon ranges too since it takes only about 3 seconds to fly 1 km at 300 m/s and you will be out of range faster than you can shoot.
3) Detection / Radar / Targeting:
For large weapon ranges, naturally we will also need a way to detect and track targets at long range.
I propose to add 2 types of radar / detector blocks:
One short ranged combat radar (up to 20 km) that can target objects in combat range, much like what the AI block was doing.
Long range radar system as described in my other post: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/53795-idea-long-range-scanning-system
4) Ammo:
One problem about ammo in SE was that it was basically infinite. We never had to worry about ammo at all because it was very cheap to make and we could fit a lot of it into our storages.
1 large container could hold more ammo than we could ever use in a battle, guns were just never running out of ammo, there was no tactical depth to it, only 2 states - either you were ready for combat and had basically an infinite supply, or you were not ready for combat at all and had no ammo.
5) Combat Time:
Combat time was way too short in SE, important systems were destroyed too quickly, and we never really had time to react to anything, it was always just total chaos, and hours or sometimes days worth of work were lost in seconds.
We need to make a distinction here between small and large ships. Obviously, combat with a small ship will often be over relatively fast, but combat with a large ship should last for a long time, 5-10 minutes on average at a minimum considering the investment.
I think energy shields would be a very good way to extend combat time and would make it very easy for players to make their desired combat time as long or as short as they like in their servers.
Here is a really good example of how shields could work in SE2: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3154379105
6) Enemy Locations:
Would be great to have some enemies everywhere (space, air, land, water)
7) Ship Speed:
Ships need a way to catch up to each other in combat, having a situation where 2 ships are chasing each other at max speed is absolutely unenjoyable and stupid.
Sadly this is the outcome of combat in survival servers more often than not, and there needs to be a solution.
Increasing the weapon ranges will already help a lot with this problem, however, it will not be enough.
To deal with this problem, ships could be able to accelerate beyond the 300 m/s limit, at greatly increased fuel or power cost, up to a maximum of 400 m/s.
While flying faster than 300 m/s, drag is applied to the ship until it is back to 300 m/s.
This would allow for ships to catch up to disabled ships that have no engines, and also prevent endless fleeing or chasing by burning up fuel rather quickly.
Additionally, some new weapons / tools, which can influence a ships speed, could be introduced:
- Tractor Cannon - Fires a projectile at medium ranges that when it hits a ship slightly pulls it towards the direction it was fired from.
- Force Cannon - Same as above but inverse effect - it pushes instead of pulling.
- Tractor Beam - A short range beam that pulls ships with a certain force
- Disruptor Cannon - Fires an energy projectile that when it hits a ship reduces its acceleration by 50% for a duration, and has a small chance to disable its thruster controls for a few seconds.
(i think these can also have some fun uses outside of combat)
8) Gun Spam:
The usual combat strategy in SE was to just build as many turrets or guns as possible in an ugly block shape, there needs to be some way to limit gun placement or discourage spamming of blocks without proper infrastructure.
I think the best solution for this problem would be to have diminishing returns on blocks.
9) Combat Difficulty:
I think most players will prefer combat to be difficult and engaging, if you make it too easy, people will quickly lose interest in the game.
There will always be people whining about combat being too difficult, it will be best to add an "easy mode" for this type of players.
10) Economy and War
In most good economy simulations, war is usually a driving factor. Combat and destruction creates supply and demand, scarcity forges alliances. A market can not work if resources are overly abundant and without any demand for them.
I like this feedback
11) Penalty for death in combat
Respawn time - One minute for every kilometer to the selected own medical station
12) Faction war has consequences
When the last logged member of a faction dies in combat, the faction ceases to exist; it is dissolved, and the ownership of territories, blocks, and grids held by all its members is reset to zero. (debellation / debellatio).
The color of the all blocks is changed to rusted metal, and all supplies in warehouses are converted into the corresponding amount of scrap
11) Penalty for death in combat
Respawn time - One minute for every kilometer to the selected own medical station
12) Faction war has consequences
When the last logged member of a faction dies in combat, the faction ceases to exist; it is dissolved, and the ownership of territories, blocks, and grids held by all its members is reset to zero. (debellation / debellatio).
The color of the all blocks is changed to rusted metal, and all supplies in warehouses are converted into the corresponding amount of scrap
Good write-up, Zed.
1. Sector ownership
Not sure about NPCs randomly attacking your base. How would they even know where it is? If your base is on a busy trade route, then maybe—but if it’s off in some remote area, random attacks don’t really make sense.
Good point about territorial wars. It was always immersive in games like X to enter a sector and see factions fighting each other. Even better if reputations are dynamic and can be influenced. The “invincibility bubble” around NPC stations is also not great—there should be a way to destroy stations and conquer sectors. Friendly NPC stations could appear if you control a sector.
2. Range
Range should be balanced around fun and engine limitations. Whether it’s long or short doesn’t matter as much as it being meaningful and engaging. Long ranges can be cool and more realistic, but not if they hurt performance. I’d rather have shorter ranges with smooth FPS.
Also, being able to actually see damage and reactions matters. At long ranges, you’d need cameras zooming in, tracking targets and showing the feed on HUD/LCD displays, which again can be performance-heavy. Ideally, combat mechanics should naturally slow ships down (not always at 300m/s) so you can enjoy visible destruction and tactical maneuvers—one of the main strengths of the game.
3. Detecting and informed combat
Radars and scanners should have a real impact. With advanced radar, you should clearly see incoming missiles on your HUD, including speed and time to impact.
Scanners could also reveal enemy ship info, helping you make informed decisions and tactics. Detection could tie into heat mechanics—running “cold” might allow stealth approaches or surprise attacks. Preparation and information should matter.
4. Ammo
Ammo shouldn’t feel infinite. Beyond cost, it should have meaningful mass and volume, so carrying too much makes your ship less effective.
Gatlings could fire rapidly and counter missiles well but overheat, creating windows for attacks.
Railgun ammo could be really bulky.
5. Combat time
Energy shields could deflect rather than absorb damage—more like “deflecting armor” than full protection bubbles. Emitters should need exposure and be vulnerable to damage. They’d protect critical areas, not the whole ship.
Deflected shots could still hit other parts, so positioning matters. Shields would also generate heat and compete for space with weapons.
Overall, combat duration should come from better design and mechanics—armor effectiveness, slopes deflecting shots, specialization and ship roles—not just inflating HP or reducing DPS.
6. Enemy locations
Different environments should encourage different ship designs and tactics. No single “best” design for all situations.
7. Speed
Max speed could depend on thrust-to-mass ratio. Damage thrusters, and you reduce enemy max speed. There can be plenty of ways achieving this.
A form of “spacetime drag” could allow temporary speed boosts while accelerating, letting a ship catch up if it can sustain thrust longer.
8. Gun spam (and general spam)
I think this problem goes far beyond just guns. It also applies to thrusters, reactors, welders constantly repairing damage, and pretty much any system that can be stacked without meaningful downside. I’m not a fan of hard limits like “max X blocks per grid”—those feel artificial and go against the sandbox nature of the game.
A much better solution, in my opinion, is a simple and universal heat mechanic.
It doesn’t have to be overly complex. Even a single “grid temperature” value could work. Larger grids could dissipate heat faster (based on volume, for simplicity), meaning bigger ships naturally support more systems. No need for complicated surface-area calculations unless they can be done efficiently.
The idea is that every active system generates heat:
Each grid would naturally have a kind of “heat budget”. If you exceed it, systems start to lose efficiency or temporarily shut down.
For example:
This creates a natural balance:
The same applies to other weapons:
It also affects ship design in interesting ways:
This system turns ship building into actual engineering:
At some point, adding more weapons simply doesn’t increase real combat effectiveness. That’s where the design becomes interesting—because optimization matters more than brute force.
9. Difficulty
Difficulty should scale naturally. Small fighters are easy to operate, while capital ships with multiple systems should require multiple players to use effectively.
10. Economy of war
War is a major resource sink—and winning should feel rewarding. Rewards can include loot, salvage, reputation, or territory.
Salvaging needs to be efficient. Grinding manually is tedious—often 10x worse than mining, while it should be almost the other way around. There should be better tools or mechanics for large-scale salvage.
Hacking should also be streamlined. If a ship is disabled and uncontested, you should be able to attach a device and gradually take control, instead of manually hacking dozens of blocks.
If salvage takes 10x longer than mining, the system is broken. It should be faster to incentivize combat.
11. Death
Dying in combat shouldn’t mean instant respawn. You can be able to select a respawn point and wait for your “clone” to be ready.
Scanners could detect lifeforms. Engineers should be the most valuable asset onboard. If no enemies are alive, you can board, disable respawns, and take control of the ship.
12. Consequences
Losing a battle is already a big consequence. No need for excessive penalties. Territory control is a strong enough win/lose condition.
Deleting grids is counterproductive—winners should be able to salvage them. Captured stations could reveal intel about other faction assets nearby. Losing one should matter—self-destruct systems might be useful to prevent intel leaks.
At the same time, controlling more sectors might lead to other issues—more fronts, more threats, more pirate activity...
Conclusions
Combat in games like SE can be hard to balance, but it is ultimately the reason to engage in most other activities. Sure, some players enjoy peaceful base building and engineering, but in the long run, combat is what gives purpose to it all. Why collect resources, trade, or explore if there are no meaningful threats—or no reason to build powerful fleets?
The game allows us to build grids out of individual blocks, creating an endless variety of designs. It would be much more engaging if design choices actually mattered, instead of the meta being reduced to simple “gun bricks.” Game mechanics should promote clever engineering and avoid situations where spamming more systems automatically leads to better combat effectiveness.
The survival economy should ensure that winning a battle provides real rewards—access to resources, technologies, or strategic advantages. Victory should have a tangible impact on the game map and politics.
Good write-up, Zed.
1. Sector ownership
Not sure about NPCs randomly attacking your base. How would they even know where it is? If your base is on a busy trade route, then maybe—but if it’s off in some remote area, random attacks don’t really make sense.
Good point about territorial wars. It was always immersive in games like X to enter a sector and see factions fighting each other. Even better if reputations are dynamic and can be influenced. The “invincibility bubble” around NPC stations is also not great—there should be a way to destroy stations and conquer sectors. Friendly NPC stations could appear if you control a sector.
2. Range
Range should be balanced around fun and engine limitations. Whether it’s long or short doesn’t matter as much as it being meaningful and engaging. Long ranges can be cool and more realistic, but not if they hurt performance. I’d rather have shorter ranges with smooth FPS.
Also, being able to actually see damage and reactions matters. At long ranges, you’d need cameras zooming in, tracking targets and showing the feed on HUD/LCD displays, which again can be performance-heavy. Ideally, combat mechanics should naturally slow ships down (not always at 300m/s) so you can enjoy visible destruction and tactical maneuvers—one of the main strengths of the game.
3. Detecting and informed combat
Radars and scanners should have a real impact. With advanced radar, you should clearly see incoming missiles on your HUD, including speed and time to impact.
Scanners could also reveal enemy ship info, helping you make informed decisions and tactics. Detection could tie into heat mechanics—running “cold” might allow stealth approaches or surprise attacks. Preparation and information should matter.
4. Ammo
Ammo shouldn’t feel infinite. Beyond cost, it should have meaningful mass and volume, so carrying too much makes your ship less effective.
Gatlings could fire rapidly and counter missiles well but overheat, creating windows for attacks.
Railgun ammo could be really bulky.
5. Combat time
Energy shields could deflect rather than absorb damage—more like “deflecting armor” than full protection bubbles. Emitters should need exposure and be vulnerable to damage. They’d protect critical areas, not the whole ship.
Deflected shots could still hit other parts, so positioning matters. Shields would also generate heat and compete for space with weapons.
Overall, combat duration should come from better design and mechanics—armor effectiveness, slopes deflecting shots, specialization and ship roles—not just inflating HP or reducing DPS.
6. Enemy locations
Different environments should encourage different ship designs and tactics. No single “best” design for all situations.
7. Speed
Max speed could depend on thrust-to-mass ratio. Damage thrusters, and you reduce enemy max speed. There can be plenty of ways achieving this.
A form of “spacetime drag” could allow temporary speed boosts while accelerating, letting a ship catch up if it can sustain thrust longer.
8. Gun spam (and general spam)
I think this problem goes far beyond just guns. It also applies to thrusters, reactors, welders constantly repairing damage, and pretty much any system that can be stacked without meaningful downside. I’m not a fan of hard limits like “max X blocks per grid”—those feel artificial and go against the sandbox nature of the game.
A much better solution, in my opinion, is a simple and universal heat mechanic.
It doesn’t have to be overly complex. Even a single “grid temperature” value could work. Larger grids could dissipate heat faster (based on volume, for simplicity), meaning bigger ships naturally support more systems. No need for complicated surface-area calculations unless they can be done efficiently.
The idea is that every active system generates heat:
Each grid would naturally have a kind of “heat budget”. If you exceed it, systems start to lose efficiency or temporarily shut down.
For example:
This creates a natural balance:
The same applies to other weapons:
It also affects ship design in interesting ways:
This system turns ship building into actual engineering:
At some point, adding more weapons simply doesn’t increase real combat effectiveness. That’s where the design becomes interesting—because optimization matters more than brute force.
9. Difficulty
Difficulty should scale naturally. Small fighters are easy to operate, while capital ships with multiple systems should require multiple players to use effectively.
10. Economy of war
War is a major resource sink—and winning should feel rewarding. Rewards can include loot, salvage, reputation, or territory.
Salvaging needs to be efficient. Grinding manually is tedious—often 10x worse than mining, while it should be almost the other way around. There should be better tools or mechanics for large-scale salvage.
Hacking should also be streamlined. If a ship is disabled and uncontested, you should be able to attach a device and gradually take control, instead of manually hacking dozens of blocks.
If salvage takes 10x longer than mining, the system is broken. It should be faster to incentivize combat.
11. Death
Dying in combat shouldn’t mean instant respawn. You can be able to select a respawn point and wait for your “clone” to be ready.
Scanners could detect lifeforms. Engineers should be the most valuable asset onboard. If no enemies are alive, you can board, disable respawns, and take control of the ship.
12. Consequences
Losing a battle is already a big consequence. No need for excessive penalties. Territory control is a strong enough win/lose condition.
Deleting grids is counterproductive—winners should be able to salvage them. Captured stations could reveal intel about other faction assets nearby. Losing one should matter—self-destruct systems might be useful to prevent intel leaks.
At the same time, controlling more sectors might lead to other issues—more fronts, more threats, more pirate activity...
Conclusions
Combat in games like SE can be hard to balance, but it is ultimately the reason to engage in most other activities. Sure, some players enjoy peaceful base building and engineering, but in the long run, combat is what gives purpose to it all. Why collect resources, trade, or explore if there are no meaningful threats—or no reason to build powerful fleets?
The game allows us to build grids out of individual blocks, creating an endless variety of designs. It would be much more engaging if design choices actually mattered, instead of the meta being reduced to simple “gun bricks.” Game mechanics should promote clever engineering and avoid situations where spamming more systems automatically leads to better combat effectiveness.
The survival economy should ensure that winning a battle provides real rewards—access to resources, technologies, or strategic advantages. Victory should have a tangible impact on the game map and politics.
So... i'm seeing good ideas, and some that would require ... how to say, intentionally bad engineering to make sense, and a couple of them are already solved through features in SE1.
Main issue is that it's a shotgun post. There are like 40 topics here. How is anyone supposed to know what we're voting for? That said, for the sake of conversation, i'll carry on.
heat mechanic: Having experienced 250h of Starbase, i do not think it will be good for the perceived qualitative state of SE2. Every single player who tries to build in Starbase asks why their ship just stops working, and it turns out to be some tiny mistake in the heat management system. For it to be a good system you'd have to be able to "see, hear, and feel" ... heat, and it would have to be really obvious where a problem is. In a video game, through speakers and a screen. I don't know how to make this work.
Ammo: the cost of things in SE1 is up to you. If you choose to play on 10x/10x/10x settings, you won't have a problem. But if you choose 1/1/1 it is absolutely a problem to get ammo to the enemy. I know, because i play with these settings in solo. I've had to mine out entire mg deposits just to win a fight. It's also one of the main drivers to build a carrier, so you can carry the ammo without exposing all you own to the enemy at the same time.
Faction warfare: I *really* like this idea but it is also a concern for performance. I want gratuitous space battles with dozens of ships, like Elite dangerous CZ style, maybe where we can have some impact on our own but concerning the scale of the interaction are not expected to defeat everything ourselves. That said this is a far more complicated physics simulating game engine. If the scale of the interaction is controlled, say we dock a fighter to an NPC carrier and then it takes us to a battle in an "instance", this could work. Then, we have to define the universe that these things are happening in, *and* we need reasons to care about these "politics" besides money or standard resources that we could get anywhere. It would be very cool, but i'm not sure its within the scope of se2. Hope i'm proven wrong-- they delivered planets and water and whatnot. evidently, anything is possible.
Shields: I don't like it. The coolest part of SE is the deformation. let's just turn off the coolest feature...?
recoil already exists in SE1. People have built ships that are entirely propelled by it.
Heat from guns in space would be a non-issue because space is a vacuum. Expanding gunpowder would dissipate almost instantly as the round leaves the barrel and impart almost no heat to a standard type of gun with a sealed barrel. Like yeah maybe a "standard gun" will overheat after like 900 rounds, but then also realize there are "recoil-less" types of ammunition where the round is like a tiny rocket and the barrel is just open in the back-- this is the type of weapon that would be used in space, logically speaking. There would be no recoil imparted on the weapon or user, expanding gas that pushes the round dissipates near instantly and doesn't interact with the weapon in any meaningful capacity. You'd have to intentionally design a worse weapon for these constraints to make sense.
Energy weapons: As a late game / rich guy asset .... can make sense. They don't make sense in the early game because ... where exactly are you going to get more energy than it takes to just grind a target with? Solar panels? You'd need a lot of infrastructure, at that point you're the rich guy. Physical ammo needs to be a better choice than using energy weapons, or why would anyone use bullets?
So... i'm seeing good ideas, and some that would require ... how to say, intentionally bad engineering to make sense, and a couple of them are already solved through features in SE1.
Main issue is that it's a shotgun post. There are like 40 topics here. How is anyone supposed to know what we're voting for? That said, for the sake of conversation, i'll carry on.
heat mechanic: Having experienced 250h of Starbase, i do not think it will be good for the perceived qualitative state of SE2. Every single player who tries to build in Starbase asks why their ship just stops working, and it turns out to be some tiny mistake in the heat management system. For it to be a good system you'd have to be able to "see, hear, and feel" ... heat, and it would have to be really obvious where a problem is. In a video game, through speakers and a screen. I don't know how to make this work.
Ammo: the cost of things in SE1 is up to you. If you choose to play on 10x/10x/10x settings, you won't have a problem. But if you choose 1/1/1 it is absolutely a problem to get ammo to the enemy. I know, because i play with these settings in solo. I've had to mine out entire mg deposits just to win a fight. It's also one of the main drivers to build a carrier, so you can carry the ammo without exposing all you own to the enemy at the same time.
Faction warfare: I *really* like this idea but it is also a concern for performance. I want gratuitous space battles with dozens of ships, like Elite dangerous CZ style, maybe where we can have some impact on our own but concerning the scale of the interaction are not expected to defeat everything ourselves. That said this is a far more complicated physics simulating game engine. If the scale of the interaction is controlled, say we dock a fighter to an NPC carrier and then it takes us to a battle in an "instance", this could work. Then, we have to define the universe that these things are happening in, *and* we need reasons to care about these "politics" besides money or standard resources that we could get anywhere. It would be very cool, but i'm not sure its within the scope of se2. Hope i'm proven wrong-- they delivered planets and water and whatnot. evidently, anything is possible.
Shields: I don't like it. The coolest part of SE is the deformation. let's just turn off the coolest feature...?
recoil already exists in SE1. People have built ships that are entirely propelled by it.
Heat from guns in space would be a non-issue because space is a vacuum. Expanding gunpowder would dissipate almost instantly as the round leaves the barrel and impart almost no heat to a standard type of gun with a sealed barrel. Like yeah maybe a "standard gun" will overheat after like 900 rounds, but then also realize there are "recoil-less" types of ammunition where the round is like a tiny rocket and the barrel is just open in the back-- this is the type of weapon that would be used in space, logically speaking. There would be no recoil imparted on the weapon or user, expanding gas that pushes the round dissipates near instantly and doesn't interact with the weapon in any meaningful capacity. You'd have to intentionally design a worse weapon for these constraints to make sense.
Energy weapons: As a late game / rich guy asset .... can make sense. They don't make sense in the early game because ... where exactly are you going to get more energy than it takes to just grind a target with? Solar panels? You'd need a lot of infrastructure, at that point you're the rich guy. Physical ammo needs to be a better choice than using energy weapons, or why would anyone use bullets?
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