Make the survival mode appealing for both new players and veterans
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This is kind of a summary and interconnection of suggestions I have mentioned across different threads and comments. I wanted to write them all down in one place because some of them only make sense when combined.
I want to show a way to make the game appealing to both new players and veterans by preventing the game from being oversimplified while still making it more accessible.
General improvements
- Fix the obvious flaws that make it hard to get started with SE. More here.
- Add at least two difficulty levels to let players choose how they want to play.
E.g.: Arcade/Hard
This could affect:
- How powerful the jetpack is
- How dangerous the environment and weather are
- How limited backpack building is
- How much materials you get from voxels
Undo oversimplification that crossed the line
- "Materials from environmental voxels" shouldn't exist everywhere.
It feels wrong that a random piece of dirt yields materials to build a spaceship from.
Instead, add big and clearly visible patches of impure ores on the surface that yield a mix of different materials in low quantities.
Non-ore voxels should yield nothing but stone (more on that later).
This keeps the gameplay more believable while still providing an easy way to gather materials from the start.
- Bring back a dedicated smelting/refining step and keep production chains logical and believable.
Why can I produce a motor directly from dirt voxels in a smelter? Dafuq?!
Voxels should yield raw ores, ores must be smelted/refined into ingots, and ingots can then be processed into components.
This is the only way that is logical and makes sense. Anything else feels confusing and wrong.
Furthermore, being able to craft directly from raw ores bypasses a satisfying part of the core gameplay loop.
- Backpack building should not be able to smelt ores.
Yes, you should be able to craft items in your inventory (with some limitations), but you shouldn't be able to process raw ores directly. Restricting this makes the backpack less overpowered and far more believable, while still keeping building convenient if you have the required ingots.
Both Minecraft and Factorio do it the same way.
(This could depend on the chosen difficulty level: In Arcade mode, smelting in your backpack could still be possible and the limitations could be minimal.)
Fixing the "Space-Suit-Only" scenario
- Add a basic starting device to the player's default inventory.
It could look like a provisional, makeshift NASA device (held together with aluminum foil and duct tape).
You would place it in the world, and it would smelt ores into ingots using only sunlight. It would be very slow, but it gets the job done without requiring electricity or fuel in any way.
Once you have the ingots, you can continue with backpack building to actually build stuff.
You could craft more of these devices from the G menu to speed things up.
It's a more immersive and believable way compared to smelting ores in your backpack, and it will provide a noticeable sense of progression once you build the electric smelter.
(As above, this step could be bypassed in Arcade mode.)
New features to support gameplay
- Add a long-range ore scanner to make finding resources less tedious. More here.
- Add concrete blocks as a cheap building option to make the early game easier. These could be crafted from stone gathered from non-ore voxels. More here.
- Add concrete as a placeable voxel type so players can fill in holes or level out terrain (potentially using stone and water as ingredients).
Additional features that could make the game more interesting
- Add a research mechanic and tier-levels for blocks. More here.
I like this feedback
What do you think about the Space-Suit-Only scenario? How could it be fixed in another way while not adding magic stuff like smelting ores in your backpack?
What do you think about the Space-Suit-Only scenario? How could it be fixed in another way while not adding magic stuff like smelting ores in your backpack?
My point exatly, what do you think about this?
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/45245-survival-refined
My point exatly, what do you think about this?
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/45245-survival-refined
Also figyre out how to force; wheels before air, before space imao.
Also figyre out how to force; wheels before air, before space imao.
The biggest problem with mining right now is that we effectively collect pure resources ("ingots") straight from the ground with a simple drill. There is no real refining step anymore. IMO, this is the biggest step backwards in the game, because it removes an entire layer of gameplay instead of improving it.
You can craft steel plates straight from dirt because refining, as a gameplay mechanic, is gone. It seems to have been sacrificed in the name of "accessibility" or "quality of life."
I often hear people say they don't like waiting for refineries. But speeding up refining was itself an engineering problem to solve in a game with Engineers in its name. Build a larger power plant. Add more refineries. Leave them for a while and go mine some additional ore in a mean time or build something. That's exactly the kind of gameplay the original survival mode encouraged. And if you really don't enjoy that style of progression, adjust your starting conditions or play a different playstyle. We all hope for equally available trading path or pirating path to be available in the game, but if you can simply mine a gigaton of gold in 10 min that would be even harder to justify. Mining/production path should be HARDER not easier to allow for alternative playstyles ffs. Or the DEVs were completely blinded with their colonization crap no one has asked for. And even that would be much better to base on top of real intrinsic survival needs rather than fulfilling arbitrary tasks.
Speaking of world settings, they already are your difficulty settings. There is no need to simplify every core mechanic just to make the game "easier" for some hypothetical new player.
New players shouldn't be expected to design efficient production systems or engineer advanced grids from day one anyway. That's what dedicated tutorials are for. Give them structured progression. Make the suit modular. Unlock advanced backpack building later in the campaign so they can quickly construct things once they've learned the basics.
Those missions should also remain completely optional. Not everyone enjoys hand drilling and welding. Give ALL new or old players alternative progression paths where they can focus on flying pre-built ships or rovers, combat, exploration, trading, scavenging, or piracy instead. Do not force people doing what they don't like. And do not assume all of them want easier or simpler mechanics. Not to mention there were no complex mechanics in this game to begin with. I am pretty sure there are many potential new players that will come to play this game for the interesting mining and production mechanics and they might be disappointed by how dumbed down it is or be confused why they collect ingots with drills and smelt them into motors.
But for those of us who enjoy Space Engineers because of its mining, production, and engineering gameplay, please give us believable and engaging mechanics—not simplified busywork that feels more like Creative mode with extra steps than a survival experience worth investing time into.
Let us start in the "classic" survival mode (I still dislike that name) with no suit as soon as possible. Let us collect voxel materials as they are and place them back into the world. Let us mine true raw materials and decide when and where to refine them, instead of magically turning them into ingots the moment the drill touches the ground. That single change would restore both immersion and a huge amount of meaningful engineering gameplay.
The biggest problem with mining right now is that we effectively collect pure resources ("ingots") straight from the ground with a simple drill. There is no real refining step anymore. IMO, this is the biggest step backwards in the game, because it removes an entire layer of gameplay instead of improving it.
You can craft steel plates straight from dirt because refining, as a gameplay mechanic, is gone. It seems to have been sacrificed in the name of "accessibility" or "quality of life."
I often hear people say they don't like waiting for refineries. But speeding up refining was itself an engineering problem to solve in a game with Engineers in its name. Build a larger power plant. Add more refineries. Leave them for a while and go mine some additional ore in a mean time or build something. That's exactly the kind of gameplay the original survival mode encouraged. And if you really don't enjoy that style of progression, adjust your starting conditions or play a different playstyle. We all hope for equally available trading path or pirating path to be available in the game, but if you can simply mine a gigaton of gold in 10 min that would be even harder to justify. Mining/production path should be HARDER not easier to allow for alternative playstyles ffs. Or the DEVs were completely blinded with their colonization crap no one has asked for. And even that would be much better to base on top of real intrinsic survival needs rather than fulfilling arbitrary tasks.
Speaking of world settings, they already are your difficulty settings. There is no need to simplify every core mechanic just to make the game "easier" for some hypothetical new player.
New players shouldn't be expected to design efficient production systems or engineer advanced grids from day one anyway. That's what dedicated tutorials are for. Give them structured progression. Make the suit modular. Unlock advanced backpack building later in the campaign so they can quickly construct things once they've learned the basics.
Those missions should also remain completely optional. Not everyone enjoys hand drilling and welding. Give ALL new or old players alternative progression paths where they can focus on flying pre-built ships or rovers, combat, exploration, trading, scavenging, or piracy instead. Do not force people doing what they don't like. And do not assume all of them want easier or simpler mechanics. Not to mention there were no complex mechanics in this game to begin with. I am pretty sure there are many potential new players that will come to play this game for the interesting mining and production mechanics and they might be disappointed by how dumbed down it is or be confused why they collect ingots with drills and smelt them into motors.
But for those of us who enjoy Space Engineers because of its mining, production, and engineering gameplay, please give us believable and engaging mechanics—not simplified busywork that feels more like Creative mode with extra steps than a survival experience worth investing time into.
Let us start in the "classic" survival mode (I still dislike that name) with no suit as soon as possible. Let us collect voxel materials as they are and place them back into the world. Let us mine true raw materials and decide when and where to refine them, instead of magically turning them into ingots the moment the drill touches the ground. That single change would restore both immersion and a huge amount of meaningful engineering gameplay.
i have to agree, the backpack crafting breaks the core gameplay loop and makes it hard ot actually play and build a base, i undertsand WHY but the way they went about it missed the mark its too versatile, and oddly, making even just a 2x6 produciton platform is rediculously expensive, HOW?!?! im still lookign throguh to find cheaper blocks to use but os fa rin my survival game i have gone thorugh 2 iron deposits a nickle deposite and a silicon deposit and ive just barely built a 2x6 floor, the smelter, a battery and a power supply, WTF.
base buildign now feels like a mid-endgame objective rather than somethign you cna just stop and do as a staging area.
i DO like the reosurces form voxels as in reality there ARE trace elements everywhere and its biome specific, but i do feel like it needs a bit of balancing even if 'future tech' is able to make more immidiate extracitona nd sue of trace minerals
i have to agree, the backpack crafting breaks the core gameplay loop and makes it hard ot actually play and build a base, i undertsand WHY but the way they went about it missed the mark its too versatile, and oddly, making even just a 2x6 produciton platform is rediculously expensive, HOW?!?! im still lookign throguh to find cheaper blocks to use but os fa rin my survival game i have gone thorugh 2 iron deposits a nickle deposite and a silicon deposit and ive just barely built a 2x6 floor, the smelter, a battery and a power supply, WTF.
base buildign now feels like a mid-endgame objective rather than somethign you cna just stop and do as a staging area.
i DO like the reosurces form voxels as in reality there ARE trace elements everywhere and its biome specific, but i do feel like it needs a bit of balancing even if 'future tech' is able to make more immidiate extracitona nd sue of trace minerals
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