My sleep schedule was already in tatters, but I had to test the new weapons and features out as soon as the Broadside update came out.

The Biggest Update

Broadside is definitely one of if not the biggest updates Space Engineers has ever had, but something tells me this isn’t always going to be the case. I caught the last hour or so of the update stream while trying things out for myself and there was plenty of good news regarding the future of the game, particularly in 2022.

My Favorites

My favorite new part hands down is the Searchlight. Over the last few weeks I had been turning over designs for a rotor search unit using sensors to track movement. It’s the classic solution but involves subgrids, something even large builds are better off having as few of as possible. Basically this searchlight brings that functionality into a ready made unit you can slap down anywhere and it’s completely stable. It also has a built in camera, so it can be used as a mono-eye in robots and the like. There are plenty of valuable and standout additions to the game now, both free and premium, but the search light just barely wins out over my second favorite.

The Custom Turret Controller only loses out to the searchlight for me because it’s been getting much easier to set up scripts that accomplish basically the same thing. Bringing that kind of functionality makes this one of the best new additions by a fair margin, and it doesn’t stop there. The turret controller is downright gorgeous to look at and will fit seamlessly into a ton of different designs. Along with the searchlight, I’ll be using this new block on all of my ships. The Devs really outdid themselves with these.

One other new addition I want to mention that I like in particular is the Helm station. Similar to some mods that have come out in the past, it’s a standing control station for ships. Useful in a lot of different situations and another standout addition.

My Current Builds

One major reason I had to test the update as soon as it came out was to figure out how much of the new content I would have to work into both the Cosmo Messer and the Prinz Heinrich. The answer is … about half of it. The new content is just that good. While the Cosmo Messer should only take a few days to touch up, the Heinrich is going to take significantly longer to retrofit. It’s worth it though, and maybe I’ll find some time to put up some more content for that.

Honorable Mentions

Light Panels

The new light panels are going to be showing up everywhere, I’m sure of it. I would have used them frequently in my older battleship builds, back in the days when things were way too big and sluggish. We’ll see where they fit in nowadays.

Sliding Doors

These almost made it into the favorites section. They’re very well designed and I love the almost vault-like reduction in speed. They look really heavy (so I hope they’re made of heavy armor). I’ve already been incorporating them where I can into the Admiral Hipper and it’s looking good.

Hangar Doors

These were needful and timely. Part of the Prinz Heinrich updates I’m considering involve these hangar doors. These things can be mixed and matched pretty seamlessly, so they’re a good choice for both cleaning up and prettying up hangar doors. Alas due to its design, the Heinrich won’t be using the windowed version. I’ll have to try that on another vessel.

The Guns

This blog doesn’t cover guns much, which is because of the modded weapons I tend to use, but all of these are great, even the reskins. I particularly like the aesthetics of these. They outshine plenty of the modded weapons I’ve seen, even some I currently use. I also saw a rotor turret in the livestream that I’m pretty desperate to get my hands on now. It would fit perfectly on so many builds, it’s insane. All in all, a fantastic update.

Bridge Windows

I’m going to try to incorporate these into either my Cosmo Union (Space America) or New Imperial (Space Japan) factions  to see how they look with my own designs. They look promising, but I didn’t get the chance to even look at these today. They were thoroughly demonstrated on the livestream, so I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I can do with them.

Closing

That’s all for my thoughts on the update. Aside from our poor XBOX users, the update was really smooth. Things worked out for them too, so nothing to wait for now but bug reports and awesome new builds on the workshop. I was worried that my saved world would be broken but everything, mods included, loaded in just fine. The new blocks were present, the performance was ever so slightly better than yesterday, and I got to experiment before finally getting some sleep.