We only had about a four day advanced warning for this update, which I actually appreciate in hindsight. Having the anticipation boil over for weeks was painful last time. Anyway, let’s hop right into it.

Space Engineers – Space Engineers: Most Wanted – Steam News

Hello, Engineers! Our newest release is here! YOU, our community, are the inspiration for this release. We have reviewed your feedback and from it, created a collection of new additions based on your requests.

Most Wanted

This was a community requests update where Keen focused on adding blocks and features to the game that had been on the backburner for years. We didn’t get everything we’ve ever wanted, naturally, but to say they filled in a lot of missing pieces in the engineers’ kit would be an massive understatement. There are a lot of standouts here.

New features include:

• A camera overlay (bye bye crude MAC gun LCDs)
• A ‘weldless’ armor skin
• A corrugated metal skin

New blocks include:

• New Armor shapes (S + L grid, Light + Heavy, 10 shapes, 40 blocks total)
• T Junction Conveyor (S + L grid, 2 blocks total)
• Round Windows (S + L grid, 4 shapes, 16 blocks total)
• Small advanced rotor (S grid, 1 block)
• Conveyor Converter (S grid, 1 block)
• Half Cover Wall Mirror (L grid, 1 block)
• Plushie Engineer (S grid, 1 block)
• Ladder Shaft (L grid, 1 block)
• Reinforced Conveyors (S + L grid, 3 shapes, 6 blocks total)

Keen also did something clever and updated older DLCs. The sale they topped it off with is from their site specifically and not Steam, but with the Steam keys it’s only a little extra work.

DLC Updates

• Inverted Corner Desks (L grid, 2 blocks total) [Deco Pack 1]
• Grated Catwalk Variants (L grid, 4 blocks total) [Deco Pack 2]
• Railing Variants (L grid, 3 blocks total) [Deco Pack 2]
• Neon Tubes (L grid got 3 new shapes, S grid got 8 new shapes, 11 blocks total) [Sparks of the Future]
• Industrial Conveyor T-junction [Heavy Industry]
• Diagonal Window Wall (L grid, 2 blocks total) [Warfare 1]
• Diagonal Bridge Window Inverted (L grid, 1 block) [Warfare 2]

My Favorites

This was tough, but in terms of what I’ll actually use the most, I’ve got to hand it to the following three additions.

Ladder Shaft

This one’s subtle but vastly improves the look and feel of any grid you add it to. It’s also nice to use these instead of passageways because not only is climbing an option in emergencies now, but there’s also guiding arrows and a platform to step off onto in each shaft. These are a must for large ships and a very welcome addition.

Reinforced Conveyors

The best thing about these conveyors isn’t that you can build on top of them, or combine form and function, but that they have an airtight seal on one side. I’ll try to demonstrate this in future builds because it’s a real game changer on more compact ships that need a lot of ‘tubing.’

That’s not to say being able to build directly on these isn’t a big improvement, not to mention form finally meeting function where conveyors are concerned, it’s just that my builds in particular are going to get much more efficient internally with that partial airtight seal. It’s going to be very nice going forward.

New Armor Shapes

We’ve had access to blocks like these through mods for ages, but being able to ditch those mods and keep the blocks is a game changer. That’s one more mod off the list, and much smoother armor transitions for vanilla builds.

I’m still waiting on the elongated blocks, because then the insane builds Sundae used to make will be extremely close to vanilla when they’re remade, but for now, this is great progress.

Honorable Mentions

Catwalks and Rails

Frankly, the only reason this isn’t a favorite is because I haven’t had a chance to experiment with them in depth, but I could tell just by looking at them that a lot of gaps are getting filled here in particular. The old version of the Prinz Heinrich would have made extensive use of these new catwalks and railings, so I’m going to see if the new version I’m mentally drafting up can’t do something similar.

Round Windows (Including the Half Windows)

These can bring a lot of style to a building or a ship depending on how you use them. The half windows might make for good forward or aft observation areas that shouldn’t be overly exposed. They’d also work as regular windows with a bit of a bulge. I like the half windows because they let you make narrower windows like you’d see on something like the Enterprise D from Star Trek, just … rounder.

Diagonal Half Windows

I have very specific plans for these somewhere down the road. That’s why they get an honorable mention here. They won’t work on the Hippers since I have the bridge and observation area designs nailed down already, but for other factions like the Greater Terran Union or the Imperial Royal Navy? Definitely~ More on those factions when I get to work on at least one of their ships.

There were plenty of other blocks in this update, I just wanted to touch on the ones I’m personally most interested in right this moment.

Bug Fixes

Not to be overlooked, there were plenty of bug fixes in the update as well.

There’s only one on the list that I’ve personally experienced, that issue with small grid armor panels. It was annoying to try to deal with them on the Cosmo Messers because the game tended to ignore them when performing an action on the block you had the cursor aimed at, instead performing that action on the block beneath. This led to painting issues, accidental deletions, and so on. So I’m glad that won’t be an issue going forward.

Current Builds

I haven’t had a look at the Cosmo Messers yet, but they could definitely benefit from the reinforced conveyors. Some of the extra plating on the outer hull is used to cover up conveyor junctions so being able to remove those should both improve the appearance and lighten the weight. Doesn’t hurt the processing load, either.

The real gem with this update is the Admiral Hipper. I not only worked some of the new blocks into the design during the stream, I was hit with such a wave of inspiration that I managed to implement some other cosmetic changes I’d been considering for a while.

Blue + orange beats blue + red; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

The exterior pics here are already out of date since I’m still actively working on this, but here’s how the Hipper’s coming along.

It wasn’t easy convincing myself to remove the extra large shock cannons from the Hipper, but I feel like the first ship of the class should have a more balanced armament. She has two medium sized coilguns now instead of one large one, so her firepower, while extremely forward biased, is still quite strong. Other weapons scattered around the hull are mostly for defense and whittling down small grids.

Hipper’s capable, but I don’t want this hull type to start getting extremely well armed until the Prinz Eugen and the Lützow hulls are built.

On that note, here are the planned hulls for the Hippers:

• Admiral Hipper (Heavy Cruiser)
• Blücher (Marine Assault Cruiser)
• Prinz Eugen (Strike Cruiser)
• Weser (Assault Carrier)
• Lützow (Strike Cruiser)
• Mainz (Light Cruiser)

Most of these are a long ways off, but this update is really helping me iron out some problems I was having with the design, particularly in the performance department. I’ve got a lot of remodeling to do, but things are looking up.

Closing

That was the update for the most part. I was on the Youtube stream since I forgot Twitch was a thing. It was fun to see well known builders chime in and occasionally do so myself while updating the Hipper in the background. Keep up the good work, Keen, and thanks again o7