https://blog.marekrosa.org/2022/05/space-engineers-future.html

The Highlight

AI in this game is what people tend to want after an ‘Empyrion-like’ survival experience and stability fixes across the board. This is the same camp I’m in. Honestly I don’t think this game has much room left for stability improvements in the current engine, so I don’t get too hung up on that, and if I want an Empyrion experience, I’ll try playing Empyrion again.

AI is one of those areas that could really open this game up even more. Having that kind of built in foundation for even slightly autonomous grids could also help in areas Keen hasn’t even considered.

There have been a lot of scripts and mods to help bring AI features and functionality into the game, but between modders not maintaining their mods through major updates, and others simply moving onto other things, there’s rarely a consistent long term solution that works for everyone or addresses every need.

For myself, I’d like grids I’m not piloting to be able to follow grids I am piloting, perform specific maneuvers, and for smaller AI grids to be able to launch and dock along precise paths. There have been scripts that attempted all of this, as well as some being worked on and maintained right now, but the technical problems can come in torrents. Making certain functionality a part of the base game should make scripts and mods involving AIs work better, more consistently, and with less of a performance impact.

However Keen goes about this, the modding community is going to carry that foundation as far as this game engine and the game’s API allows. That’s what I’m really excited about. First Keen releases something new and interesting, and then the modders take it to the next level. It’s great and I can’t wait to see how that manifests the next time around.

Community Guides

I’d love to try my hand at making mods or even scripts for the game, but admittedly that’s a bit beyond my skillset right now. The more guides, the better.

DLC Price Increase

The fact that all DLC in this game isn’t free makes a surprising number of players really mad for some reason, so seeing a 1 dollar price increase (justified by the increasing amount of content contained in those dlcs) is probably a bad sign. I can’t look at a Keen news update or watch a stream without someone whinging about these kinds of things.

You hate to see it.

Closing

I didn’t see any bad news here or anything worrying, so the amount of complaints I saw, both on the dev blog, and on Steam, were frustrating. I get that the game’s got plenty of problems, but hey, they’re hiring! It’s everyone’s chance to try and get in there and improve the game and get paid doing it.

That was a bit facetious, but I’m also being slightly serious. There are way more avenues these days to try and address problems in our favorite games, and we’ve got more direct lines of communication with them. People are using that to whinge constantly instead of being proactive and productive. It’s sad to see.

As far as I’m concerned, bring on the AI! If and when I understand things enough to contribute more than just grids and mechanical designs, I will.