Sandbox - Space engineers

Hi there !

So I was a long-time player of Minecraft. Spent a lot of time adventuring, mining like a chinese (or polish :wink: ), crafting and building ā€¦ Since then I moved on due to several reasons.

This last week Iā€™ve discovered (yet) another sandbox game : in space ! SPAAACE ! (three points for the one getting this reference ^^). The name of the game : Space Engineers.
Itā€™s still in alpha developpement but I find it quite promising and a good ā€œwaiting gameā€. So far Iā€™m having a lot of fun.

Has anyone around here played it and what are your opinions ?
As well, Iā€™m not sure if i understood correctly : is there some part of ā€œsandboxā€ features planned in one of Infinityā€™s game (Battlescape / Quest for Earth) ?

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I enjoy it, though I need to start playing multiplayer now itā€™s been implemented. Itā€™s quite hard to work on a project by yourself for a long time and stay focused. Especially when you have space sitting there just waiting to be a bitch to you.

Btw, meteors can be pretty destructive, even on a ā€œcalmā€ instance :smile:

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This looks intriguing but Iā€™m not sure I have the money to spareā€¦ What do you guys think? Is it worth it? (Yes, I know itā€™s Early Access, but I donā€™t mind that). I have recently been getting back into Minecraft so if this is similar, but mixed up with a space sim then it sounds like the sort of thing I would like. :smile:

Itsā€™ vaguely similar, but I donā€™t think thereā€™s much of the crafting side in yet. Iā€™m not sure.

Depends what is it that you like in Minecraft : if itā€™s about survival, there are better games I think. Crafting is correct and thereā€™s a lot to do about mining in my opinion.

Exploring part is ā€¦ well itā€™s space :slight_smile: Going to the nearest asteroid from your starting point can be of some challenge.

About the random meteors, not sure if building reinforced blocks is really worth it ā€¦

Mining, crafting and making stuff is what I live for in Minecraft :slight_smile: But I do like the survival edge - I donā€™t turn the nasties off, but I could live without them. Meteors sound like enough to contend with!

I am quite liking the sound of itā€¦ and hopefully it will continue to improve.

if you love just to explore the space.
you can try spaceengine

My take on the definition of a sandbox game is simply the freedom to be creative. In Infinity the players will be free, but the creativity part would not be that extensive. I think we could say that the freeform political system would count as a sandbox feature. I-Novae would probably add basic political system and corporate hierarchy features, and role-play would fill the gaps.

The first game that was most noticeable in that way was probably Garryā€™s Mod, which could be termed as a physics sandbox. Then came Minecraft. What is the next sandbox going to be like? I believe I have got a clue, which I am working on.

Space Engineers seems to be like a physics sandbox.

That was part of my initial question : what will be allowed in Infinity as part of creativity ? Building your own infrastructurtes blocks by blocks seems out of the question, but is building something, space an/or planet, seen as an objective for Infinity ?

As for the next step of sandbox-genre, itā€™s only getting closer to pure developpement. Notch had an idea similar to space engineer which implied semi-programming your ship gears. No idea whereā€™s his project now. Bah, heā€™s botching most of them anyway :slight_smile:

For Battlescape, it sounds like they want a stretch goal to involve teams building stations/factories and having to defend them. I wouldnā€™t be surprised that if they get enough money for the Infinity MMO, building structures would make it into there also.

As you say, building block by block is not really appropriate for this, but I would like to see some kind of modular building opportunities perhaps. Maybe building a station by starting with a core module and sticking other parts to it.

Anyway, back on-topic, I think Iā€™m going to get this game and see what itā€™s like! Iā€™ll report back soon with my thoughtsā€¦

Another halfway decent space sandbox minecrafty game is starmade. Itā€™s pretty much making ships from blocks and fighting pirates.

Also huge lag as you enter a system where somebody decided to store every ship in starwars.

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Tis a very fun game designing usable efficient ships, though there hasnā€™t been a whole lot to do with them yet. This update helped with the missile turrets and gatling balance tho!

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:open_mouth: in space! SPAAAACE! Portal 2! :smiley: :smiley: :wink:

Report time: Iā€™m growing to like this game. Obviously, it feels unfinished and I find some of the building controls a little difficult to use, but overall it has potential. I would like to see it attempt to automatically orientate certain pieces (like Minecraft does), but with manual override.

The fact you can create spaceships and stations from scratch is immensely appealing and - although I have only had a play with creative mode so far - it didnā€™t take too long to get into building stuff. The quick building features, plus copy and paste capability in creative means you can make a lot in a surprisingly short amount of time.

I just created a Large Ship (technical term) that was smallish. It had a bunch of turrets. I then copied the ship a few times, set the clones drifting, then activated the ā€œshoot moving objectsā€ function on the turrets. The destruction was very satisfying.

My system does start to drop fps when more complex structures are around, but then Iā€™m playing on a laptop so Iā€™m used to that! And they promise performance will improve through development. Overall, I look forward to seeing what else comesā€¦

I quite like Space Engineers, but the way they pick and choose when and where to use realistic physics without any real explanation irks me.

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True, I spent some time explaning my friend how gravity works exactly on this game :wink:
Besides, I guess youā€™re refereing as well to the inertia dampers ? I think the developpers are aiming at a ā€œuser-friendlyā€ game rather than close to reality, which could result in something much more pesky when it comes to control your ship / character.

@Sab1e : the game has some major issues with memory leaks. Mostly seen in multiplayer maps : the game allocates RAM memory over time without releasing it. Starting below 1 Go of RAM, it can go up to 16 Go in 2 hours of non-stop game. You have to close the game (not just the map !) and launch it again. Hopefully this should be fixed in the next patch, but that could partially explain your FPS drop when playing for more than an hour (knowing that most laptops are around 4 Go of RAM ^^).

@soliddanii :. 3 points for Gryffondor :smiley:

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Thanks for the info. Iā€™m putting the game on hold for now. I can see potential and Iā€™ll come back to it soon to see what progress has been made. Now itā€™s time to start saving for the Battlescape kickstarterā€¦ :smile:

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