We are Keen Software House, the developers of Space Engineers: Ask Us Anything!

How much do you browse /r/spaceengineers for ideas of what to implement in future updates?

I used to browse it very often, every day... then I switched the browser and lost my bookmarks so I forgot to visit it. But since you mentioned it here, I added it back to my bookmarks and keep checking it every day, or even more frequently.

We need to be connected to the community.

Hello again KeenSWH! Thank you so much for doing another AMA. I have a few questions since the previous one.

1) What is the current plan for in-game programming? Is the team looking at a more drag-and-drop style for those unacquainted with languages, a more traditional style, or a hybrid system?

2) What kind of PvE interactions with the world (besides solely building ships and surviving) do you have planned/want to plan for the future of the game? Will there be special events or other ships besides derelicts to interact with?

3) Will the game have sectors (essentially multiple asteroid fields tethered together)? How will having larger maps with multiple fields work? Will they all be one map or will you 'jump' between sectors?

Thanks again for doing this AMA. Space Engineers remains one of my favorite games. You're all doing a great job.

ad 1) more traditional text-style programming, we are working on it right now

ad 2) we have some plans but now is a good time to re-thing this part of SE strategy/future (because now all features that were planned are already in the game so we can look on them as finished... in other words, now we are much more skilled in designing PvE for SE than we were 1.5 year ago)

ad 3) hopefully we won't need sectors and the entire game will fit in one sector (no loading screen required when traveling)

Are there any plans to implement a campaign with story and missions?

This is a very good idea we are considering

One thing that impresses me so much about Space Engineers is the speed at which you are developing the game (compared with similar games) How far (as a percentage) would you say you are through development?

This is hard to say... I would say that we have 50-80% of what we wanted to have in the game. But since we got new ideas every day (we were expecting this), plus the community wants new stuff, ... it's kind of impossible to say where are we right now.

In the long term, might we see an option to make sound effects behave in a "realistic" way, namely only hearing the sounds transmitted through your ship and suit, placing greater emphasis on interior ambience rather than distant objects?

The concept was wonderfully demonstrated in SqueegyMackoy's mock up video some time ago and would be icing on the cake of an already immersive experience.

yeah, we are working on a "realistic mode" for sounds. you will be able to switch between non-realistic and realistic in the "world settings"

That's great, I know a lot of people who'll be very happy to hear that. Thanks for the response :)

Our great inspiration is Gravity movie :)

What feature has been the biggest pain-in-the-ass to develop so far? And which planned feature do you anticipate being even worse?

The hardest one to implement was probably the destruction/deformation feature... but it wasn't pain in the ass... it was a lot of fun

actually, multi-player is a "hard" feature... takes a lot of time to debug and optimize

Now that mods have been released, are there any mods that you liked so much that you want to make them permanently part of SE?

Yes, we have mod which we would like to get into SE vanilla, now we need to talk with its author, get his approval and release it in some update. Hopefully this will open gates for other mod creators.

Will you ever make it so explosions DON'T hit systems through armor?

Will you Implement an Instance-bases system in which you can travel from one zone to another, instead of a constant open-world?

Yes we are working on the explosions, so that the armor does it's job

What's your favourite creation/constructive glitch you've found in the community?

Yesterday I saw a max speed "hack" - you can move faster than our limit by setting up and launching a rotating structure which would accelerate you above the limits

Will you ever change from Float in the Space Calculations or do you have any kind of plans on making so that things don't start to shake apart when you get further then 10km from spawn?

If you don't mind one other question any other plans to streaming content rather then fully downloading it to allow larger worlds or even multiple server exe's being able to run regions?

We are trying to find some workaround for the precision of floating point calculations. I hope we just found it this week... so if things go well, some people will be happy :)

What's your favourite type of pizza?

Just the standard one, ham, cheese, pepperoni... nothing fancy :)

Most of us prefer kebab to pizza. You could say that KeenSWH is a place where kebab turns into code :-)

hehe

There is a lot of grass roots server mods coming out from players using Space Engineers Server Extender. (blueprints/shipyards, AI, warp drives, a whole host of other things that are coming out or already out for multiplayer dedicated servers.)

Are you guys following any of those or familiar with the mods that come out for them?

As one one of the devs of these extensions, I was wondering if you guys would be willing to open a line of communication with some of us in terms of maybe adding a few very small additions that would really help us in some ways (that would most likely take literally a minute to add)?

We are amazed with all the mod ideas community came up with. Yes, we do follow the mods and try to think of what could be done to give the community better tools to work with. The open line is a good idea. But the opinion about what is easy to implement and whats not can be misleading. Sometimes it looks easy but is not due to various reasons. You can send the list of small additions to [email protected] and add a note saying: Send to Tomas Rampas.

Hey guys, absolutely loving the game, just two questions:

A: Will there be Planets later on in development and would there be procedurally generated content later on in development, E.G: different Asteroid fields, broken down space stations, broken down Ships of all sizes, abandoned fleets, etc.

B: If possible, would you guys ever remove the speed limit of ships or will the speed limit remain consistent?

we can't promise planets or larger areas or increase in speed limit, but we are looking into this

I´m Asatyr from Germany. For the Survival part of the game. Will you implement Lifesupport Systems for Ships and Spacestations?

To Marek: will you come to Hamburg/Germany for a cofé with one of your biggest fans? =)

Hehe, we are considering to go to Gamescom (Cologne) next year. So if this goes through, then we would like to meet with everyone who can come visit us :)

Are you planning to keep being awesome?

Yes sir :)

Love the game, it's stolen many hours of my life. I found Space Jenga on the Workshop the other day so what community creation has surprised you most?

Probably the mechanical ones... moving robots, wheeled things...

What will be the maximum size of the scripts once we get programming?

This is hard to say right now, we just discussed it internally a couple hours ago... in-game programming will probably have some limits (so players won't kill the servers), but "modding API" should be quite unlimited.

Will you use a new block to implement programming, like Computer Block or AI Block, and also if you do implement it that way will stacking multiple computer blocks enable you to have more powerful scripts?

Probably a new Computer Block... but these decisions tend to change during the actual implementation once we realize something we missed in the design

I know that Marek Rosa has said that there is the potential to keep updating SE indefinitely but at some would you want to/do you plan slow down and stop adding new features and focus on fine tuning the game and fixing bugs to eventually release SE as a full game? If so or not, why? Also if this isn't the current plan are you, have you been and do you think you ever will be satisfied that SE is complete and doesn't anymore features, fine tuning or bug fixes?

I also have a suggestion: So imagine something like the merge block but instead of connecting 2 ships together it makes them parallel to each other and moves the ship on which it was activated so that this 'alignment block' is directly above the other one. This could be used on landing pads so that you don't have to guess if your ship is aligned properly.

Yes we want to "finish" the game at some point, but there are still some feature that need to be finished before we can look on the entire game and start finalizing it.

Hey, nice people of Keen Software House. Just a couple of questions.

1) When you started to develope SE, did you expect the outcome? Are you satisfied with your current userbase/player numbers?

2) With the possibility of mod API's on the horizon, are you hoping to achieve a modding base like Minecraft has? Like almost complete overhauls of how the game is ment to be?

3) What are your future plans for Keen Software? Not SE, but do you have plans for other games you'll might work on in the future?

4) Do you plan to add another mode into the game, aside creative and survival? (maybe a campaign with mission objectives to fullfill, a story driven enviroment or special scenarios for hardcore players that want a challenge)

Edit: Love your game. I am a fan of sandbox games, but most of the successors are in a somewhat annoying graphic quality (speaking of Minecraft). That's why I'm such a huge fan of SE.

ad 1) we didn't expect the reception and the community will be so great. of coursed we prayed for it :) also I must say that SE game is better than we envisioned: things we were not sure we can make are working well, there's 10x more features than we hoped for, etc.

ad 2) yes, total overhauls would be great. Power to the community! :)

ad 3) yes we have crazy plans... we will inform you when time comes.

ad 4) we plan to start adding some new scenarios

Will you add Oculus Rift support?

Not any time soon... at least not until their technology is sickness-free and widely available to public

Is there a possibility of getting a player-built AI core into the game? The new sensors offer an interesting twist, but don't do sequential tasks.

In-game programming!

I'd love to try to the game but I'm not sure if my PC can run it. Do you guys have a demo I can try?

No we do not have a demo. But if you do not plan to build huge ships and would rather try constructions of some sort or small ship designs than you do not need a high end computer. The needed performance is often based on what you wish to build.

Tomas Rampas

Are there any plans to add large procedurally generated (unlimited or limited size) worlds to Space Engineers?

This would be cool, so we are looking into this possibility

What inspired you to make this game?

LEGO Technic

NASA

Space

LEGO

Life :)

Being a programmer...

Is programming still happening? It seems that the topic has gone quiet for a while now, and with the Xbox One port revealed, it seems hard to implement, and has me a bit worried.

We just started working on it now

I get the impression from the forums that there's a wide age range playing SE. Do you have access to any metrics from Steam about the playerbase and if so do you have an idea of what percentage are active on Reddit and the KSH forum?

We don't have age stats from Steam... only from FB. It says 40% are 18-24 years old. 24% are 24 to 34 years.

What are the current limitations for adding AI into the game? Also can I help add AI into the game.

Edit: Also thanks for making this game, it is one of the most refreshing gaming experiences to come out in a while. The active development of this game is truly inspiring.

We haven't even started implementing AI into Space Engineers, we just wanted to focus on other more mechanical / engineering features first. But now it may be a good time to start with AI.