I bought Space Engineers several years ago as a bundle disc with Miner Wars 2081. I couldn't play it much at first, because my laptop didn't have the specs, but I do remember there was no oxygen system and no planets at the time. When I finally got a computer capable of handling the game, they'd already come out with the Planets update, so most of my gameplay has been post planetary. There's a lot about this game that I love, especially after they started being more proactive about bug fixes and updates.
Space Engineers currently retails on Steam for $24.99.
In the world of Space Engineers, you are alone in a vast universe (unless you're playing multiplayer). Usually you start out in a Planetary Lander, although you can also opt to start in a mining ship or emergency pod (Be warned, these ships may not have the resources necessary to process raw material).
To start, a player usually is forced to search for vital raw materials, with uranium and iron being the priority. While the player's character is capable of hauling material, they are limited by inventory space. Pretty soon, most players will get bored of manually hauling their tiny loads and build some sort of cargo transport, usually equipped with a few drills to assist with the mining process as well. Since most ores are located underground, airborne miners with a full 360 degree maneuverability work better, but cannot hold the same cargo capacity as a wheeled vehicle. So the player is forced to decide which they prioritize, and then design a craft capable of fulfilling the task.
The game is an open-ended sandbox. There are no goals or winning conditions, except those set by the players themselves. Many players will role-play, giving themselves challenges to overcome and some final goal to achieve.
Multi-player adds another aspect to the game. Players may form and join factions, trade and fight with other players, and strive to become the most powerful player on the server.
If you enjoy sandbox games, don't mind playing for hours at a time, have a creative mind and like the idea of building spaceships from scratch, this game is for you.
Pros. These are the things that really get me excited about the game. There are a few pet peeves, but I can live with those:
-Excellent physics simulation. Sometimes this can be a pain, especially when you forget how heavy ore is.
-Rotors and pistons allow a wide range of movement and automation. My personal favorite is a 3-axis drilling machine capable of mining a 12 meter by 12 meter by 12 meter area in about 30 minutes.
-Grid deformation. Nearly every block in the game will deform if impacted with enough force. Quite often, this can break the airtight seal of a ship or result in the loss of performance. More than once I've hit the ground a little too fast and lost valuable blocks and items.
-Items have both a weight and a volume. Weight is factored into the physics simulation, while volume limits the inventory capacity.
-Paint. You can paint any block with nearly any color you like. And with LCD screens, you can also add some signs and indicators for dangerous areas or landing zones.
-You have access to a jetpack, but flight time is limited to your hydrogen supply. Gravity and atmosphere increases fuel use, making it much more challenging to just fly around on a planet.
-The developers have put out a lot of updates, many of which have added new content to the game, or revamped older content to work better. Prime examples of this are the planets update and the physics overhaul.
-Light dynamics are decent. As of the time I wrote this, blocks don't cast shadows or block light, but I heard a rumor that it's in the works. Falloff can be a bit dramatic as well.
-WHEELS! You can create ground-based vehicles, which are more energy efficient, especially for the early game. And they've provided enough customization options to the wheels to make it possible to adjust the way the wheels work based on need.
-Dynamic thrust. Atmospheric thrusters produce a variable amount of thrust based on atmosphere density. Ion thrusters lose their thrust efficiency with greater atmospheric density. There is no real aerodynamic system yet, though you can get mods that simulate it to a degree.
-Fairly realistic, HUGE planets. Planets can be up to 120 km in diameter, 1/10 that of earth. In game terms, that is quite large.
-Simple easy to use systems that can be programmed to work together for greater efficiency using a C# type programming language. If you can't program, you can use timer blocks to automate the systems. It's less efficient, but also easier to understand.
-Oxygen system. You need oxygen to survive. If you're not lucky enough to land on a planet with oxygen, you'll need to generate it. Stations and ships will need to be airtight in order to be pressurized. But your suit also has an oxygen system if you like winging it with a couple of oxygen bottles.
-Player tools, station and ship blocks are fairly realistic and mostly based on real-world items.
-Weapons. While this game is not focused on combat, it does provide a small range of weaponry. A rifle with several different tiers for the player, gatling guns and rocket launchers for ships. If that's not enough for you, there are many player made mods that add more weapons into the game.
-Excellent voxel handling. Though I wish they'd introduce a tool that can place voxels, allowing better terraforming.
-Energy is a necessary part of the game and is constantly used, even by systems on standby. However, it's not terribly hard to generate, so you don't have to constantly grind just to produce the energy you need.
-Hand tools are tiered, with higher tiers being more expensive but more efficient. Ship tools are not tiered as of yet, but I'm hoping they do it soon.
-Almost unlimited freedom and customization options. Not only in how you play, but in how you set up the game. You can adjust how long days are, whether or not meteors exist, if oxygen is needed, inventory capacity, refining speed and tool efficiency.
-To put the topping on the cake, there are THOUSANDS of player made mods that do anything from adding deco blocks to changing the way the whole game works. Most mods can work fairly well together, and many players have made public collections of mods that work well together and have some type of theme.
Cons. The stuff that bugs the crap out of me. Some things I know they'll never fix/change, but you can't have everything in life:
-Planets and asteroids are static, they don't move. I understand that it makes it easier on the physics, but it doesn't lend any kind of authenticity to the game.
-The Sun doesn't actually exist in the game. It's just a light that moves around the skybox.
-No real enemies, or NPCs for that matter. While there are wolves and spiders, they're just annoying, rather than challenging. Pirates will also spawn in space, but they have VERY limited AI, and their ships can be easily taken down by a player flying around with a grinder.
-It can be difficult to find specific resources. Especially Uranium and Nickel, both of which are vital. Platinum doesn't spawn on planets, but it's only necessary for the "high-tech" items, like gravity generators and the highest tier of hand tools.
-Distance is nearly impossible to judge. Partly due to the scaling of textures, but mostly due to a complete lack of occlusion. With no blurring and somewhat bland ground textures, it's extremely hard to find landmarks for judging distance.
-The artificial horizon indicator is absolutely horrible. It's just a little bar that you have to line up with two little dashes in order to be level. No angle markers or even attitude markers.
-Logistics can be problematic. Machines don't communicate with each other. If you have multiple machines of one type on one logistics system, they'll often clog each other up.
-The large amounts of resources required for large ships or stations takes an extremely long time to process.
-Speed is limited to 107 m/s, or 385 km/hr. (about 240 mph). In a game where planets are 120km in diameter, and thousands of kilometers away from each other, it can take hours to travel. It also makes orbital stations impossible, as orbital speeds have to be in excess of 700 m/s. (Some mods adjust or remove the speed limit, but unfortunately, thrust and acceleration have been adjusted for the 107 m/s limit, so it still takes a long time to accelerate and decelerate.)
Needs. This is what I think the game needs to make it better:
-More block varieties and types. I'd love to see a better logistics system, and maybe even a liquid mechanic. (Oil and water).
-NPCs, or at least better AI in pirate ships.
-Revamp the spiders and wolves to be less random. (i.e. wolves roam the planets in packs, rather than randomly spawning near the player)
-In-game "data-pad" with data and calculators to help with mass, speed and physics calculations.
-Static sun in the middle of the system, with planets, moons and asteroids in orbit around it.
-MORE WEAPONS (And things to fight)
