Well, you can hide under your bed the rest of your life - I won't judge. As for myself, I'm enjoying multiplayer.There is no point in "building it hard to find" when you can be certain the next cheater will just find out anyway and ruin it.
Well, you can hide under your bed the rest of your life - I won't judge. As for myself, I'm enjoying multiplayer.There is no point in "building it hard to find" when you can be certain the next cheater will just find out anyway and ruin it.
Who said I dont play MP?Well, you can hide under your bed the rest of your life - I won't judge. As for myself, I'm enjoying multiplayer.
I've gotten pretty good at whipping up ships really quick in creative. Making a basic, small, functional ship is easy (it's the same basic recipe). The hard part is making it look good, especially when it comes to angling armor blocks.Makes me wish I had enough free time to prototype things in creative more often.
I gave up on SE years ago because Keen seemed to have dropped the ball on optimising the game and a lot of other stuff to do with their tech back in that day. I had created quite an extensive universe there.My love for Space Engineers is well known, but I eventually hit the "What's the point of it all?" wall in my Solo game. The worlds are beautiful, but empty. NPCs are literally empty ships on autopilot just going through waypoints, and the various assets are also empty and cookie-cutter. NMS or EGS this is not. But I really love building and mining mechanics, the realistic(ish) physics, the graphic fidelity, and the endless possibilities for creation and automation. Thankfully this is where "Open" mode comes in (AKA - public multiplayer servers).
I had tried multiplayer before the latest update, but I found the constant pauses and lag to be too much. The recent update fixed this, so a few days ago I set out on my first true multiplayer play-through, and like the title says, this really does change everything! I'm playing on one of Keen's official public servers, so there's always someone logged in, but there is a max* of 16 players at one time, so it's rare I get bad lag. Here are the ways "Open" mode makes Space Engineers a better game:
There's more, I'm sure, and I'll keep updating this thread as I peel back the layers of the onion, but suffice it to say that my days playing in Solo are over, with the exception of my creative prototyping sessions where I test my ideas.
- Places to go, people to see! As someone who likes to explore, this radically changes the game for me because now I have a world full of player-created assets to search for, visit, and explore. Oh, and loot! Shhh, don't tell anyone. I've yet to leave the world I started on, but just on this one planet there is so much to see and experience! And of course, I myself am adding to this world with my own creations. When I'm flying around in my little scout plane, players working on their bases can see me fly over, and vice-versa. The "system" chat is also full of people talking about their creations and experiences, and it's a real fun place to connect with folk.
- People to avoid. Unlike Solo, I need to be careful, because not everyone is friendly. And unlike Elite Dangerous, there is no rebuy if my plane gets shot down or my base is bombed. Talk about iron man mode! This makes me use various stealth techniques, whether it's how I paint my vehicles, or how I'm building an underground base to avoid detection, or my approach when scouting out potentially hostile bases. It really adds a sense of suspense when playing, and I love it.
- People to trade with. In Solo, there's really not much need to trade (empty stations have trading posts), because I can mine and process and build everything I could ever need. But on the multiplayer servers, our PCU is limited, meaning that I can only build so much as a single player. For example, I built a huge refinery to process some silver I found, but as I thought about it, I realized this is a waste of my PCU and base space. I have more iron than I know what to do with, and players are always begging for more iron, so I can easily trade my iron for a little bit of silver or gold when I need it. These limitations force me to barter and negotiate and to build very efficient designs (no more 3 mile long conveyors to the lake), and I like that.
- The server never sleeps. A single player game pauses whenever you close SE, but in multiplayer, the server keeps running whether I am logged in or not. Why is this a big deal? Because the world is always "alive" in real time, and I the player basically hibernate in my cryo pod when I log off. This means I can come back to a different world, and it also means I can load up my refinery with tons of ore, log of, then log back in later and that ore will be all processed. All my machines keep working regardless whether I'm playing or not, and that is just amazing!
- True Factions. Factions in multiplayer are true factions of player teams, and you can form alliances, declare war, and do other things that gives SE a much bigger "long-term" gameplay potential. Right now I'm playing the lone wolf, because I want to build my own little base and simple ship, but I plan to do business with some friendly factions, and eventually I may ally with a veteran faction for some interesting PvP battles and "power play" strategy.
* Even though there is a max of 16 players at one time, I don't believe there is a max of players in total, meaning this solar system can be filled with assets from countless numbers of players!
The last update was a major optimization update, which really makes a difference on the server. That said, it isn't perfect. I've lost multiple ships and rovers thanks to a "fall through the earth" bug, which seems to be related to the server, as it never happens to me in single player. Yesterday I was hit with a huge lag spike right as I was coming in for a landing, which resulted in a crash instead. All these things are related to gravity, so I should have these problems when I get into space. I'm also learning how to work around these things to hopefully avoid any more ship launch (like do not fly through canyons at 100m/s when the server is full during peak internet hours).I gave up on SE years ago because Keen seemed to have dropped the ball on optimising the game and a lot of other stuff to do with their tech back in that day. I had created quite an extensive universe there.
It looks like it's a completely different game now. Perhaps it's time to take another look...........
I wish some other game allowed that...... no names.Player-to-player trading = BIG SMILE
On a different note, everyone is welcome to comment on this thread, even if it kinda reads like a "dear diary" thread. I'd love to get more Elite Dangerous fans hooked on Space Engineers, perhaps even on the server I'm playing
I encountered my first major player base, something that looks like the Hydra base from Avengers: Age of Ultron (it's even in the snowy mountains). It is HEAVILY defended, completely obliterating my little explorer RV. So I came back in my SR-71, landed a distance away, and softened up some of the defenses from the ground using my space legs, a nice hiding spot, and my handy sniper rifle. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, so when I took the jet in to test the defense, I took a bit of a beating.
The good news is this new jet can take a bit of a beating and still keep flying. Notice that one of my cargo containers was destroyed, along with a vertical thruster and various armor plates. But because the armor also forms an exoskeleton of sorts, my plane stayed together and in the air!
This base will require special ops infiltration - it's too well defended to take on in a direct air assault. See, there IS a purpose to "space legs" after all!
I actually have "No Trespassing" signs (though they are friendlier than that). This base had offensive defenses, meaning that the turrets were programmed to target neutrals, thus shooting me down for just flying overhead. That's what put the base on my enemy list. I'm not complaining, mind you, because I do like a challenge, but I don't go shooting up every base I find just for the fun of it, only those that shoot at me first.I’m kind of curious why you decided that a heavily defended player’s base was a challenge to assault, as opposed to a “No Trespassing” sign.