Thing is that I WANT to like EGS. It has a lot going for it.
I know the feeling. I
wanted to enjoy NMS as well, to the tune of 32 hours worth of play time. Not even VR made that game enjoyable for me. Normally, I can identify what I don't like about a game. Yes, the space flight mechancis are rubbish, but that is a minor part of the game. Yes, there's also the mandatory tutorial portion of each game, but that just makes
replaying the game unappealing. There's just something about the basic survival game loop that is off putting to me, and I
like survival games.
I think Space Engineers has spoiled me (the graphics and engineering part). Something similar has happened in flight sims - I can't even look at FSX and X-Plane anymore having been exposed to FS2020 footage.
I can understand about the engineering part. There's been times when I've been playing EGS, and I really wished I could use some of the stuff from SE. The thing is, I
really don't see why people complain so much about the graphics of EGS. I think they look fine. In fact, I think it looks a lot better than Space Engineers... and I'm glad I waited until I got home before posting.
I'd realized that the reason
why I think SE looks so much worse than EGS is because my system chokes on SE when the graphics are set to high. SE looks a lot better that way. Annoying to play due to low frame rates on rig that can handle ED in VR set to VR high, but a lot better. I think EGS has the edge when it comes to variety of life on planets, and of course
proper water, but YMMV.
I still hold out hope that Duel Universe or Starbase might fill the empty void currently in Space Engineers.
I've been following both Duel Universe and Starbase, and I still haven't seen anything that would make either game appealing for me. I know from experience while I enjoy MMOs, and I enjoy survival/building games, I can't stand the two combined. Here's hoping that if they can make it work, it'll be fun for you.
Either that or Keen will finally add NPCs and other "good stuff" from EGS to SE, or EGS will get a buff in graphics to look just a little more modern.. There doesn't happen to be realistic lighting mods for EGS like there are for Minecraft by any chance?
I'm not holding up much hope for the former. That doesn't seem to be the direction Keen is taking the game. The latter, on the other hand, I think is very much possible. As I've repeatedly said in regards to
another space game's development... gameplay should be developed first, you can polish the graphics once the game play is firmly in place. Even if it doesn't, I've always felt game play trumps fancy graphics. It's why I tend to play indi-games, and not AAA ones.