I know this is a bit of a trope at this point, but I'm posting it anyways because I feel the dialogue can be productive for moving both games forward. I have a few hundred hours in Empyrion, and I have enjoyed my time in the game finding it one of the most unique games I've ever played. However, I just bought Space Engineers while it was on sale, and after the multiplayer update and....well I may never come back to emypyrion. Here's why. I know both games have major issues. Space Engineers is very unpolished, can have massive glitches which lead to your construct exploding for no apparent reason, and lacks survival and first person pve aspects. Empyrion has some iffy graphics at times (especially going in and out of space), lacks functional and in depth building systems, and has a far smaller player community than space engineers. What sold me on SE is the ability for the community to add content, not just stuff they built in the vanilla game, but actual new 3d items that didn't exist in the game before. Modding, as it's know. I can download a mod that has a Mr. Coffee machine from space balls. I can download a navball like real space crafts have. I can download fusion reactors and new sky boxes and nanobots and the list goes on and on and on and on. This, to me, gives the game completely unlimited potential in the long-term, for the community to customize the game to their particular liking. Want to go faster than the designated game speed limit? No problem, there's a mod for that. Don't like the look of the windows in cockpits? There's a mod for that. Wanna be a robot instead of an astronaut? Sure, mod it up. Anything you can think of, you can do. Then there's the actual gameplay itself. The two iconic things that show the pure potential of the game, is 1.) A space elevator, and 2.) A drill that drills through the planet. Both are not only technically possible, but they were made and demoed by the actual game developers themselves. Try doing either of those things in Empyrion. Not to mention the collision damage and Newtonian physics that makes the gameplay so incredibly amazing and realistic overall. So this is not to **** on Empyrion or say that it sucks - it really doesn't, it's quite a good game for what it is - but until there is more realism added to the game, not just in the biological aspects of your character, but in the other systems of the game like building and physics, and until there is the ability to add mods to the game, I will most likely be spending my time in space engineers. I do hope these changes will come to Empyrion to make it more of a competitor, and I would be interested to hear if there is anything in this realm that is in the works.
There is. It is not full-fledged modding yet, but you can def. change stuff. Eh. I would like some things to make better sense, but overall, it's decently so. Combat is a sore area, and SI too, but except that, I feel like it got the right combination between 'fun' and 'realism' for the most part, with what is implemented this far. Just my thought Interesting comparesment tho, even if the 'add content' part is pretty solid in EGS. Sure, not custom models yet, but eh.
You can change minor stuff, definitely not to the extent that is possible in SE. The game is definitely fun. Whenever I get that hankering for some fun first person space action, I'll probably log back into Empyrion. It's not just custom models that I'm longing for (although those would be amazing), but things like custom skyboxes, changing the darkness of shadows, customized textures and appearance of blocks, nanobots (which is not so much a custom model as it is a custom system), easy inventory, other types of automation, etc. The mods in SE allow for you to not just make server tools and change environmental and NPC parameters, but really allow you to add changes to how the game is played on a fundamental level. I'd love to see something like that in Empyrion.
As far as modding is concerned, I'd guess that the reason we haven't been allowed more in Empyrion yet is probably some combination of the backend systems not being in a state that is amenable to easily receiving new content and the devs wanting to do more system development before allowing such modding. Certainly there are good examples (KSP, SE, Minecraft) of games allowing modding from an early stage without compromising development; only the devs know why that's not the case for Empyrion right now. Empyrion is still missing a lot of game systems (shields, sensors, research, revamped power, revamped thrusters/RCS, revamped SI, and inventory mass, to name just a few), and possibly the devs may want to implement some/all of those before opening things up to modders more.
Honestly, I'm rooting for Eleon. If they do all that you say they are planning, and open up modding as well, I'll be back in spades. It just seems like given the timeline we're on already, that it will be a long time before we see any of that.
I hear you; it's why I'm hopeful that they are keeping tabs on the ideas that we bring up in the forums, so that they can use some of our analysis and avoid having to design everything from scratch.
@the modding There's a large difference between how Eleon does it, compared to others. I can't say that I've looked into SE's modding, but atleast minecraft, does not have 'native support' for modding. For that game, and many more, it is the community that have written the modding interface, and rewritten it every time things change. The charm of having an officially supported interface, is legacy support: For the most part, there is little to no maintenance on the mod-developers part (This is the idea behind doing it like this anyway). Seemingly, modding isn't a big priority currently. We've gotten some systems, but a lot is still to be desired ofcourse
The difference is simple: Space Engineers is a great fun game for creative outlet in the area's of mechanical functions / features and a tiny bit of realism. Empyrion is more your all rounder game with RPG elements, etc. A bit of everything but not over done in 1 area of play. Comparing Space Engineers to Empyrion would be like comparing Kerbal to Empyrion. I see this a lot not sure why even more so the games are not that expensive I would assume people have both games in their libraries by now
I suspect that a good number of us would like one game that lets us scratch most of our itches (for me, as much as I like realism in my games, I love consistent game mechanics even more; that tends to steer me toward more realistic games because the best way to have consistent game mechanics is to derive them from reality); Empyrion could be that game with careful development of its systems.
I played SE from the first pre-release (Brought onto it by KaneHart back when we were playing on his GregTech MC server) and played SE for over 2 years. Updates had been weekly/bi-weekly up until that point. Then I quit SE when I burned out, in hopes of coming back to an improved SE would rejuvinate my burnt-out creativity. When I did come back, around 2 months ago it was worse than when I left. KeenSWH has failed utterly at everything they set out to achieve. Their updates are now once every few months and contain little to no improvements to gameplay. Worse, since i've returned they've done the opposite and begun REMOVING features of the game. Programmable Blocks and Pressurized Interiors are the first to go. Likely not the last. Really, the single draw of SE is the mods. Of which, 60% are no longer updated and don't work with the current version. EGS's vanilla gameplay exceeds modded SE without suffering the disasterous performance issues that SE has simply flying through space. If you go over to SE's forums, you'll see them making these same threads about EGS and No Man's Sky. It was because of one of those threads that I came here.
Although this topic has come up so many times I think after the latest update it's worth talking about again. I can understand why you prefer Space Engineers over Empyrion but I still play both games. I wished Elon would add a rotors and piston system in Empyrion because that is the only thing that keeps me playing SE. Empyrion is a prettier game than SE and has a better survival game but the fun factor in building has to go to SE. Empyrion has a ok building system but you feel like you're building a model ship. In SE you feel like you're building a real ship or base especially if your ship has moving parts. You can build better looking ships in Empyrion but building in SE is more satisfying. If you look at everything SE lacks vs what it has you could see SE lasting for a long time or until Keen starts Space Engineers 2. Now with Keen talking about improving their survival game it could get interesting. What I would love to see with Empyrion is allowing their weapons and blocks to be modded because mods will keep this game going for a very long time.
I still say if you love building than SE is the game you play, there isn't a game out yet that can compete with SE in building but if you want something more than a sandbox building experience then Empyrion is the game for you. What's interesting is we all can agree Empyrion has a superior survival game but if you check Steam's in game stat there are usually more people playing SE than Empyrion. So maybe Elon should spend more time on their building system and giving builders more freedom to build what they would like. We all love a pretty ship but giving us the ability to build almost anything would be a game changer for this game. Plus there are tons of really good survival games out there but not of those survival games has great building systems.
I agree but can't we have it all? haha Just that one perfect game that is a one stop shop for everything? I am dreaming of the day that happens.
I would say that EGS wins in terms of building over SE. SE only has light and heavy armor blocks (without mods), which originally had different textures but are now the same (another feature to go, I guess). There's the ancient Interior Blocks, that have no shape variations. Including mods, most additional blocks to SE are either concrete or basically flat textureless panels. Deco blocks always vary massively between mod devs so getting a cohesive design is impossible. The best block-adding mods like RipTide's Walls died years ago and were never revived. EGS also has more block shapes (Though are missing a lot of crucial ones, yet has weird extra shapes that are almost useless), but the real winner for EGS is the texture tool. You can make anything look like anything else and on any side. Deco blocks are another great bonus that SE lacks.
Oh, I'm extremely interested; there have been a few threads on the subject discussing various mechanics, but nothing official from Eleon besides that shields are something planned at some point. A well-implemented shield mechanic (that forces the player to pick two from: strength, recharge rate, and power consumption/efficiency) would really impact both ship design and combat. To say that I'm excited by the possibilities would be a severe understatement. EDIT: The shield system could be the first multi-device subsystem, a model which I think could be nicely applied to other subsystems like sensors and weapons.
I agree as far as making a Beautiful ship or base Empyrion is better but everything is DECO but not much function. In SE you can use the rotors and pistons to design a ship where your pilot seat will rotate towards you when you press a button or your thrusters can rotate . The rotor and piston system makes building enjoyable to me. I've seen ships that had wings that fold out when you turn on the ship in SE. Maybe not everyone cares about that but it adds a level of creative freedom that I just don't see in EMpyrion. In empyrion I can build a pretty ship that functions like every single ship in the game.. In SE you can build anything Big ships small ships, MECHs that walk, wheel vehicles and now the have a Hover vehicle mod that works pretty well.. Every single one of these vehicles can function differentlly because of Rotors and pistons also mods.
I ok no Have you played since the multiplayer update? Because I think you would have a different opinion if you did. Things run extremely smooth, you can walk around in moving ships, and up to 30 players at a time on a server is no problem at all. I don't know what you're talking about with programmable blocks and pressurization, because I still see them in the game. I believe they have been moved to experimental, which is just to say that they are buggy or may cause issues in gameplay, but they are absolutely not removed, not sure where you got that from.
