Review of Space Engineers (2023)

Hello everybody! Today I am giving my thoughts overall about the game in it's current state for anybody indecisive about the purchase. If you enjoyed, like and subscribe to support the channel :).

Most ships used in the video can be found on mine & Omega's workshop. (Some are not published).

tags:

space, engineers, space engineers, review, 2023, overview, guide, tutorial, thoughts, worth a buy, dlc, warfare, industry, ai update, new update, cinematic, lunar, kolony, survival, creative, big ship, large ship, war, fleet, battles, battleship, warship, frigate, cruiser, corvette, planets, vanilla

[FUT-Franklin]

I got this game 3 days ago and can't believe I only just found it. It's like Minecraft, Banjo kazooi and red faction all in the one massive sandbox with some insane mechanics. This game is in my top 5 of all time already👏

[robertotarta]

The "Never Surrender" scenario is a good alternative for survival since you have an end goal. And with the reavers mod is even better! But yeah the video is very accurate.

[Labfrm]

came from the dude that stole a bunch of your footage, i’d much rather support and consider your opinion than a thief’s!

[normaldavid]

Automation is gonna probably increase what they can do later with encounters, economy, etc.

[finnm.]

One of the best Indie Games I‘ve ever played. I‘ve bought it back in 2014 and I have now more than 4000 hours in SE. This game has endless possibilities and a ton of mods, and especially the mods are the reason for me to start SE up almost every night. I‘ve spent most of my hours in SE building rovers, small grid aircraft and Player Made Weapons. I‘m working now for other 250 Hours on my first Large Grid Ship, an Orbital Assault Ship. My Version of the NACS Indianapolis from the Novel Series Frontlines from Marko Kloos.

It currently has 8000 Blocks, the main features are 24 Kinetic and 24 Nuclear Space-to-Ground Missiles, 8 Large Grid Nuclear Torpedoes, a small Landing Bay for 2 small fighters and Hybrid Propulsion.

[r.c.c.]

Yep! I have 9, 000 hours into SE and you're spot on. To truly appreciate this game you have to be someone who doesn't rely on "quests" or point to point challenges, but rather is comfortable with the sandbox environment where the player is powered by their own creativity and imagination. That said, there are multi-player servers that are simply mind boggling in scope, and offer some really great game play with what is generally an older, less toxic, more friendly community than one might find in other games.

[PabloPhreshcobar]

I enjoy survival more than creative, personally. Even without many mods other than a couple QOL mods. I think since there isn't a whole lot to do in terms of story or missions, I find earning my creation is more fun than anything. I just wish it had something more to do outside of building, pretty much my only gripe with the game

[RichyN]

The Game itself and the DLC often go on sale for 50% off or more sometimes too, so if you are tight on money it's good to wait for a sale, but even without sale it's not too expensive especially compared to other games with paid DLC. Definitely more fun with mods and friends

[PraetorPaktu]

A very nice review. TLDR: love the game. and I hope you will too.
I agree with most of Lunar's points. For me Creative is where it's at, I have created many ships for the workshop and I love creating a universe around the ships.
Don't worry if your first ships is absolute trash at everything, you are not going to be prefect right out of the gate. I have found that it takes around 1000 hours before you start to feel like you are creating good ships.
In my opinion this game is better then Minecraft in it's creative side due to all the tools and the Blueprint menu. but fails in survival.
This game has taken over my life in a good way. 95% of my free time goes toward creating ships and lore.

[specrtre]

If I could find a group of friends to play and learn with. I would hop back into the game. It's got one of the coolest building systems with how you have to have fuel, the use of conveyor systems is really fun too.

[Ungermax]

I would really like an aspect of colonization in this game. The crafting and core survival aspects are great but there simply isnt enough to do other than build cool stuff. Imagine Space Engineers crossed with Rimworld - the objective being to create a space-faring civilization or at least a faction with actual NPCs. Imagine a space port block that at certain intervals signals that a capsule of 1/5/10/20 people are ready to arrive (Maybe a separate block for ships vs static grids so it can be targeted to space stations and motherships), and it is your job to create facilities that enable them to survive while doing their "work." You could then look at what the benefits of maintaining this might be, but imagine this being the mechanism to having economy, contracts, random encounters? Is it asking too much to find enemy bases have progressed significantly (see Total Anhiliation) and have more settlers than you do, meaning you actually have a populated enemy base that you can go and Call of Duty the crap out of. Eventually send your settlers across space for something. you get the idea. Micro-objectives such as "send NPC1 to Mars" and you have to give them a ship legit capable of getting them there including enough food, fuel, oxygen, or send an NPC to space in which they can go and grab some rare resources for you, but its a contract and not a physical drilling operation a bit like MGS Phantom Pain (Send an NPC to Mars doesnt need to be a physical journey either - you create a viable ship which despawns and now only appears in a menu somewhere. Use projectors to replicate it as in current game). Send different types of NPCs, say a pilot and a gunman, if a gunman is onboard then the ship doesnt need ammo for the gun they are assigned to? Why does the economy system have to be a block rather than an NPC? Why dont factions have actual NPC avatars? It is such a great game because of its crafting system but there is a serious gaping hole if you dont have regular people to join you. It can remain a sandbox game while adding such features. Keen give me a job :D

[TV-cveb]

I really think to improve SEs survival component, they should take a few pages from stationeers books and make proper base and ship construction have a bit more of an impact on your survival (such as dangerous decompression and hydroponics). Also adding more threats on planets is a good idea I think

[RaaneaEV]

Vanilla survival is really fun, but i agree it can get a little bit repetitive, that's why i love the Industrial Overhaul mod, it really puts more engineering into SE, making you need to progress through various machines and mostly requiring you to build an entire industrial complex to get to late game stuff, i think it's waay more fun and challenging than having the assembler doing all the job for you. Slap the daily needs mod for a food, water and rest system and you have a pretty solid survival experience. For those that hate mining such as myself the ResourceNodes mod makes mining a bit more like an RTS.

[stark]

I think the only aspect of the game that I genuinely dislike is the character weapons, rifles are better at dealing structure damage than rocket launchers and fighting peer to peer instead of ship to ship feels clunky and boring. I dont think that peer to peer should be a main focus of the combat but should definitely be improved on so it is at least viable.

[sqocks]

I'm very glad that your brought up the survival aspect of Space Engineers.
I really like survival as a primary aspect of a game and now I know that this isn't what Space Engineers is about.
Economy/trading is also something I would enjoy, which turns out to not be the focus either.

The base/vehicle building and resource management of this game seems pretty nice though.

Thank you for this review. ❤

[engineer]

Awesome video but I do think a touch on mods would’ve helped a lot as the mods are incredibly well put together and are very impressive. I agree on all these points though.

I also listen to this games soundtrack all the time :P

[CMDR-V-UncleJ]

I think you pretty much covered it. Seems like I do a lot of Special Projects lately i really haven't been doing any survival. And when I do survival definitely mods my recent one I did small grid only

[BilloNoSkillo]

I've bought the game early 2014 and somewhat liked it but it was way too early in developement for me. After many years of being forgotten in my library I stubled acros it and wondered what had changed. This video really inspired me to give it a shot again.

[fakshen]

DLC only really matters if you're playing on a public server. Almost everything in DLC has an equivalent mod in the workshop. If you're playing single-player or on a server that you run yourself, you're good. The DLC just allows players who want fancier looking ships to use them on virtually any server.

I bought all of the DLC. I voted with my wallet for the game's continuing development. The only reason we're getting this next update with the advanced blocks is due to the sales of DLC.

[Zanzikhan]

As the previous event coordinator for a multiplayer server, I can testify that the potential is only limited by your imagination. I have created evens like a scrap race to build and race rovers, a naval domination mode (nearly completely automated) where you battle in naval boats in the water while trying to dominate POIs, a recreation of Facility in Golden Eye 007 with a complete deathmatch mode, land/sea/air warzone mode, a mech warrior team deathmatch, and so much more! it is insane what can be done with the right idea.