Adriaan Bakker
Game Designer
Space Engineers is a game developed by Keen Software House and released in 2019. It is a game where players create spaceships, buildings, and machines using a grid system. Players are tasked with surviving the harsh conditions of space and alien planets by creating machines to harvest ores, process materials, and assemble ships.
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One notable game mechanic in Space engineers is the welding system. Within the game, players can place down frames for objects that they want to build on the grid system. This helps them plan out bases and vehicles without needing all the required parts.
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Players can use the welding tool to add more components from their inventory to the frame, and slowly build up the object until it is functional. This differs from games with similar grid-based building systems such as Minecraft, Avorion, Satisfactory, etc.
An Empty Basic Assembler Frame.
Increasing Gameplay Efficiency / Reducing Wasted Time.
Most building games require the player to have all the required items in their inventory before placing down an object. These systems have a massive drawback. If the player’s production capacity of the required items is not high enough, the player is stuck waiting for all the items to finish being produced before they can even start using them.
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The welding system in space engineers solves this by allowing players to take components as they are produced and deposit them into these frames, saving both inventory space, and time as they aren’t stuck waiting to progress. The overall time it takes to produce the required items is not reduced, but the player is given something to do while they wait. Reducing the amount of time spent waiting increases the overall productivity and enjoyability of their gameplay.
The Component Assembler Interface.
Of course, this isn’t going to work for all games. Satisfactory (a factory building game created by Coffee Stain Studios) relies heavily on the production and automation of resource processing as most of its gameplay. Using a system like this would disincentivize creating massive production facilities to speed up progression, which is the main objective of the game.
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The welding system works well in space engineers, as the game is designed to be focused more on the player than the production. Taking emphasis off building massive factories gives the player more time to explore the other aspects of the game, such as resource procurement, combat, and exploration.
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Satisfactory has a very simple resource gathering system where the player finds a resource node, places a miner onto it and connects conveyors to automatic processing systems. It makes sense to take emphasis off this part of the gameplay as it is shallow and uninteresting. Meanwhile in Space Engineers, the player must engineer effective and efficient ways of gathering resources with mining ships, drill stations, and manually drilling for resources.
Streamlining resource management.
When looking at an incomplete frame, a list of required items is shown on the right-hand side of the player’s HUD. This shows the current progress of construction, the amount of each component required, and the amount of each component that has already been added.
The component list for a partially complete Basic Assembler frame.
This has several benefits. Firstly, the player has a physical place in the world that they can find out what parts are needed. Many other games require looking through several layers of menus, or even looking on the wiki to find the materials required to produce an object. This can be difficult to remember and wastes time if the player is not experienced. With this system, the player can use their own memory of where they placed down the frame to find it rather than trying to remember how to navigate through all the menus.
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Another benefit is that it shows exactly how many resources you have already provided to create the object. This takes the burden of remembering item types and amounts off the player and reduces the risk of the player wasting materials by producing too many or not enough of the correct items. This is especially important for Space engineers as most objects require at least 5 different components, rather than the usual 1 to 3 that most games have.
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Increasing building efficiency with the Build Planner.
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To complement the welding system in space engineers, there is also a build planner. This lets the player create a list of objects they want to place down, and automatically calculate the components required to create all of them. The list can then be used as an input in the assembler to automatically produce the components. This streamlines the process of building large amounts of objects as the player only needs to select the objects they want, transport the components, and weld them onto the frames. It removes the need to think about components, while still giving the player the need to procure different types of ores to create them.
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What could be improved.
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The welding mechanic in Space Engineers drastically reduces frustration and confusion by reducing the number of things the player needs to consider, while still using the components to balance the game. However, it has some drawbacks for new players.
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Problem 1
The poor accessibility of these features means most players usually don’t find out about the build planner until they have several hundred hours of playtime. There is no information on how to use the build planner aside from some small text shown when hovering over the build planner buttons. UI responses to adding objects to the build planner are hardly noticeable and there is no dedicated interface to look at the build planner, it is just a small section within the object selection screen and the component assembler.
This could be fixed by adding a separate UI panel that the player can bring up to show the build planner and add objects to it. This would reduce the clutter on the main object selection screen. Another feature that would help fix this is adding a small tutorial or help section that takes the player through the process of welding items and using the build planner.
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Problem 2
The inventory system is very overwhelming to new players because there are so many different types of items. There is no way to distinguish between what is an item/component that is welded onto a frame, or an object that can be placed down on the grid.
This can easily be fixed by colour coding each item based on its use. Currently the inventory UI has very little contrast. The player can customize the colour and opacity of the interface in their settings, but every UI element is a variation of a single colour.
Having the backgrounds of items being different colours based on what type of item they are would remove any confusion when the player tries to place down something like a metal plate, which is a component rather than an object. Other than that, simplifying the UI overall could decrease player confusion and make the game less overwhelming.
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