Space Engineers update overhauls multiplayer

Space Engineers is an outer space sandbox game developed by Keen Software. Originally launched in 2013 via Steam Early Access, Space Engineers has come quite a long way. While the game has been an excellent single player experience for many, multiplayer in the game tends to cause a lot of issues. After six months, the developers are finally releasing and update which completely overhauls the multiplayer aspect of Space Engineers.

Keen Software tackled the significant update by setting a goal. To guarantee seamless performance with the game running at 1.0 speed with sixteen players in the server. Alongside the multiplayer changes, the developers also aimed to optimize the game and add more features. According to the developer blog post, they had to “redo major parts of the engine.”

Female Engineer

After a lot of requests from fans, Space Engineers now has a playable female character. The idea for her implementation was one of the top voted ones. The female engineer uses brand new animations, models, voices and movements that were developed from scratch.

Safe Zones

One of the new features that have been added are safe zones. Safe zones are essentially restricted areas where specific actions such as shooting or welding can be limited by the server administrator. They are visually represented as a colored transparent area which behaves like an inverse gravity field. Currently, safe zones can only be static due to limitations, but most of its features are adjustable.

Improvements and Optimizations

Space Engineers now features a reworked UI, a new player respawn system, updated animations, new experimental mode and PCU based performance optimizations. What that means is that the developers handled performance enhancements based off the performance cost unit value of every block. Additionally, there are other hidden features that can be accessed via the Experimental Mode in the game options menu.

In order to improve the player experience of the overhauled multiplayer, the developers now provide official dedicated servers. For the developers, multiplayer has been “the biggest and most challenging feature in Space Engineers” and they are glad that it is “finally a fun and pleasing experience.”

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