First Impressions: Space Engineers

This is a game that I was waiting the whole Steam Summer Sale for. The main reason was that it would stop my friend from continuously bugging me to get it but the second reason was that it looked cool. And I wasn't wrong on either point (thankfully). Also, sorry about all the brackets (I got a bit carried away!)


To begin with, I decided to go with creative (after my quick foray into survival left me confused as to what the controls were). Once I had figured out how to use my jetpack I set about flying about everywhere, and generally finding things out. These are a few of the things that I found:

1. There were three types of small ships (drill, repair and gunner) as well as two big ones (red and blue). I was on Easy Start 1, by the way.
2. There are two types of mining (extracting drill and full drill (they're my names not the official ones, by the way)).
3. You can also mine with your hand drill.
4. You can't fall when there's no gravity (due to your jetpack being turned automatically on).
5. The music is absolutely amazing.

Anyway, with these things set firmly in my mind, I set off into my second foray into survival mode (this time with Satamer). We set our asteroid difficulty to cataclysmic (don't ask me why, but we did) and almost instantly regretted it. But first, we learnt some hard lessons:

1. Don't expect the platform's Gatling gun to protect you from every asteroid.
2. Don't spend all your time fixing the platform as it will just be destroyed anyway.
3. Make sure to protect the gravity generator in both the red ship and on the platform (or at least the red ship).
4. The second player starts with a ship that should be used for extra materials and scrap. This is due to it disappearing once you die or spawn another (however the scrap, once collected, does not disappear).
5. Finally, make sure you keep all the reactors and thrusters activated on all the ships (they float away otherwise).

Yes, we left the thrusters off and, yes, the ships floated away. But, never mind. We tried again (still on cataclysmic) and this is what we learnt:

1. Make sure to turn on the reactors before you try to move the red ship.
2. Be sure to grind the platform.
3. Make sure to have enough uranium for all your ships (seriously, it's important!)
4. Never trust Satamer with keeping your ships safe or with saving your ships (it's true - Satamer). (It involved an incident with him trying to save my grinding ship (which had ignored point 3 and ended up spinning) only to ram it with his ship).
5. There are bugs in Early Access games (well, no duh!) This bug made me get stuck in empty space for no apparent reason.

Suffice to say, we restarted that one as well. So, then it was time for our last game of survival (which we're still going with!) One last time, here's what we learnt:

1. Connectors are very helpful (as they prevent ships from floating away and can be used to conserve precious uranium).
2. Even so, make sure you stockpile uranium.
3. This is harder than you think as the refinery barely refines any uranium at all.
4. Dying so as to get a free ship is a great way to get steel plates.
5. Even so, if you make a refinery you will still run out pretty quickly.
6. Make sure your Gatling guns have enough ammo.

So, there we go, this is my first impressions on the promising game of Space Engineers. More in the review later.

Goodbye for now, Harry