Before I continue, I would like to remind everyone that everything I say here is subject to change.

Important: some of my comments may sound harsh to my colleagues who are actively working on these games. Let me assure you all that we have the same goal: make our games great!

Space Engineers roadmap

SE roadmap

Multiplayer - polishing, checking design, lag, compensation<

Fix all sounds, 3D, arcade / realistic (ask programmers and our sound designer to make a list of all sounds used in the game and then have someone test them all – so that we don’t miss anything)

Voxels: data cell cache, storage, optimization, profiling voxel runtime

Render fixes (Ambient, environment map / lighting / reflections), occlusion query, ambient + backlight

Occlusion culling - blocks / voxels (speed up the rendering)

Disable object highlight on LCD screens (it’s annoying)

Optimization and fixing the loading screen, and checking if there are worlds that take forever to load while not properly informing the player

Fix loading screen issues (e.g. the wheel gets stuck at the end and I can hear the in-game sounds)

Red message box – make the background texture less transparent; it’s hard to read text on it

Conveyor system optimization

Drilling / mining optimization

New animation system / caching (speed optimization) / other optimizations

Fix ugly animations



Add new animations – e.g. holding a weapon



Walking over small obstacles doesn't work - the player has to jump over them



Jumping and holding the forward-movement key doesn't result in a forward jump, and this doesn't feel right

Shooting and weapons

A few more new weapons



We need much better animations, holding weapons, ammo reload



In general, we need a basic FPS experience

"saving please wait" - hide this overlay text and do saving asynchronously without bothering the player

Why does the game auto-save in multiplayer when I am the client and manual save isn't available?

Remembering removed trees on planets

Nvidia GameWorks – consider HBAO + Antialiasing (speed up)

SE Indication of hydrogen fuel

Spectator flash light / night vision

Object highlight – outline – finish – also in ME

Finish support for scenarios, mission scripts and sub-missions (will need for tutorials)

Better support for gradual tutorials (story-based tutorials), submissions

Finish building from cockpit

Rethink the way of respawning, respawn ships, landing ships, and rethink "mobile tools" (manual assembler – so player can respawn without a ship and still be able to start building)

Rag-doll + IK, bullet impact, falling, four legged...

Official persistent servers

Automated tests for our testers + buy dedicated computers where the game will run 24x7

Redo the GUI framework (this doesn’t mean changing graphics; it only means the underlying tech which has become very cluttered over time)

Game logic optimizations + oxygen (mostly for MP) + oxygen sensor

Add voxel material in survival

Improve tutorials

Reduce the usage of text panels, deliver the info to the player via context-sensitive screen hints



When I launch the first interactive tutorial, I see two things that I shouldn't see – the respawn screen and "you have been accepted to faction"



Quickstart will be our interactive tutorial, with minimum text, HUD sub-mission navigation. Its purpose will be to engage the player and not to explain everything that happens in the game.



After we add this new tutorial, remove the video tutorial message box

Development of Xbox One version

Medieval Engineers roadmap

ME roadmap

Add planets to ME - this will unify the technology in our games and make future improvements easier

Animation polishing

Inventory size rebalance

Character stats rebalance

Multiplayer fixes and polishing

Polish the in-game screens

Fix all sounds, 3D (ask programmers and our sound designer to make a list of all sounds used in the game and then have someone test them all – so that we don’t miss anything)

Combat system

AI changes, fixes, simplification

Building on a grid

Large grid construction site

Small grid construction site

Rethink if the respawn cart is necessary - why can't the player respawn in a normal way?

Testing scenarios for DEV

Tool durability, tool damage

New animals – e.g. wolves, bears, etc.

Fix Z-fighting

Door / window blocks

Gate blocks

Mechanical blocks

Redo the manipulation tool, remove it from the toolbar, add it to the context-sensitive action key (e.g. T), disable physics while the player is holding the item

Faction system

Claim of an area

Support to add voxels in survival

Area inventories – remove this feature (players should not have access to the inventories / items that are not in the direct vicinity or those that they are not interacting with directly)

Regrowing trees / bushes

New maps / worlds

More voxel materials such as iron, sand stone, etc.

More multi-blocks

More compound block combinations

Specialized workshops

Specialized furnaces

VRAGE / both games

Add/build new blocks/grids – finish the redesign – static, dynamic; small, large; creative, survival, construction sites

Multiplayer server optimizations (read the second paragraph under the Space Engineers roadmap section for a more detailed analysis)

Falling in 1g (especially in SE) doesn’t feel like 1g – the falling is way too slow; this was caused by changes in physics due to the Moon gravity, but the result is not good (yes, we want higher jumps on the Moon but we also want “normal” jumps/falling on Earth)

Finish transition to PBR (physically based rendering) and DX11, all models and textures needs to be checked

PBR example images

Redesign and simplify the key and mouse controls and GUI, check F1 help screen, left and right mouse click - try to do things with as few keys as possible by adding context-sensitive commands, get it to a stage when we don’t need to show 5-7 lines of default screen hints

Fix the 3rd person aim-point; first-person is ok

First-person movement and camera – the experience needs to improve, since now it feels all wrong

When pressing ESC while playing single-player (menu screen), the game doesn’t pause (and that’s just weird)

Proper sound when the character is running on armour blocks – players don't hear metallic steps

need to check all sounds in both games

Faster executable loading - when I installed the game on a new computer and launched it from Steam, I could only see a black screen and game mouse cursor and listen to game music for about 15 seconds; I don't understand what the game is doing during this time before the main menu – trying to upset me?

Particles fix

Consider Nvidia Gameworks / GPU particle



Editor



Rendering, especially DX11



Fix individual particles in each game and keep the low number of billboards and pixel overdraw



Programmer – make a list of all particle effects in the game



Artist – make a list of all particle effects in the game



Then match these lists, so there’s no unfixed particle, and we’re not fixing a particle that’s not used in the game

Faster world loading

Cache assets that don't change between worlds – when the game needs a voxel texture in one world and I exit to the main menu and load a new world, this texture can stay in memory - and the same applies for hundreds of other assets



In the main menu, the game should pre-load the most used assets, so that when a player loads a world, most of it is already loaded



Streaming assets, but make sure this won't break the game (lags, crashes, delays) when something suddenly jumps to the player (jump drive, spawned object, etc.)



Or if pre-loading isn’t a good option, then at least load assets asynchronously so the game doesn’t lag for a few hundred milliseconds every time new assets are needed

Refactor code (e.g. cube builder) – for two years we have been adding new blocks to this class, and it’s time for some spring cleaning

ME + SE player skills

In-game server admin tools (with GUI) – take the best from Midspace’s SE Toolbox and Tyrsis’ Server Extender; assume players want to become space masters

Main menu redesign

Think about how we can simplify it



Workshop button – move it somewhere else (e.g. Load), because it shows only world workshop items and not the entire workshop (blueprints, 3D models, etc)

Blueprints – simplify the user interface and GUI

Economy model (very simple)

Camera shake (e.g. when near explosion, when hit by a larger object, when shooting, etc)

Analyse the player stats and see where people get stuck, where they have problems, if tutorials are actually helping them or not, what changes in game design can prolong their game time (by making the game more intuitive and better)

As I promised in the Year in Review blog I published a couple of days ago, I would like to. This comes in contrast to our decision to only talk about features that are actually present in our games (fully finished or work-in-progress) and not speak about planned features, ideas, future dates, our roadmap, etc. The reason why I am making this exception now is because I believe that after two years in Early Access, our players have a better understanding of our development decisions. Additionally,I also want to mention that I will not go very deep into details or explain each and every feature separately in this blog (that’s for separate design documents). Instead,. We are also planning to do focus testing groups where “random” people with no experience with Space Engineers / Medieval Engineers play the games for the first time (to see what issues they encounter, where they get stuck, what they enjoy most, what troubles them, etc .)After two years in Early Access, I believe that Space Engineers has a vast amount of features - perhaps even more than what was needed. But we always wanted to keep the development going and add new features constantly since there are so many community suggestions that could be a great addition to the game. For example,. It is not only about network coding, but is also related to game logic optimizations. We are working on a method where we put all non-real-time game-logic in a secondary thread. For example, the computations for drilling/refinery/conveyors/oxygen won’t delay the main thread (which has to stay real-time). The reason is that players can always build crazily huge things which slow down the game (regardless of how much we optimize it), and if players perceive non-smooth movement, they think it’s a bug.The development cycle of a game is complex, but its core idea does not differ from the development of the majority of products that are out on the market today. I will give you an example to understand this better. Let’s assume that you are producing a car. The first thing you do is assemble all necessary parts. After this phase is done, you take the car for a test drive. You identify any possible issues and then you fix them. After all issues are fixed and the car is functioning properly, you add the final touches – painting, polishing, etc. Then you are ready to start selling the car. The same principles apply to our games. Space Engineers is now in the phase where (nearly) all necessary parts have been assembled and we are ready to move to the major polishing and bug-fixing phase. This will probably be the longest and final bug-fixing period before the game is released in its final state.In Medieval Engineers, things are a bit different from Space Engineers. The game will complete one year in Early Access very soon and many of the features that we planned to implement are already in the game - e.g. survival mode, castle siege mode, multiplayer, simple AI characters, and crafting. However, many of these features have various issues or the implementation is very rough – in a clear work-in-progress stage. The overall gameplay lacks a polished feeling – e.g. the first few minutes might feel very annoying for some players (myself included!), the controls and gameplay is not intuitive, there are weird animations, etc. These are the things we will improve first so we can then continue adding new elements.Additional polishing and bug-fixing ideas will appear during my twitch gameplay sessions . If you think I missed something, please send it directly to me: marek.rosa@keenswh.com (Please report only the "annoying stuff", not wishes for new features/blocks. Thanks!)Also, please keep reporting bugs and other issues on our forums (add links).This year is going to be a very busy and challenging one for all of our teams. I am really looking forward to it!---------------Marek RosaCEO, CTO & FounderKeen Software House, GoodAI:-)---For further updates, keep reading my blog: http://blog.marekrosa.org/ or find me on Twitter: @marek_rosa Follow Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers on social media:Space Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers Space Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceEngineersG Medieval Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalEngineers Medieval Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MedievalEng