Space Engineers Finally Enters Beta!

Three years after it went into Steam Early Access, Space Engineers has finally made it to the beta phase! While there is still a lot of work to be done on the game, this is a major milestone for the developers and the games packed with awesome content already. From exploring planets, flying spaceships, and FPS action, there’s a lot of fun to be had, and the new update has added a huge amount of new content for you to play around with too.

There’s a newly designed tutorial campaign, better network code for multiplayer, improved tools and weapons, and a whole lot more, which you can check out in the changelog below.

Not only do we get this lovely beta phase, but the developers at Keen Software are also promising a lot more updates to come.

“Hello Engineers! Today, we are pushing all the features from last week’s enormous update to the stable branch. Just in case you missed the news, this includes the total block redesign, new multiplayer netcode, a tutorial campaign and much more! We wanted to make this great update available to all players as you’ve been asking for it all week! In combination with this today’s bug and crash fixes, you should be able to enjoy a stable gameplay experience. This update also marks the transition of Space Engineers moving to Beta phase. The most important thing to remember with this announcement is that there is still more content, improvements and many optimizations to come. As an example, we can confirm that one of the things being worked on currently is a new HUD which should significantly increase your immersion in the game. Beta simply means that we feel the game now has a solid foundation.” – Keen Software

• New Multiplayer netcode
• Total Block Redesign; every block has been completely reworked (textures/LODs/etc.)
• New and redesigned Tools and Weapons look
• New and redesigned look for Components, Voxels
• Physics improvements
• Render improvements
• Added Campaign containing 5 missions
• Added Voice Chat (dependent on antenna network, it can be enabled by pressing U)
• Added Magnetic Boots
• Drone AI Improvements (strafing, ramming when without ammo, can use static weapons, targeting, waypoints)
• Drive-by Turret shooting (shooting from turrets while moving with vehicles/ships)
• Improved building (block size is automatically picked by the grid that you are pointing to; you can change the size manually by pressing the block button on your toolbar again)
• Double Click makes a hand tool keep working continually
• Interacting with highlighted stuff by pressing LMB and interacting with control panel RMB (only with empty hands)
• Added Corner Lights, Corner LCDs (thanks Arindel!)
• Enabled interior lights for small ships
• Added Advanced Admin Tools in the Space Master menu (thanks Rexxar!)
• Redesigned permissions ingame, added new Scripter and Moderator roles
• Added Zoom function to all turrets
• Customizable Fonts
• Added ambient occlusion setting in the Graphics Options
• Decals are now visible from inside the Cockpits
• Voxel hand can be used by Space Master
• Added Steam Achievements: http://steamcommunity.com/stats/244850/achievements/
• Raycast improvements (thanks Rexxar!): http://forum.keenswh.com/threads/new-camera-raycast-and-sensor-api.7389290/
• Created a new way for mods to store custom data inside entities: http://forums.keenswh.com/threads/modapi-changes-12-8.7389842/
• Added new toggle for Sensor for detecting subgrids
• Added a new button to rotors that allows a small rotor head to be added
• Re-worked remote access menu to be more user friendly and accessible
• Added support for CompilationSymbols arguments in Teamcity
• Whitelisted items (so they can be edited in scripts to avoid conflicts)
• Added Monospace Font (thanks @Krypt! 🙂 )
• Trees can now be cut down using the grinder/drill tool
• Added “Loading Wheel” when pasting a blueprint
• Added Workshop tag “Campaign”
• GitHub Updated