Space Engineers 2 News-Hub schrieb:

It’s honestly very cool that our VRAGE3 engine is at a point where you can create real, live optical illusions directly inside the game. No tricks, no fake overlays – the illusion exists in the world and holds up as you move around it.

That kind of thing still makes me smile.

Our next update for SE2, VS2.2, has entered the feature freeze phase, which means we have finished all features, are not adding more, and are just polishing and fixing what is in game. This means we need to do a lot of testing, reviews, and improvements.

Some highlights:

• Rifle gun and rocket launcher are already in the game, animations and particle effects are working. This is just the first version, and we will definitely polish them more in future updates.
  
• Welder and grinder blocks are in, and so survival actually became more interesting, because you can drill ore, use production blocks to convert them to components, and then use your ship to weld. Together with projection building, it becomes much easier than before – you just weld the projection. Currently we are tweaking the constants – so that the HP, weight, and welding speed are well balanced.
  
• The combat experience is in, but a few things are not working well yet – for example projectile trails were missing yesterday, or at least not rendered at larger distances. The team is investigating it, and I am sure we will fix it during the polish phase. It is very important that shooting gives you visual feedback – where your projectile is going, if it hits something (sparkles), and eventually destruction or explosion of the block you hit. But in general, it feels good to me -> the visuals in SE2 are really amazing. The detailed blocks, damage, destruction, explosion particles, lighting and everything visual, and flying there with a ship that I built, and can damage block-by-block my enemies – this is my dream-come-true again. Of course, there’s still a lot of work ahead of us to turn the combat experience into something great. We have to decide if we want quick combats or long-lasting combats, how to solve rock-paper-scissors situations, how to prevent the frustration where you spend hours building your ship but lose it in the first 5 seconds of a fight, etc. This will not be fully solved in VS2.2, but later yes. PS: we already discussed this in July 2025
  
  
  
  
  
• What is also good is that the team has split into sub-teams, and parallel development started. One team is continuing on the water – there are a few big challenges to overcome – like water visually leaking through submarine walls, and increasing the resolution from 1m to 25cm – so water can leak through our 25cm unified grid system. Also improving the performance so the water can run on multiple cores. And many other things. The other team started working on NPCs, which we will introduce in VS4, hopefully before the end of this year! This will be a big thing, because I think NPCs were always missing in SE. It’s a feature that will make the world feel more alive, but also more emergent, surprising, and interesting. I am really looking forward to seeing some progress here – even if it’s just an NPC patrolling around, spotting me, attacking me or running away, or intelligently deciding whether to use a jetpack or move on foot.

The art team got the Delfos Killing Field visuals into their hands and they are killing it too. You remember the WIP “programmer” art I shared before? Well – here is the effect when you get closer to Delfos.

And if you see this, you’re probably not having a great time.

The Killing Field will not only burn you, but your ships and grids too (The visuals are still heavily work in progress). So be careful after VS2.2 releases!

We’ve been thinking about more ways to support decorative building, satisfy your urge to greeble – and make it super easy on top of everything!


We are thinking about modular deck panels and walls with built-in openings that you can actually do something with. We have early designs for panels with holes and cutouts, paired with interchangeable wall inserts. In the example below, you can see a vent insert, but that’s just the starting point.


Once this system exists, it opens the door to all kinds of details and uses – pipes, cables, maintenance access, visual noise, or just pure aesthetics. I really enjoy this kind of building freedom, where simple parts combine into something that feels custom and lived-in.

This is exactly the kind of detail work that doesn’t scream for attention, but quietly makes ships and stations feel more real.


And I love the progress from the art team on the passages block set:

We’re also tweaking and testing different visuals for Palatine’s “atmosphere” and lighting. We’re testing how different lighting setups affect Palatine when viewed from a distance versus up close.





Question to you: Do decorative possibilities change how much time you spend refining your builds?

Full Blog Post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2026/02/mareks-dev-diary-february-19-2026/




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