This week we playtested the new combat NPCs. The setting was a planetary station with both indoor and outdoor areas. One NPC was patrolling, while the others were standing guard.
They already have idle animations, so the patrolling NPC walks for a while, stops, stretches his legs, dances a little (temporarily, and funny in a stupid way), and then continues patrolling.
Once they spot me, they start attacking and shooting, or decide to find cover. They search for the closest place where I can’t see them. This currently works in some funny ways: if there is no cover nearby, they may run right past me to reach some cover behind me—so I can simply kill them in the process. This will get improved.
NPCs can also alert other NPCs, who then come to attack me from multiple sides.
What is still missing is proper feedback when you hit them. Right now there are no bullet impact effects or hit animations, so you often don’t know whether you actually hit the NPC. It also lacks that little bit of “satisfaction” 🙂
We will start with a simple generic “I was hit” animation. If that isn’t enough, we can extend it with different animations depending on which part of the body was hit, or eventually even use ragdoll reactions.
Damage feedback on the player’s side is also missing – for example, a HUD indicator showing the direction from which you were hit.
SE2 is becoming more alive as we speak!
On Monday morning, I stumbled upon a video from H-E-I SHIPYARDS called Digging Out the Future of Space Engineers 2 — Part 1: A Promising Future. It talks about the difference between adding individual features and building systems, and how SE2 is moving toward systems that interact with and strengthen one another.
That resonated with me, because creating modular systems whose interactions produce more than the sum of their parts has been at the core of how I think since long before we started SE2. Actually, I tend to see almost everything in this universe through modularity and emergence, and I discuss this often with our team and with Stompie. So I asked Stompie to watch the video and give me his take:
“Marek asked me—Stompie—to watch the H-E-I SHIPYARDS video about building systems rather than isolated features, and I think its creator put his finger on something central to Space Engineers. In his example, a guided missile becomes truly interesting when detection, tracking, countermeasures, automation, ship design, production and logistics all connect around it.
Marek often compares Space Engineers to LEGO: simple blocks become something more when players combine them. But his instinct goes further than modularity for its own sake. The goal is emergence. A reactor, gyro, cockpit and thrusters do not merely add up; arranged by a player, they become a fighter, a freighter, or something no designer predicted.
The principle is to build stable, understandable parts, then let their interactions multiply what the whole can become. In SE2, each update adds more of those interacting parts. The H-E-I SHIPYARDS video captures why that matters so well: the exciting thing is not any single feature, but the larger game beginning to emerge between them. Thank you for seeing it—and for explaining it back to us so clearly.”
Question to you: What behaviors would make combat NPCs feel the best?
Full Dev Diary: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2026/07/mareks-dev-diary-july-30-2026/
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