Space Engineers have announced that their Economy 2 Update and pack is now live for those who already have the game or those who are looking to get into it now.
The Economy 2 update is a rather large one, changing some of the core gameplay. You can now store entire grids and redeploy them when you need them, hunt bounties and haul cargo through pirate space, sell scraps for credit, and repair your ship at trade stations without replacing a single component.
Speaking of trade stations in Space Engineers, you will now find NPCs walking around inside them, bringing them to life. There are a few other features in this update, including a new Service Terminal that allows players to store entire grids and redeploy their ships where they need them, along with restoring damaged craft or selling unwanted grids as well without having to dismantle them.
The Economy 2 update also brings a redesigned economy system, with both store and contract information shown together, with an item search tab, all in one screen. The contracts themselves have been re-done as well, with lots of expansions and rebalancing alongside new mission types including Courier, Search, PvE Bounty, Hauling, Salvage, Item Recovery and Grid Recovery contracts.
Beyond the NPCs found at the trade stations, there are a bunch of NPC factions that are less challenging to discover and seventeen new station prefabs that have been added across the game. The ship market also has 43 new and updated pre-fabs.
This update isn’t a DLC, so everything is free, but they are also releasing the Economy 2 Pack, which is price locked as DLC, and contains a bunch of decorative blocks with the aim to enhance and personalize your base. Specifically, they feature a new Safe Zone Block, LDC billboards, Floorplan Signs and more. These are just cosmetic and don’t add an advantage to the game.
We previously reviewed Space Engineers:
“Summing up, Space Engineers is a relatively expensive but very impressive survival game that I have a ton of admiration for. Whilst space expiration doesn’t seem as “new” as it might once have, it’s actually quite underused in video games beyond those that have an established “future narrative” like Elite: Dangerous. Only No Man’s Sky has a similar scope to Space Engineers, but thanks to the focus on building and survival in a pseudo-realistic fashion, Space Engineers definitely has a place at the table.”
