A couple of interesting developments have taken place with Keen Software House’s Space Engineers. The game was recently updated to version 1.182.0, which has decreased the load times and increased the optimizations, but not everyone is getting on well with the newest Early Access update.

Over on the Steam Community page the update was received with a lot of mixed and negative reactions, including a number of people who have mentioned that the game now runs worse on their system than it did in build 1.181.0.

In a video highlighting the update for the latest patch of Space Engineers, they cover how CPU performance has been improved and that on a 3GHz multi-core CPU you can now get 60fps with 16 full sized ships flying on the Easy Start Earth scenario.

They also have GPU auto-detection to take place at the start of the game so that it now optimizes the settings of the game to match your setup. And on GTX 750 you can now get about 60fps on medium settings, which is a huge improvement over before. You can see the game and the updates in action with the video below.

Additionally, optimizations have been made for Intel GPUs so you can now get about 30fps at 720p on low settings with the Intel HD brand of chips.

Unfortunately some people have reported that the update breaks the game pretty badly for them, with some users reporting that the game either crashes on start-up, crashes after loading an instance, or crashes with certain mods installed. Thus is the nature of Early Access.

Many gamers suggest disabling auto updates for Space Engineers and keeping with version 1.181.0 until the next branch is released for the game to avoid running into any of the problems that have arisen with 1.182.0.

On the mod side of things, there’s a really cool server linking for multi-server PvP instances. Modder rexxar built the mod, and it allows players to join a lobby and then prep for a game before heading into the battle server…

“This mod builds a simple server network for PvP matches. There is a central hub server where players hang out and build, then when they’re ready, they enter a chat command and they and their ship are transported to a battle server.”

After a battle ends players end back up at the hub instead of the match instantly ending. This allows for a more traditional PvP style setup akin to what you would find from most other AAA-style games out there.

If you want to download this mod for your version of Space Engineers to help facilitate multi-server PvP bouts, you can grab it from over on the Steam Workshop page. If you need help setting up the server be sure to grab the server configuration file from Github.

(Main image courtesy of Mentor_N7)