Previously I used to play Space Engineers only for the scenarios. Only recently I decided to give it a bit of a deeper dive and do a bit of exploring. One thing that helped me a bit was playing on a server. While my server of choice is largely empty, the knowledge that there is someone to eventually interact with makes the whole experience slightly better. At least up to the point these guys decide to educate me on the joys of PvP - that’s probably where I’m gonna get my own ass handed to me. I also decided to use that knowledge and go through the scenarios once again. Frostbite and Lost colony are very much sandboxes with stories attached to them. Frostbite especially utilizes some “hidden” functionality in terms of the AI attached to the drones - something that could probably be achieved with scripting. But it seems like Keen intends to use those as part of an update sometime down the line. I also met with a few youtubers - at least on their discords, namely GetBrocked, KmaxPrime, Luca the guide, and of course Splitsie. All of those communities were happy to share their knowledge and advise in terms of how to improve on designs. Partucularly on Luca’s server there were two individuals who seemed to treat the PVP meta minmaxing approach with borderline religious zeal. Ultimately the best approach and best design is the one that works for you and does the thing you designed it for. If it doesn’t, then go back to the drawing board and iterate on the design.