Vermillion Online vs Space Engineers 2

At a glance

The short version for people waiting on SE2 multiplayer

A lot of people search for Space Engineers 2 multiplayer and find out it isn't there yet. As of October 2026, SE2 is single-player. Keen's official roadmap lists "Hostile Encounters", the first combat NPCs, for 19 October 2026, and co-op for four players in early 2027. Full multiplayer is on the list without a date. The Steam page says Keen expects Early Access to run about three years, to around the end of 2027.

That's a sensible plan for a game that size. It also means that if you want to fly a ship you built next to other players this year, SE2 can't give you that yet. Vermillion can, at a much smaller scale.

What you can do in each today

In Space Engineers 2 you build and survive alone. Keen rebuilt the engine for it (VRAGE3), and the building tools and visuals are a clear step up from the first game. Updates through 2026 added things like wheels, timers and wind turbines, and a performance pass in August. If you want the newest block-building tech from the studio that made the genre big, this is it.

In Vermillion Online you start in a free Rookie Ship on a live server. The first hour is guided: mine Ferrite and Cuprite, craft parts, fabricate your own Starter Miner. From there you design ships, mine in riskier space, hunt pirates for bounties, trade on station order books and fight other players. All of it is online, all the time. There is no offline mode.

Ship building compared

SE2 is a general construction sandbox. You build ships, bases and machines, and in survival you weld them together in the world.

Vermillion only builds ships, and it builds them for combat and work. You design at a station in 1 m blocks: 68 armour shapes in 5 materials plus about 140 functional and structural parts. What matters is how systems are assembled. Thrusters are a nozzle plus amplifiers plus coolers. A mining laser is a head plus focusing lenses. A cannon has a gauge you pick from 12 to 300 mm, and one big gun against many small ones is a real choice. Power, fuel, heat and ammo are all simulated.

Two things SE2 players tend to like: the designer has a warnings panel that flags problems before you fly, and you can test-fly any design, including on mining rocks, before you spend a credit. Fabrication is what costs materials.

Combat and PvP

SE2 has no PvP right now, and its first combat NPCs are only just arriving. Vermillion was built around PvP from the start.

Fights use Newtonian flight with no speed cap. Shells are simulated projectiles that dig through blocks until penetration runs out, and destroyed blocks split ships into drifting fragments. Ships give off a signature from thrust, heat, guns and radar. Asteroids hide you. Fire your radar and every pilot in range hears the ping as a bearing.

Space is split into four security tiers across 19 sectors: Secure (no damage), High security (police destroy attackers 20 seconds after they turn Criminal), Low security (no police) and Lawless (no rules). The richest ore is in the last two.

Loss and the economy

A single-player survival game can let you rebuild what you lost at your own pace. Vermillion can't, because the economy depends on things being destroyed.

A destroyed ship loses half its cargo. The rest spills into the wreck for anyone to take, and others can salvage the hulk. Your character drops a body bag. You get a free Rookie Ship back, so you're never locked out, but the ship you lost is gone.

That loss feeds the market. Each station has an order book with buy and sell orders, escrow and a 2% tax. Items sit at the station where they are, so someone has to haul them. Better ore sits in more dangerous space. It's the EVE Online loop, with ships you built yourself.

Where Space Engineers 2 is better

• Track record. Keen has run Space Engineers since 2013 and has a public roadmap through 2027. We're a small team in our first public playtests.
• Building scope. Bases, machines and vehicles, not only ships.
• No pressure. Single-player means nobody takes your ship while you learn.
• Visuals and tools. A new engine and a polished building UI.
• Modding. SE2 already has a mod editor with Steam Workshop publishing.
• Future co-op. If you want to build with three friends privately, that's on SE2's roadmap. Vermillion has no private worlds.

Who should play which

If you want a quiet, deep building game and can wait for co-op, SE2 is a safe buy.

If you want to fly a ship you designed against people who also designed theirs, and you can live with an early playtest, try Vermillion while you wait. It's free, so the only cost is your time and the chance of a wipe.

Both is a fine answer. They scratch different itches.

Space Engineers 2 questions

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