Space Engineers: Any DBX pilots out there?
- Thread starter Arvel Yael
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I've developed a simple but very effective torpedo. It uses small blocks, so it's nice and compact and gets the job done. I was having problems with these being shot down by enemy turrets, because armed warheads are very sensitive to gunfire (queue up scene from Hunt For Red October). I added a second sensor, so now the torpedo travels most the distance unarmed, arming itself at around 20m from target and then detonating at 5m from target. Traveling at 100 m/s with a gyroscope on the nose (which is extremely tough), this torpedo can usually get through a screen of point defense turrets, especially if launched in a salvo.
The next trick is to write a script to extract GPS coordinates from a target and load that data into the torpedo, along with having a merge block so I can fire torpedoes from my ships.
The next trick is to write a script to extract GPS coordinates from a target and load that data into the torpedo, along with having a merge block so I can fire torpedoes from my ships.
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That is good. How about auto-replication?
I do want to automate the production of these eventually, either at my base or on a larger ship. I did most of my testing in creative mode, and that's why the timer block - it turns on the auto pilot 10 seconds after spawning (copy-n-paste) in creative, allowing me to quickly and easily generate a salvo. The GPS coordinates are preprogrammed for a pirate ship in the area.
No mods are used - it's all vanilla stuff. This means they don't track moving targets, but I think I could write a script that calculates a moving ship's vector to generate a firing solution for the torpedo, like WWII submarines used.
I've attached two torpedoes to my Vulture using a rotor (merge blocks were too big). You can see from image how small these torpedoes are compared to my Vulture, yet with four warheads each, they pack a punch. I connected the enable autopilot and detach rotor head functions to my cockpit, allowing me to enable and fire these torpedoes like actual weapons. They completely gutted my target, all while I stayed out of range of it's guns!
This is all in creative mode, as I'm no where near having a ship this complex in survival mode. Torpedoes, on the other hand, are pretty simple to make, so I can see using these in survival mode on a very modest small ship to disable pirates and loot their ships for more valuable materials that I'm having difficulty finding (like uranium).
Now I just have to figure out how to use EMPs to disable and not destroy vessels...
This is all in creative mode, as I'm no where near having a ship this complex in survival mode. Torpedoes, on the other hand, are pretty simple to make, so I can see using these in survival mode on a very modest small ship to disable pirates and loot their ships for more valuable materials that I'm having difficulty finding (like uranium).
Now I just have to figure out how to use EMPs to disable and not destroy vessels...
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T2..
Really a repurposed T1..
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9neZllvy534
Wife calls it the 'Tin Opener'..
Edit::
Thinking about paint/design.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqRoOBw3u78
Really a repurposed T1..
Wife calls it the 'Tin Opener'..
Edit::
Thinking about paint/design.
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Looking at my T:2 here with a different colour set. It's more or less the same design, however this time using 'Silver' here with a 'White' highlight. The highlight is done using the Carbon Fibre texture.
Silver reflects the surroundings, so here in blue'ish space it makes the ship look blue. However when we get to the planet surface, you'll see the change.
Another bit.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zp3xWoTXe4
Silver reflects the surroundings, so here in blue'ish space it makes the ship look blue. However when we get to the planet surface, you'll see the change.
Another bit.
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Space Engineers has a really nice ai, it's basic but can fly fairly well. Here in the video I'll show it off a little.
KSH put this in the game quite a while back and I must say it's always a joy to use it.
Anyway thought I would show it for those that don't play SE, kinda interesting (well I thought so)
The ship is a fair size, so the ai pilot does well.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCip2bEFx2M
KSH put this in the game quite a while back and I must say it's always a joy to use it.
Anyway thought I would show it for those that don't play SE, kinda interesting (well I thought so
)The ship is a fair size, so the ai pilot does well.
Interesting video, but I don't know what that support person was smoking when they said that ED worlds are not 1:1 scale. They're demonstrably 1:1 scale.
I had a short message round with them, probably 3-4 messages in total. They were very helpful and this is going back some time prior to landing on planets etc 2015.
I only work from what I see in-game. Be much better if they give us legs, we have a known scale to compare to then. May have changed and for ED's scale they may be correct. But to me they look, when compared to SE planets (modded), very small.
Maybe FDevs are working to a very small scale overall. Must say many of the games building, vehicles, features etc, look toy like.
I have trouble doing a hull and then cram in all the internals. Speaking "From the Depths" here - I went to do core internals (usually weapons I want on the ship) and build hull around. How do you do it?
Jump in an SRV and circumnavigate a planet in ED if you think it's small. Make sure it's a proper 1G or greater planet, not one of these 0.04G moons. Let us know in a couple of months / years when you cross the finish line how small ED's planets really are.
Could be they are large when on the surface (put in another box/instance).
ED's 'in-space' planets, as I said in the video, look small. I didn't mention being on the surface itself.
But that is going from much larger planets in SE (in-space). Just using my eye's.
To me they looked small, that was my reason for asking FDev's, but as said that was 2015, planetside was not available when I asked, so scale may have been different.
They confirmed that scale was still being worked on (2015) and can/does get altered for gameplay purposes. They also confirmed they were working to have ED 1:1.
However when I fire ED up and go in game even today, the planets still look much smaller in comparison to modded SE planets ( when in-space), even 1200km wide ones look much larger than ED's in-game.
Just saying..
I used to do a 'floorplan' which did help, sort of gave it the shape I wanted then worked from there. I don't do that now, more when I started, but it's a thought. Some pics down near the bottom of this page (2014'ish)
I steer clear of hugely high ceilings where it is just for crew. The blocks in SE are around 8ft sq, so two of those is usually more than enough for height realistically in purely crew areas. It would be different for hangars etc. I tend to use one block height for cabins if possible, plus communal areas.
I also experiment with cabin floorplans outside of the ship, to fit in as much as I can, in as little space as possible.
Feeding air into each compartment is fairly easy if your using vent blocks. But don't forget to put air-lock's in bulkheads to seperate areas. I don't do it to each cabin as such, but as you would in, say, a sub, ship etc.
A cabin will hold air even without vents if the door to a vented areas is opened briefly and closed again. But if your character is in the cabin and breathing the air, it will diminish over time, but it's slow, so you can put sets of doors on timers if venting is a problem, that way they will open for a brief period then close again, timings depends on room size. This gives you fresh air to the compartment for whatever period you need. But it is better to vent where possible.
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I think the problem in Elite is that non-landable planets (and stars) keep you at a much further distance than can be achieved in Space Engineers. I've always complained that stars appear way too small (they should fill the horizon forever when scooping them), but when scooping larger stars we're actually the same distance earth is from our sun! I think that's a mistake on Frontier's part. Same goes with gas giants, which look like gas "kinda bigger than earth, maybe" in ED, but again this has to do with the artificial distance limit which for some reason scales with planet size, which inadvertently make big planets not feel that much bigger than small planets.However when I fire ED up and go in game even today, the planets still look much smaller in comparison to modded SE planets ( when in-space), even 1200km wide ones look much larger than ED's in-game.
Just saying..
The other thing that makes planets and stars feel small is our supercruise speed. We're orbiting a large star in under a minute when it would take a planet going very fast over a year to do the same thing at that distance. SE gives a sense of size because we're always in normal space limited to normal speeds.
So I agree with you that many planets FEEL small in ED, but they are not actually small, as can be proven by my challenge above.
As I said, I don't doubt on the ground they may be large, but in space they're clearly not. I know regards the false distance thing, but I watched a video some time back where whoever it was had got by the limit and gone to the planet (prior to planetside), this is going back again to 2015'ish.
The planet was a 'balloon planet', he clipped straight through the planet into it's interior, which of course was space still. But even getting that close ie. clipping through, the planet was small'ish. Curvature was so bad, whereas there shouldn't be any noticable at all.
Don't forget it's not seamless to planets in ED.
Legs would help a lot with scale in ED.
I know there is some design program for Lego building. And since that is blocks I wondered if anyone uses something like that for planning. I often end up with blocky designs - intricate curves are hard and time consuming.
There may be something on workshop, not sure, but worth a look.
Another way, find a ship you like on workshop and take it apart. That will give you ideas, I would think.
I'm good with small designs. Had a particularly nice one with welders on one end and deconstructors on the other. Small, nimble. Good handling. I called it the "Janus" and it was a bit of Swiss army knife for all construction jobs.