Space Engineers: Any DBX pilots out there?

On the way to the cliffside iron site with a disassembled wind turbine, I divert to pick up a supply pod. As I resume my journey, naturally I find a much better site to mine iron at. So I build the base there.


It occurs to me I never posted a pick of my Firefly SRV. It may look ugly, but it gets the job done. One of these days, I'll install two more landing gear at the sides of the connector.


I spend most of the local day breaking down my first base's equipment, and transfer them to Cold Iron Base. I use most of my stockpiled Nickel to build a battery bank to even out the flow of power...


...only to discover that there was much better base site 200 meters away!!! 😭 This is why you should fully survey a site before you actually begin construction! :oops:


After chasing after several more drop pods, I spend most of the daylight hours dismantling what's left of my original base, and transfer them over to my new base.


I didn't want to make the trip a third time, so I loaded my SRV to its limit, which turns out to be just shy of 16 tonnes. It's vertical acceleration at that weight turned out to be about 0.1 ms-2. Flying something that massive and unresponsive, with little margin for error, was was rather nerve wracking.


But as the sun rises, everything has finally been moved to my new base.

 
I can sum up yesterday's play sessions as this:


First up, I finally finished my gravity fed mine.


Of course, it occured to me after the fact that I could've used pistons and a drill as a way of building this much faster. :rolleyes: Since I'm bound to be building more mining bases in the future, it’s something to keep in mine next time. The next day dawns as once again I'm waiting for the basic refinery to work through its backlog of ores and stone. In between chasing supply pods, and building a conveyor system under the base, I also finish dismantling what remains at poorly planned and located Cold Iron Base.


I’m hoping I can pick up the battery with my Firefly and make it the basis of a secondary base. I divert some of my precious iron supply into building a hydroponic garden and a soil garden to hopefully allow me to eat some real food. Currently, I'm cloning some animal meat, and growing carrots, potatoes, and cucumbers to produce seeds so I can get more up and running. Of course, I need a lot of water to grow crops, so I occasionally need to mine more ice. I also made a side trip for more organics.


Turns out that the angle to the iron deposit is too shallow, so I’m converting my Firefly scout SRV into a miner.


Weight: 16 tons
Maximum operating capacity: 32 tons
Safe Cargo capacity: 14 tons.
 
The eleventh sunrise I've seen after being stranded on this planet. Time flies when you're trying to survive on an alien world.


The bore hole for my Firefly Miner is getting deeper. The nice thing about having to scrape away all this ice and stone to reach the iron beneath is that I won't have to worry about water for a long while. 🌊


All the resources I've been feeding into the basic refinery has been primarily been focused on one thing: finally replacing my basic assembler with the advanced one. Next up, harvesting the 25,000+ iron ingots necessary to upgrade my refinery!!!


Every so often, I still chase after supply pods, usually when I'm waiting for the refinery to catch up. I'm currently dealing with power supply issues, so I'm building two more wind turbines.


At last, the ingredients for real food as been grown. I've literally eaten my last bar of synthetic food. I immediately order a luxury meal and hot cocoa from the synthesizer.


Of course, I probably should've checked my hunger bar first, because it felt like it took forever to finish. While I was waiting, I built some place to eat like a civilized person. But in the end, it was well worth it. It's the first time since landing on this planet that I haven't felt a gnawing hunger eating away at my soul.


As sun sets on the twelfth day, I look out the newly constructed window. I was at a bit of a loss about how to keep easy access to the assembler, taking advantage of the upgrade ports it can share with the refinery, and still make an air tight base, but this will work fine.


Next up, more mining, and hoping I don’t accidentally overload my miner when I reach iron. ;)

Edit:

I just had an incredibly obvious idea. Why don’t I use the parts I’m producing for my upgraded refinery, and use them to build new basic refineries? Speed things up a bit? Of course, it’ll require even more wind turbines, but I’ll need them sooner or later anyways.
 
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Well, the last five days real time, and who knows how many days in-game, have been mostly about mining: mining iron, mining gold, mining more iron mining silver, mining even more iron, mining ice... all to build an upgraded refinery in preparation for getting out into space.

Finally scraped away enough stone to reach the iron deposit.


Meanwhile, at the gold mining base, the piston driven drill is finally starting to reach where the gold is.


I discovered completely by accident that the drill head will vacuum up a lot of the ore that's in front of it.


The Frostbite DLC debuts, and I just can't resist picking it up for the gate and the half-slab door.


My miner as it was designed barely fit through the gate, and the front landing gear tends to snag the connector.


But a quick redesign fixes that problem... plus I think it looks better this way. ;)


Eventually, I get fed up with the drill wobbling at the end of the pistons, and put in something much more stable. The fact that its not a "messy eater" definitely helps as well. The next time I set up something like this, I think I'll try to combine both techniques.


Finally, I feel like I'm in a good position to move out into space. Here's version one of the Starbird, with one small hydrogen tank.


Getting up into space really demonstrates how tiny these worlds are. I'm only 18 kilometers up!


At 34 kilometers, I reached what I'd consider to be my safety limit, so I let the ship fall back towards the planet.


I discover that I only need about 3% of a small hydrogen tank to slow my ship down, in addition to the atmospheric thrusters. In fact, I'm kind of questioning if I need them at all, thanks to the hydrogen rebalance mod. At any rate, after a quick redesign that added two more small hydrogen tanks, I launch the ship again. It basically takes an entire tank to escape the planet's gravity.


Once in space, I head for the nearest asteroid. My greatest needs to set up a presence in space are iron and ice. Everything else I can import from the planet's surface. And, of course, I also need to find platinum and uranium to build my Cobra III.


First two asteroid clusters didn't have any obvious exploitable resources, so I move on to the third. I latch onto the surface, and EVA in a bid to conserve precious hydrogen. At this point, I still haven't noticed that I'm getting rather thirsty.


Eventually I do, though. 50 kilometers never seemed so far away!








33% health! 😱

Having managed to survive my bout of stupidity, I make sure I've got both food and water, and once again depart into space.


Returning to the third asteroid cluster, I spy a patch of dark material a cave. It turns out to be iron, with a nearby deposit of magnesium.


It's at this point that I'm so focused on searching asteroids, I forgot to take screen shots. Searched three more asteroid clusters before fuel started to be a concern. Found quite a bit of iron and silver around the third asteroid cluster. At cluster four I only found silver. At cluster five, though, I found two deposits of ice... plus more silver. :rolleyes: I manage to make it safely back to base, and install the spotlights I really need.


Next phase: strip the atmospheric thrusters out the Starbird, and bring the components I need to construct some solar panels and an assembler, plus a good supply of my current ingot stores. While I may have plenty of ice on the surface of the planet, it's far too long of a commute when I need a refill.

I'm also tempted to complete my base on the surface, before moving on. I spent a lot of time on break at work designing it. It would be a pity not see what it looks like. Especially since I've already built a working airlock. ;)
 
I decided to finish my base on the planet first. Which, of course, takes mining, more mining, and even more mining.

Why is mining fairly enjoyable in this game, while in Elite: Dangerous I can't stand it for long? 🤷‍♀️

At any rate, I took my little flying miner out for more iron, also taking the time to replenish my ice reserves so I can refuel my little orbital taxi. I took my little flying miner to a nearby silicon site, where I mined by hand, since a little goes a long way. I accidentally cooked the last of my carrots, leaving me nothing to grow more with, so I started chasing supply pods again. Thankfully, I already had several luxury meals on hand. And then, at last, the first room of my planetary base was finished! 😭 ;)

Living quarters, looking eastward. I had just arrived with my load of silicon, so I could install the windows. Access to the workshop is down the stairs to the left.

Living quarters, looking westward, including a secondary airlock for access to the cobalt/nickel gravity fed mine.

Last, but not least, the skylight was installed around local noon.

Exterior shot.

I've also been working on finishing the floors for the rest of the base. It's easier to make sure they're the right color before they're completed, not afterwards. :rolleyes: After that, I'll finish my greenhouse, and then I'll roof in the workshop.

...

I'm gonna need a lot more iron.
 
I didnt really do much in SE. I'd omit the weird box of refinery ship I designed. But I did nifty things with gravity generators. I found the weapons kinda lacking so I mostly designed ridiculous mining equipment.
But one design I really liked - The Janus utility. A combined grinder-constructor fir small spaces. Nimble and very versatile. Faced constructirs in one way - grinders the other Ideal for starter bases. I never play these games in creative - save for designing a BP and prototype
 
I didnt really do much in SE. I'd omit the weird box of refinery ship I designed. But I did nifty things with gravity generators. I found the weapons kinda lacking so I mostly designed ridiculous mining equipment.
But one design I really liked - The Janus utility. A combined grinder-constructor fir small spaces. Nimble and very versatile. Faced constructirs in one way - grinders the other Ideal for starter bases. I never play these games in creative - save for designing a BP and prototype
That's one thing I'm going to have to think about doing next: thinking about making a construction vehicle. Though personally, I'd just put both facing the same way, and use action groups to turn off the one I don't need at the time.
 
That's one thing I'm going to have to think about doing next: thinking about making a construction vehicle. Though personally, I'd just put both facing the same way, and use action groups to turn off the one I don't need at the time.
I think it helped keeping it compact and it kinda looked cool. 2 grinders and welders each side. 2 cockpits, a large container and the usual dockthings and flight controls.
 
Mining and construction continued, interrupted only by the occasional falling supply pod. Most of the time, they didn't make it quite so easy to pick up.


Turned out to have the carrots I needed to restart supply, as well as sabroid meat... which I hadn't noticed had also fallen below replenishment levels. I immediately started cloning more.

At last, I had finished the last of the critical blocks needed to seal the base. There's still more work to do, but it's aesthetic, not functional.

A bit too boxy for my taste. I'll try for something more dome-like when I move out into space. At any rate, I should've had an appropriately sealed environment, and I really wanted to take advantage of that shower I'd installed... only when I closed the airlock, I discovered that this wasn't the case. Somewhere, I was leaking air. Most likely I'd missed a block around the refinery.

I had three rooms to the base, two of which were kind of an open plan, so decided to seal them off, starting with the my living quarters. I deconstructed the medical room, moved the stairs back, constructed a wall between them, and put in a door. As soon as the door became functional, I heard a weird noise. I turned and found this:


The leak turned out to be in room I thought was most likely to be secure. At first, I thought it was the decorative blocks I'd built into the exterior walls of the room. So I covered them up.



(note: astute eyes will notice this was taken before the two exterior shots above. These were taken while I was eating breakfast before going to work yesterday, and I realized I only taken one screen shot. Then I forgot to upload them anyways. :rolleyes: )

Then I went through every single exterior surface, double and triple checking the seals. After ruling them out, I turned to the floor of the room, which is where I eventually found the source of the leak. It turned out to be this:



(remember what I said about having only taken one screen shot? The air vent picture was taken after I'd solved the problem, and I realized that it would help the narrative. :D)

Mystery having been solved, and the flaw corrected, I restored my base to its original layout, then decided to do enjoy walking through my base without having to wear a bulky space suit. (I would so buy a DLC that allowed us to not have to wear a bulky space suit all the time. ;))

First up, the Hydroponics Room. This is the bare minimum I need to supply me with high quality meals. When I move into space, I'm going to want separate soil trays for potatos, carrots, and tomatoes, plus a separate cloning vat for growing meat. It's a pity I can't use the decorative kitchen for actually preparing meals. Maybe its successor, "Daily Needs Space Survival Systems," will have this functionality. I understand it's going to be a complete revamp, rather than a new iteration of Daily Needs mk4.


Next, the Work Shop. I spent quite a bit of time sketching out an efficient layout, and I still overlooked upgrading the survival kit to a medical bay. The base I build in space should be an improvement, and designing it should be interesting, since I can take advantage of operating outside a gravity field...

... which I just realized will have to be built on a plane anyways, so I don't have to run conveyor tubes everywhere. :rolleyes:


Last but not least, the Living Quarters. Completely superfluous in this game, a waste of iron and silicon to build, but constructing living spaces, ones that aren't utilitarian, is a must in my survival games.


Looking at the outside, I still need to finish the decorative portions of my base.


The nice thing about building on a slope is that it's easy to jump up onto the roof to perform work on it. I'd just finished welding the last of the decorative slopes, so I took a peak down through the skylights at the workshop and my living quarters.


Next on my agenda?
  • I want to finish the hangers for my two ships. I never bothered finishing planned hangers in my other games, and now that I have a variety of options for hanger bay doors, I want to play around with them.
  • Play around with sensors, and perhaps the programming blocks. First, I'd like to see if I can make my airlocks a little more user-friendly before I head into space. Second, I'd also like to see if I can get a solar panel to track the sun.
  • Preparing to head into space. So far, the only space-based resources I've found are iron, silver, magnesium, and ice... none of which were conveniently located near each other, especially the iron and the ice. Which means my first base will probably be nothing more than a refueling and recharging depot for my space taxi, perhaps with some basic life support systems so I won't have to return to the surface until I've found a better site for my primary space station.
 
Is there a mod that would allow me to "fast forward" time by sleeping in a bed? I'm not looking for the survival mod where sleep is necessary, but it would be nice to be able to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning so I can work while the sun is shining, Skyrim-style.
 
Is there a mod that would allow me to "fast forward" time by sleeping in a bed? I'm not looking for the survival mod where sleep is necessary, but it would be nice to be able to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning so I can work while the sun is shining, Skyrim-style.
I'm glad you asked, otherwise I would've never thought to look it up.

There is indeed one in the Steam Workshop called, appropriately enough, "Sleep Mod." Just added it to my game, worked like a charm... it doesn't wake you up at the crack of dawn, though. :(
 
I'm glad you asked, otherwise I would've never thought to look it up.

There is indeed one in the Steam Workshop called, appropriately enough, "Sleep Mod." Just added it to my game, worked like a charm... it doesn't wake you up at the crack of dawn, though. :(
I'll check it out. Thanks!
 
Bumbled around half my Sunday trying to get into it again. And I think I restart again. Without progression. Any tips for scenario? I think I like Triton. It HAS to have planets - multiple ones - the prospect of maybe going from place to place and explore is a good motivation. My past longest playthroughs were done with Lone Survivor and crashed ship. I never understood the Respawn Ship thing (playing solo anyway) and it now prevents me from builing on it. (Tried a deep space start in solar system). Also I'd like some scenario where I'm not beset by space pirates from the start.
Got shot to pieces on several moons. I turned to switch off the beacons though. Saves energy anyway.
And I forgot how cargo flows between items. Can I slap assembler port to refinery port and expect flow of mats? (I know I could try creative, but I play survival exclusively).
 
Also can give me someone a hint how mods work? I figured out the Blueprint thing again but couldn't find a way to activate a different skybox.
IIRC you have to enable mods via a checkbox in the specific game save you're playing. I can take some screenshots when I try this sleep mod sometime this week.
 
It's really just the skybox.
It doesn't matter what the mod is, it still has to be enabled per save. Now once you do enable it, it will remain enabled for that particular save. The reason is to allow you to have different saves using different mods (or just vanilla), which can be useful, especially in multiplayer games.
 
It doesn't matter what the mod is, it still has to be enabled per save. Now once you do enable it, it will remain enabled for that particular save. The reason is to allow you to have different saves using different mods (or just vanilla), which can be useful, especially in multiplayer games.
OK. I faintly remember fiddling a lot with save games back then. But that was swapping creative / survival in order to have a different starter ship.
 
Bumbled around half my Sunday trying to get into it again. And I think I restart again. Without progression. Any tips for scenario? I think I like Triton. It HAS to have planets - multiple ones - the prospect of maybe going from place to place and explore is a good motivation. My past longest playthroughs were done with Lone Survivor and crashed ship. I never understood the Respawn Ship thing (playing solo anyway) and it now prevents me from builing on it. (Tried a deep space start in solar system). Also I'd like some scenario where I'm not beset by space pirates from the start.
Got shot to pieces on several moons. I turned to switch off the beacons though. Saves energy anyway.
And I forgot how cargo flows between items. Can I slap assembler port to refinery port and expect flow of mats? (I know I could try creative, but I play survival exclusively).
Let’s see...

IMO, if you’re playing solo survival, the best places to start are the planets. When you’re (re)learning the game, start on either the Earthlike world, or the Alien world with alien life turned off. Both have abundant, constant sources of energy thanks to wind turbines, requiring only a single battery to help even out energy surges, sources of oxygen, and the Earthlike allows you to work with your helmet open as long as you stay out of the mountains. Furthermore, I haven’t seen any pirates at all... until I went into space.

The respawn ship mechanic is that when you die, you respawn at a the last medical room, survival kit, cryogenic-pod you interacted with. If it happens to be missing (due to being destroyed, deconstructed, or off), then you need to respawn in a respawn ship. By default, your old one will be removed from the game... which could be a problem if you repurpose it like I do!

Mods are rather easy IMO: subscribe to them from Steam Workshop, turn on experimental mode under settings for a new save (or add it by editing the save in the loading screen), and then add them individually via the mods button.
 
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