PCU, PCU, PCU... I want to build a proper space station / in deep space from where to operate from, but I'm running low on PCU. This means I'll probably need to scrap most of my campsites and maybe even one or both of my small grid planes. I'm also looking at more clever and optimized designs for my current assets. It's an interesting problem to solve, thus the "engineers" side of this game!
Space Engineers - "Open" Changes Everything
- Thread starter Old Duck
- Start date
Having lost yet another recon scout (the shuttle on my main ship) to enemy fire, I decided it was time to investigate "3D printing". I always thought it was a complex system with pistons and timers and rotors and mechanisms, based on one of the intro videos, but come to find out all you need is a welder, a piece of glass, and something to move the frame of your construction around. Of course this is way easier in space in zero G. Here is what I built:
So in this image you see one way to build using the printer - just build the skeleton frame of what you want, and then flip the switch on the welder and "poof", out comes a little ship! The ship I build here is a very simple little mover ship for the purpose of building more complex and / or larger constructions. It has a projector, so next I used it to build a replacement scout ship.
The key is that plate of glass, as it allows you to build a ship in layers so that finished parts won't get in the way of unfinished parts. This is way faster and easier than hand-welding, and it also feels like I'm working at a proper large-scale factory.
My next project was to build a fuel depot, which will allow me to refuel my large explorer in minutes rather than hours. The depot is of a very simple design, but it is huge and takes a ton of resources, so welding this by hand would have been tedious. So I plopped down the framework, attached to it using my little factory ship, and fired up the printer welder.
I might be building in zero G, but this thing has serious mass, so it was quite the operation moving it around with that little tug. Once finished, I connected to it via my larger explorer and towed it over to a close by ice asteroid and put the drill and H2 generator to work. A day later and now it's ready to top off my ship in a jiffy!
This printer is just wonderful! In fact, I may use it to print out the earth exploration jet I'm currently designing. Being an atmospheric craft, it will be useless in space, but I can drop it from orbit and ride it down to atmosphere and then fly it to my base. This should be a lot quicker and easier than building it on earth. Who knows, maybe someday that's how real life manufacturing will be done. Imaging, ocean ships being built in space and dropped down by parachute
So in this image you see one way to build using the printer - just build the skeleton frame of what you want, and then flip the switch on the welder and "poof", out comes a little ship! The ship I build here is a very simple little mover ship for the purpose of building more complex and / or larger constructions. It has a projector, so next I used it to build a replacement scout ship.
The key is that plate of glass, as it allows you to build a ship in layers so that finished parts won't get in the way of unfinished parts. This is way faster and easier than hand-welding, and it also feels like I'm working at a proper large-scale factory.
My next project was to build a fuel depot, which will allow me to refuel my large explorer in minutes rather than hours. The depot is of a very simple design, but it is huge and takes a ton of resources, so welding this by hand would have been tedious. So I plopped down the framework, attached to it using my little factory ship, and fired up the printer welder.
I might be building in zero G, but this thing has serious mass, so it was quite the operation moving it around with that little tug. Once finished, I connected to it via my larger explorer and towed it over to a close by ice asteroid and put the drill and H2 generator to work. A day later and now it's ready to top off my ship in a jiffy!
This printer is just wonderful! In fact, I may use it to print out the earth exploration jet I'm currently designing. Being an atmospheric craft, it will be useless in space, but I can drop it from orbit and ride it down to atmosphere and then fly it to my base. This should be a lot quicker and easier than building it on earth. Who knows, maybe someday that's how real life manufacturing will be done. Imaging, ocean ships being built in space and dropped down by parachute
In my quest to free up PCU, I designed a new earth-based exploration / recon ship to replace my two existing atmospheric ships. This new ship has everything needed for long distance multi-day travel:
This weighs in a few hundred PCU less than either of the craft it replaces, and since it's a self-contained "camper", I was also able to dismantle all my campsites. When all was said and done, I went from under 3000 PCU to over 6000 PCU free, which should be enough to allow me to build my deep space station while keeping my base on earth.
Of course this meant grinding up my two previous earth ships, which was sad, but I do have the blueprints. I basically mounted some grinders to a piston connected to my base, parked these scrap ships in front of grinders, and turned on the piston.
(BTW, I did what I said I would do - I built my new atmo craft using my 3D printer in space and launched towards earth using a single small ion thruster, allowing gravity to do the rest.)
- Built-in cryopod
- Survival kit
- Self-recharge via dual small reactors
- Enough storage for rare loot
- Basic weapons and sensors
- Exploration-friendly (air to ground) cockpit
This weighs in a few hundred PCU less than either of the craft it replaces, and since it's a self-contained "camper", I was also able to dismantle all my campsites. When all was said and done, I went from under 3000 PCU to over 6000 PCU free, which should be enough to allow me to build my deep space station while keeping my base on earth.
Of course this meant grinding up my two previous earth ships, which was sad, but I do have the blueprints. I basically mounted some grinders to a piston connected to my base, parked these scrap ships in front of grinders, and turned on the piston.
(BTW, I did what I said I would do - I built my new atmo craft using my 3D printer in space and launched towards earth using a single small ion thruster, allowing gravity to do the rest.)
Watching The Expanse season 5, and this is the show for Space Engineers fans. Very few fancy sleek "Star Trek" like ships in this show. No, most ships look and fly like SE ships, and I love it
Nah, the Expanse is for Children of a Dead Earth fans.
Watching The Expanse season 5, and this is the show for Space Engineers fans. Very few fancy sleek "Star Trek" like ships in this show. No, most ships look and fly like SE ships, and I love it
Bah! You're both wrong. Kerbal Space Program all the way!Nah, the Expanse is for Children of a Dead Earth fans.
I'd argue that TE is closer to SE in ascetics ("blocky" functional ship), space combat, and "close to reality but still cheats" physics (cough Epstein Drive cough) than it is to KSP. I get KSP vibes when watching SpaceX launches, but I get SE vibes when watching The Expanse, especially in recent episodes where they are discussing the construction of new ships
That’s true for unmodded KSP, but there’s quite a few mods, that extend the tech tree to “near future” technologies, allow for orbital construction yards, and even establishing off world colonies to harvest resources for space industry. KSP2 looks like they’re adding that kind of gameplay. The expanse always reminded me of KSP. YMMV.I'd argue that TE is closer to SE in ascetics ("blocky" functional ship), space combat, and "close to reality but still cheats" physics (cough Epstein Drive cough) than it is to KSP. I get KSP vibes when watching SpaceX launches, but I get SE vibes when watching The Expanse, especially in recent episodes where they are discussing the construction of new ships
I continue to find player bases and vehicles, which is what makes multiplayer so much more fun than single player IMO. I've been playing the "good Samaritan" because many of these bases are broadcasting their position via long-range beacons, and this really isn't wise on a multiplayer server. Here's a couple of pics of a moon base I found:
You can see that I hacked his "todo" list and added my own message. It sounds threatening, but it isn't meant to be. In Space Engineers, all factions start off set to "hostile" until peace treaties are "signed". I send peace requests to all factions except pirates and other hostiles, including the owner of this base. I'm encouraging him to accept the peace offer, since had I approached his base with turret weapons turned on, those weapons would have automatically targeted the base since we're still in the default state of war. I'm trying to help him, especially since his base is so easy to find.
Now here is another very nice base on earth. I only grabbed a few shots, but believe me, it's well done.
This belongs to an allied faction, but like the other base, they were broadcasting their location at maximum range. Instead of hacking an LCD to leave a message, I hacked their beacon, dialed the range down to cover just the base perimeter, and changed the broadcast tag to "Check beacon for message". I then used the special "notes" feature available on all modules to leave the following:
You can see that I hacked his "todo" list and added my own message. It sounds threatening, but it isn't meant to be. In Space Engineers, all factions start off set to "hostile" until peace treaties are "signed". I send peace requests to all factions except pirates and other hostiles, including the owner of this base. I'm encouraging him to accept the peace offer, since had I approached his base with turret weapons turned on, those weapons would have automatically targeted the base since we're still in the default state of war. I'm trying to help him, especially since his base is so easy to find.
Now here is another very nice base on earth. I only grabbed a few shots, but believe me, it's well done.
This belongs to an allied faction, but like the other base, they were broadcasting their location at maximum range. Instead of hacking an LCD to leave a message, I hacked their beacon, dialed the range down to cover just the base perimeter, and changed the broadcast tag to "Check beacon for message". I then used the special "notes" feature available on all modules to leave the following:
I checked back later and they have left their own note in reply, thanking me for the warning and asking for some advice. It's nice having allies in this game! Should this nice base ever be attacked, I shall avenge them!
I'm finally pushing through an entire circumnavigation of the earth planet I'm based at, roughly following the equator. I discovered this nice player base from an allied faction on the other side of the planet. It reminds me of a bunker (I even peeked in the windows), but he's also got a really nice view from his deck. I'm not sure why he has so many windmills - must have quite the operation inside. I really wanted to pick the lock and explore the interior, but he's an ally and I didn't want to lose rep with his faction so I didn't trespass.
Worlds in SE are smaller than real worlds, but they are way bigger than EGS worlds and take me multiple days just to fly around, and even then I won't have fully explored the world, just a small slice of the circumference. And this is just one world! I still have to explore Mars, the alien world, and all the moons. What I like about this game is that there is proper exploration to be done, unlike ED where it planetary exploration feels pretty pointless. Though I do wish there was more wildlife and things like running water. My dream is procgen that can create an RDR2 world with fauna and flora. NMS kinda sorta gives us a glimpse of this, but it's too weird for my tastes.
Worlds in SE are smaller than real worlds, but they are way bigger than EGS worlds and take me multiple days just to fly around, and even then I won't have fully explored the world, just a small slice of the circumference. And this is just one world! I still have to explore Mars, the alien world, and all the moons. What I like about this game is that there is proper exploration to be done, unlike ED where it planetary exploration feels pretty pointless. Though I do wish there was more wildlife and things like running water. My dream is procgen that can create an RDR2 world with fauna and flora. NMS kinda sorta gives us a glimpse of this, but it's too weird for my tastes.
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Another day, another friendly base discovered (see attached).
HOWEVER...
Finding all these friendly bases has made me complacent, and my new "camping" explorer is not built to survive a full barrage of base / station defenses, so when I found yet another base in close proximity to the friendly one pictured below, I wasn't ready for the bullet storm that turned my little RV into scrap. Thing is, I always check on bases using my telescopic camera, and I didn't see any defense turrets, but they must be there because I was shot down totally and completely (dying and respawning on the other side of the planet). Normally my MO is to land the ship outside of a base's perimeter and then recon the base on foot, but this time I just flew in all innocent like, and it cost me.
After dying and respawning back at my own base, I teleported to my starship in orbit and set course to my rudimentary space station / factory, where I will manufacture a new atmospheric explorer using my 3D printer. I will then jump back to earth in orbit over the location where I was shot down, and perform reentry in my new explorer to the position close to where I died (but far enough away not to get shot again). I have a circumnavigation to finish! Oh, and I must confess, I'm itching for a little payback, so at the very least I might bloody the nose of this aggressive base that shot down an innocent explorer like me..
HOWEVER...
Finding all these friendly bases has made me complacent, and my new "camping" explorer is not built to survive a full barrage of base / station defenses, so when I found yet another base in close proximity to the friendly one pictured below, I wasn't ready for the bullet storm that turned my little RV into scrap. Thing is, I always check on bases using my telescopic camera, and I didn't see any defense turrets, but they must be there because I was shot down totally and completely (dying and respawning on the other side of the planet). Normally my MO is to land the ship outside of a base's perimeter and then recon the base on foot, but this time I just flew in all innocent like, and it cost me.
After dying and respawning back at my own base, I teleported to my starship in orbit and set course to my rudimentary space station / factory, where I will manufacture a new atmospheric explorer using my 3D printer. I will then jump back to earth in orbit over the location where I was shot down, and perform reentry in my new explorer to the position close to where I died (but far enough away not to get shot again). I have a circumnavigation to finish! Oh, and I must confess, I'm itching for a little payback, so at the very least I might bloody the nose of this aggressive base that shot down an innocent explorer like me..
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OH NO!!!!
I am a wanted man....
Funny thing is that most of my "crimes" are actually good deeds done dirt cheap - like hacking a base's LCD to leave a friendly message, or turning off a beacon to save a base from pirates. The worst I've done is taken revenge against hostile bases that shoot me first, but I guess this is a "law and order" galaxy where vigilantism isn't allowed? Hmmm...
Being hunted for a bounty isn't so bad, but what is bad is that a bounty comes with a "puck" (think Mandalorian) that gives my approximate location. Right now I'm on a road trip in a very hard to spot small ship, but if I were to return to my secret base, the location of that base would be forfeit to anyone who has accepted a bounty contract on me. This means I'm on the run and in exile, only to return to my base when no hunters are logged in.
Well, this game sure is getting interesting, I'll say that!
I am a wanted man....
Funny thing is that most of my "crimes" are actually good deeds done dirt cheap - like hacking a base's LCD to leave a friendly message, or turning off a beacon to save a base from pirates. The worst I've done is taken revenge against hostile bases that shoot me first, but I guess this is a "law and order" galaxy where vigilantism isn't allowed? Hmmm...
Being hunted for a bounty isn't so bad, but what is bad is that a bounty comes with a "puck" (think Mandalorian) that gives my approximate location. Right now I'm on a road trip in a very hard to spot small ship, but if I were to return to my secret base, the location of that base would be forfeit to anyone who has accepted a bounty contract on me. This means I'm on the run and in exile, only to return to my base when no hunters are logged in.
Well, this game sure is getting interesting, I'll say that!
I've done some research, and apparently bounties are issued to players who have a positive reputation with the Space Pirates. Any damage to an unowned grid causes SPRT rep to increase (even "friendly" grinding), so I guess it finally added up so that I'm seen as a pirate now.
I do think there is a way to negate this, however. Accepting and then failing NPC missions causes REP to decrease, and I just happen to know where a pirate station is located, so I think I'll load up on a bunch of missions and let them expire. There are no NPC ships in multiplayer (at least not on Keen's servers) for performance reasons, so I can't actually hunt pirates, so I'll have to use this loophole to get me off the wanted roster. Like I said, being chased around is kinda exciting, but the last thing I want is a spotlight shining on my secret base.
UPDATE - I'm also going to come up with a way to leave messages without hacking friendly bases, like building my own small grid "bottle" that I quickly build and leave on the table with a message of greetings.
I do think there is a way to negate this, however. Accepting and then failing NPC missions causes REP to decrease, and I just happen to know where a pirate station is located, so I think I'll load up on a bunch of missions and let them expire. There are no NPC ships in multiplayer (at least not on Keen's servers) for performance reasons, so I can't actually hunt pirates, so I'll have to use this loophole to get me off the wanted roster. Like I said, being chased around is kinda exciting, but the last thing I want is a spotlight shining on my secret base.
UPDATE - I'm also going to come up with a way to leave messages without hacking friendly bases, like building my own small grid "bottle" that I quickly build and leave on the table with a message of greetings.
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I learned the best way to quickly drop reputation with the pirates is to accept repair missions, and instead of repairing their ships and satellites, cut them up for parts! The pirates no longer consider me one of their own, LOL, so hopefully the bounty has been removed. I dare not return to my base until I know for sure (thankfully I have allies in the game who can check for me).
I've got lots to update. First, I cleared by bounty by attacking SPRT, so I'm no longer a wanted man! Second, I was able to complete my circumnavigation of earth, finding many cool bases and ships along the way. Here is just a sample of sights I encountered:
As you can see, there's a mix of new projects and abandoned ruins, all of which were exciting to explorer. That large underground facility reminded me of an old abandoned bunker. There were bases that were clearly raided, where others seem to be just "left behind", and yet others are clearly active.
I was almost home when the internet glitched, once again causing my ship to crash... Thankfully I have my new 3D printer to make yet another explorer, but I'm getting tired of lost packets turning into lost ships, so I implemented a fail-safe that hopefully will prevent this problem in the future. The latest design of my explorer has an auto-deploying parachute which will right my ship if it gets too close to the ground. What happens is that I'll be adjusting pitch and then my internet goes down for just about a minute, which isn't very long but it's enough to cause my ship to spin out of control and crash into the ground. My chute will self-right the ship and allow the dampeners to hold it in position into I can log back in, in theory anyway. It works in solo mode, but I'm not 100% sure what happens on the server when my network spazzes.
I just hit my attachment limit, so I'll continue this story in the next post.
I was almost home when the internet glitched, once again causing my ship to crash... Thankfully I have my new 3D printer to make yet another explorer, but I'm getting tired of lost packets turning into lost ships, so I implemented a fail-safe that hopefully will prevent this problem in the future. The latest design of my explorer has an auto-deploying parachute which will right my ship if it gets too close to the ground. What happens is that I'll be adjusting pitch and then my internet goes down for just about a minute, which isn't very long but it's enough to cause my ship to spin out of control and crash into the ground. My chute will self-right the ship and allow the dampeners to hold it in position into I can log back in, in theory anyway. It works in solo mode, but I'm not 100% sure what happens on the server when my network spazzes.
I just hit my attachment limit, so I'll continue this story in the next post.
After printing the ship at my deep space outpost, I brought it back to earth for an orbital insertion. Notice the terrible IMO skybox in the previous pictures. I've since figured out how to replace this skybox, even on a server with mods turned off!
BTW, that ion thruster and rear "bumper" are temporary, used to get my ship down to earth from orbit. Once I'm in atmosphere, I no longer need these.
Other new features are two "bomb" attachments so I can either drop decoys or actual bombs, a beacon so I don't lose my ship again, some timers which I find very handy for automating certain processes, and an autopilot for those long boring trips. I'll be using the decoys to test base defenses, having been shot down one too many times by hostile bases; I can drop the decoys from high altitude and watch what the base does in response.
BTW, that ion thruster and rear "bumper" are temporary, used to get my ship down to earth from orbit. Once I'm in atmosphere, I no longer need these.
Other new features are two "bomb" attachments so I can either drop decoys or actual bombs, a beacon so I don't lose my ship again, some timers which I find very handy for automating certain processes, and an autopilot for those long boring trips. I'll be using the decoys to test base defenses, having been shot down one too many times by hostile bases; I can drop the decoys from high altitude and watch what the base does in response.
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......Teleporting in from GTAO/RDR2/Empyrion Galactic/CP 2077/Skyrim/NMS/X4/Tropico 6 hyper space
Yes, yes, and YES.
Duck you're preaching to the choir. Tons of SE fan bois have been harassing Keen dev to implement these features over the last 2 years or so. I especially agree about the bit on the live server v. solo. Would be great if they could get SE to a point between GTAO and ED currently is. With GTAO, you can fill up your business with supplies, log off for a few hours. Then log back in and your business will be full of hundreds in millions of product ready to sell. Or you find yourself completely bankrupt because of daily fee assessments. Or your criminal business were raided by law enforcement in your absence. The equivalent game play in SE sandbox is building/, manufacturing, extracting and crafting items. Log off to let the timers complete these. When they're completed, pick up where you left off later. Private server events would continue regardless whether you're on a public lobby or offline. So would be nice to have this flexibility on both private and public servers. But wouldn't synching events on your private v. public server be a difficult technical challenge? Keen would have to basically redesign SE private and public lobby servers to accomplish what you're asking tbh. Like ED, I'd love to have a living/dynamic background simulation in SE for all players in public lobbies. And like Empyrion, I'd be over the moon if Keen would add some sort of light SE lore to the franchise. Would give players additional structure for their sandbox game play and this would be totally optional. Both background sim and a light MQ/lore would dynamically shift regardless if you're online or not. I'd like to be able to login to my personal offline server, do whatever I want. Then join a live public server and adapt to whatever game play changes are happening upon login.
Keen definitely knows about these player requests. But they're limited by dev team size and of course, monetary resources. Especially given the time it took for them to release the latest DLC. I wish I could fill their lean stocking with $300M this Christmas. Given fact Eleon Studios accomplished with Empyrion in achieving the level of single player fidelity with their significantly smaller Indie dev team to date. Can you just imagine what magic Keen could conjure up with a budget like that?
Anyways, you should drag Dark with you to benefit from the light. I've always advocated playing public servers. However, I never got around to permanently vesting in these because I'm driven by ADHD. And hence the destructive need to craft/build and restart scenarios while trying to meet my org needs. All while warping off to other universes to check in on my other game titles all the time
The nice thing about SE public servers is the player base there is a lot like the Sims 3/4 community. The SE Steam Workshops have attested to that. SE fan base is very pro PvE and so very Moebius/community/collaborative minded. They're less pew-pew and far more empire/crafting/adventuring mindset. Compared to our sterling ED ganker finest in Open (or any other franchise the likes of GTAO for that matter).
But if you do encounter said pew pewers, you do have support from strangers and joining other bigger player orgs. Especially now that SE has added much needed MMO friendly features. Particularly the trading vendor/cash machines that enable player agency. And the player designated sized force field that can be tailored to shield the smallest build bloc generator component, to an entire base.
That being said, too many Steam library games and not enough hols time. But will return to
My ADHD keeps prompting me it has a couple franchise crisis situations burning in my Steam library oven atm.
As Dumbledore was famous for saying: "Tuck in. Pip pip!"
hyper jumps back to Sol to check in on Cotton fields and sheep farm
Remind me, what am I asking for again?