The first turrett on the side - why didn't you place it like the others? The hull now obstructs its field of fire.
Space Engineers vs Empyrion - Galactic Survival: Cobra Edition
- Thread starter Darkfyre99
- Start date
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- Tags
- play4fun
I thought that Dual Universe and / or Starbase would be my SE2, but both ended up disappointing me...
I haven't played Starbase, didn't fancy it. Dual Universe I played for a while, but the game is just broken and the end result will be nothing like the original idea. Shame really.
Emyprion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode 2
Base Building
My last session of EGS was rather eventful, without being too intense, which meant I spent more time than I would've preferred agonizing over which screenshots would make the cut. Boring sessions and intense ones tend to look the same in my screenshot folder, for wildly divergent reasons, but the effect is the same. "Just right" sessions generate the most, and curating the "important" ones from the rest tends to take a while. So many choices, so little time.
Which explains why this is a day late. I spent so much time yesterday during breakfast looking at screenshots, that I forgot to upload the pictures before I left for the health club.
I didn't have much time when I got home, so I elected to play just one more "day" of EGS, rather than start building my base in SE.
Especially since I'm still not sure where I want to build that base.
At any rate, the session started just before sunset, which I've been trying to get into the habit of doing. The Zirax generally wait until dawn to attack (primarly thanks to the sleep mechanic), and while going to sleep is a natural place to end a session, the inevitable attacks mean that the session will go overlong.
Since I had a few hours until it made sense to go to sleep, I started working on converting the damaged hoverbike into a proper ground transport. I had a lot of stuff, some of which was quite bulky, and the Hoverbike would take far too many trips to bring it all to where I'd build the base.
I started by removing all the "bling" of the Hoverbike, as well as the control seat.
This is probably my least favorite aspect of EGS: the "damage model." You can blow parts of a ship off, and they'll remain attached to it by some mysterious force. Eleon probably does this to simplify things, but I'd rather watch my ship break apart than do this.
Anyways, I had lucked out in finding a Tier Two Multi-Tool during the Polaris "dungeon" crawl, which makes editing ships so much easier, as well as power efficient. It didn't take me too much time to move the functional parts of my future transport to the bottom of the vehicle.
Fun fact: the cockpit's rather heavy, so this configuration will pitch down without corrective input. I had to move the front over pods, one at a time, to the front of the cockpit to correct this.
I had plenty of tech points to unlock the small vehicle constructor. I'd never used it before, but it works like the basic assembler, only it runs on fuel, rather than having solar power as an option.
This allowed me to build modular storage blocks, which makes transporting larger things so much easier. I put the larger cargo bay in the back, and used the available space in the front for the ammo bay. Technically, the rear cargo bay is a harvesting module, but it works perfectly well as cargo bay.
I then added a placeholder for the eventual turret, the required hoverskirt around the bottom, and gave it a fresh coat of paint. Which means it's time for my favorite EGS tradition:
Behold! The HoverTransport Mark One!!!
It's a little twitchy when empty, thanks to the installed "RCS Module" which is the equivalent of Space Engineers gyroscope. The main difference between the two games is that in EGS, such a module isn't necessary. With good thruster placement, I can use those thrusters for full six degree of freedom control. Gyroscopes or "RCS Modules" are not required.
When I upgrade it to the Mark II, I'll probably only use it when the vehicle is under load.
The other upgrade in the Mark II will be proper ramps (i.e sloped "shutters") to allow access to utility modules like the armor locker, the O2 station, the assembler, and the fridge. The apparent shutters above are just sloped armor plates. I can use the multi-tool's rotate function to get at those components, but there's no substitute for proper opening access panels.
Once I loaded up the transport with everything I'd need to establish a base, I set out for my first choice for the new base. It turned out to be way too close to a Zirax drone patrol. My second choice turned out to be way too close to a radioactive biome that could spawn all sorts of nastiness at night. My third choice was midway between the two. There's a savannah biome to the south, which will hopefully allow for good hunting of proto-avian animals, likely carnivorous, for meat and eggs.
Once I'd gotten my camp set up, I loaded everything into a portable constructor, and then ordered the parts I'd need to build the core components of my base. Naturally, I'd used up almost everything I had on building the transport, which meant I'd have to postpone building my base for now.
It took three trips to transport everything from my temporary camp to my construction site, mostly thanks to two base components I'd found while "dungeon crawling," and how heavy and bulky raw pentazid is, which was another prize from the two "dungeons" I'd looted so far. It's necessary to power shields and jump drives, as well as synthesizing advanced medicines, but its raw form makes it difficult to transport.
The mineral deposits near the starting area are rather rich, as well as conveniently close together, so it only took me another three trips. Two of those trips were in darkness near the base camp, while it was still daylight at my construction site.
Once I'd gotten the necessary parts ordered to start my base, inspiration struck. I decided to lay out my Cobra Mark III's hangar using the game's GPS markers. The good news is that the coordinate system is in meters, which made it really easy to put those GPS markers exactly where I wanted them. The bad news is that the name field isn't very long, which explains the "typos" in the picture below.
The next morning, I started building the core of my base. Rather than my usual layout, it suddenly occured to me that I could place them so that they'd be "under" the Hangar's walls.
Once I'd gotten the basics installed, including the food processor, I'd noticed that that I didn't have any mushrooms that I could plant. So I decided to go to the nearby Talon community, and buy one to start production. This community wasn't trying as hard to pretend they're stone-age hunter-gatherers, so they made their buildings of stone!
Once I got back, I started layout out the rest of the base, including making an oxygenated room where I could work without having to worry about suffocating. I'd even added some signal logic to the room! It's a pity I started on my base defenses so late...
Naturally, that's when the Zirax attacked my new base. I'd had an idea I'd wanted to try, using the multi-tool to upgrade wooden blocks to concrete ones, completely ignoring the fact that I had a T2 Multi-tool, which can remove a concrete block instantly. Needless to say, I didn't get that far, in fact I'd barely installed the ammo container and stocked it, before I got the alert.
The good news is that my base only lost a solar panel, some wooden blocks, and some minor damage to the assembler. The HoverTruck also took some minor damage. The bad news was that they almost managed to kill me during the attack. But as the old saying goes, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger... well, except scar tissue isn't actually stronger IIRC, and broken bones are more likely to break in the future...
Heck, given how often I make this mistake, across multiple games in multiple genres, I'd say that almost getting killed doesn't make me wiser either. I guess I'm more of a builder than a fighter at heart.
I used the rest of the day repairing my base, and shoring up its defenses, and turned as soon as the sun set. Which meant it wasn't completely light when I got up.
I was still working on improving my base when I go attacked by the local wildlife. It's probably nocturnal, which is why I didn't recognize it right away...
I soon planted my modest greenhouse. I usually build my greenhouses 6mx12 meters to ensure I have more than enough food, but I'd recently did a little analysis of the available food options, so I carefully curated my crops to maximize nutrition and medicines, while minimizing growing space. I should be able to supplement my food supply by hunting and gathering while out and about.
If I starve to death, you'll know I failed.
As night approached on my fourth day of the session, I finished the last of my base's defenses: some ramparts to provide partial cover in case I find myself fighting on foot again. It may be ugly, but it'll do until I can get some proper defenses up and running.
As I said above, I failed to upload my screenshots yesterday morning, so last night I decided to investigate the case of the missing scout ship. Much like the Hovercraft, it was something I wanted to find and salvage, which could be obtained by playing the relevant "tutorial" mission. Only it wasn't available. In fact, the next story quest also wasn't available, which suggested that I hadn't fully completed the previous chapter.
The only thing I hadn't done was jump into the newly unlocked Teleporter at the Polaris station, which in the past led to a base assault mission on the Mun...
...
You know you've played too much Kerbal Space Program when you write "Mun" instead of "Moon."
Anyways, I had no desire for a firefight, so I'd ignored that in favor of scouting for that scout ship. It should've been near the crash site, but after circling it once, I never found it. That's when I decided to start exploring northwards for a place to build my base.
Of course, Eleon has been changing their starting quests quite a bit, and as it turns out, the teleporter now takes you to a crash site of a "human vessel." I thought they meant the remains of the mothership of the human fleet, which features heavily in one of the early story quests. It turns out they meant the scout ship. To rub salt into the wound, guess how close I'd come to finding the scout ship.
Just guess...
The sun had set at the Polaris station by the time I returned, and as I returned to base, I ran into a couple of "desert golems." These dangerous beasties can take quite a bit of damage, but they draw ores that can't be easily found on the starting planets, such as promethium, cobalt, titanium, and gold. I was feeling a bit armed and dangerous, so naturally I went hunting...
I returned to base later than I'd like.
One of the things I like about this game is that a couple of updates ago, EGS took a page from ED, and the skybox of a system is procedurally generated from the galaxy map, rather than just a place holder. That means that every star in this screenshot could be visited.
Tonight, I'm planning on building my base of operations in Space Engineers on Keen's CA2 server. And then, it'll be time to retrieve that crashed scout ship... after probably fighting off another Zirax attack. Then I'll do some salvage work on wrecked cruiser, since I actually spotted the core this time.
Cobra Edition 2
Episode 2
Base Building
My last session of EGS was rather eventful, without being too intense, which meant I spent more time than I would've preferred agonizing over which screenshots would make the cut. Boring sessions and intense ones tend to look the same in my screenshot folder, for wildly divergent reasons, but the effect is the same. "Just right" sessions generate the most, and curating the "important" ones from the rest tends to take a while. So many choices, so little time.
Which explains why this is a day late. I spent so much time yesterday during breakfast looking at screenshots, that I forgot to upload the pictures before I left for the health club.
I didn't have much time when I got home, so I elected to play just one more "day" of EGS, rather than start building my base in SE.Especially since I'm still not sure where I want to build that base.
At any rate, the session started just before sunset, which I've been trying to get into the habit of doing. The Zirax generally wait until dawn to attack (primarly thanks to the sleep mechanic), and while going to sleep is a natural place to end a session, the inevitable attacks mean that the session will go overlong.
Since I had a few hours until it made sense to go to sleep, I started working on converting the damaged hoverbike into a proper ground transport. I had a lot of stuff, some of which was quite bulky, and the Hoverbike would take far too many trips to bring it all to where I'd build the base.
I started by removing all the "bling" of the Hoverbike, as well as the control seat.
This is probably my least favorite aspect of EGS: the "damage model." You can blow parts of a ship off, and they'll remain attached to it by some mysterious force. Eleon probably does this to simplify things, but I'd rather watch my ship break apart than do this.
Anyways, I had lucked out in finding a Tier Two Multi-Tool during the Polaris "dungeon" crawl, which makes editing ships so much easier, as well as power efficient. It didn't take me too much time to move the functional parts of my future transport to the bottom of the vehicle.
Fun fact: the cockpit's rather heavy, so this configuration will pitch down without corrective input. I had to move the front over pods, one at a time, to the front of the cockpit to correct this.
I had plenty of tech points to unlock the small vehicle constructor. I'd never used it before, but it works like the basic assembler, only it runs on fuel, rather than having solar power as an option.
This allowed me to build modular storage blocks, which makes transporting larger things so much easier. I put the larger cargo bay in the back, and used the available space in the front for the ammo bay. Technically, the rear cargo bay is a harvesting module, but it works perfectly well as cargo bay.
I then added a placeholder for the eventual turret, the required hoverskirt around the bottom, and gave it a fresh coat of paint. Which means it's time for my favorite EGS tradition:
Behold! The HoverTransport Mark One!!!
It's a little twitchy when empty, thanks to the installed "RCS Module" which is the equivalent of Space Engineers gyroscope. The main difference between the two games is that in EGS, such a module isn't necessary. With good thruster placement, I can use those thrusters for full six degree of freedom control. Gyroscopes or "RCS Modules" are not required.
When I upgrade it to the Mark II, I'll probably only use it when the vehicle is under load.
The other upgrade in the Mark II will be proper ramps (i.e sloped "shutters") to allow access to utility modules like the armor locker, the O2 station, the assembler, and the fridge. The apparent shutters above are just sloped armor plates. I can use the multi-tool's rotate function to get at those components, but there's no substitute for proper opening access panels.
Once I loaded up the transport with everything I'd need to establish a base, I set out for my first choice for the new base. It turned out to be way too close to a Zirax drone patrol. My second choice turned out to be way too close to a radioactive biome that could spawn all sorts of nastiness at night. My third choice was midway between the two. There's a savannah biome to the south, which will hopefully allow for good hunting of proto-avian animals, likely carnivorous, for meat and eggs.
Once I'd gotten my camp set up, I loaded everything into a portable constructor, and then ordered the parts I'd need to build the core components of my base. Naturally, I'd used up almost everything I had on building the transport, which meant I'd have to postpone building my base for now.
It took three trips to transport everything from my temporary camp to my construction site, mostly thanks to two base components I'd found while "dungeon crawling," and how heavy and bulky raw pentazid is, which was another prize from the two "dungeons" I'd looted so far. It's necessary to power shields and jump drives, as well as synthesizing advanced medicines, but its raw form makes it difficult to transport.
The mineral deposits near the starting area are rather rich, as well as conveniently close together, so it only took me another three trips. Two of those trips were in darkness near the base camp, while it was still daylight at my construction site.
Once I'd gotten the necessary parts ordered to start my base, inspiration struck. I decided to lay out my Cobra Mark III's hangar using the game's GPS markers. The good news is that the coordinate system is in meters, which made it really easy to put those GPS markers exactly where I wanted them. The bad news is that the name field isn't very long, which explains the "typos" in the picture below.
The next morning, I started building the core of my base. Rather than my usual layout, it suddenly occured to me that I could place them so that they'd be "under" the Hangar's walls.
Once I'd gotten the basics installed, including the food processor, I'd noticed that that I didn't have any mushrooms that I could plant. So I decided to go to the nearby Talon community, and buy one to start production. This community wasn't trying as hard to pretend they're stone-age hunter-gatherers, so they made their buildings of stone!
Once I got back, I started layout out the rest of the base, including making an oxygenated room where I could work without having to worry about suffocating. I'd even added some signal logic to the room!
It's a pity I started on my base defenses so late...
Naturally, that's when the Zirax attacked my new base. I'd had an idea I'd wanted to try, using the multi-tool to upgrade wooden blocks to concrete ones, completely ignoring the fact that I had a T2 Multi-tool, which can remove a concrete block instantly. Needless to say, I didn't get that far, in fact I'd barely installed the ammo container and stocked it, before I got the alert.
The good news is that my base only lost a solar panel, some wooden blocks, and some minor damage to the assembler. The HoverTruck also took some minor damage. The bad news was that they almost managed to kill me during the attack. But as the old saying goes, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger... well, except scar tissue isn't actually stronger IIRC, and broken bones are more likely to break in the future...
Heck, given how often I make this mistake, across multiple games in multiple genres, I'd say that almost getting killed doesn't make me wiser either. I guess I'm more of a builder than a fighter at heart.
I used the rest of the day repairing my base, and shoring up its defenses, and turned as soon as the sun set. Which meant it wasn't completely light when I got up.
I was still working on improving my base when I go attacked by the local wildlife. It's probably nocturnal, which is why I didn't recognize it right away...
I soon planted my modest greenhouse. I usually build my greenhouses 6mx12 meters to ensure I have more than enough food, but I'd recently did a little analysis of the available food options, so I carefully curated my crops to maximize nutrition and medicines, while minimizing growing space. I should be able to supplement my food supply by hunting and gathering while out and about.
If I starve to death, you'll know I failed.
As night approached on my fourth day of the session, I finished the last of my base's defenses: some ramparts to provide partial cover in case I find myself fighting on foot again. It may be ugly, but it'll do until I can get some proper defenses up and running.
As I said above, I failed to upload my screenshots yesterday morning, so last night I decided to investigate the case of the missing scout ship. Much like the Hovercraft, it was something I wanted to find and salvage, which could be obtained by playing the relevant "tutorial" mission. Only it wasn't available. In fact, the next story quest also wasn't available, which suggested that I hadn't fully completed the previous chapter.
The only thing I hadn't done was jump into the newly unlocked Teleporter at the Polaris station, which in the past led to a base assault mission on the Mun...
...
You know you've played too much Kerbal Space Program when you write "Mun" instead of "Moon."
Anyways, I had no desire for a firefight, so I'd ignored that in favor of scouting for that scout ship. It should've been near the crash site, but after circling it once, I never found it. That's when I decided to start exploring northwards for a place to build my base.
Of course, Eleon has been changing their starting quests quite a bit, and as it turns out, the teleporter now takes you to a crash site of a "human vessel." I thought they meant the remains of the mothership of the human fleet, which features heavily in one of the early story quests. It turns out they meant the scout ship.
To rub salt into the wound, guess how close I'd come to finding the scout ship.Just guess...
The sun had set at the Polaris station by the time I returned, and as I returned to base, I ran into a couple of "desert golems." These dangerous beasties can take quite a bit of damage, but they draw ores that can't be easily found on the starting planets, such as promethium, cobalt, titanium, and gold. I was feeling a bit armed and dangerous, so naturally I went hunting...
I returned to base later than I'd like.
One of the things I like about this game is that a couple of updates ago, EGS took a page from ED, and the skybox of a system is procedurally generated from the galaxy map, rather than just a place holder. That means that every star in this screenshot could be visited.
Tonight, I'm planning on building my base of operations in Space Engineers on Keen's CA2 server. And then, it'll be time to retrieve that crashed scout ship... after probably fighting off another Zirax attack. Then I'll do some salvage work on wrecked cruiser, since I actually spotted the core this time.
Last edited:
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition
Episode 12
Experimentation or
Seeing the World through "Harry" Colored Glasses
It was a lovely day on the Alien Planet when I logged in, like always. The sun was shining, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! This made things very easy to see, as I considered my available options when it came to building my base of operations...
After carefully considering my options, I loaded up my Ladybug with everything I needed to build a base, and set out for my new home.
I chose the largest alien "cactus" in the desert to hopefully help hide my Wind Turbine, but my placement wasn't the greatest. When I tried to relocate it, I discovered that the grinder can very easily knock the ground scatter down.
So I relocated my wind turbine to another one of these "cacti," and started building my base.
The decent weather didn't last, naturally. Another sandstorm blew in, just as I was finishing the last of my base's starting infrastructure.
By the time it had cleared, night had fallen, and I opted to check my base's camouflage pattern from a certain "Harry" point of view.
Oh, there it is... kind of stands out...
This is the primary problem with trying to use camouflage in Space Engineers. Even the best camouflage at ground level tends to stand out as the level of detail drops, whether it's due to distance, or due to graphics settings. I chose a lighter color for my base, one that would hopefully match the ground at lower LODs, and got ready to build my underground base.
It was night on the server on Saturday night when I logged in, eager to implement phase two of my new base's construction: moving it underground. The first thing I did was connect the docking cradle to the conveyor system. With that accomplished, I installed a projector in the Ladybug, and used it to project a guide which I could use dig straight downward.
As I dug, I built a ladder to climb up and down in case of emergencies. I also added a pipe, to connect the top of my base with the bottom. I would, after all, need a way to easily bring the fruits of my refinery up to the surface to where I'd be building my Cobra Mk III. Once I had dug down to the depth I'd wanted, I couldn't resist looking up to admire my handiwork.
All that remained was to transfer the upper infrastructure down below. I also decided to add a cryochamber down below, since I didn't want to climb or jet up to the surface every time I wanted to log out.
Which is precisely what I did for the evening, since there wasn't enough time to do anything else.
This morning, I took the Ladybug out and chose a place to build my Cobra III in. My plan was to dig a small hole into the side of a mesa, just large enough allow my SRVs through, hollow out a volume to build the C3 in, and then when it was ready to fly, dig it the rest of the way out. Sadly, my plans for the morning didn't include flipping my Ladybug head over thorax, thanks to once again colliding with an invisible piece of ground clutter, thanks to server desync.
Sometimes, I really wonder why I bother with ground vehicles in this game. Then I realize they're a lot more fun to operate IMO. At least recovering from a flip has become almost routine.
Once I'd gotten to my chosen excavation site, I leveled the Ladybug using the wheel height settings, and once again projected my excavation guide. I used that to clear away rock on either side of my tunnel.
Annoyingly, the tunnel turned out to be a little too low to move the Ladybug through. I tried to use my guide to raise the roof, but with mixed results, especially since I didn't think to make sure it was centered before digging.
I ended up backing the Ladybug out of the tunnel a second time, made sure the guide was in the right position to widen the tunnel a bit more.
Satisfied with my work, I drove the Ladybug into its burrow, and jetpacked over to where I'd parked the Dragonfly, and ordered a base starting kit for the C3's building site. As I flew the Dragonfly back, I dropped graphics settings down to minimum, to see how visible my tiny tunnel would be.
I especially love how that wrecked ship, which I'd hoped would be a useful distraction, is floating in midair in its suddenly expansive crater.
Crushed by that revelation, I parked the Dragonfly nearby, hopped into the Ladybug, and drove it back to my "new" base. With the wreck nearby, hopefully this tunnel would persist, and it would prove to be useful as a distraction for anyone stumbling upon this area. I then jetpacked back to the Dragonfly, and then used it to take a look at how visible my underground lair would be in "Harry's" eyes...
A bit discouraged at the sight, I came to the reluctant conclusion that my options for hiding my base were rather limited, if I wanted to escape the planet in a working Cobra III. Which is something I very much want to do. In the meantime, I'd need to restart iron production. In a fit of pure whimsey, I decided I wanted my not quite-so-hidden base to be a gravity fed mine. So I added a collector at the bottom of the shaft.
I then collected all the iron, nickel, and cobalt that I'd refined already, and started to drive back to my much less visible basecamp. Naturally, half way there, I flipped it over thanks to server desync.
As I glared at the overturned Ladybug in frustration, a thought occurred to me... I was doing things the hard way again. There was a better way of flipping it over that was so obvious I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before.
Not that there wasn't room for improvement.
It worked like a charm... which proved to be a good thing, because after a kilometer, I flipped the Bug over again! The server was barely half full at this time! This time, rather than cannibalizing the Bug for the necessary parts, I'd take the time to do things right. I jetpacked back to base, ordered the necessary parts, and a pair of small cargo containers, and got my SRV back on its wheels. I then added the cargo containers to the Bug, made sure they were disconnected to the rest of the Bug's conveyor system, and stored my the parts in them. This way, the next time it flipped over, I'd be ready!!! I even added the parts for a landing gear, so I could jack it up and do repairs in the field when necessary!
This is where I'm sitting on CA2, currently. My plan to use the crashed ship as a distraction is more than likely to backfire on me, so I'm going to build my supplies back up to the levels I had before "Harry" raided my base. And then, I'll go look for a better place to build my Cobra. I've barely begun to do any mining, and this area is already screaming "a player is nearby." I've got a new plan to help conceal my construction site. I just need a better place to implement it in.
But first, I'd like to get some work done in EGS.
I'm also waiting impatiently for my replacement m.2 drive. There was a bit of a snafu regarding my claim, so it still hasn't arrived yet. I want to play EDO in VR and make SE look good again!!!
My old computer can handle EGS at high settings just fine.
Cobra Edition
Episode 12
Experimentation or
Seeing the World through "Harry" Colored Glasses
It was a lovely day on the Alien Planet when I logged in, like always. The sun was shining, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! This made things very easy to see, as I considered my available options when it came to building my base of operations...
After carefully considering my options, I loaded up my Ladybug with everything I needed to build a base, and set out for my new home.
I chose the largest alien "cactus" in the desert to hopefully help hide my Wind Turbine, but my placement wasn't the greatest. When I tried to relocate it, I discovered that the grinder can very easily knock the ground scatter down.
So I relocated my wind turbine to another one of these "cacti," and started building my base.
The decent weather didn't last, naturally. Another sandstorm blew in, just as I was finishing the last of my base's starting infrastructure.
By the time it had cleared, night had fallen, and I opted to check my base's camouflage pattern from a certain "Harry" point of view.
Oh, there it is... kind of stands out...
This is the primary problem with trying to use camouflage in Space Engineers. Even the best camouflage at ground level tends to stand out as the level of detail drops, whether it's due to distance, or due to graphics settings. I chose a lighter color for my base, one that would hopefully match the ground at lower LODs, and got ready to build my underground base.
It was night on the server on Saturday night when I logged in, eager to implement phase two of my new base's construction: moving it underground. The first thing I did was connect the docking cradle to the conveyor system. With that accomplished, I installed a projector in the Ladybug, and used it to project a guide which I could use dig straight downward.
As I dug, I built a ladder to climb up and down in case of emergencies. I also added a pipe, to connect the top of my base with the bottom. I would, after all, need a way to easily bring the fruits of my refinery up to the surface to where I'd be building my Cobra Mk III. Once I had dug down to the depth I'd wanted, I couldn't resist looking up to admire my handiwork.
All that remained was to transfer the upper infrastructure down below. I also decided to add a cryochamber down below, since I didn't want to climb or jet up to the surface every time I wanted to log out.
Which is precisely what I did for the evening, since there wasn't enough time to do anything else.
This morning, I took the Ladybug out and chose a place to build my Cobra III in. My plan was to dig a small hole into the side of a mesa, just large enough allow my SRVs through, hollow out a volume to build the C3 in, and then when it was ready to fly, dig it the rest of the way out. Sadly, my plans for the morning didn't include flipping my Ladybug head over thorax, thanks to once again colliding with an invisible piece of ground clutter, thanks to server desync.
Sometimes, I really wonder why I bother with ground vehicles in this game. Then I realize they're a lot more fun to operate IMO. At least recovering from a flip has become almost routine.
Once I'd gotten to my chosen excavation site, I leveled the Ladybug using the wheel height settings, and once again projected my excavation guide. I used that to clear away rock on either side of my tunnel.
Annoyingly, the tunnel turned out to be a little too low to move the Ladybug through. I tried to use my guide to raise the roof, but with mixed results, especially since I didn't think to make sure it was centered before digging.
I ended up backing the Ladybug out of the tunnel a second time, made sure the guide was in the right position to widen the tunnel a bit more.
Satisfied with my work, I drove the Ladybug into its burrow, and jetpacked over to where I'd parked the Dragonfly, and ordered a base starting kit for the C3's building site. As I flew the Dragonfly back, I dropped graphics settings down to minimum, to see how visible my tiny tunnel would be.
I especially love how that wrecked ship, which I'd hoped would be a useful distraction, is floating in midair in its suddenly expansive crater.
Crushed by that revelation, I parked the Dragonfly nearby, hopped into the Ladybug, and drove it back to my "new" base. With the wreck nearby, hopefully this tunnel would persist, and it would prove to be useful as a distraction for anyone stumbling upon this area. I then jetpacked back to the Dragonfly, and then used it to take a look at how visible my underground lair would be in "Harry's" eyes...
A bit discouraged at the sight, I came to the reluctant conclusion that my options for hiding my base were rather limited, if I wanted to escape the planet in a working Cobra III. Which is something I very much want to do. In the meantime, I'd need to restart iron production. In a fit of pure whimsey, I decided I wanted my not quite-so-hidden base to be a gravity fed mine. So I added a collector at the bottom of the shaft.
I then collected all the iron, nickel, and cobalt that I'd refined already, and started to drive back to my much less visible basecamp. Naturally, half way there, I flipped it over thanks to server desync.
As I glared at the overturned Ladybug in frustration, a thought occurred to me... I was doing things the hard way again. There was a better way of flipping it over that was so obvious I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before.
Not that there wasn't room for improvement.
It worked like a charm... which proved to be a good thing, because after a kilometer, I flipped the Bug over again! The server was barely half full at this time! This time, rather than cannibalizing the Bug for the necessary parts, I'd take the time to do things right. I jetpacked back to base, ordered the necessary parts, and a pair of small cargo containers, and got my SRV back on its wheels. I then added the cargo containers to the Bug, made sure they were disconnected to the rest of the Bug's conveyor system, and stored my the parts in them. This way, the next time it flipped over, I'd be ready!!! I even added the parts for a landing gear, so I could jack it up and do repairs in the field when necessary!
This is where I'm sitting on CA2, currently. My plan to use the crashed ship as a distraction is more than likely to backfire on me, so I'm going to build my supplies back up to the levels I had before "Harry" raided my base. And then, I'll go look for a better place to build my Cobra. I've barely begun to do any mining, and this area is already screaming "a player is nearby." I've got a new plan to help conceal my construction site. I just need a better place to implement it in.
But first, I'd like to get some work done in EGS.
I'm also waiting impatiently for my replacement m.2 drive. There was a bit of a snafu regarding my claim, so it still hasn't arrived yet. I want to play EDO in VR and make SE look good again!!!
My old computer can handle EGS at high settings just fine.
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I really should see how my old computer handles those effects. I'm sure my new one, once its functional again, will be handle them easily, but while I've got my old one, I might as well test things out.
That's because it still uses graphics from 1918My old computer can handle EGS at high settings just fine.
Sorry, couldn't resist!
What happened to your new computer ?I really should see how my old computer handles those effects. I'm sure my new one, once its functional again, will be handle them easily, but while I've got my old one, I might as well test things out.
The water is pretty much a hard performance hit, but look away from it and your performance is back to full power.
The system SSD drive went bad. Thankfully, it's still under warranty, but I there's been a bit of a delay getting the replacement.
Being back to my old computer is giving me a fresh appreciation for the new one. Once it's up and running, I'm going to make sure I change a few of the settings, and make sure automatic backups are actually running. I've got that with my old computer, but I'm so used to it running in the background, that I actually forgot to set that up on my new one.
The damage wasn't too bad, because most of my stuff these days goes into cloud storage. I lost some of my saves, in particular my EGS save (no cloud storage? so primitive!) as well as a few files I'd been collecting over the last six months. Most of them are webcomics from 20 years(!) ago that have been vanishing off the 'Net, their websites hijacked by squatters, so as time permits, I've been backing up the webcomics in my "dead" folder for my own use. Sometimes, they're still available on the "wayback machine," but even that repository can't save everything.
Empyrion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode 3
Retrieval
The round started with me gathering some of the stuff I thought I'd need to do field repairs on the crashed ship, a quick drive down to Sanctuary, where I hopped back into the teleporter. By the time I had gotten back there, the location was bathed in daylight. A heat wave had rolled in, but ironically enough the bit of wreckage that supported the teleporter provided shelter from the heat. It also provided cover from rather large number of Zirax combat robots in the area as well...
Seeing how much death and destruction was around me, as soon as the closest enemies were dead, I made a beeline for the Dart.
The only critical component it needed was fuel, so I filled up the tanks, and lifted off. The ship could barely lift off the ground, and was extremely sluggish to maneuver in certain directions, and twitchy in others. I made a beeline to my temporary camp nearby, where I'd add some of the thrusters I'd brought, to hopefully make it easier to handle.
In a fit of pure whimsy, I decided to take screenshots of its status screens before I started repairs.
Behold! The Damaged UHC Dart! (Before Repairs)
I repaired what I could, then flew it back to base. This ship is rather back heavy, which explains, in part, why it's so slow to pitch down. When I had reached my temporary camp, a radiated fog had blown in, and it was in full force by the time I arrived back at base.
After ordering some additional components for the Dart, in particular a pair of fixed weapons, I headed into my "greenhouse" (can't really call it that without proper windows) and collected my first harvest. Which, thankfully, coincided with eating the last of the "energy bars" I'd synthesized while homeless.
One of the the things I like about SE over EGS is that the technical blocks makes it very easy to work on the underside of vehicles while on the surface of planets. In EGS, I have to rely on thrusters or tricks to do so. As it turned out, the underside of the dart was a mess
Once I finished repairs and upgrades, I hopped into Hovership to do some scavenging at the wreckage site. In particular, I wanted that large assembler, and the furniture blocks there!
As I got close to finishing my scavenging work, a second radiated fog rolled in. While I could've stayed on site for longer, because I'd soon be able to install a decontamination shower. I elected to return to base with the most important stuff.
I'm actually serious about the radiated fog being my favorite weather pattern in this game. On this type of world in particular, it's nasty enough that I can't ignore its effects. Here in the desert, along with the radiation, it's accompanied by heat. When you combine the sound effects, the lightning, and the eerie green glow in the sky, it's enough to send me scampering inside for shelter.
Once I'd returned home, I expanded the Transport's parking area to include space for the Dart.
I made a simple concrete cube to house my living quarters in. I was about to place a bed to sleep in when the Zirax attacked.
The armed Dart made quick work of the drones that were approaching. Now that I had a safe space to build in, I elected to work through the night. Eleon missed a trick here, not requiring sleep on a regular basis for full functionality. I guess their planets are small enough, and their time compression fast enough, that a "dungeon crawl" can last several days in game. I'm going to assume she's taking "performance enhancers" during emergencies.
I'd started decorating like I instinctively do, and then I remembered that the Zirax would be coming again, so I started working on defenses. I ordered a pair of larger base turrets, and the concrete blocks necessary to elevate them to the level of my future hangar's roof, and then scooted back to the wreck site to bring more salvage back, including a medical device to install at my base.
I hadn't even gotten the first defense turret installed when the Zirax showed their ugly mugs again. I'm guessing Eleon increased their rate of drone atttacks, and it wasn't simply a bug in my last game.
I was going to call it a session here, but unfortunately, SE's servers turned out to be full yesterday evening, so I chose to continue playing. I wanted to finish my defenses, at least!
While I waited for my assemblers to churn out my orders, I continued the repair and refit of the UHC Dart. Those “damaged blocks” Eleon uses in wrecks are very nice decorative pieces, but I do wish they’d use them in their actual damage model. It takes time to swap them out with identical steel blocks.
Once I’d added a modular cargo storage, I figured it was time to present the mostly prepared Dart’s performance pages. And so…
Behold! The (mostly) repaired Damaged UHC Dart!
Another crop matured as I waited for the last turret to finish construction. And then, right before sunset, another radioactive cloud rolled in. I’d been waiting for the last concrete blocks of the hangar floor to cure, and since I had a safer and cheaper method of removing radioactive contamination, I chose to risk going out to install the turret and block.
Moments later, another Zirax troop transport showed up. Between the Dart and my bases’s guns, the poor thing didn’t stand a chance.
I actually played a bit of Space Engineers yesterday morning before my day started, doing a bit of scouting and establishing another emergency camp on the Alien planet. I resisted the temptation to do so again today, though. I really want to lose the rest of the weight I’ve gained over the last two years, rather than gain my usual Holiday weight. It’s a difficult thing, but so far it’s going in the right direction.
Cobra Edition 2
Episode 3
Retrieval
The round started with me gathering some of the stuff I thought I'd need to do field repairs on the crashed ship, a quick drive down to Sanctuary, where I hopped back into the teleporter. By the time I had gotten back there, the location was bathed in daylight. A heat wave had rolled in, but ironically enough the bit of wreckage that supported the teleporter provided shelter from the heat. It also provided cover from rather large number of Zirax combat robots in the area as well...
Seeing how much death and destruction was around me, as soon as the closest enemies were dead, I made a beeline for the Dart.
The only critical component it needed was fuel, so I filled up the tanks, and lifted off. The ship could barely lift off the ground, and was extremely sluggish to maneuver in certain directions, and twitchy in others. I made a beeline to my temporary camp nearby, where I'd add some of the thrusters I'd brought, to hopefully make it easier to handle.
In a fit of pure whimsy, I decided to take screenshots of its status screens before I started repairs.
Behold! The Damaged UHC Dart! (Before Repairs)
I repaired what I could, then flew it back to base. This ship is rather back heavy, which explains, in part, why it's so slow to pitch down. When I had reached my temporary camp, a radiated fog had blown in, and it was in full force by the time I arrived back at base.
After ordering some additional components for the Dart, in particular a pair of fixed weapons, I headed into my "greenhouse" (can't really call it that without proper windows) and collected my first harvest. Which, thankfully, coincided with eating the last of the "energy bars" I'd synthesized while homeless.
One of the the things I like about SE over EGS is that the technical blocks makes it very easy to work on the underside of vehicles while on the surface of planets. In EGS, I have to rely on thrusters or tricks to do so. As it turned out, the underside of the dart was a mess
Once I finished repairs and upgrades, I hopped into Hovership to do some scavenging at the wreckage site. In particular, I wanted that large assembler, and the furniture blocks there!
As I got close to finishing my scavenging work, a second radiated fog rolled in. While I could've stayed on site for longer, because I'd soon be able to install a decontamination shower. I elected to return to base with the most important stuff.
I'm actually serious about the radiated fog being my favorite weather pattern in this game. On this type of world in particular, it's nasty enough that I can't ignore its effects. Here in the desert, along with the radiation, it's accompanied by heat. When you combine the sound effects, the lightning, and the eerie green glow in the sky, it's enough to send me scampering inside for shelter.
Once I'd returned home, I expanded the Transport's parking area to include space for the Dart.
I made a simple concrete cube to house my living quarters in. I was about to place a bed to sleep in when the Zirax attacked.
The armed Dart made quick work of the drones that were approaching. Now that I had a safe space to build in, I elected to work through the night. Eleon missed a trick here, not requiring sleep on a regular basis for full functionality. I guess their planets are small enough, and their time compression fast enough, that a "dungeon crawl" can last several days in game. I'm going to assume she's taking "performance enhancers" during emergencies.
I'd started decorating like I instinctively do, and then I remembered that the Zirax would be coming again, so I started working on defenses. I ordered a pair of larger base turrets, and the concrete blocks necessary to elevate them to the level of my future hangar's roof, and then scooted back to the wreck site to bring more salvage back, including a medical device to install at my base.
I hadn't even gotten the first defense turret installed when the Zirax showed their ugly mugs again. I'm guessing Eleon increased their rate of drone atttacks, and it wasn't simply a bug in my last game.
I was going to call it a session here, but unfortunately, SE's servers turned out to be full yesterday evening, so I chose to continue playing. I wanted to finish my defenses, at least!
While I waited for my assemblers to churn out my orders, I continued the repair and refit of the UHC Dart. Those “damaged blocks” Eleon uses in wrecks are very nice decorative pieces, but I do wish they’d use them in their actual damage model. It takes time to swap them out with identical steel blocks.
Once I’d added a modular cargo storage, I figured it was time to present the mostly prepared Dart’s performance pages. And so…
Behold! The (mostly) repaired Damaged UHC Dart!
Another crop matured as I waited for the last turret to finish construction. And then, right before sunset, another radioactive cloud rolled in. I’d been waiting for the last concrete blocks of the hangar floor to cure, and since I had a safer and cheaper method of removing radioactive contamination, I chose to risk going out to install the turret and block.
Moments later, another Zirax troop transport showed up. Between the Dart and my bases’s guns, the poor thing didn’t stand a chance.
I actually played a bit of Space Engineers yesterday morning before my day started, doing a bit of scouting and establishing another emergency camp on the Alien planet. I resisted the temptation to do so again today, though. I really want to lose the rest of the weight I’ve gained over the last two years, rather than gain my usual Holiday weight. It’s a difficult thing, but so far it’s going in the right direction.
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I actually played a bit of Space Engineers yesterday morning before my day started, doing a bit of scouting and establishing another emergency camp on the Alien planet. I resisted the temptation to do so again today, though. I really want to lose the rest of the weight I’ve gained over the last two years, rather than gain my usual Holiday weight. It’s a difficult thing, but so far it’s going in the right direction.
Oh, the irony!
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition
Episode 13
Recon
Monday morning’s highlights can be summed up by this:
I took a grand total of four screenshots, most of which were even less interesting… mostly because I was multi-tasking by eating breakfast and acting up on the news.
Yesterday evening was a lot more interesting, even if simulation speed was at 50%.
The first thing I stumbled upon was this:
I dialed down the graphics to better see anomalies, and upon finding a second one, I landed, converted my cryo-chamber to a survival kit, emptied my inventory, and proceeded on foot for a closer look.
Slowly, I crept up to the base I saw.
It was well armed, so I decided against taking a closer look. I really should’ve brought some weapons with me, so I could’ve gotten more information on it.
This wasn’t the only “streaming asset” encounter that night. There was a small structure about 10km away that looked like a newbie base, which I didn’t think to take a screenshot of.
Eventually, I set up camp in a ravine, and settled in for the evening…while forgetting to change my Dragonfly’s camouflage colors. 
This morning, I decided I didn’t want to play another evening traveling at 50% sim speeds, so I logged in and set course back to base while I went through my morning routine. I’d intended to travel half an hour at the unoccupied 85% sim speed, set up camp again, and then leave for the health club.
Naturally, the journey back was more eventful than that.
The first “streaming assets” I encountered was over some scrublands. I again dialed down my graphics, but despite a quick search, I never located evidence of player activity. I made a GPS location for it, though, so I could return and search again if so inclined.
At any rate, this encounter did suggest to me that my intended strategy for placing my main refinery were sound. I really should’ve just settled down somewhere, and gotten my intended exercise. In stead, I felt I was only half an hour away from home, so I decided to sacrifice half an hour of cardio to get back to base.
Naturally, I found something else alongbthecway
The second contact was much easier to find.
It was, however, so disappointing that I neglected to take a screenshot at the time. Just four unfinished blocks. I kind of which I had, because, in hindsight, it hints at an idea I really want to try. At any rate, the time Inhad finished my investigation, I was tantalizingly close to home base, so I decided to finish my journey, and log out at home base. I’ll just skip dessert
tonight. 
I’m really hoping that I can play tonight a bit, because there’s a couple of things I’d really like to test! After that, it’s time to finish chapter two of EGS’s storyline. They’ve made some rather large changes here and there, so I’m kind of curious to see what else has changed.
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition
Episode 13a
Omake
What was going to be a quick login, test a couple things, and then log out, turned into a much longer evening session. Because I woke up to this:
Worryingly, I had spawned at the survival kit that was farthest from where I’d been. Not the one near where I’d logged out. Not the one at my mine. Not the one at “Hoth Base” which was closer. The furthest. And the one that was least developed. Had “Harry” found not only my current area of operations, but my primary fallback point? That did not bode well for my prospects on this particular planet.
Thankfully, I was prepared! Or so thought. I ordered the major parts for a new Dragonfly, and discovered I was short on nickel. I could build a Ladybug, but that wouldn’t get me through 60km of rugged and mountainous terrain. But then I realized I could “teleport” to another survival kit if this one was turned off. So I attached a timer to the partially completed Dragonfly, set to turn on the survival kit after a minute.
I then respawned, thankfully at Camp Hoth. There, I built and filled a hydrogen bottle, and started jet packing back to my base. It was only 30km… through rugged terrain… at 45% Sim Speeds… what could possibly go wrong?
I brought only one hydrogen bottle, and I didn’t recharge my suit’s battery before leaving,n that’s what.
As I started getting close, I began to worry that one bottle might not be enough. Sure enough, it eventually emptied, but with just enough warning that I landed safely.
I then began sprinting the last 6km, watching as my suit’s battery dipped slowly towards empty. Naturally, there were obstacles in the way that made the trip longer and more hazardous. At one point, I had to dig my way through an obstruction, which drained my precious battery stores even more.
Each desperate step I took, I kept calculating the distance until my own extinction. A running pace of 10m/s. 100 seconds per kilometer. By the time I reached four kilometers, I realized I wouldn’t make it. But maybe I could get close enough to see the flames of a burning base or something…
I’d died. I’d expected to respawn back in frozen Camp Dantooine. Perhaps I’d get lucky, and spawn at the equally frozen Camp Hoth. Instead, I respawned at the last place I expected…
Camp Tatooine. After getting my bearings, I took stock of the damage. It didn’t take long, because there wasn’t any. The only problem I found is which Cryo-Chamber I logged out in. I’d used the Ladybug’s Cryo-Chamber, and there was one teeny, tiny problem I’d failed to notice after I used it last…
I hadn’t plugged the silly thing in completely!
I have no idea why it hadn’t despawned once it lost power. I can only conclude it’s because its connector was in a “ready to connect” state. But still, this wasn’t the only thing I’ve seen recently that failed to despawn correctly, and I had an idea I wanted to try. So I jet packed away, and conducted the experiment I’d originally intended to do.
There’s a battery block frame in there. It’s the only thing I can think of that allowed those block frames to load without power.
The evening was getting late, so I logged out and started my night time routine. Before actually going to bed, I checked out my little experiment.
Cobra Edition
Episode 13a
Omake
What was going to be a quick login, test a couple things, and then log out, turned into a much longer evening session. Because I woke up to this:
Worryingly, I had spawned at the survival kit that was farthest from where I’d been. Not the one near where I’d logged out. Not the one at my mine. Not the one at “Hoth Base” which was closer. The furthest. And the one that was least developed. Had “Harry” found not only my current area of operations, but my primary fallback point? That did not bode well for my prospects on this particular planet.
Thankfully, I was prepared! Or so thought. I ordered the major parts for a new Dragonfly, and discovered I was short on nickel.
I could build a Ladybug, but that wouldn’t get me through 60km of rugged and mountainous terrain. But then I realized I could “teleport” to another survival kit if this one was turned off. So I attached a timer to the partially completed Dragonfly, set to turn on the survival kit after a minute.
I then respawned, thankfully at Camp Hoth. There, I built and filled a hydrogen bottle, and started jet packing back to my base. It was only 30km… through rugged terrain… at 45% Sim Speeds… what could possibly go wrong?
I brought only one hydrogen bottle, and I didn’t recharge my suit’s battery before leaving,n that’s what.
As I started getting close, I began to worry that one bottle might not be enough. Sure enough, it eventually emptied, but with just enough warning that I landed safely.
I then began sprinting the last 6km, watching as my suit’s battery dipped slowly towards empty. Naturally, there were obstacles in the way that made the trip longer and more hazardous. At one point, I had to dig my way through an obstruction, which drained my precious battery stores even more.
Each desperate step I took, I kept calculating the distance until my own extinction. A running pace of 10m/s. 100 seconds per kilometer. By the time I reached four kilometers, I realized I wouldn’t make it. But maybe I could get close enough to see the flames of a burning base or something…
I’d died. I’d expected to respawn back in frozen Camp Dantooine. Perhaps I’d get lucky, and spawn at the equally frozen Camp Hoth. Instead, I respawned at the last place I expected…
Camp Tatooine. After getting my bearings, I took stock of the damage. It didn’t take long, because there wasn’t any. The only problem I found is which Cryo-Chamber I logged out in. I’d used the Ladybug’s Cryo-Chamber, and there was one teeny, tiny problem I’d failed to notice after I used it last…
I hadn’t plugged the silly thing in completely!
I have no idea why it hadn’t despawned once it lost power. I can only conclude it’s because its connector was in a “ready to connect” state. But still, this wasn’t the only thing I’ve seen recently that failed to despawn correctly, and I had an idea I wanted to try. So I jet packed away, and conducted the experiment I’d originally intended to do.
There’s a battery block frame in there. It’s the only thing I can think of that allowed those block frames to load without power.
The evening was getting late, so I logged out and started my night time routine. Before actually going to bed, I checked out my little experiment.
As I wrote this post, I realized I’ve gotten bored of the Alien world. It’s the most difficult world in SE outside of Pertram, and that world isn’t on Keen’s servers. In addition, the requirement to keep a low profile in “Harry’s” proverbial back yard is really stifling my desire to build something interesting.
So I’m going to consider this a proper death, of my own stupidity. I’m going to delete all my grids, and respawn fresh early Sunday morning…
in a space suit. If I die before getting established, or supply pods won’t drop even with nothing to my name, I’ll choose the other deep space option.
So I’m going to consider this a proper death, of my own stupidity. I’m going to delete all my grids, and respawn fresh early Sunday morning…
in a space suit. If I die before getting established, or supply pods won’t drop even with nothing to my name, I’ll choose the other deep space option.
Empyrion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Four
I love this quest!
Much to my relief, the “Totally Overpowered” story quest hasn’t changed much since the last time I played. The Zirax Empire is still trying to prove their card carrying villainy credentials by ridding the Andromeda Galaxy of root beer. I’m still trying to figure out if Eleon means for this thing to be… “root beer” in the same sense as “chocolate brownies” wink wink nudge nudge, or they’re trying get an “E/Y7” rating in a game that where some aliens will infect you with their larva, which will consume your from the inside out.
Granted, that’s not shown graphically, but still…
I had my first opportunity to take a closer look at the new rings. Much to my surprise, they were primarily small particals with the occasional larger boulder, and very thin, rather than the asteroid thickets seen in the sci-fi genre.
Eventually, I locate my destination, taking the time to check out what’s for sale. I had some credits to my name, so I picked up a few
Eventually, I found the bar I was supposed to meet my contact. I was supposed to buy a root beer, and take a seat.
Sadly, their AI can’t slide into the seat opposite you, and then give you your instructions. Not that care either way from such a small team, but still…
One of the things I like about proc-gen games is how even the familiar can sometimes feel fresh when placed in different settings.
Case in point, trying to get the stolen recipe. The game had spawned a Zirax Space Drone patrol near the base where the pirates responsible for the theft operated from. Clearly, they had more than a mild dislike for that particular soft drink. In order to advance, I had to get rid of them… which Ibdid by luring them into the Distillery’s guns.
In the past, I’d retreat to an overly armed gunship, and let it’s turrets take care of the Zirax horde that would show up. I was in a pew-pew mood, so I chose to take them on on foot.
It took a bit of doing, but I eventually foiled their heinous schemes!
All that remained was visiting “Club Inferno,” which was as annoying as ever.
“Roit Beer” in hand, I returned to base.
As it turned out, I’d mistaken two lakes for the roughly “B” shaped ocean where I’d set up my home, so I scouted quite a bit of the northern hemisphere. As I passed tan “abandoned shipyard,” Indecided to stop and take a quick look. It turned out to be infested by one of the aliens I mentioned near the top of my post.
I lingered longer than I should’ve, but soon enough enough spooked enough to leave until I was better equipped.
I honestly expected the Zirax to attack as soon as I got into range.
And I was almost right. They waited until after I had disembarked from the Dart.
I did a bit of modifications to my base, including adding a skylight in my living quarters, as well as some decorative work. Unfortunately, I forgot about not going to be at the end of my session, so Inhad to fight off yet another Zirax attack.
This is my base currently. It’s still too cubic for my tastes, that’ll change soon enough. The vertical stripes where I’ll add some roof supports for the hangar.
I also did a trial run on the space starting options in Space Engineers. Quite frankly, neither one is as appealing as I thought they'd be. Spacesuit only isn't as viable an option as I thought, unless I get very lucky having an NPC ship pass by. The "space pod" start includes ion thrusters, which IMO are "end game," so that's out as well. Instead, I'm going to build my own space "survival pod" and use that to start anew.
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Four
I love this quest!
Much to my relief, the “Totally Overpowered” story quest hasn’t changed much since the last time I played. The Zirax Empire is still trying to prove their card carrying villainy credentials by ridding the Andromeda Galaxy of root beer. I’m still trying to figure out if Eleon means for this thing to be… “root beer” in the same sense as “chocolate brownies” wink wink nudge nudge, or they’re trying get an “E/Y7” rating in a game that where some aliens will infect you with their larva, which will consume your from the inside out.
Granted, that’s not shown graphically, but still…
I had my first opportunity to take a closer look at the new rings. Much to my surprise, they were primarily small particals with the occasional larger boulder, and very thin, rather than the asteroid thickets seen in the sci-fi genre.
Eventually, I locate my destination, taking the time to check out what’s for sale. I had some credits to my name, so I picked up a few
Eventually, I found the bar I was supposed to meet my contact. I was supposed to buy a root beer, and take a seat.
Sadly, their AI can’t slide into the seat opposite you, and then give you your instructions. Not that care either way from such a small team, but still…
One of the things I like about proc-gen games is how even the familiar can sometimes feel fresh when placed in different settings.
Case in point, trying to get the stolen recipe. The game had spawned a Zirax Space Drone patrol near the base where the pirates responsible for the theft operated from. Clearly, they had more than a mild dislike for that particular soft drink. In order to advance, I had to get rid of them… which Ibdid by luring them into the Distillery’s guns.
In the past, I’d retreat to an overly armed gunship, and let it’s turrets take care of the Zirax horde that would show up. I was in a pew-pew mood, so I chose to take them on on foot.
It took a bit of doing, but I eventually foiled their heinous schemes!
All that remained was visiting “Club Inferno,” which was as annoying as ever.
“Roit Beer” in hand, I returned to base.
As it turned out, I’d mistaken two lakes for the roughly “B” shaped ocean where I’d set up my home, so I scouted quite a bit of the northern hemisphere. As I passed tan “abandoned shipyard,” Indecided to stop and take a quick look. It turned out to be infested by one of the aliens I mentioned near the top of my post.
I lingered longer than I should’ve, but soon enough enough spooked enough to leave until I was better equipped.
I honestly expected the Zirax to attack as soon as I got into range.
And I was almost right. They waited until after I had disembarked from the Dart.
I did a bit of modifications to my base, including adding a skylight in my living quarters, as well as some decorative work. Unfortunately, I forgot about not going to be at the end of my session, so Inhad to fight off yet another Zirax attack.
This is my base currently. It’s still too cubic for my tastes, that’ll change soon enough. The vertical stripes where I’ll add some roof supports for the hangar.
I also did a trial run on the space starting options in Space Engineers. Quite frankly, neither one is as appealing as I thought they'd be. Spacesuit only isn't as viable an option as I thought, unless I get very lucky having an NPC ship pass by. The "space pod" start includes ion thrusters, which IMO are "end game," so that's out as well. Instead, I'm going to build my own space "survival pod" and use that to start anew.
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition 2
Episode One
The Long Dark Empty Space Between
Or
What the Frell was I thinking?
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, the snow on the ground unmelted from the day before. In real life. In the game, it was sunset when I started working on my escape pod. I was originally going to build a complicated structure of hinges and pistons upon which to assemble it, but then I realized I could easily do the same thing by using the Ladybug as a base. So I drove it down to my iron/cobalt mine, and got down to work. Like many of my camps and bases, it even had an H2/O2 Generator, with two tons of ice in it!
Which, of course, barely put a dent the empty hydrogen tank, once it was built. Thankfully, I'd found a nearby ice deposit, so I grabbed the Dragonfly, and went to get a load of ice. It was near that crashed ship, but not so close that I noticed it had despawned right away.
The amusing thing is that without some grid nearby to keep it from filling in, it actually reset once before I was done mining ice.
Eventually, all systems were go for launch.
I severed the connection to the Ladybug, boarded the ship, and took off for space.
Once I reached space, I spent some time deleting my GPS coordinates and grids. I had to drift along side my escape pod to do the latter, but eventually it was done.
I also came very close to accidentally deleting my escape pod too! It had retained the name “Ladybug” once I’d cut it loose. It was thankfully the second one on the list, because it would’ve been very bad (not to mention very shocking) to have deleted my fresh start by mistake!
I had quite a few things to do at home the rest the morning, so I let the ship drift, checking up on it from time to time to make sure it wouldn’t collide with an asteroid, as well as ensure I wouldn’t get logged out due to inactivity. By lunch time, I decided to come to a halt, and picked a nearby asteroid to set up camp. As luck would have it, my location for my temporary base had ice nearby.
After lunch, I began construction of my temporary base. I eventually wanted to salvage the escape pod to make something more fuel efficient. That meant moving the oxygen and hydrogen into on-base storage, which required building storage for them, naturally. I also wanted the Survival Kit off the ship as well. If the server hiccupped at the wrong time, my only respawn point could be lost to the void!
This required processing a lot of raw stone. So as soon as my basic refinery was completed, I used its greater volume of output to build conveyors, connectors, and an H2/O2 generator for my base. I didn’t strictly need the latter, but my hydrogen supplies were dwindling rapidly, despite flying with inertial dampers off, and I wanted to have options, just in case the worst happened.
I also swapped the fighter cockpit for the standard one, so I could attach a connector underneath it.
Once that mission was accomplished, I put my solar panels on a rotor, to track the sun. Sadly, I didn’t think to use an advanced rotor until I was ready to add an oxygen farm. Granted, it didn't take too long to tear down and rebuild afterwards, but as the old saying goes... measure twice, cut once!
With my valuable gasses offloaded, I could finish converting my escape rocket into easier to use work pod. The two massive battery packs at the side of the ship were replaced by two small batteries that could provide power for several hours. A single small hydrogen tank was good for about a ten full burns when empty, and maybe four when under load. At the front of the little vessel was an attachment point for a drill, and at the back held attachment points for cargo, a cryo-pod, or survival kit. I also thought I could attach a 3x3 hinge part so it could pull a large grid ore detector behind it. I dubbed it the Flea, and outfitted it for mining.
I was at a point where I could survive, barely, but I had a rare "weekend" where there was nothing particularly urgent going on, so I could anticipate being at home for a while. What I really wanted to do was get to a point where I'd found the "starting ores" so I could move from surviving to thriving. I especially wanted to find iron, so I could build a proper refinery.
So I set out to find some ores. After searching several nearby Asteroid Clusters, I’d found more ice, some silver (which I gathered several hundred kilos of), gold, and magnesium, but none of the basics. I was particularly annoyed at finding a lot of ice, because the last time I had reached space, it was scarce. I wonder if large regions of space only spawn certain types of ore, similar to how ore deposits on planets work.
Frustrated and running short of time before I had to start supper, I returned to base and logged out. As luck would have it, I had trouble logging back in that evening. The game kept crashing! Eventually, I succeeded, but it was obvious my character had been “in game”, based on her low oxygen and energy levels.
I’d been finding ores more by eye than by detector last time, so I decided I’d adapt my previous surveyor design for the Flea drop pod. Sadly, I missed a key part of the older design, and drew the Wrath of Klang…
Recovering and Repairing the Flea took a bit of effort, but thankfully I hadn't lost the hydrogen tank. The most devastating blow was losing the starboard thruster cluster, because I didn't have a source of cobalt to build more. As it was, the remaining metal grids couldn't quite cover replacing all of them, so I had to make due... and hope I didn't take any additional damage to my ship.
I quickly realized where I'd gone wrong (I didn't leave enough space behind the flea for the large grid half of the hinge), and redesigned everything accordingly.
Before I had to turn in for the night, I managed to scout a few more asteroids for resources, and the only ore the large grid detector found that I didn't spot visually first was some ice. I found some more gold and silver, as well as several deposits of silicon (which I nabbed to be able to build an oxygen farm), as well as a deposit of cobalt. I was relieved to find that one, because I would be able to repair the Flea, as well as replace the masterwork set of tools I'd forgotten to leave behind, and then decided to keep.
Monday morning, before I left for the gym, I removed the large ore detector, and took the Flea out without anything else attached, so I could visit a few more asteroids before I needed to return to base. The base unit weighs less than half the escape pod, and about 70% of its mining configuration.
That afternoon, I set out to scout more astroids. Along the way, I found more ice, more silver, more gold, more silicon, and more cobalt. What I wasn't finding was iron. It was when I approached asteroid cluster #16 that I spotted a tiny reddish-brown spot for a brief moment. I maneuvered my ship over there, and sure enough, it was an iron deposit!
I hand mined as much as the ship and could carry, and returned to base to process it. Back at base, I reattached the drill, and two medium storage containers to the Flea.
I had totally done the math, and determined that I could safely return 33 tons of iron ore with a single small tank of hydrogen. I let the basic refinery process the iron ore, ordered the parts for the refinery, and logged out to prepare supper.
When I returned that evening, I was able to build my new refinery, and process that silver ore so I could build a cryo-chamber. It was a very close thing: I hadn't found nickel yet, and I was kind of surprised to find I had enough to produce the motors I needed from back when I was processing raw stone for iron.
At any rate, here's the result of a rather massive marathon session of Space Engineers.
I have a full tank of oxygen, and a hydrogen tank at roughly 60%. The solar array can follow the Sun all the time, maximizing my solar energy input, while the four oxygen farms are sufficient to replenish my supplies without having to convert more ice into oxygen, allowing me to maximize my hydrogen production. I now have tons of iron with which to build a pressurized habitat, so I don't have to live in my space suit all the time. I'll probably want to redesign my solar array as well. I really should've used conveyor connector blocks for the base so I could use it as an attachment point for my habitat, but hopefully I can work around it.
The main issue that remains currently is obtaining a supply of nickel. I can, of course, refine raw stone to get it, but I'd much rather find a deposit. But that'll definitely be for another day. I'm more than ready for another session of Empyrion Galactic Survival!
Cobra Edition 2
Episode One
The Long Dark Empty Space Between
Or
What the Frell was I thinking?
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, the snow on the ground unmelted from the day before. In real life. In the game, it was sunset when I started working on my escape pod. I was originally going to build a complicated structure of hinges and pistons upon which to assemble it, but then I realized I could easily do the same thing by using the Ladybug as a base. So I drove it down to my iron/cobalt mine, and got down to work. Like many of my camps and bases, it even had an H2/O2 Generator, with two tons of ice in it!
Which, of course, barely put a dent the empty hydrogen tank, once it was built. Thankfully, I'd found a nearby ice deposit, so I grabbed the Dragonfly, and went to get a load of ice. It was near that crashed ship, but not so close that I noticed it had despawned right away.
The amusing thing is that without some grid nearby to keep it from filling in, it actually reset once before I was done mining ice.
Eventually, all systems were go for launch.
I severed the connection to the Ladybug, boarded the ship, and took off for space.
Once I reached space, I spent some time deleting my GPS coordinates and grids. I had to drift along side my escape pod to do the latter, but eventually it was done.
I also came very close to accidentally deleting my escape pod too! It had retained the name “Ladybug” once I’d cut it loose. It was thankfully the second one on the list, because it would’ve been very bad (not to mention very shocking) to have deleted my fresh start by mistake!
I had quite a few things to do at home the rest the morning, so I let the ship drift, checking up on it from time to time to make sure it wouldn’t collide with an asteroid, as well as ensure I wouldn’t get logged out due to inactivity. By lunch time, I decided to come to a halt, and picked a nearby asteroid to set up camp. As luck would have it, my location for my temporary base had ice nearby.
After lunch, I began construction of my temporary base. I eventually wanted to salvage the escape pod to make something more fuel efficient. That meant moving the oxygen and hydrogen into on-base storage, which required building storage for them, naturally. I also wanted the Survival Kit off the ship as well. If the server hiccupped at the wrong time, my only respawn point could be lost to the void!
This required processing a lot of raw stone. So as soon as my basic refinery was completed, I used its greater volume of output to build conveyors, connectors, and an H2/O2 generator for my base. I didn’t strictly need the latter, but my hydrogen supplies were dwindling rapidly, despite flying with inertial dampers off, and I wanted to have options, just in case the worst happened.
I also swapped the fighter cockpit for the standard one, so I could attach a connector underneath it.
Once that mission was accomplished, I put my solar panels on a rotor, to track the sun. Sadly, I didn’t think to use an advanced rotor until I was ready to add an oxygen farm. Granted, it didn't take too long to tear down and rebuild afterwards, but as the old saying goes... measure twice, cut once!
With my valuable gasses offloaded, I could finish converting my escape rocket into easier to use work pod. The two massive battery packs at the side of the ship were replaced by two small batteries that could provide power for several hours. A single small hydrogen tank was good for about a ten full burns when empty, and maybe four when under load. At the front of the little vessel was an attachment point for a drill, and at the back held attachment points for cargo, a cryo-pod, or survival kit. I also thought I could attach a 3x3 hinge part so it could pull a large grid ore detector behind it. I dubbed it the Flea, and outfitted it for mining.
I was at a point where I could survive, barely, but I had a rare "weekend" where there was nothing particularly urgent going on, so I could anticipate being at home for a while. What I really wanted to do was get to a point where I'd found the "starting ores" so I could move from surviving to thriving. I especially wanted to find iron, so I could build a proper refinery.
So I set out to find some ores. After searching several nearby Asteroid Clusters, I’d found more ice, some silver (which I gathered several hundred kilos of), gold, and magnesium, but none of the basics. I was particularly annoyed at finding a lot of ice, because the last time I had reached space, it was scarce. I wonder if large regions of space only spawn certain types of ore, similar to how ore deposits on planets work.
Frustrated and running short of time before I had to start supper, I returned to base and logged out. As luck would have it, I had trouble logging back in that evening. The game kept crashing! Eventually, I succeeded, but it was obvious my character had been “in game”, based on her low oxygen and energy levels.
I’d been finding ores more by eye than by detector last time, so I decided I’d adapt my previous surveyor design for the Flea drop pod. Sadly, I missed a key part of the older design, and drew the Wrath of Klang…
Recovering and Repairing the Flea took a bit of effort, but thankfully I hadn't lost the hydrogen tank. The most devastating blow was losing the starboard thruster cluster, because I didn't have a source of cobalt to build more. As it was, the remaining metal grids couldn't quite cover replacing all of them, so I had to make due... and hope I didn't take any additional damage to my ship.
I quickly realized where I'd gone wrong (I didn't leave enough space behind the flea for the large grid half of the hinge), and redesigned everything accordingly.
Before I had to turn in for the night, I managed to scout a few more asteroids for resources, and the only ore the large grid detector found that I didn't spot visually first was some ice.
I found some more gold and silver, as well as several deposits of silicon (which I nabbed to be able to build an oxygen farm), as well as a deposit of cobalt. I was relieved to find that one, because I would be able to repair the Flea, as well as replace the masterwork set of tools I'd forgotten to leave behind, and then decided to keep. Monday morning, before I left for the gym, I removed the large ore detector, and took the Flea out without anything else attached, so I could visit a few more asteroids before I needed to return to base. The base unit weighs less than half the escape pod, and about 70% of its mining configuration.
That afternoon, I set out to scout more astroids. Along the way, I found more ice, more silver, more gold, more silicon, and more cobalt. What I wasn't finding was iron. It was when I approached asteroid cluster #16 that I spotted a tiny reddish-brown spot for a brief moment. I maneuvered my ship over there, and sure enough, it was an iron deposit!
I hand mined as much as the ship and could carry, and returned to base to process it. Back at base, I reattached the drill, and two medium storage containers to the Flea.
I had totally done the math, and determined that I could safely return 33 tons of iron ore with a single small tank of hydrogen. I let the basic refinery process the iron ore, ordered the parts for the refinery, and logged out to prepare supper.When I returned that evening, I was able to build my new refinery, and process that silver ore so I could build a cryo-chamber. It was a very close thing: I hadn't found nickel yet, and I was kind of surprised to find I had enough to produce the motors I needed from back when I was processing raw stone for iron.
At any rate, here's the result of a rather massive marathon session of Space Engineers.
I have a full tank of oxygen, and a hydrogen tank at roughly 60%. The solar array can follow the Sun all the time, maximizing my solar energy input, while the four oxygen farms are sufficient to replenish my supplies without having to convert more ice into oxygen, allowing me to maximize my hydrogen production. I now have tons of iron with which to build a pressurized habitat, so I don't have to live in my space suit all the time. I'll probably want to redesign my solar array as well. I really should've used conveyor connector blocks for the base so I could use it as an attachment point for my habitat, but hopefully I can work around it.
The main issue that remains currently is obtaining a supply of nickel. I can, of course, refine raw stone to get it, but I'd much rather find a deposit. But that'll definitely be for another day. I'm more than ready for another session of Empyrion Galactic Survival!
Empyrion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Five
Survivor needs Cobalt Badly
The round began with the inevitable attack on my base by the Zirax. It won't succeed, thanks to the base's defenses and my "Damaged Dart," but it is annoying. It makes me almost tempted to seek out their bases and wipe them out.
Almost.
At least they occasionally drop rare resources.
I spend the rest of the day alternating between harvesting stone in my quarry beneath the base, raising the walls of my hangar, and adding the massive shutter doors. As luck would have it, I had made the hanger one block too narrow, which meant I had to redo the eastern wall.
By the time the doors were installed, my base's original core was almost at capacity when it comes to CPU processor availability.
At one point, though, I got tired of the collection of alien bugs that had gathered near my base. They weren't a threat, but their constant vocalizations were getting on my nerves. So I decided that a little extermination was in order.
Plus I could use the meat.
If I want to base my ships in a hangar, the Cobra III would be the largest of small ships I could house there, thanks to its short length and broad width. Even some of the smaller ships, like the Hauler, are too long and broad have a roofed hangar. It's sheer coincidence, but I'm glad I can do this with my favorite, and very iconic, ship from Elite Dangerous
Sure enough, the Zirax attacks are coming daily now. Usually in the morning, since I generally turn in for the night. At least the game waits until I wake up and on sight before sending in a wave of drones.
It's always interesting going diving in this game. Visibility is low, and there are some dangerous animals that spawn in the water. You also can't use weapons while underwater. OTOH, there's some rare materials that spawn down there that are useful for making medicines.
I'd just started working on the roof, starting with some of the mostly decorative beams that, in theory, should be able to support the roof.
When the roof was about half done, I'd noticed that my CPU cycle costs had exceeded what the core could do. As luck would have it, I also needed cobalt ingots to produce the flux coils that were the core of an expanded computer core. I could've spent some time searching for cobalt rocks in some of the nearby radioactive zones, but I decided I'd get some from the orbital trading post.
After I'd bought 20 ingots, I noticed that there were some asteroid resources nearby.
While I was in the vacinity, I nabbed some more promethium, some iron (I was getting low), and as luck would have it, some cobalt as well. With my Dart's cargo hold almost full, I returned from space at an area I thought looked familiar, but wasn't.
Amusingly, once I'd passed the terminator, I spotted an "Unknown Helix" on my scanners. Since I was flying anyways, I flew to the top, and popped open the container there. I found not only more cobalt ingots, but a set of night vision goggles. No more flashlights for me... unless I want to use them!
Though it was getting late when I returned to base, I built and installed the CPU extender. I wanted to end the round with that done.
Amusingly, the highest CPU cost in my base so far are the blocks themselves... then the constructors... and then the automated defense turrets at a distant third. With the additional server bank installed in the utility room, I headed upstairs to my (still undecorated) living quarters, and almost went bed before remembering that the Zirax come in the morning... mostly.
I'm probably going to pop into SE Friday night, briefly, and then play when I can over my weekend... which, sadly, is Sunday and Monday.
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Five
Survivor needs Cobalt Badly
The round began with the inevitable attack on my base by the Zirax. It won't succeed, thanks to the base's defenses and my "Damaged Dart," but it is annoying. It makes me almost tempted to seek out their bases and wipe them out.
Almost.
At least they occasionally drop rare resources.
I spend the rest of the day alternating between harvesting stone in my quarry beneath the base, raising the walls of my hangar, and adding the massive shutter doors. As luck would have it, I had made the hanger one block too narrow, which meant I had to redo the eastern wall.
By the time the doors were installed, my base's original core was almost at capacity when it comes to CPU processor availability.
At one point, though, I got tired of the collection of alien bugs that had gathered near my base. They weren't a threat, but their constant vocalizations were getting on my nerves. So I decided that a little extermination was in order.
Plus I could use the meat.
If I want to base my ships in a hangar, the Cobra III would be the largest of small ships I could house there, thanks to its short length and broad width. Even some of the smaller ships, like the Hauler, are too long and broad have a roofed hangar. It's sheer coincidence, but I'm glad I can do this with my favorite, and very iconic, ship from Elite Dangerous
Sure enough, the Zirax attacks are coming daily now. Usually in the morning, since I generally turn in for the night. At least the game waits until I wake up and on sight before sending in a wave of drones.
It's always interesting going diving in this game. Visibility is low, and there are some dangerous animals that spawn in the water. You also can't use weapons while underwater. OTOH, there's some rare materials that spawn down there that are useful for making medicines.
I'd just started working on the roof, starting with some of the mostly decorative beams that, in theory, should be able to support the roof.
When the roof was about half done, I'd noticed that my CPU cycle costs had exceeded what the core could do. As luck would have it, I also needed cobalt ingots to produce the flux coils that were the core of an expanded computer core. I could've spent some time searching for cobalt rocks in some of the nearby radioactive zones, but I decided I'd get some from the orbital trading post.
After I'd bought 20 ingots, I noticed that there were some asteroid resources nearby.
While I was in the vacinity, I nabbed some more promethium, some iron (I was getting low), and as luck would have it, some cobalt as well. With my Dart's cargo hold almost full, I returned from space at an area I thought looked familiar, but wasn't.
Amusingly, once I'd passed the terminator, I spotted an "Unknown Helix" on my scanners. Since I was flying anyways, I flew to the top, and popped open the container there. I found not only more cobalt ingots, but a set of night vision goggles. No more flashlights for me... unless I want to use them!
Though it was getting late when I returned to base, I built and installed the CPU extender. I wanted to end the round with that done.
Amusingly, the highest CPU cost in my base so far are the blocks themselves... then the constructors... and then the automated defense turrets at a distant third. With the additional server bank installed in the utility room, I headed upstairs to my (still undecorated) living quarters, and almost went bed before remembering that the Zirax come in the morning... mostly.
I'm probably going to pop into SE Friday night, briefly, and then play when I can over my weekend... which, sadly, is Sunday and Monday.
And now, it’s time for another Good Idea/Bad Idea!
Good Idea: Making a Utility Vehicle that is capable of doing its job safely.
Bad Idea: Combining this situation
Good Idea: Making a Utility Vehicle that is capable of doing its job safely.
Bad Idea: Combining this situation
With a utility vehicle described like this
Definitely agree that I love EGS's new water system... too bad my old computer isn't completely up to the task of rendering it on high. There's a clear drop in FPS when I get too close to the water, and I'm fairly tolerant about my FPS rate. More importantly, it turned into a slideshow when I transitioned between underwater and above it. I dropped the water setting to low, which is clearly the old tech. I'm sure my new computer should be able to handle it, though.
Speaking of which, I should be getting a new M.2 drive today. Annoyingly, it's a new one I ordered online four days ago after I got tired of waiting, rather than the warrenty replacement from about month ago!
They didn't even charge me for the shipping, while the manufacturer did! Still, I'll be able to use the replacement as a backup or an additional drive, and the shipping was still a third of the cost of a completely new one. But still... grrr...
As for Keen... SE kept crashing or locking up when I tried to log into CA2 on the evenings of the 17th and 18th. I eventually got on, but I was tempted to start a single-player game the second time that happened. My play sessions in the early morning of the 19th and 20th were more normal, if it wasn't for the low simulation speeds.
Still, if they can get add proper NPCs to their game, then it'll be a win in my book. Especially if they can prevent them from dancing on the furniture in such a dynamic environment... which is no small task. It took Stonehearth several iterations to get their NPC pathfinding to acceptable levels, and they had the advantage of an environment made entirely of square voxels.
Speaking of which, I should be getting a new M.2 drive today. Annoyingly, it's a new one I ordered online four days ago after I got tired of waiting, rather than the warrenty replacement from about month ago!
They didn't even charge me for the shipping, while the manufacturer did! Still, I'll be able to use the replacement as a backup or an additional drive, and the shipping was still a third of the cost of a completely new one. But still... grrr... As for Keen... SE kept crashing or locking up when I tried to log into CA2 on the evenings of the 17th and 18th. I eventually got on, but I was tempted to start a single-player game the second time that happened. My play sessions in the early morning of the 19th and 20th were more normal, if it wasn't for the low simulation speeds.
Still, if they can get add proper NPCs to their game, then it'll be a win in my book. Especially if they can prevent them from dancing on the furniture in such a dynamic environment... which is no small task. It took Stonehearth several iterations to get their NPC pathfinding to acceptable levels, and they had the advantage of an environment made entirely of square voxels.
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Two
Operator Error
Friday night, I had intended to briefly log in, mine some gold and iron, and log out again, so the ores would be available do some work early Sunday morning. Sadly, I had ignored the warning signs fr9m Keen’s servers (it took a few tries to successfully log in) and my own simple plan, and made things… unnecessarily complicated. I was greeted by a nice view that I was determined to preserve.
Of course, one of the first first things I was check my base’s reserves of power and oxygen. Oxygen was lower than when I went into cryo, so I decided to add two more oxygen farms. I barely had enough silicon to complete the job, and even then, I did a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul to get everything working. This is what lead to noticing a flaw that I decided to fix.
I was only after I had removed the base of the rotor that I realized my intake: I’d have to rebuild the whole array! I moved the Flea over to the array, and got ready to grind it all down and put the parts into its storage pod, when it occurred to me that move the whole thing with the Flea if I added some landing gear to it!
It went smoothly, much to my relief. Sadly, it was the last thing to go smoothly that night, which resulted in me losing sleep… something I try to avoid when playing games.
Beddy-by-time is happy-time.
Since I was in a building,rather than a mining, mood, I took some additional time to remove the basic refinery and assembler. The former was drawing in resources from my main refinery for some reason, while the latter was where I’d like to place the future airlock vent.
At any rate, I still needed gold for a variety of purposes, and of course silicon… and I was determined to mine them before finally going to bed. Frustratingly, when I went for the gold ore, I thought I spotted another ore patch nearby, but it turned out to be nothing but a shadow.
I got the gold ore back to base without incident. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the silicon ore. Maybe I’d forgotten to top off my hydrogen tank. Maybe I hadn’t been efficient while mining. I certainly didn’t notice how low my hydrogen was before the return burn, and opted for a much slower return.
Regardless of what the cause was, the result was me bailing out of the Flea with only a tithe of the ore I’d mined, with the work pod vanishing into the void at 30 m/s!
Discouraged, I landed on my little platform, deposited the ore that had cost me so much (including my little bit of uranium!), and decided to call it a night. BeforecI did, I debated on whether I should delete the Flea. I'm glad I actually went into the info tab before logging out, because at some point during the solar array remodel, I had somehow managed to have not attach the new support structure to my base!
I was despairing at how I would reattach the array once I’d rebuilt it’s support
With everything attached to my little asteroid base, I finally called it a night. I’d be sleepy at work Saturday morning, on the last weekend before Christmas to boot, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have to worry about falling asleep on the job. Retail during the holidays may be many things, but seldom boring!
Saturday night I actually managed to leave work on time, much to everyone’s surprise. More importantly in my eyes, my sister got off work on time as well, so I had some unexpected time to game. Naturally, Keen’s servers again proved to be recalcitrant about letting me log in. I was this close to starting a modded single-player game when I finally managed to log in.
I chose to use it to work on a new Workpod, as well as add yield modules to my refinery. Just one problem, though: it turned out I was out of iron!
With no work pod miner, I ended up jet packing over to the distant asteroid and did some hand mining.
Once I returned to base with as much iron ore as I could carry, I decided to do some scouting for ores while I waited for it to refine. I found several deposits of other materials, though no nearby iron, as well as my missing deposit of Nickel. More importantly, I found uranium!
By the time I returned to base, I was more interested in working on my living quarters than building a new work pod. Sadly, I didn’t get as far as I would’ve liked.
Sunday Morning I logged in on the first try. Naturally, I finished construction of my Flea Mk II first, in mining mode.
It has two hydrogen tanks this time!
That depleted my limited stores of iron, so I’d mined some more. While that was processing, and I was between laundry loads, I scouted a few more nearby asteroids. I located a closer source of iron, but none of the most coveted resource of all: platinum. By the t8me I’d returned to base, I used what le of my morning remained to complete my living quarters. They’re completely superfluous, but it doesn’t seem right not to have them.
Monday morning again allowed me to log in right away.
The whole ordeal with the solar array on Friday had given me an idea for a better option to charge electric vehicles or transfer hydrogen than that massive connector: a small grid hinge, or an advanced rotor. I chose the hinge to start construction of my new Cobra Mark III, but I’ve decided that the advanced rotor makes more sense for a plug-in port.
I spent a glorious two uninterrupted hours laying out the outline of the C3. I was originally going to make this large grid, but after roughing one out in creative, I knew I had to do it in small grid. I also could’ve used the blueprint from my pre-“Harry” attempt, but I wanted to start from scratch.
It was at that point, I had my dad cancel our plans on me, so I could afford to do a little welding. I decided to convert the workpod for this purpose, but in the future I’ll do it by hand. More fun and precise.
This is where I left off for the week.
Once again, I’m amazed by how large even small ships are in Elite Dangerous. The living quarters are quite spacious, and the C3 dwarfs it.
I played a little EGS Monday night, but I’m not sure if I can complete the round before Christmas Eve. T8me will tell, I guess.
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Two
Operator Error
Friday night, I had intended to briefly log in, mine some gold and iron, and log out again, so the ores would be available do some work early Sunday morning. Sadly, I had ignored the warning signs fr9m Keen’s servers (it took a few tries to successfully log in) and my own simple plan, and made things… unnecessarily complicated. I was greeted by a nice view that I was determined to preserve.
Of course, one of the first first things I was check my base’s reserves of power and oxygen. Oxygen was lower than when I went into cryo, so I decided to add two more oxygen farms. I barely had enough silicon to complete the job, and even then, I did a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul to get everything working. This is what lead to noticing a flaw that I decided to fix.
I was only after I had removed the base of the rotor that I realized my intake: I’d have to rebuild the whole array! I moved the Flea over to the array, and got ready to grind it all down and put the parts into its storage pod, when it occurred to me that move the whole thing with the Flea if I added some landing gear to it!
It went smoothly, much to my relief. Sadly, it was the last thing to go smoothly that night, which resulted in me losing sleep… something I try to avoid when playing games.
Beddy-by-time is happy-time. Since I was in a building,rather than a mining, mood, I took some additional time to remove the basic refinery and assembler. The former was drawing in resources from my main refinery for some reason, while the latter was where I’d like to place the future airlock vent.
At any rate, I still needed gold for a variety of purposes, and of course silicon… and I was determined to mine them before finally going to bed. Frustratingly, when I went for the gold ore, I thought I spotted another ore patch nearby, but it turned out to be nothing but a shadow.
I got the gold ore back to base without incident. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the silicon ore. Maybe I’d forgotten to top off my hydrogen tank. Maybe I hadn’t been efficient while mining. I certainly didn’t notice how low my hydrogen was before the return burn, and opted for a much slower return.
Regardless of what the cause was, the result was me bailing out of the Flea with only a tithe of the ore I’d mined, with the work pod vanishing into the void at 30 m/s!
Discouraged, I landed on my little platform, deposited the ore that had cost me so much (including my little bit of uranium!), and decided to call it a night. BeforecI did, I debated on whether I should delete the Flea. I'm glad I actually went into the info tab before logging out, because at some point during the solar array remodel, I had somehow managed to have not attach the new support structure to my base!
I was despairing at how I would reattach the array once I’d rebuilt it’s support
With everything attached to my little asteroid base, I finally called it a night. I’d be sleepy at work Saturday morning, on the last weekend before Christmas to boot, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have to worry about falling asleep on the job. Retail during the holidays may be many things, but seldom boring!
Saturday night I actually managed to leave work on time, much to everyone’s surprise. More importantly in my eyes, my sister got off work on time as well, so I had some unexpected time to game. Naturally, Keen’s servers again proved to be recalcitrant about letting me log in. I was this close to starting a modded single-player game when I finally managed to log in.
I chose to use it to work on a new Workpod, as well as add yield modules to my refinery. Just one problem, though: it turned out I was out of iron!
With no work pod miner, I ended up jet packing over to the distant asteroid and did some hand mining.
Once I returned to base with as much iron ore as I could carry, I decided to do some scouting for ores while I waited for it to refine. I found several deposits of other materials, though no nearby iron, as well as my missing deposit of Nickel. More importantly, I found uranium!
By the time I returned to base, I was more interested in working on my living quarters than building a new work pod. Sadly, I didn’t get as far as I would’ve liked.
Sunday Morning I logged in on the first try. Naturally, I finished construction of my Flea Mk II first, in mining mode.
It has two hydrogen tanks this time!
That depleted my limited stores of iron, so I’d mined some more. While that was processing, and I was between laundry loads, I scouted a few more nearby asteroids. I located a closer source of iron, but none of the most coveted resource of all: platinum. By the t8me I’d returned to base, I used what le of my morning remained to complete my living quarters. They’re completely superfluous, but it doesn’t seem right not to have them.
Monday morning again allowed me to log in right away.
The whole ordeal with the solar array on Friday had given me an idea for a better option to charge electric vehicles or transfer hydrogen than that massive connector: a small grid hinge, or an advanced rotor. I chose the hinge to start construction of my new Cobra Mark III, but I’ve decided that the advanced rotor makes more sense for a plug-in port.
I spent a glorious two uninterrupted hours laying out the outline of the C3. I was originally going to make this large grid, but after roughing one out in creative, I knew I had to do it in small grid. I also could’ve used the blueprint from my pre-“Harry” attempt, but I wanted to start from scratch.
It was at that point, I had my dad cancel our plans on me, so I could afford to do a little welding. I decided to convert the workpod for this purpose, but in the future I’ll do it by hand. More fun and precise.
This is where I left off for the week.
Once again, I’m amazed by how large even small ships are in Elite Dangerous. The living quarters are quite spacious, and the C3 dwarfs it.
I played a little EGS Monday night, but I’m not sure if I can complete the round before Christmas Eve. T8me will tell, I guess.