These days I tend to prefer logging in when there's only a couple other people online, because performance has been a bit rubbish of late when the server is even half full. It's kinda the best of both worlds - decent performance while still having things to find, since ships and bases exist whether a player is logged in or not. The lack of things to find and explore and interact with remains my number one gripe about single player mode.
Space Engineers vs Empyrion - Galactic Survival: Cobra Edition
- Thread starter Darkfyre99
- Start date
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- Tags
- play4fun
And I’m back! I hope everyone had a great holiday! It's been a while! Once the holiday madness in retail had passed, I finally got my new computer back up and running the way I prefer it. So on with the show!!! 
Empyrion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Six
Ship Construction Begins
When last we left our intrepid galactic survivalist, she had just finished the hangar for the Cobra Mark III. And then Eleon updated the game to version 1.7, which includes, among other things, more realistic looking water!
Of course, my old eight-year-old computer could barely handle these effects, especially when my character transitions between above the water, and below it. So I disabled it. In all honesty, while it looks nice, I'd much rather have water which flows to fill holes I dig into the terrain, because IMO that has more gameplay potential as well as utility, but that's just me.
They also updated quite a few of their plants. My favorite has got to be the updated "plant fiber" plant.
Of course, while I was busy checking out the changes, those perpetual killjoys, the Zirax, reared their ugly heads again. Why do they bother trying???
One of the first things I did once the hangar was completed was draw a rough outline of the C3 using the paint tool. That way, I’d know where to start construction. I didn’t even bother installing lights at first!
Then I started building the C3, using the “pillar trick” to get the core in mid-air. I much prefer Space Engineer’s landing gear trick, primarily because new construction “hovers” only as long as your nearby. If you move out of range, it’ll drop back down once you return.
I didn’t take as many pictures as I liked, but at one point I ran out of room, which caused the next block I removed to drop. Amusingly, Eleon had changed the texture for the season,
As I built the center outline, I placed more pillars to support the entire thing.
One of the things I decided to do, in order to save iron and weight, was use girder blocks for temporary and supportive structures. In SE, I could get away with “partial” blocks (which are also easy to grind down), but in EGS there are no partial blocks, so sometimes it makes sense to use low hit point blocks if they’re going to be removed at a later date… especially at the beginning of the game.
Those cartoonishly villainous Zirax showed up at one point. Rather than actually fight them in the Dart, I decided to let my base defenses handle everything… especially since it was a troop carrier.
There were no (enemy) survivors.
I actually prefer drones over transports, even if their potential to inflict damage is much greater.
They mostly drop useful parts. At best, the troop transports drop weapon upgrade kits. At one point, as I was mining out the closest iron deposit, I was reminded of my favorite aspect of EGS: they do a pretty good job of creating the illusion that heavens are active.
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And that was the last day I got to play games until Christmas was over. Between getting home from work rather late, Christmas preparations, and visiting family, I didn't even get a chance to fix my new computer. But once it was over, I installed that new M.2 drive, and got everything installed! And naturally, the second game I installed was EGS, so I could finish the round. Naturally, my beast of a new computer was able to handle the new water graphics just fine.
I let the turrets handle the occasional Zirax attack, rather than deal with them myself. They were, after all, transports and not drones, which had proven to be rather soft targets. One attack came when I was getting a bite to eat, so I decided to watch. Sadly, they approached from the other side of my base.
I spent way too long working on the front “boarding ramp.” I wouldn’t be able to make a proper set of landing gear/boarding ramp, like I’d planned in SE, especially since the “advanced” small grid landing gear were frustratingly short, but eventually I found a design I could work with:
Of course, EGS wasn’t the only game I played during this period. Once Christmas day had passed, I also had my actual "weekend", so I spent some time early in the morning on the 26th and 27th to play some Space Engineers. This came in handy, because it gave me something to do while I waited for everything I wanted to install, upload and update to finish. Mostly, I did some surveying of nearby asteroids for platinum, though I did some other work on the 26th as well. For one thing, I mined a full load of uranium ore: 32 tons of it.
Maybe I should install a proper stone ejection system in the workpod, but I don’t mind tossing mined stone out the window, two tons at a time. I am a bit amused at how said stone would slow to a halt as my ship slowly drifted away. I know it’s a “quality of life” thing, but I’d rather watch this kind of stuff vanish into the void.
Once that was being processed, I did do some work on the Cobra Mark III. First thing I did was try to place an advanced rotor head. I felt it would look better than the hinge as a “plug and socket,” and I could use it to move ore and gasses between grids, but it was, frustratingly, a 3x3 block. I might as well use connectors if that’s the case, because they’re much easier to use.
I had originally intended to build it vertically, layer by layer, but for some reason I started working on the upper left side.
This picture highlights my least favorite aspect of SE: the automatic greebling. In EGS, at the very least, I have control of what texture or decal goes on which block. I can also choose between “horizontal” and “vertical” orientations. On symmetrical blocks, I can also rotate the block itself for finer control of placement. And of course each side of a block can have its own texture and decal.
In SE, I have none of that. It’s using some kind of algorithm to decide what each facet of a particular block looks like. I’d love the option have piping run along one side of that surface, and cabling to snake around a few of those “panels”, but I can’t.
At least I won’t spend 15 minutes obsessing over how to rotate a single block.
Another aspect of SE that is missing from EGS are docking maneuvers. I may not necessarily enjoy the long travel times in space, but SE has a very Kerbal Space Program feel when it comes time to dock my little Workpod.
I’ll probably play EGS as time permits on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, (Thursday is frequently a good day for EDO), and then some SE early morning on my “weekend”.
Empyrion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Six
Ship Construction Begins
When last we left our intrepid galactic survivalist, she had just finished the hangar for the Cobra Mark III. And then Eleon updated the game to version 1.7, which includes, among other things, more realistic looking water!
Of course, my old eight-year-old computer could barely handle these effects, especially when my character transitions between above the water, and below it. So I disabled it.
In all honesty, while it looks nice, I'd much rather have water which flows to fill holes I dig into the terrain, because IMO that has more gameplay potential as well as utility, but that's just me.They also updated quite a few of their plants. My favorite has got to be the updated "plant fiber" plant.
Of course, while I was busy checking out the changes, those perpetual killjoys, the Zirax, reared their ugly heads again. Why do they bother trying???
One of the first things I did once the hangar was completed was draw a rough outline of the C3 using the paint tool. That way, I’d know where to start construction. I didn’t even bother installing lights at first!
Then I started building the C3, using the “pillar trick” to get the core in mid-air. I much prefer Space Engineer’s landing gear trick, primarily because new construction “hovers” only as long as your nearby. If you move out of range, it’ll drop back down once you return.
I didn’t take as many pictures as I liked, but at one point I ran out of room, which caused the next block I removed to drop. Amusingly, Eleon had changed the texture for the season,
As I built the center outline, I placed more pillars to support the entire thing.
One of the things I decided to do, in order to save iron and weight, was use girder blocks for temporary and supportive structures. In SE, I could get away with “partial” blocks (which are also easy to grind down), but in EGS there are no partial blocks, so sometimes it makes sense to use low hit point blocks if they’re going to be removed at a later date… especially at the beginning of the game.
Those cartoonishly villainous Zirax showed up at one point. Rather than actually fight them in the Dart, I decided to let my base defenses handle everything… especially since it was a troop carrier.
There were no (enemy) survivors.
I actually prefer drones over transports, even if their potential to inflict damage is much greater.
They mostly drop useful parts. At best, the troop transports drop weapon upgrade kits. At one point, as I was mining out the closest iron deposit, I was reminded of my favorite aspect of EGS: they do a pretty good job of creating the illusion that heavens are active.
And that was the last day I got to play games until Christmas was over. Between getting home from work rather late, Christmas preparations, and visiting family, I didn't even get a chance to fix my new computer.
But once it was over, I installed that new M.2 drive, and got everything installed! And naturally, the second game I installed was EGS, so I could finish the round. Naturally, my beast of a new computer was able to handle the new water graphics just fine.I let the turrets handle the occasional Zirax attack, rather than deal with them myself. They were, after all, transports and not drones, which had proven to be rather soft targets. One attack came when I was getting a bite to eat, so I decided to watch. Sadly, they approached from the other side of my base.
I spent way too long working on the front “boarding ramp.” I wouldn’t be able to make a proper set of landing gear/boarding ramp, like I’d planned in SE, especially since the “advanced” small grid landing gear were frustratingly short, but eventually I found a design I could work with:
Of course, EGS wasn’t the only game I played during this period. Once Christmas day had passed, I also had my actual "weekend", so I spent some time early in the morning on the 26th and 27th to play some Space Engineers. This came in handy, because it gave me something to do while I waited for everything I wanted to install, upload and update to finish. Mostly, I did some surveying of nearby asteroids for platinum, though I did some other work on the 26th as well. For one thing, I mined a full load of uranium ore: 32 tons of it.
Maybe I should install a proper stone ejection system in the workpod, but I don’t mind tossing mined stone out the window, two tons at a time. I am a bit amused at how said stone would slow to a halt as my ship slowly drifted away. I know it’s a “quality of life” thing, but I’d rather watch this kind of stuff vanish into the void.
Once that was being processed, I did do some work on the Cobra Mark III. First thing I did was try to place an advanced rotor head. I felt it would look better than the hinge as a “plug and socket,” and I could use it to move ore and gasses between grids, but it was, frustratingly, a 3x3 block. I might as well use connectors if that’s the case, because they’re much easier to use.
I had originally intended to build it vertically, layer by layer, but for some reason I started working on the upper left side.
This picture highlights my least favorite aspect of SE: the automatic greebling. In EGS, at the very least, I have control of what texture or decal goes on which block. I can also choose between “horizontal” and “vertical” orientations. On symmetrical blocks, I can also rotate the block itself for finer control of placement. And of course each side of a block can have its own texture and decal.
In SE, I have none of that. It’s using some kind of algorithm to decide what each facet of a particular block looks like. I’d love the option have piping run along one side of that surface, and cabling to snake around a few of those “panels”, but I can’t.
At least I won’t spend 15 minutes obsessing over how to rotate a single block.
Another aspect of SE that is missing from EGS are docking maneuvers. I may not necessarily enjoy the long travel times in space, but SE has a very Kerbal Space Program feel when it comes time to dock my little Workpod.
I’ll probably play EGS as time permits on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, (Thursday is frequently a good day for EDO), and then some SE early morning on my “weekend”.
This is one of my biggest issues with SE as well. There are some work-arounds that can be used in certain situations. For example, the piping seen in this picture below is done using an armor panel, which does allow you to change the orientation / alignment of the decal:
Another option is using interior walls and corridors with different paints to achieve good-looking "plumbing" and other interesting decorations:
But of course, there are limitations. This is the bridge of my ship, and it has these ugly stamps that don't line up and look out of place, and there's really not much I can do about it without mods.
With your Cobra, the "random lines" problem on the exterior hull is something that probably doesn't have a solution. I can't remember off the top of my head if the carbon fiber paint is "seam free". I know it at least has less seams than the default armor, but I'm not 100% sure if it totally removes these seams / stamps.
Empyrion Galactic Survival
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Seven
A Week's Highlights
Well... the last week or so was rather... weird. We got a new store manager in October, and she didn't give us a chance catch our breath before inventory preparations started. Looks like the "no overtime" rule won't go into effect until March. Good for the bank account, bad for free time to play games!
I did get an hour and a half of Odyssey gameplay on Thursday, though. If you want decent on-foot equipment without the engineering "grind," take missions to distant outposts. All I need to find now is one silenced weapon, and I'll have a great assassination/theft/sabotage setup!
As always, the more I focus on what I'm doing in the game, the less screen shots I take, so this one is rather sparse. Though I did take a couple of video clips of EGS in action! Sadly, one of those videos wasn't watching the waves under the sickly green glow of a radioactive storm. Maybe next time.
One of the major differences between EGS and SE, especially SE online, is how long things take to produce. Unless I choose "realistic" speeds, SE can generally keep up with my demand. EGS frequently makes me wait, despite having multiple constructors, leaving me looking for other things to do. Which is why I started to do detail work between work orders.
Of course, the other major difference between EGS and SE is how much faster I can build in EGS, primarily thanks to mirroring being available in survival mode, and of course the fact that each block and component is whole when placed. Which might explain how SE's assemblers can keep pace with me. I have to stop and weld from time to time, which gives the whole building process a more visceral feel!
Fun fact: EGS's "large paint brush" basically "shotguns" a cone of paint, rather than just paints a larger area. It's possible for some of the paint to miss, and paint the blocks behind your intended target. Needless to say, I don't use it very often, and then remember why when I do!
I just wish I thought to take a screenshot of it. I'm still finding the occasional spot of paint in weird places.
Of course, some of those things to do was repelling almost daily Zirax attacks. Now that I know my base defenses can handle them, I could simply ignore everything that's going on, but I think it's wise to pay attention to them anyways, just in case something bad happens (like rocket drones getting too close!)
I find it ironic that after bragging on EGS's detailing system, my first bit of detail work on the C3 came out looking like this:
Part of the problem, of course, was that I'm working on a sloped surface, which severely limits how I can rotate a particular block. Flat surfaces give me much more degrees of freedom to work with. I do like how the greeble turned out, though. I also think it'll look better when I do a grime pass later on.
At some point, I realized that I could use my drone to observe my base's defenses, rather than rushing to windows or outdoors. Which I thought to take a video of.
My detail work continued, naturally, with using EGS's "piping" blocks to make the C3's radiators. Sadly, there's no sloped equivalent of these.
Sunday morning, CA2 in Space Engineers was down every time I checked that morning, so I decided to do some work on my base. It was extremely plain, mostly undecorated concrete boxes, and I'd reached my limits. I no longer wanted to survive, I wanted to thrive. First thing I did was turn my greenhouse into a proper one. I had iron for days, so I used reinforced windows.
I also decided that I wanted to move my assemblers underground, and also add the advanced constructor and the deconstructor, so I could recycle salvage for usable parts. Since I already had a door that led to my quarry, I used that for my basement expansion. And at one point, fell through a newly added trap door to the quarry below.
Once that was done, I used my precious few flux coils and materials for them, and build the deconstructor. As luck would have it, the teleporter that I'd gotten from the initial Polaris mission contained 20 of them, so I could build the advanced assembler right away. I’ll be searching wrecks and ruins for salvage in the near future.
The Zirax raids continued. I took this video of the new water graphics on the way back from scavenging the destroyed drones. There were two rocket drones in the wave, which did minimal damage to my base. I may look into shielding for my base.
The other thing I did was expand the foyer, and transformed it into a medbay/ready room. The most accessed stuff is near the entrances to my base, with the more specialized equipment along the back wall. The door(s) to the left lead to my (rarely used) living quarters, and the (unseen) door to the right is where my greenhouse is.
This was what my base looked like when I ran out of time on Sunday morning.
Yesterday evening, I added the C3's cockpit... for some strange reason I don't understand.
Keen's CA2 was up on Monday morning, so I spent some time in Space Engineers that day.
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition Two
Episode Four
Fix Your Servers, Keen!
Simulation speeds were already relatively slow by the time I logged in Monday morning, thanks to being a bit of a slug-a-bed that morning, and they got worse as more people logged in that morning. I’d wanted to do more scouting of nearby asteroids for platinum on Sunday, but scrapped that plan to do more work on the Cobra. I accomplished only two things that morning. The first was getting much of the cockpit done:
The second was roughing out where the front landing gear will be once completed:
Oh, and I added a large-grid cockpit near where C3 attaches to the base. This gives me a closer place to recharge my suit, replenish my oxygen, all while ordering and/or retrieving my next batch of parts. I’m going to have to check my notes when I play EGS again. For some reason, I don’t feel like the cockpit isn’t as deep as it should be, but then again how EGS and SE implement their doors may be apart of it. 
Cobra Edition 2
Episode Seven
A Week's Highlights
Well... the last week or so was rather... weird. We got a new store manager in October, and she didn't give us a chance catch our breath before inventory preparations started.
Looks like the "no overtime" rule won't go into effect until March. Good for the bank account, bad for free time to play games!I did get an hour and a half of Odyssey gameplay on Thursday, though. If you want decent on-foot equipment without the engineering "grind," take missions to distant outposts. All I need to find now is one silenced weapon, and I'll have a great assassination/theft/sabotage setup!
As always, the more I focus on what I'm doing in the game, the less screen shots I take, so this one is rather sparse. Though I did take a couple of video clips of EGS in action! Sadly, one of those videos wasn't watching the waves under the sickly green glow of a radioactive storm. Maybe next time.
One of the major differences between EGS and SE, especially SE online, is how long things take to produce. Unless I choose "realistic" speeds, SE can generally keep up with my demand. EGS frequently makes me wait, despite having multiple constructors, leaving me looking for other things to do. Which is why I started to do detail work between work orders.
Of course, the other major difference between EGS and SE is how much faster I can build in EGS, primarily thanks to mirroring being available in survival mode, and of course the fact that each block and component is whole when placed. Which might explain how SE's assemblers can keep pace with me. I have to stop and weld from time to time, which gives the whole building process a more visceral feel!
Fun fact: EGS's "large paint brush" basically "shotguns" a cone of paint, rather than just paints a larger area. It's possible for some of the paint to miss, and paint the blocks behind your intended target. Needless to say, I don't use it very often, and then remember why when I do!
I just wish I thought to take a screenshot of it.
I'm still finding the occasional spot of paint in weird places.Of course, some of those things to do was repelling almost daily Zirax attacks. Now that I know my base defenses can handle them, I could simply ignore everything that's going on, but I think it's wise to pay attention to them anyways, just in case something bad happens (like rocket drones getting too close!)
I find it ironic that after bragging on EGS's detailing system, my first bit of detail work on the C3 came out looking like this:
Part of the problem, of course, was that I'm working on a sloped surface, which severely limits how I can rotate a particular block. Flat surfaces give me much more degrees of freedom to work with. I do like how the greeble turned out, though. I also think it'll look better when I do a grime pass later on.
At some point, I realized that I could use my drone to observe my base's defenses, rather than rushing to windows or outdoors. Which I thought to take a video of.
My detail work continued, naturally, with using EGS's "piping" blocks to make the C3's radiators. Sadly, there's no sloped equivalent of these.
Sunday morning, CA2 in Space Engineers was down every time I checked that morning, so I decided to do some work on my base. It was extremely plain, mostly undecorated concrete boxes, and I'd reached my limits. I no longer wanted to survive, I wanted to thrive. First thing I did was turn my greenhouse into a proper one. I had iron for days, so I used reinforced windows.
I also decided that I wanted to move my assemblers underground, and also add the advanced constructor and the deconstructor, so I could recycle salvage for usable parts. Since I already had a door that led to my quarry, I used that for my basement expansion. And at one point, fell through a newly added trap door to the quarry below.
Once that was done, I used my precious few flux coils and materials for them, and build the deconstructor. As luck would have it, the teleporter that I'd gotten from the initial Polaris mission contained 20 of them, so I could build the advanced assembler right away. I’ll be searching wrecks and ruins for salvage in the near future.
The Zirax raids continued. I took this video of the new water graphics on the way back from scavenging the destroyed drones. There were two rocket drones in the wave, which did minimal damage to my base. I may look into shielding for my base.
The other thing I did was expand the foyer, and transformed it into a medbay/ready room. The most accessed stuff is near the entrances to my base, with the more specialized equipment along the back wall. The door(s) to the left lead to my (rarely used) living quarters, and the (unseen) door to the right is where my greenhouse is.
This was what my base looked like when I ran out of time on Sunday morning.
Yesterday evening, I added the C3's cockpit... for some strange reason I don't understand.
Keen's CA2 was up on Monday morning, so I spent some time in Space Engineers that day.
Space Engineers
Cobra Edition Two
Episode Four
Fix Your Servers, Keen!
Simulation speeds were already relatively slow by the time I logged in Monday morning, thanks to being a bit of a slug-a-bed that morning, and they got worse as more people logged in that morning. I’d wanted to do more scouting of nearby asteroids for platinum on Sunday, but scrapped that plan to do more work on the Cobra. I accomplished only two things that morning. The first was getting much of the cockpit done:
The second was roughing out where the front landing gear will be once completed:
Oh, and I added a large-grid cockpit near where C3 attaches to the base. This gives me a closer place to recharge my suit, replenish my oxygen, all while ordering and/or retrieving my next batch of parts.
I’m going to have to check my notes when I play EGS again. For some reason, I don’t feel like the cockpit isn’t as deep as it should be, but then again how EGS and SE implement their doors may be apart of it. Just a quick heads up, there's going to be a Buckyball Race soon, so there won't be any updates until after the 17th!
Just another heads up. The last Buckyball Race has gotten me fired up to play ED again, so EGS and SE are going to be less my main games with ED as a break, and more the other way around... though they will have a slight edge in the sense that they'll still be available to play if I only have half an hour to play.
Just checked my game on CA2 in SE, and everything's still in place.
Just checked my game on CA2 in SE, and everything's still in place.
Well... after two mornings of not being able to log into CA2 at all, while I was waiting for ED load this morning's hotfix, I finally logged into CA2 only to discover that the server had been completely reset. This is the last straw of me trying to play Space Engineers online, especially on Keen's own servers. I'll be starting afresh in single player, with some mods to make the game better.
Not sure when, though. I'm still enjoying EDO as my primary game at the moment, and there'll be another Buckyball Race soon as well.
Not sure when, though. I'm still enjoying EDO as my primary game at the moment, and there'll be another Buckyball Race soon as well.