Space Engineers vs Empyrion: Galactic Survival - Sidewinder Edition

Darkfyre99 · Nov 26, 2020

@Old Duck, I selected a smaller image size from imgur for my images in this post, so hopefully this'll help with the download speeds. The originals, as always, can be found by clicking on the image itself.

Today, on an environmentally friendly Thanksgiving episode of Empyrion: Galactic Survival - Sidewinder Edition 2!
Episode 17
Base Expansion Begins!

Thanks to a little trading last episode, I finally have sufficient resources to build one of the most valuable pieces of equipment in this game: the Deconstructor... or as I prefer to call it: the Recycler. Flux coils at this point in time can be rarely looted from attacking Zirax drones, and I don't have the technology to harvest the raw materials for them (assuming I can locate them). That leaves either trading for them (supplies of which are rather limited) or recycling them from salvaged equipment. Thrusters in particular are a good source of actual flux coils, and there's many wrecked capital-class ships, both on planet, as well as on the moon.

The resources I'd bought proved sufficient not only for the Recycler, but to expand my base's computer resources... which was the next thing on my agenda, because that thing required a lot of processing power. I put both in my base's basement, since the Recycler is not something I have to interact with directly.

Even better, while I couldn't render everything to raw resources from the force fields, they did provide sufficient resources to add a CPU expansion pack to the Gunship as well. I made a few other tweaks to the ship as well, in particular improving the nose down pitch rate, enough to declare it the Mk III. And so, the next morning...

With that taken care of, I moved on to rectifying my low supply of copper and silicon ore. The nearest sources were in Polaris territory. Thankfully, I'd previously acquired mining rights with them, so mining there didn't hurt my relations with them.

I took care of a pesky Zirax drone in the process, mined out the deposits, and returned to base. I was just in the process of breaking down the perimeter defensive structure, so I could rebuild it attached to the main base, when the root beer hating Zirax payed me another visit.

I'd originally connected the perimeter defense using truss blocks, but then a sudden inspiration struck me. I placed thin, flat blocks, and that connected the two structures together, without an unsightly structure showing above the ground.

You can't see the blocks beside the support truss.

Sometimes, I wonder at how my brain works. As I was walking by the Gunship, I noticed that behind the grill protecting a lateral thruster, was just some plain blue plating. Despite the fact that I'd only be able to see it at the right angle, I had to drop what I was doing, and some detail to that area.

As I walked into the workshop, I finally noticed a bit of damage the last Zirax raid did.

I still didn't have enough flux coils (or the materials to fabricate them) to build the Advanced Constructor, so I gathered what I could sell, and returned to the trading station.

There, I bought out the trader's supply of neodynium and titanium, and returned to base. I had enough money left over to buy a two neat pieces of equipment...

Night had fallen by the time I got back. I stopped to admire how my perimeter defense station looked, apparently unconnected to the main base.

Sadly, I'd completely ruin the effect a bit later, while using the drill's "level terrain" function around my base, in attempt to completely uncover my solar panels. This is one area where Space Engineers definitely does things better, since I don't have to clear away sufficient space to actually place structures in that game.

At any rate, before turning in for the night, I decided to give my new night vision goggles a try.

The next morning, I started construction of the advanced constructor. While I waited for that to build, I made the ill-fated decision to level the terrain around my base, and got a bit overzealous about it.

In time, though, the Advanced Constructor was built.

I had sufficient resources to take advantage of the second neat piece of technology I'd acquired: an auto-miner core. This wonderful piece of equipment lets you collect ore from very small deposits, and I believe it can extract more ore from larger deposits... at the cost of taking a lot longer to do so. Since I definitely need titanium to produce Flux Coils, I headed to the moon to test this baby out.

I placed the Auto-Miner on the only deposit of Titanium I'd found so far...

And since I'm in the area anyway...

Next time on EGS:SE2 - Episode 18: Human Graveyard Quest - Part Two!

But first... SE-Squared: Episode 35 - Mountaintop Ice Mining Station begins!

Old Duck · Nov 26, 2020

Darkfyre99 said:
But first... SE-Squared: Episode 35 - Mountaintop Ice Mining Station begins!

New armor blocks in SE!

Darkfyre99 · Nov 27, 2020

Old Duck said:
New armor blocks in SE!

I know!

The game's still missing two inverted corner blocks that I would need for some purposes, and of course it is still missing transition blocks... but it's definitely an improvement. And those viewport blocks...

When I start my large ship construction, I thought I was going to have to make some rather ugly compromises to make things actually work the way I need them to. Now I don't.

Old Duck · Nov 27, 2020

Darkfyre99 said:
The game's still missing two inverted corner blocks that I would need for some purposes, and of course it is still missing transition blocks...

I noticed this the other day. Why put the effort to give us some but not others? Hopefully they'll add more in the future. At the very least if I start with a geometric shape using the blocks we have, I should be able to finish that shape without gaps.

I would love it if one of these block-based games would let us build a cube out of solid blocks, and then slice the cube with a intersection plane which would dynamically create angled blocks needed for just about any plane-based geometric shape. I could easily build ED ships like the Cobra with a tool like this, and it would still work with the restrictions of voxels.

Darkfyre99 · Nov 27, 2020

Old Duck said:
I noticed this the other day. Why put the effort to give us some but not others? Hopefully they'll add more in the future. At the very least if I start with a geometric shape using the blocks we have, I should be able to finish that shape without gaps.

Agreed. Problem is that stage two of my evolving mine design (gravity fed) works best with the 1x2 slopes, but while the new corners are improvements, they’re clearly intended to be part of a normal corner, not an inverted one. They will still create protrusions that can catch ore. Still, it’ll be an improvement over what I’m using now.

Old Duck said:
I would love it if one of these block-based games would let us build a cube out of solid blocks, and then slice the cube with a intersection plane which would dynamically create angled blocks needed for just about any plane-based geometric shape. I could easily build ED ships like the Cobra with a tool like this, and it would still work with the restrictions of voxels.

Same. Given how many of these vowel based games are Indy games made by very small teams, I suspect that there’s some complexity issues-related involved. I’ve noticed some weird block interactions in EGS that I can exploit in interesting ways if I wanted to.

Fishy · Nov 27, 2020

I'm tempted to pick up EGS right now, not a massive cut (-25%) but ah, it's not expensive in the first place. My main hope is that it can satisfy my SE craving without the migraine-inducing engine. How much effort does it take to get into it? Is it well guided and self-explanatory at the start or should I straight away dive into wiki/youtube for the basics?

Darkfyre99 · Nov 27, 2020

Fishy said:
I'm tempted to pick up EGS right now, not a massive cut (-25%) but ah, it's not expensive in the first place. My main hope is that it can satisfy my SE craving without the migraine-inducing engine. How much effort does it take to get into it? Is it well guided and self-explanatory at the start or should I straight away dive into wiki/youtube for the basics?

Personally, I found the “tutorial” missions found on the easy starting worlds, plus the in-game pop-ups and “encyclopedia” to be sufficient... but then I do play a lot of survival games. Recent youTube let’s plays might be of helpful for more advanced tips, with the emphasis of recent, given how much the game has changed in the last six months. Apparently, the update right before I bought it was a literal game-changer.

As for the various wikis... they’re horribly out of date, probably because the in-game information is actually useful. Which is great while playing the game... not so much when trying to plan things in advance while on break at work.

Old Duck · Nov 27, 2020

Fishy said:
I'm tempted to pick up EGS right now, not a massive cut (-25%) but ah, it's not expensive in the first place. My main hope is that it can satisfy my SE craving without the migraine-inducing engine. How much effort does it take to get into it? Is it well guided and self-explanatory at the start or should I straight away dive into wiki/youtube for the basics?

I was able to get the basics without YouTube vids, and I didn't even do the tutorial. I got so far and then started getting turned off by certain aspects of the game. This is what caused me to go back to Space Engineers and try multiplayer to give me that living world experience. Granted, I don't have a procgen galaxy to explore, but it will likely take me many months if not years to thoroughly explore everything in SE's once solar system, so I don't need an entire galaxy.

Fishy · Nov 27, 2020

Right, guess I'll jump in blind and see how it goes. Thanks folks.

Darkfyre99 · Nov 29, 2020

Welcome to another constructive episode of Space Engineers: Sidewinder Edition!
Episode 35 - Mountaintop Ice Mining Station begins!

The day began with me loading up the magnesium and gold I'd refined last episode, along with about eight tons of iron, and moving it up to my mountaintop launch station.

I was about 70% done with setting up my mining rig, when I happened to notice something... weird... in the sky in the general direction of my orbital station.

Soon enough, the drilling rig was operational! I added a hinge to my rig, with the idea that I can more easily harvest ore this way.

As I monitored the drill, I periodically checked my orbital shuttle's hydrogen tank. I was rather surprised by how full it had already was. These large block drills can really chew through the terrain.

As the hole in the snow expanded, I extended the piston downward, while moving the drill further from vertical. It was about midnight when the tank reached 100%

With my hydrogen tank full, I lifted off for the space station. As I write this, I realize I should've installed a hydrogen tank at the launch site, rather than simply adding several storage containers for the raw ice.

On a positive note, I doubt it'll mine much more ice in its current configuration. I haven't even finished with phase one of my brilliant plan.

Once I returned to the station, I started to expand it, in preparation of building of my large-block exploration ship. At the very least, I want an airlock that will align with its docking port. There was one problem... the location and orientation of my refinery prevented expanding in the direction I wanted to go. I lost a bit of oxygen when I discovered that fact the hard way.

But thankfully, I remembered a block I rarely use, that would hopefully fix this problem...

Unfortunately, my new plan would require relocating the med bay to its own dedicated room, that would, in turn, expanding the station even more. It was a good thing I'd brought up so much iron. First thing I did was rework the living quarters

I just happened to accidentally give myself a "poltergeist" in the process. I had thought I'd moved oxygen and hydrogen bottles before relocating the O2/H2 Generator, but I guess one of the bottles moved back due to the assembler getting full of medical components. Thanks to the low artificial gravity of the station, it fell and got lodged between the bulkhead I'd just placed, and the conveyor tube below, then preceded to bang around, making it sound like the station was getting pelted by asteroids.

Even worse, I found it by pure accident, after an agonizingly long period of wondering "what is making this horrid noise." If I hadn't needed to relocate some of my piping, it would still probably be there, freaking me out.

At any rate, in order to get around the refinery, I ended up using two sliding door blocks, combined with a passageway block on top of an armor block. It's a pity that there aren't more blocks like this in this game...

Trying to get air from the vent I attached to the new location of the H2/O2 generator was an interesting exercise in blocking... and I just realized I could've just attached the vent to the top of the medical room, once I'd installed it.

I do enjoy over complicating things at times.

At least if I ever decide to repurpose this room, I won't have to relocate the vent...

Eventually, my new medbay was done. The doors straight ahead currently opens into space. It's my future large ship airlock. It would've been my actual airlock, making construction in that direction easier, except for the fact that I ran out of iron. Maybe if I hadn't wasted it on the purely decorative scanning bed...

Next time on SE-Squared: Episode 36 - Space Station Expansion Continues!

But first... EGS:SE2 - Episode 18: The Human Graveyard Quest - Part Two! Here's hoping that I won't die near the end this time...

Fishy · Nov 29, 2020

So I got started with EGS, and the tutorial isn't bad. It has warts, such as a killing foes in a base miscounting my kills (I had killed one dog before triggering the task when it got pushed over the wall somehow) or not having great triggers (the base defense triggers on time apparently, and my using the bed to sleep until morning means I didn't have time to build any turret), but it's manageable and you can manually force completion of tasks, which is pretty thoughtful. I'm a bit confused by energy though, I have a small solar capacitor and I think 6 solar panels, but my base energy never fills up, it just pops up then drains all the time. Wonder if the capacitor works at all, maybe I need to connect it to something? It's switched on in the main base decives panel...

Anyhow, I'm at the plant growth now, there are a good few things to go through in the tutorial, but so far nothing looks too cryptic. I like container linking and how the production chain can take care by itself of subcomponents. Looking forward to getting to proper vehicle design.

Darkfyre99 · Nov 29, 2020

Fishy said:
So I got started with EGS, and the tutorial isn't bad. It has warts, such as a killing foes in a base miscounting my kills (I had killed one dog before triggering the task when it got pushed over the wall somehow) or not having great triggers (the base defense triggers on time apparently, and my using the bed to sleep until morning means I didn't have time to build any turret), but it's manageable and you can manually force completion of tasks, which is pretty thoughtful.

Hmm... I don't remember any "kill foes in a base" section of the tutorial. There are optional missions you can take, which include killing members of other factions at their bases, though. I generally avoid annoying any of the factions until I get my base set up, though that is extremely difficult to do with the Zirax being the stereotypical card-carrying badguys...

Fishy said:
I'm a bit confused by energy though, I have a small solar capacitor and I think 6 solar panels, but my base energy never fills up, it just pops up then drains all the time. Wonder if the capacitor works at all, maybe I need to connect it to something? It's switched on in the main base decives panel...

Power management is one aspect of the game that isn't covered very well by the tutorial. The thing you're probably missing is that unlike many survival games I've played, EGS doesn't just reset the sun's position when you go to sleep. Instead, it fast forwards the game through the night. Constructors perform work, crops grow, I'm pretty sure I've seen NPCs move, and of course any device you leave on drains power. Even idle devices, especially the constructors, will drain power. Which means that you have enough solar power saved up for the night, or at the very least have a backup generator.

I use a combination of sensors, the base's "breaker" box on the main panel, and of course the signal logic panel to conserve power, both during the day, and especially at night when I'm in bed. While EGS may not have the full scripting capabilities of Space Engineers, you can certainly develop some rather complex behaviors for your bases and ships using the included signal logic gates.

Fishy said:
Anyhow, I'm at the plant growth now, there are a good few things to go through in the tutorial, but so far nothing looks too cryptic. I like container linking and how the production chain can take care by itself of subcomponents. Looking forward to getting to proper vehicle design.

Vehicle and base design in this game is a lot of fun, especially since this game attempts to model the effects of torque. And then there's the huge variety of blocks, textures, and symbols, which can be applied separately to each side of a block. I can easily lose myself in trying to find the perfect combination of all the above when creating something.

Fishy · Nov 29, 2020

Darkfyre99 said:
Hmm... I don't remember any "kill foes in a base" section of the tutorial. There are optional missions you can take, which include killing members of other factions at their bases, though. I generally avoid annoying any of the factions until I get my base set up, though that is extremely difficult to do with the Zirax being the stereotypical card-carrying badguys...

I guess it's been a while since you last did the tutorial! It first has you do a bit of camping and mats-gathering, and repair a small hovercraft. Then it gives you a sniper rifle (allegedly, it was tied up under the hovercraft) and sends you to "liberate" a small base from the Zirax. There's a small turret on top of the gate (which was a pain to take down) and after that's done, it triggers the next stage, which consists in clearing the base from enemies: two Zirax and two of their combat dogs. Then you get to repair the base, get more basics, and then it leads to a Zirax drone attack on the base. I ended up doing all that with the tier 1 assault rifle and shotgun, I just had more holes to fix in the base afterwards when I reached the indoor oxygenation tutorial.

Darkfyre99 said:
Power management is one aspect of the game that isn't covered very well by the tutorial. The thing you're probably missing is that unlike many survival games I've played, EGS doesn't just reset the sun's position when you go to sleep. Instead, it fast forwards the game through the night. Constructors perform work, crops grow, I'm pretty sure I've seen NPCs move, and of course any device you leave on drains power. Even idle devices, especially the constructors, will drain power. Which means that you have enough solar power saved up for the night, or at the very least have a backup generator.

I get that, but I'm talking during the day. My energy bank goes up a second, then drains the next. All the time. So either my capacitor isn't connected (it's live, green on the device panels, and I can see it pulse if I go down to watch it), or 6 solar panels is was too few, or the default base drains a ton of power with too many devices. Note that this is after the Zirax destroyed the fridge, cooker, and two automated hangar doors, so I have less drain than originally, but still the same issue. Meh. I'll figure it out.

Darkfyre99 said:
I use a combination of sensors, the base's "breaker" box on the main panel, and of course the signal logic panel to conserve power, both during the day, and especially at night when I'm in bed. While EGS may not have the full scripting capabilities of Space Engineers, you can certainly develop some rather complex behaviors for your bases and ships using the included signal logic gates.

Vehicle and base design in this game is a lot of fun, especially since this game attempts to model the effects of torque. And then there's the huge variety of blocks, textures, and symbols, which can be applied separately to each side of a block. I can easily lose myself in trying to find the perfect combination of all the above when creating something.

Yeah, I'm close to that stage, looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what a FDS interior would look like in this.

Darkfyre99 · Nov 29, 2020

Fishy said:
I guess it's been a while since you last did the tutorial! It first has you do a bit of camping and mats-gathering, and repair a small hovercraft. Then it gives you a sniper rifle (allegedly, it was tied up under the hovercraft) and sends you to "liberate" a small base from the Zirax. There's a small turret on top of the gate (which was a pain to take down) and after that's done, it triggers the next stage, which consists in clearing the base from enemies: two Zirax and two of their combat dogs. Then you get to repair the base, get more basics, and then it leads to a Zirax drone attack on the base. I ended up doing all that with the tier 1 assault rifle and shotgun, I just had more holes to fix in the base afterwards when I reached the indoor oxygenation tutorial.

Sounds like that may be the case! I'm tempted to start a brief new game when I get home, just to see how the tutorial has changed since the last time I did it. It seems almost... cruel... for the tutorial to send you to kill a few Zirax, assuming they start unfriendly towards you. The amount of kills you describe is almost guaranteed to send you straight to hostile, which is where the base assaults really ramp up.

Fishy · Nov 29, 2020

Darkfyre99 said:
Sounds like that may be the case! I'm tempted to start a brief new game when I get home, just to see how the tutorial has changed since the last time I did it. It seems almost... cruel... for the tutorial to send you to kill a few Zirax, assuming they start unfriendly towards you. The amount of kills you describe is almost guaranteed to send you straight to hostile, which is where the base assaults really ramp up.

I haven't quite understood the rep system, obviously. My Zirax rep seems to go up and down depending on what I mine: mining ore deposits decreases it (are they observing me by satellite?!), but for some mad reason salvaging wood from trees increases it. I guess they just hate trees. Of course, now that I killed 2 of them, taken a base, and broken 4 of their drones (2 attacks, one scripted, one unscripted, 2 drones each, one rocket drone and 3 mini-gun ones in total), I have no illusion about where I stand with them! But ah, it's just the tutorial, it'll soon take me to space, and after that I'll get a fresh start.

Darkfyre99 · Nov 29, 2020

Wow... Eleon has really expanded on the tutorial for EGS. The one I'm familiar with was called the "Robinson Protocol," and was a new game starting option, and basically ended once you have repaired the hoverbike and built a very primitive base. I can also see why the base you took over would have power management issues, as well as frequent Zirax attacks. There's a huge amount of devices in it, including some rather advanced ones, and those not only consume a lot of power, but also attract Zirax attention.

Darkfyre99 · Dec 1, 2020

Welcome to a rather verbose episode of Empyrion: Galactic Survival
Sidewinder Edition 2
Episode 18

The Human Graveyard Quest - Part Two!

This episode was mostly combat, and thus was mostly screen shots of defeated enemies. Great for keeping track of what happened, but not very interesting IMO. As such, it's going to be another text adventure!

From the journal of Commander Darkfyre... security officer of the MS Titan, UCH Space Command...

Day 59

Entry 1 - Two months. It's been almost two months since the “accident” that deposited us in the Andromeda Galaxy. Two months since I've been separated from the rest of the survivors. The good news is I’ve found the wreck of the MS Titan. The bad news is that I’ve found the wreck of the MS Titan. Time to search for anything worth salvaging.

Entry 2 - Aside a cache of cobalt ingots, I’ve pretty much only found spare parts. Of course, what’s left of the ship can be rendered down for spare parts, but that’s going to require a much bigger ship than the small gunship I currently have.

Entry 3 - Good fortune smiles upon me. I found a Hazardous Environment Suit. Better insulation, better shielding, and a larger oxygen tank than the standard Environmental Suit. And of course, it has more attachment points for additional equipment.

Entry 4 - Managed to make brief contact with the other survivors, before the Zirax showed up in force, including some kind of fast bomber drone. The skirmish lasted forever and a day, but eventually the drones were destroyed. My gunship took some minor damage, but thankfully I’d brought some armor patches to repair the worst damage. If I want to try to make contact again, I'll need to take out a nearby Zirax Comm Array.

Day 60

Entry 1 - Before tackling the Comm Array, I checked my auto-miner’s progress. I was at first dismayed that only a quarter ton of titanium ore has been extracted so far, at least I don’t have to trade for it.

I’m going to do a flyby of the Comm Array, to check what the situation is there.

Entry 2 - Okay... the situation is that there’s a plasma battery close enough to be a problem if I want to fly right up to it. A glancing hit did enough damage to consume my armor patches, but nothing critical was damaged. Good news is that there’s a large crater on the southern approach that should provide enough cover for my ship. I can go in on foot from there.

Entry 3 - Okay, I’m in. The Zirax array may be well defended, and the Zirax individually extremely aggressive, but they don’t coordinate with each other very well. If I take this slow and methodical, I might be able to eliminate them without them raising a general alarm.

Entry 4 - Okay, the upper floors are cleared. No sign of the core room. Time to check out the basement... after I've moved all the loot I’ve found to my ship, of course. There’s a crater about 100 meters away that should be just deep enough to park my ship in. With luck, it might be in range of my ship’s drone controller...

Entry 5 - Ugh.. I just discovered that not only are the Zirax and their little pets venomous, but like the old myth of the Komodo dragon, they’re also infested. I treated the infestation, but I’ve only got one dose of anti-parasitic ointment left... and the treatment is almost worst than the disease. Yes, it clears away the infestation, but it also clears away some of my flesh as well.

Easily treatable with a med-pack, but I lack certain key components to synthesize more.

Entry 6 - Yeargh... not again! This is disgusting! I need to go back and get more supplies if I’m going to keep finish clearing this array. There was another door in the antechamber that lead to. I should take a quick peek inside...

Entry 7 - Of course it's a medbay. The good news is that the equipment isn't locked down, so I can use it. The bad news is that I needed to use it right away. The best news is that I've replenished my meds, and then some! Just to be safe, I'm going to withdraw for a bit and recover.

Day 61

Entry 1 - My cautious Comm Array assault continued. I found a teleporter leading somewhere, but no sign of the core I'm looking for. Time to take the other passage I found.

Entry 2 - How cute... the Zirax version of shooting range. The range shoots back.

Entry 3 - Okay... I've found what appears to be their base's power supply. I'd love to search it, but it's even hotter than the planet below, which is really saying something. I'm going to need a different Hazardous Environmental Suit configuration if I want to explore this area. Actually, I'm going to need to repair this suit period. It's time to transfer my loot to my ship, and return to base before pressing my luck any further.

Entry 4 - Looks like I'll be landing just before sunset. Just enough time to harvest my crops, and turn in for the night. In a proper bed.

Entry 5 - A Zirax troop transport followed me home. Between my base's defenses and my gunship, it won't be returning back to its base. The only good thing about this whole situation is that pretty much everyone in the Andromeda Galaxy consider the Zirax to be a plague upon civilization. Which makes sense... what kind of species wages a war of extermination against root beer of all things?

Next time on Episode 19: The Human Graveyard Quest - Time to Regroup!

But first... SE-Squared: Episode 36 - Space Station Expansion Continues!

Fishy · Dec 2, 2020

Done with the EGS tutorial here. Turning that teleporter on was a serious roadblock. Not enough power. Solar seems to absolutely suck as a main power source, the capacitor never went up past 7%. So I went down the road of a small fuel generator. No indoor real estate, but thought I'd just drop it outside. And... it blew up 10s after being dropped! Assumed it didn't like the rain, so went to make a full indoor area, but it blew up again... Reading up a bit on the web, I assumed it was too much draw, so I took down medbays, O2 station, LCD screens, lights... And the next generator blew up again...

This is when I realised my overloaded CPU was causing more stress apparently. So next step consisted of 1) making sure the teleporter was off, and 2) building TWO generators at the same time. Then very quickly turn the teleporter on to reach Polaris station and buy the mats for the CPU extender. I repurposed the vehicle hangar into a new power station, taking away stairways and ramps to fit fuel tanks and generators. To my great relief, that worked. On coming back I immediately turned the teleporter off, and crafted/applied the CPU extender. Job done.

The rest was straightforward enough, apart from the Zirax outpost I was told to attack afterwards, as it was fully enclosed in steel and my weapons couldn't dent it. Underneath too: full steel, not a single hole, so no digging through... In the end, I had to go back to base and fit a gatling gun onto my hovercraft. It was on the side, and I liked how it instantly unbalanced the handling.

Anyhow, after that blueprint factory/space was nothing to write home about. I'd have thought they'd fit in a basic "make your own hovercraft/small vessel" section but no. Space flight was weird, there's some sort of reaction to the handling that I didn't expect. Like when on an airplane you release your pressure on the elevators, there's a correction back into your aircraft's attitude. Not sure why there's something like that in zero-G.

Anyhow, I got through. Not sure about the next step. Wondering if I should hit some easy-mode survival to put stuff into practice, or first switch to SE and get a start there too to get a feel for myself of how both games compare.

Darkfyre99 · Dec 2, 2020

Fishy said:
Anyhow, I got through. Not sure about the next step. Wondering if I should hit some easy-mode survival to put stuff into practice, or first switch to SE and get a start there too to get a feel for myself of how both games compare.

I would try a new game on easy-mode survival. That tutorial base may be luxuriously equipped, but IMO it’s too much for a starting player to handle. Especially when you consider the effects of exceeding your CPU capacity. The old tutorials had you either repairing a very modest starting shelter, or building one of your own.

Darkfyre99 · Dec 4, 2020

Welcome to Space Engineers: Sidewinder Edition!
Episode 36
Space Station Expansion Continues!

When last we left off, our intrepid engineer had run out of iron, just as she was starting to prepare for constructing a large-scale exploration ship. This could’ve been a problem, but thankfully I had an empty hydrogen tank to recycle.

I would’ve also recycled the oxygen tank, but it was still mostly full. I’ll drain it when I add the explorer’s O2 tank.

My miner thus properly equipped, I then set off for a cluster of iron bearing asteroids a little over 10 kilometers away at a blistering 2.7 meters per second squared off acceleration. Ion drives may save hydrogen, but they’re extremely low thrust...

It didn’t take long before the ship was full of iron ore...

The trip back took considerably longer, thanks to a maximum acceleration rate of 0.85 meters per second. The distance was short enough, that I basically burned half way there, then used retro thrusters the other half of the journey.

With the iron now flowing, it didn’t take all that long before my large ship docking port, complete with airlock, was ready.

As I was ordering up parts for the start of my large ship project, I took a quick look at the refinery, to check on my my iron inventory. I was a bit surprised to see how much I had! Either my refinery can somehow produce more tons of iron ingots than there were of iron ore, or there was a glitch in the conveyor system last round, and I still had plenty...

... probably the latter. I seem to remember a moment where my first hydrogen tanker (the hunchbacked one

) wasn't filling up like I expected it to. I don't remember how I solved that problem, though.

At at any rate, I nowhad iron for days, so it was time to start building my exploration ship, starting at the middle:

above is the airlock deck, which includes a survival kit in the airlock
in the middle is the connector for recharging and refueling the ship, plus some functional blocks like an H2/O2 Generator, battery, vent, and ducting to carry said air from the vent into the airlock
below is the O2 tank that will connect the back of the ship to the front

Behind the oxygen tank, you can see the temporary lattice that connected the ship to the station. Once the connections were functional, I'd be severing the lattice

The first things I completed were the battery, oxygen tank, and H2/O2 Generator. After completing the floor below the airlock, I completed the connector. I'm not sure why I chose not to complete the conveyor junction the connector was attached to.

Fun fact: while the connection worked as expected, the game did not like the fact that both connectors were part of the same grid, and thus jammed tightly against each other. It tried to maintain a bit of separation, which caused quite a bit of banging noise for a while. It stopped completely I cut the ship free of the station, though by then the damage had been done. You can see that a small section of the hull to the left isn't level with the rest. Somehow, that part came loose. I had to grind that section away and rebuild it. At least it didn't damage anything vital.

Once I'd gotten the oxygen tank properly connected and full, I turned to the airlock. The airlock deck not only features the airlock, but access to the conveyor system via a small storage container, as well as a ladder to the upper decks. In an ideal world, I'd prefer to have the ladder both functional and aesthetic, but in this game you can't step off the ladder to the side.

I'll just use the jet pack to fake it.

And yes, I said decks. I'm planning on building this ship vertically, like a retro-style rocket. Or as I like to think of it, "Star Frontiers" style. Of course, getting down from that height should I land it on a planet might be problematic... but that's what jet packs are for.

Actually, I'm planning on using smaller landing craft attached to the ship, rather than the ship itself, to land on planets... though it would make for an interesting design challenge to have an exit near the bottom of the ship as well.

Next time on SE-Squared: Episode 37 - Crewed Quarters Construction Continues!

But first... a heads up. Cyberpunk 2077 will be releasing on the 10th, and before that happens, I've decided to dedicate some time on getting my Commander to Colonia in Elite: Dangerous. I want her somewhere civilized when Odyssey releases next year... but I'm going to have to settle for Colonia.

But after I get tired of Cyberpunk 2077, it'll be EGS:SE2... Episode 19: The Human Graveyard Quest - Time to Regroup!